The Luckiest Girl Read Online Free PDF Page A

beyond them, an orange grove. Around the bathroom were seven towel racks, each labeled with a name printed on adhesive tape—Mavis, Tom, Katie, Luke, Shelley, Mother, Guests. Whose mother? Shelley wondered as she washed her hands and dried them on a towel from her rack. The rough white towel had the words Santa Theresa Union High School printed on a green stripe down the center; and as Shelley examined the bathroom more closely she saw that all the towels were white, with the name of a school printed or stitched on them. This seemed peculiar and she felt a moment of longing for the whitebathroom at home with its fluffy pink towels carefully selected to match the tile. She was relieved, though, to see the names Mavis and Tom , for that was how she thought of Mr. and Mrs. Michie. Obviously they thought of themselves that way too.
    Then, noticing the open lid of the hamper, Shelley closed it without thinking, because she had been brought up always to close drawers and cupboard doors. She was startled when this brought forth an indignant meow from inside the hamper. She lifted the lid and looked in at a small gray cat, the color of the shadow of a cat, blinking at her in annoyance from a heap of bath towels. “Oh—I’m sorry,” apologized Shelley, and left the lid open. Obviously this family cared more for the comfort of the cat than the tidiness of the bathroom. For the first time since she stepped off the plane, Shelley’s face relaxed into a smile.
    Shelley was about to leave the bathroom when a commotion below led her back to the window. A tall man in a sweatshirt was bending low over the handlebars of a bicycle as he rode along the row of eucalyptus trees and disappeared aroundthe corner of the house. He was followed by a shouting boy and girl, also on bicycles, and a large, barking police dog. They must be Tom and Katie and Luke, Shelley realized as she listened to their laughter and shouting from the other side of the house. Californians and their outdoor living!
    Timidly Shelley left the bathroom and descended the stairs, hesitating a moment to look at the living room. It, too, was an unusually long, narrow room. There was a quaint old fireplace, and on its mantel an old walnut clock with a cupid painted on the glass was ticking. On either side of the fireplace bookshelves reached to the ceiling. The chairs and couches wore bright print slipcovers. At the far end of the living room was a pair of doors, each topped by a glass transom. From the other side of these doors Shelley heard the rattle of dishes. The least she could do was offer to set the table, so she walked the length of the living room and tried one of the doors. It was locked.
    â€œCome around through the dining room, Shelley,” Mavis called through the door.
    Shelley walked through the dining room (no one she knew at home had linoleum and painted furniture in the dining room) and into the kitchen, where she found Mavis shredding salad greensinto a wooden bowl. “Shelley, would you mind doing this while I put the fake Stroganoff together?” she asked. “The rice is already cooking.”
    â€œI’d be glad to,” said Shelley, wondering what fake Stroganoff could be. If things were reversed and someone had come to Shelley’s home from California, her mother would have had a special dinner with fried chicken, homemade rolls, and angel food cake with orange icing, all of them genuine, none of them fake.
    Outside, the trio on bicycles and the barking dog tore past.
    â€œAnything to amuse the dog,” observed Mavis. “They’ll all be in shortly and you can meet them.”
    Shelley felt a little hurt by the casualness of this family toward herself, a guest who had traveled so far. At her own home she would not have been allowed to ride around the house on a bicycle when a guest had arrived. She must remember she was a stranger in a foreign land, she told herself sternly, and she must accept the