The Last Forever Read Online Free PDF Page B

paces around a bit, runs his hand through his hair again.
    “We can hitchhike,” he says.
    “We’re not going to hitchhike! What kind of a father suggests something like that?”
    He sighs as if I’ve given him no choice. He takes out his phone. He turns his back to me (why is he turning his back to me?) and makes a call. I don’t like what I’m seeing, not one bit. His shoulders are hunched as if he’s protecting a secret, and I hear him laugh loudly. It’s a jovial fake laugh that puts me instantly on high alert. The WRONGWRONGWRONG sirens are going off in my head, because he’s over there smiling.
    He’s smiling! What exactly is there to smile about in thissituation? He hangs up. He pockets his phone like it’s a crisp hundred-dollar bill. He’s awfully pleased with himself.
    “Who was that?”
    “A friend.”
    “What friend?”
    “An old high school friend, Mary. She knows a guy around here who has a tow truck company. Isn’t that great?” He says this very fast, so that it comes out “Anoldhighschoolfriend-MarySheknowsaguy.”
    “Mary.”
    “Don’t say it like that. She’s just an old friend.”
    I want to remind my father exactly how long my mother has been gone: six months and three days. Mostly, you hope for heaven, but at times like these, I sincerely hope she isn’t watching.
    “I am all for you moving forward and finding happiness, tra la la, but looking up the old high school flame six months after the funeral is just tacky.”
    “You got this wrong, Tess.”
    “Mary”—let her name have sarcastic quotation marks—has sent over her buddy Simon, who drives us the rest of the way to Portland with my father’s truck on his flatbed. Several hours later, we’re at Mary’s. Mary’s house is small, and all of the jobs a husband might do are undone—the grass is long, the porch slants, and lightbulbs that you have to climb a ladder to change are burnt out. It smells like cat inside, even though there is no cat.
    Mary has long black hair and talks in an overly sincere waythat includes grabbing my arm at various intervals. She is trying hard, helping the girl with the dead mother, but she really needs to stop touching me. I keep my hands behind my back, which makes me look like a prisoner walking to the exercise yard. I feel like a prisoner. I make a desperate move and place a hostage call to Meg, but it’s tough to communicate over her screeching. “ Where ARE you! Where have you BEEN? How can you just TAKE OFF before school is even out!” In the state she’s in, if I tell her what’s really going on here, state troopers will get involved. I’ll end up on the news. Instead, I reassure her how fine I am and get off the phone as fast as I can. I try Dillon. “Wherever you are, babe, I’ll come get you.” I hate being called babe. I always think of that pig movie. If Mom is watching, this is a good time for her to do something.
    We spend the night, and then another as we wait for Dad’s truck to get fixed. If I have to sleep on that couch with that musty-smelling quilt one more night, I’m going to make a run for it. I swear I will. Dad and I need to have a talk.
    “You’re not having fun?”
    Honestly? He thinks that the cookie making and Clue playing is a barrel of laughs? Maybe Mary is nice; fine, she’s a little nice, barely, but she’s under the impression that I’m a nine-year-old orphan. She almost tried to tuck me in. I have only one more book left, which makes this an emergency situation. But worse, my father stays up late, talking and laughing with “Mary.” “Mary” made us red sauce and Dad made his meatball special, and it was all too, too cozy. Old RooseveltHigh. Remember Principal Berry who had that affair? Did you know that Evan Gray became a mayor? He flunked civics, ha-ha-ha. I’m surprised they didn’t sing the fight song.
    “I’m not staying here.” My bag is packed, and I have the last pixiebell under my arm. I mean business.
    “The truck is