Beige by Cecil Castellucci Read Free Book Online Page B

do
you
get out of it?” I ask. And then it hits me. “Are you getting
paid
to hang out with me?”
    “Bribed, not paid. It’s kind of like a summer job, only not. Besides, everyone I know is . . . at
camp
. . . and you’re here for how much longer?”
    “Twelve days,” I say.
    “Exactly my point.”
    “Why aren’t you at camp?” I ask.
    I’d rather be at camp. In Rimouski. On a lake that looks like a mirror. In a place where I can see the stars at night. Where there is no smog. A place where if I’m lucky, like I was two years ago, I can lie on a rock near the lake at night and watch the green curtains of light the aurora borealis make as they chase each other across the sky.
    “I have better things to do than archery and water sports,” she says. “Repeat this to yourself ten times, Beige. Camp is for losers.”
    The word comes right into my head. A word I don’t normally use. BITCH. I want to tell her she’s a
bitch.
    “What are we going to do?” I ask instead.
    “Shop, for me,” she says. “My bribe from your dad was a gift certificate to Guitar Center.”
    We’re sitting on the Number Two bus heading west, and I watch the palm trees go by. They are so tall that they bend like Q-tips, leaning gracefully in the windless Los Angeles day.
    “Does this bus go all the way to the ocean?” I ask.
    “Yeah, this is the Two. The Four goes all the way, also,” Lake says.
    “All the way to the Pacific?”
    “No, to the Indian Ocean,” Lake says, rolling her eyes. Maybe they will get stuck in the back of her head like that, she does it so often. “Yeah, to the Pacific. The last stop is like one block away.”
    Let’s go to the ocean, I think. Forget about Guitar Center. Let’s go dip our feet in the western water, the same water that touches the coast my mother is on. Let’s squish our feet in the sand. I haven’t even been there yet. Maybe I
want
to go there. Maybe I want to go because The Rat says he never has time to go to the ocean. Isn’t that what’s supposed to be alluring about Los Angeles? That it’s near the ocean? Maybe seaweed will wrap around our calves. Maybe we’ll see dolphins. Maybe I’ll get freckles. Cute ones. Or sun-kissed blond highlights in my hair. Then I could e-mail Leticia pictures of me all tanned and California cute. That would be something to write home and not be embarrassed about. Let’s go to the beach and look at boys who surf. Normal, hot, sporty-looking boys with blond hair and sand stuck on their backs. Boys like Leo. I’m sick of The Rat’s neighborhood, being told it’s so hipster. Hip is not my aesthetic.
    Lake pulls out her iPod and pops her earbuds in so she can freeze me out. Her head bounces up and down. She plays air guitar discreetly in her lap. I stare out the window at the endless strip malls. Los Angeles is the ugliest city I’ve ever seen.
    “Here’s our stop,” she says, pulling out an earbud and grabbing my hand to pull me off the bus — like I won’t be fast enough, like she has to help me keep up or I will be left in the dust.
    The bus leaves, tearing off westward. Secretly, I’m still on it. I’m still on my way to the ocean.
    When we walk through the sliding-glass doors of Guitar Center, everyone inside is talking in hushed tones, like it’s a museum. There are guitars on all the walls behind glass displays. Lake kisses her fingers and then touches the glass in front of one. I hang back a bit and read the name. I don’t recognize it. I don’t recognize most of the names, and I don’t say anything about the few I do because I notice that those are the displays Lake breezes by without so much as a second glance.
    We push through to the main room of the store. It’s enormous. There are amps on the floor and guitars of every color hanging from every available space on the ceiling. Guitars, guitars, guitars. Green, gold, purple, red, star-shaped, V-shaped, flower-shaped, butterfly-shaped. Crazy. I’m like a kid in the wrong kind