The Queen of Cool Read Online Free PDF Page A

Making my skin tingle. His arms coil around me.
    “Snake,” I say. “Tonight you’re my snake.”

    “So, Libby,” Mom says, hanging up the phone. “That was Perla’s mother. Evidently Perla came home drunk Saturday night after attending a party at our house.”
    “Mmm-hmm,” I say.
    “Did you have a party while your father and I were in Desert Hot Springs?”
    “Uhm. I can’t remember. What exactly did we agree was the definition of a party?”
    “More than fifteen people.”
    “It wasn’t a party then. It was a get-together.”
    “Were you drinking?” Mom asks.
    “There might have been some beer. I can’t remember.”
    “Well, I guess you’re grounded, then.”
    “Okay,” I say.
    I whip out my cell phone and start to call Perla.
    “What are you doing?” Mom asks.
    “Just ’cause I’m grounded doesn’t mean I can’t run out and get a coffee, right?”
    “I mean it this time,” Mom says.
    Yeah, right. I sigh and hang up my cell phone.
    Dad passes me in the hall and picks up his keys off the hook.
    “Where are you going?” I ask.
    “Grocery store,” he says.
    “Can I come?”
    “Okay,” he says.
    “Libby’s grounded, Mitch,” Mom says. “She had a party this weekend.”
    “Okay,” he says. “Then I guess I’ll drive.”
    “Hopeless,” she mutters as she throws her arms up in the air. I grab my sweater.
    It’s the same old routine. Even when my mom means it, she doesn’t
really
mean it.

    Dad and I have the Thanksgiving-is-next-week shopping list. I push the cart. I remember when that used to be fun, after I was too big to stand in the cart, like the captain of a ship, pulling products off the shelves as Dad read the list in a booming voice, calling foods by antique and archaic names: victuals, comestibles, viands, legumes, verdure, herbage.
    Tonight he grunts one-word answers to my questions, and his mouth hangs downward in a perma-frown. Food shopping is a long way from being fun now.
    For a while we walk side by side in silence. When we pass a product that he worked on a campaign for, he blows his lips out, like a horse. It is an unspoken rule that once he’s worked on a product’s ad campaign, we never buy that product again. We leave it on the shelf and buy the competition.
    “Mitchell?” A man says to my dad.
    He’s a Hollywood hipster type. Vintage Levi’s, tan skin, probably a bit of Botox. He looks familiar.
    “Neil,” Dad says.
    The two men shake hands.
    “God, it’s good to see you,” Neil says, glancing at me. “Is this Libby?”
    I nod.
    “Last time I saw you, you were just learning how to walk,” Neil says.
    “It worked out,” I say. “I’m pretty good at it now.”
    Finally I realize that I’ve seen him in a few movies and TV shows.
    “What are you up to?” Neil turns to my dad.
    “Oh, this and that,” my dad says. “You know how it is.”
    He looks uncomfortable. He loosens his tie.
    “Your dad was one of the best writers I ever knew in the scene,” Neil says.
    “Really?” I say.
    “Did you ever finish that Great American Play?” Neil asks.
    “I got into advertising instead.”
    Dad says it all quiet, like it’s a bad thing. Like he’s embarrassed.
    “Ah.”
    There’s a long pause.
    “You’ve been doing well. I caught your last film on cable the other night,” Dad finally says.
    “Yeah. Things seem to be going great,” Neil says.
    He knocks wood on his head three times.
    “That’s great,” Dad says.
    “Great,” I say, almost under my breath.
    “Well, good seeing you, Neil,” Dad says, and we start to move along.
    Dad picks up the signal I was sending him. He’s good like that.
    “Yeah, you too,” Neil says.
    They shake hands.
    “Oh, hey! Mitchell!” Neil suddenly exclaims, turning back down the aisle toward us. “A group of us have a theater company going again. Just to, you know, get away from Hollywood. Jake’s there. And Eddie’s running it; he’s clean and sober now. We just missed the old days, you