All-American Girl by Meg Cabot Read Free Book Online

drawing pads with us and sit back to back on those couches and sketch our favorite paintings, and people would come up and look at what we were drawing and offer to buy the sketches, and we would say no because we would want to treasure the drawings forever as symbols of our great love for one another.
3. If Jack and I ever got married, I would not insist on a massive church wedding with a country club reception, the way I know Lucy would. Jack and I would be married barefoot in the woods near Walden Pond, where so many artistic souls have gone to receive succor.
And for our honeymoon, instead of a Sandals in Jamaica, or wherever, we would fully go to Paris and live in a garret.
2. When Jack came over to visit me, I would never read a magazine while he sat at our kitchen table eating doughnuts. I would engage him in friendly but spirited and intellectual conversations about art and literature.
    And the number-one reason I would be a better girlfriend for Jack than Lucy:
1. I would give him the loving support he so desperately needs, since I understand what it is like to be tortured by the burden of one’s genius.

5
    Fortunately , it was raining on Thursday when Theresa drove me to Susan Boone’s studio. That meant that the chances of her finding a parking space, scrounging around the backseat for an umbrella, getting out of the car, and walking me all the way to the studio door were exactly nil.
    Instead, she stopped in the middle of Connecticut Avenue—causing all the cars behind her to honk—and went, “If you are not out here at exactly five thirty, I will hunt you down. Do you hear me? Hunt you down like an animal.”
    â€œFine,” I said, undoing my seat belt.
    â€œI mean it, Miss Samantha,” Theresa said. “Five thirty on the dot. Or I will double-park and you will have to pay the impound fees if the station wagon gets towed.”
    â€œWhatever,” I said, and stepped out into the pouring rain. “See you.”
    Then I ran for the door to the studio.
    Only I didn’t, of course, go up that narrow stairway. Well, really, how could I? I mean, I had to fight the system, right?
    Besides, it wasn’t like I hadn’t completely humiliated myself in there the day before yesterday. Was I really just going to go waltzing back in like nothing had happened?
    The answer, of course, was no. No, I was not.
    What I did instead was, I waited about a minute inside the little foyer, with rainwater dripping off the hood of my Gore-Tex parka. While I was in there, I tried not to feel too guilty. I knew I wastaking a stand, and all, by boycotting Susan Boone. I mean, I was showing that I was fully on the side of art rebels everywhere.
    But my parents were paying a lot of money for these art lessons. I had heard my father grousing that they cost almost as much per month as the animal behaviorist. Susan Boone, it turned out, was kind of famous. Just what she was famous for, I didn’t know, but apparently, she charged a bundle for her art tutelage.
    So even though I was fighting the system, I didn’t feel too good, knowing I was wasting my parents’ hard-earned money.
    But if you think about it, I am actually the cheapest kid Mom and Dad have. I mean, they spend a small fortune on Lucy every month. She is always needing new clothes, new pom-poms, new orthodontia, new dermatological aids, whatever, in order to maintain her image as one of Adams Prep’s beautiful people.
    And Rebecca, my God, the lab fees alone at Horizon pretty much equal the gross national product of a small underdeveloped nation.
    And me? How much do Mom and Dad spend on me every month? Well, up until I got busted for the celebrity drawing thing, nothing, besides tuition. I mean, I’m supposed to wear my sister’s hand-me-down bras, right? And I didn’t even need new clothes this year: I just applied black Rit to last semester’s clothes, and voilà! A whole new wardrobe.
    Really, as