Ask the Passengers by A. S. King Read Free Book Online Page A

time I checked, she wasn’t a lesbian, either.”
    “Well, it’s no big deal to us, girls. Your father and I lived in New York for a long time. We knew plenty of gay people.” That’s Mom. Friend of the Gays. FOTG. Wait. Her FOTG badge is around here somewhere. Let me find it. “I just don’t understand why people here talk about it like it’s leprosy,” she says. “I hope you’re nice to them, Ellis.”
    Ellis gives her an insulted look. “Of course I am! Geez, Mom. Stop being so weird.”
    “Some people around here think you can catch it, you know.”
    All three of us look at her as if she has just landed from space.
    “Well, they do!” she insists. “I’ve heard them say you can catch gay off gays. Isn’t that ignorant?”
    We keep looking at her. She drinks more wine.
    I’m happy to see that Ellis is as annoyed as I am, but I’m working really hard not to get paranoid about why Ellis said anything about people thinking I’m gay in the first place.
    I look at her. “So you’d rather have me dating Tim Huber again than happily single?”
    “God!” she says. “No!” Then she chews and swallows. “Anyway, he doesn’t talk to you anymore, does he?”
    No. Tim Huber doesn’t talk to me anymore. Not since I completely fell for him and Ellis and Mom started bugging me to break up with him because he’s fat. Then, when I wouldn’t, somebody (most likely the somebody to my right, or to
her
right) started the rumor that broke us up.
    They said:
She’s only dating him because he’s fat.
    They said:
It’s a pity thing.
    “No,” I answer. “He doesn’t talk to me.”
    “But Jeff Garnet is a nice kid,” Ellis says.
    “I know. Look. Why can’t you all just butt out of my life?”
    Claire holds up her wineglass. “If we butted out of your life, you’d still be in diapers.
And
dating that fat boy.”

10
I DO NOT LIKE THE PLAN.
    “YOU’RE GOING TO CALL JEFF , and you’re going to get him to cover for you,” Kristina says.
    “Were you talking to my mom?”
    “No, why?” she asks. She’s not lying. I can tell when she lies, and she’s genuinely clueless about the rally cry at dinner last night about how badly I need a boyfriend.
    We’re in my room, and until she started talking, I was completely blissed out after a morning at work with Dee where we worked side by side and spent the entire time pretending to talk in our own language of clicks and weird robotic animal sounds until we cracked everyone up and I nearly peed my pants. We spent a half hour “taking inventory”in both walk-ins (fridge and freezer) for a huge job we have next week. Some big reception and open-house event for the Hispanic Center in town, the biggest job Maldonado Catering ever got.
    “Dude? Did you hear me?” Kristina says. “You’re going to call Jeff.”
    “Why?”
    “So we can go out.”
    “I think I can go out without having to drag Jeff Garnet into my life,” I say.
    Kristina is lying on my bed, dressed in sweats, looking awesome, even though I know she probably rolled out of bed five minutes ago, hasn’t showered and probably hasn’t even brushed her teeth. I’m sitting on my windowsill because I’m still in my shrimp-flavored catering pants.
    “We have to come home a little later than the Claire and Gerry Jones curfew,” she says. That’s eleven thirty on Friday and Saturday nights. And I’ve never used it due to my work hours… and the fact that I don’t have anyone to go out
with
. “That’s why Jeff is the perfect cover. Claire’s been bugging me all year to find you a boyfriend. So, now we’ve found him.”
    “Can’t we find a guy who talks? All he ever does is stare and say things like ‘hi’ and ‘hey,’ and he jiggles his leg. I don’t know. I mean…”
    “Can you just listen? This is the only way we can get you out late enough for the plan to work. Trust me. I have Claire wrapped around my finger.”
    “Then why can’t
you
be my cover?” I ask.
    She thinks about