The Pretty One Read Online Free PDF

you a Princess Leia costume online. I was going to surprise you.”
    I do my best to crack a smile as I keep my eyes focused on Drew. “I told you I want to be Luke.”
    Simon tucks the rest of his cheese and guava jam (his mom has it shipped from Brazil) sandwich into his bag. “All right. If it means that much to you, fine.”
    â€œFine what? I can be Luke?”
    â€œFine, we can go to the fall festival.”
    â€œYou’ll go?” I ask excitedly. I suddenly see myself making the grand entrance, complete with new eyebrows and physique-shrinking dress. “Thank you,” I say.
    â€œOn one condition,” he says, taking off his glasses and cleaning them with his napkin. “I get to be Luke.”
    That’s the thing about Simon: He always knows the perfect thing to say.

three
    bleed-through (noun): transformation from a scene downstage to another scene upstage by adjusting the lighting of a thin piece of gauze draped across the stage. Depending on the direction of the light, the gauze can either appear solid or can disappear altogether.
    Lucy is beside herself when I tell her that Simon and I are going to the dance. And then she tells me the supposed good news: Dad, not Mom, is taking us shopping for our dresses.
    This does not make me happy.
    Not that I don’t love my dad, but my relationship with him has always been a bit, well, stiff. The problem is that I’ve always had the feeling that he’s embarrassed about the way I look. He’s never come right out and said it or anything, but there are subtle things that I’ve noticed over the years. Like when he opens the kitchen cupboard and can’t find the cookies or something, he’ll always ask me (in an accusatory sort of way) if I know where “they went.” The “hey, fatso” is implied.
    And he’s always pointing out the benefits of exercise when he thinks I’m being a slug, like when I’m watching TV. Which is really pretty nervy considering my dad, with his double chin and big belly, is not exactly an Adonis. He oversees all the Lucky Lou restaurants on the East Coast, which has him eating tons of hotel food and the burgers Lucky Lou is known for, not exactly a great job to have if you love food, particularly greasy food. And my dad loves food even more than I do. He was downright fat as a kid, and even though he lost a ton of weight a million years ago, these days he’s not exactly thin enough or fit enough to be doling out advice. And in my defense, I’m not fat. At least, not
that
fat. But he doesn’t see it that way.
    Naturally, he never, ever asks Lucy if she masterminded the cookie’s escape or if she finished off the container of ice cream or if she agreed that Jennifer Love Hewitt probably works out. Fortunately, my dad is hardly ever home. Which is good, since my mom has never once suggested that I had seen the cookies hop on the last train out of town.
    Still, despite my apprehension, on the morning of our father-daughter bonding day, I arrive downstairs dressed and determined to be cheerful. Lucy is sitting at the table reading the newspaper and Dad is at the stove stirring a giant batch of scrambled eggs with cheese. The fact that Mom has gone grocery shopping at nine in the morning and is not there is extremely suspicious. I must say, this whole father-daughter-shopping-for-fall-festival-dresses has her stamp all over it. Every now and then my mom decides we’re in desperate need of some father-daughter bonding time, and realizing that both Lucy and I would prefer to be with her, she conjures up some excuse, creating a situation where it’s either my dad or nothing at all.
    â€œWhat is that thing?” my dad asks, motioning toward my diorama, which happens to be in the center of the table, with his spatula. Even though I’ve been working on my diorama almost nonstop for two months, it figures that this is the first time he’s