The Wonder Bread Summer Read Online Free PDF

about the fitting-room encounter, and her regret over having given all her money to Marc—compelled her to tighten her fist around the bag.
    “She, like, won’t come to the phone?” Beth said to Jonas. She lifted her eyebrows and waved Allie toward her with one arm, then cupped a hand over the mouthpiece. “What is going on? What is he talking about?!” Allie could both see and hear Jonas’s muffled voice coming through Beth’s fingers. The words were the color of green smog. Allie shook her head no at Beth.
    “Jonas,” Beth said. “She just dropped off some shoes she borrowed and then left. Tell Vice Versa to call her back here later.”
    Allie moved her fist up and down slowly, miming a receiver being set in the cradle. She mouthed the words HANG UP NOW .
    “Okay . . . okay . . . okay I’ll tell her when I see her,” Beth said. “But I swear I won’t see her for, like, at least four or five hours . . . no, I live near Peet’s Coffee . . . yeah, yeah . . . okay, good-bye.” Beth hung up the phone.
    “What’d he say?” Allie asked. She figured she had seven minutes before Jonas could make it to Beth’s building. Floating in front of her face was a giant pocket watch ticking the seconds. It wasn’t until she took a swipe at it that Allie realized the watch wasn’t really there.
    “He said his pal Vice Versa has a date with you and is going to pick you up no matter where you are and that you need to give Vice Versa the hundred K you took?” Beth said. “What is going on? Like, what hundred K is he talking about?!”
    “Shit.” Allie’s heart rate increased, an engine revving in her chest. She looked at the bread bag. Could this much coke be worth a hundred thousand dollars? Even though Jonas dealt coke from the shop, Allie had no idea how much he charged, how much he made, or what people were paying for the little packets they walked out with.
    “By the way, did you know that you’ve been evicted?” Beth asked.
    “What do you mean I’ve been evicted? How do you know I’ve been evicted?!” Allie pressed the bread bag against her chest.
    “I was walking by your place today, and then I remembered that jean skirt that you borrowed last week that I, like, totally wanted to wear tonight? And those chubby, dopey-looking twin guys let me in and I went up to your room and there was a bolt lock on your door and an eviction notice.” Beth picked up the notice from the counter and handed it to Allie, who shoved it into her purse without reading it.
    Allie lived in a grubby, shingled boardinghouse with a shared kitchen that always smelled like cooked beans and cabbage. She was more sorry that she was now the sort of person who got evicted for failure to pay rent than she was sorry that she was no longer legally able to live there. “I’m sorry you couldn’t get your skirt. Does Jonas know where you live?”
    “I didn’t give him the address. He’ll never find you.” Beth peered into Allie’s face. She tilted her head and Allie saw her as a parrot. “You totally don’t look right,” Beth-the-parrot said.
    Allie closed her eyes. When she opened them, Beth had turned back into a person. “You aren’t listed in the phone book, are you?” Allie had the presence of mind to ask.
    Beth opened her mouth but didn’t speak. She picked up the giant white pages from the kitchen counter and flipped through. “Shit.” She flashed her bottom teeth in a grimace. “Tell me what’s going on! Like, what is this hundred K thingy, who is Vice Versa, and why are you so freaked out by a blind date?!”
    “Vice Versa doesn’t want to date me, he wants to kill me so he can get this coke!” Allie held up the bread bag.
    “No way. There’s coke in there?”
    “Jonas still hasn’t paid me, so I sort of borrowed this from him so I could pay myself what he owes me.” Allie stared up at the floating pocket watch. It ticked louder now, as if someone had turned up the volume.
    “Oh my god!” Beth