The Queen of Cool Read Online Free PDF

know?”
    “Yeah,” Dad says. “I do.”
    Then they start talking about the old days and the Alphaville Theater, the collective that I discover Dad and Neil helped start in college. Pretty much everyone they mention is a successful actor or director now.
    “You were going to be a revolutionary writer,” Neil says. “What happened, man?”
    I have never seen Dad’s face look so alive. Talking to Neil, he looks like a young man. All his worry lines turn into laugh lines.
    “I got sidetracked,” Dad says. And I notice that he glances in my direction.
    It hits me. He got sidetracked. By
me.
    “I’m having a baby,” Neil says. “It’s about time I became a dad. You know what they say nowadays, life begins after forty.”
    “Yeah,” Dad says. “Life begins after forty.”
    “Well, here’s my card. Call me. We’ll go for a beer or something. You can come by the house. I’ll show you my cars.”
    “Okay,” my dad says.
    Neil pulls a bottle of gourmet salsa off the shelf and disappears down the aisle.
    Dad doesn’t say anything for two aisles, and then he stops. I keep rolling forward, struggling with the cart, until I notice he’s not with me. I turn around.
    Dad is standing in the middle of the soup aisle. He looks confused.
    No.
    He looks
lost.

    Perla leans over to check her face in the side mirror of my car.
    “Oh, my God,” she says.
    “What?” I say, jumping off the hood and joining her by the door.
    I turn around in time to see Tiny Carpentieri walking toward us.
    Kenji elbows Perla in the rib cage, and they begin to laugh.
    “Hi, Tina.” Sid says
    “Hi, Sid,” she says. “Hi, Libby.”
    I look down at her. Way down.
    “Yes?” I ask.
    “Well, I was wondering if I could get a ride with you the day after tomorrow to pick up our zoo shirts. Sheldon has a prior engagement.”
    “You don’t have a car?”
    “No.”
    “Then how do you get around?” I ask.
    “I take the bus. Or I bum rides off of people.”
    “The bus?” I laugh.
    “
No one
takes the bus in Los Angeles,” Kenji says.
    “I take the bus,” Sid says.
    Kenji laughs out loud. “Of course
you
take the bus, Sid.”
    “Libby, come on! We got stuff to
do,
” Perla yells from the passenger seat, her bare feet sticking out the open window. Her toenails are painted pink with white daisies on them.
    “I’ll meet you here at the flagpole at 2:45.”
    “Thanks,” Tiny says, smiling widely. She waves goodbye and leaves.
    “I bet she can’t drive ’cause she can’t reach the pedals,” Kenji says.
    “I can’t believe you have to work with her now, Libby. She looks like some kind of freaky
doll.
” Perla laughs.
    “She looks nothing like a
doll,
” I say.
    “Yeah, maybe it’s more like an action figure,” Mike Dutko says.
    Kenji high-fives him.
    “Tina is not a joke,” Sid says.
    “What is she, like, your girlfriend?” Kenji says.
    Sid doesn’t answer.
    “You
love
her,” Perla teases. She starts clapping. “Sid loves Tiny.”
    “You guys are being total assholes,” Sid says.
    “Come on, Perla, get out of the car,” I say. “Kenji. Let’s go be alone.”
    Kenji puts on a smug face as he trades places in the passenger seat with Perla. I drive quickly, eager for a distraction.

    Kenji and I are lying on his bed watching a DVD I didn’t want to rent.
    He starts kissing me. I feel nothing.
    “Where are you?” he asks.
    “What do you mean?” I say.
    “Aren’t you into it?”
    “I guess,” I say.
    “You guess?”
    “Well, sometimes hanging out feels
too
easy. You know?”
    “No, because you hold out on me all the time,” he says. “Maybe I should go out with Perla. Did you ever notice she’s a
hand talker?
”
    “No,” I say.
    “You know,” he says. He puts his fist in front of his crotch and mocks a hand job. “She’s like the Hand Job Queen.”
    I give him a look.
    “You’re disgusting,” I say.
    He laughs and pulls me in for a kiss.
    “I wish you were going to be available during the