All-American Girl by Meg Cabot Read Free Book Online Page B

whatI’ve done, will understand that I was merely trying to preserve my integrity as an artist. Of course they will understand this. Probably. Maybe. On a good day, anyway, when there haven’t been any PCBs found in some Midwestern town’s water supply, or too many plunges in the North African economy.
    If anybody at Static thought it was strange that this fifteen-year-old redheaded girl, dressed in black from head to toe, was hanging around for two hours, sampling CDs but not buying any, they didn’t say anything about it to me. The chick behind the counter, who had the kind of spiky black hair I’ve always wanted but have never had the guts to get, was too busy flirting with one of the other workers, a guy in plaid pants and a Le Tigre T-shirt, to pay any attention to me.
    The other customers were ignoring me, too. Most of them looked like college students wasting time between classes. Some of them might have been in high school. One of them was a kind of old guy, like in his thirties, wearing army clothes and carrying a duffel bag. For a while he was hanging out by the headphones near me, listening to Billy Joel. I was surprised that a place like Static even had any Billy Joel, but they did. This guy kept listening to “Uptown Girl” over and over. My dad is actually a Billy Joel fan—he plays it all the time in the car, which makes driving with him mad fun, let me tell you—but even he is way over “Uptown Girl.”
    My cookie was gone about midway through the Spitvalves’ second album. I reached into my pocket and found nothing but crumbs. I thought about going over to Capitol Cookies to get another, but then I remembered I was broke. Besides, by that time it was almost five thirty. I had to go outside and wait for Theresa to pick me up.
    I put my hood up and walked out into the rain. It wasn’t the steady downpour it had been when I’d arrived, but I figured thehood would keep anybody coming out of the Susan Boone Art Studio from recognizing me and being all, “Hey, where were you, anyway?”
    As if any of them would have missed me.
    It had gotten dark outside while I’d been in the record store. All the cars going by had their headlights on. And there were a lot more of them than before, because it was rush hour and everyone was trying to get home to be with their loved ones. Or maybe just to watch Friends . Whatever.
    I stood on the curb across from the Founding Church of Scientology, squinting into the light drizzle and headlights in the direction from which Theresa was supposed to come. As I stood there, I couldn’t help feeling kind of sorry for myself. I mean, there I was, a fifteen-year-old, left-handed, redheaded, boyfriendless, misunderstood, middle child reject, broke, standing in the rain after skipping her drawing class because she couldn’t take criticism. What was going to happen if I grew up and started my own celebrity portrait painting business or something? Was I just going to quit if it didn’t work out right away? Was I going to go hide in Static? Maybe I could just go ahead and get a job there, to make things easier. It didn’t seem like a very bad place to work, actually. I bet employees get a discount on CDs.
    While I was standing there being ashamed of myself for being a quitter, the old guy who was such a big Billy Joel fan came out of Static and stood next to me, even though the crosswalk sign was green. I looked at him from the corner of my eye. He was messing around with something under his rain poncho, which was in a camouflage pattern. I wondered if he was a shoplifter. At Static I’d noticed they had a Wall of Shame, where they stuck up Polaroids of people who’d tried to swipe something. This dude looked like as prime a candidate for the Wall of Shame as I’d ever seen.
    And when, right after this, I saw all these flashing red lights coming out of the rain and darkness, I was like, Oh, yes, here