The Summer Invitation Read Online Free PDF

a pale blue light. What was interesting about the portrait to me was that Aunt Theo was looking straight ahead without apology. Her body was less developed than many of the other nudes, but next to her, they looked like schoolgirls and she looked like a grown woman.
    I wondered if I’d ever look like that.
    “That picture was painted in Paris,” Valentine said.
    “How do you know?”
    “I just can tell. Paris in the morning. Something about that shade of blue, that light.”
    A title was written in cursive in the bottom corner of the painting. The title was: L’heure de la lavande , “The Lavender Hour.” I read it out loud.
    “Can you imagine letting someone see you naked?” asked Valentine.
    “Oh my God, no. Can you ?”
    What she said surprised me: “Sometimes.” And I saw that this must be one of the differences between being fourteen and being seventeen. Because I couldn’t imagine letting someone seeing me naked: I blushed, I almost wanted to throw up, just to think of it.
    Then Val opened the door to Clover’s private bath, which is where we saw her lacy blue bra and undies dripping over the side of the claw-foot tub.
    “I’m so going to wear sexy lingerie as soon as I have a guy who’s going to see it,” said Valentine. “But I wouldn’t wear blue, I don’t think. I’m going to wear black! Black lace and what are those things called, garters, God, I can’t wait. Franny, Do you think Clover has someone?”
    “She told that woman in the shop that she didn’t.”
    Valentine said, “Well not now, but she has. She has in the past, and I’m going to get her to tell us all about it. I need information. ”
    “About what, Val?”
    “Sex, dummy.”
    “Oh.”
    “I mean,” Val went on, “it’s New York City, there have to be so many men around! And Mom and Dad aren’t here to bug me, and another thing: I can totally pull anything over Clover.”
    “ Val. Clover’s our chaperone.”
    “Whatever, she’s shorter than both of us! I know what we’ve got to do, Franny. We’ve got to get dressed up and hit the town and meet some men.”
    I didn’t want to let on in front of Val, but the truth was, the whole idea kind of embarrassed me. I got shy even just talking to boys at school.
    “Enough of that, Val,” I said. “Come on, let’s look around up here before Clover gets back.”
    The bathroom was all white, or rather antique white, with chipping white-painted furniture and more of those brown-and-white diamond parquet floors. I had never seen so many beauty products in one bathroom and all with the most delicate hand-printed wrappings and labels. White Almond Talcum Powder. Hyacinth & Bluebell Bubble Bath. Bars of French soap: Mielle, Violette, Pepins de Raisins, Fleur D’orange.
    We were so busy looking at the beauty products that it took us a while to notice that there was a rickety door leading outside.
    “Does Clover have her own balcony?” said Valentine. “Jealous.”
    By now, Carlo had gotten off the bed and was following us, waddling across the parquet floor.
    “Oh, Carlo,” I said, and scooped his silky green body into the palm of my hand while Valentine twisted the doorknob.
    And then we were outside. It wasn’t a balcony, it was a whole roof-deck, a secret roof-deck.
    “Oh my God,” said Valentine, “Clover was keeping this from us? I hate her.”
    “Quiet. She might be back at any minute.”
    I haven’t been to Italy yet, but that’s what this roof-deck felt like to me—like being in Italy. Having a—what was the name of Clover’s toenail polish again?— Italian Love Affair. There were all these fancy terra-cotta pots that held geraniums and lavender and even lemons, these tiny lemons with thin crinkly skins, not like the big beautiful juicy ones we have in California. But still! Lemons. Lemons growing on a roof-deck, here in New York City! The floor of the roof-deck was covered in green-and-white tiles, some of which were missing so you had to be careful where