Cupcake by Rachel Cohn Read Free Book Online Page A

Because we all know asking me if I need money is really your way of saying "Here's a check with some zeroes at the end. The fact of your ol' bio-dad ignoring your existence for the first sixteen years of your life feels better now, doesn't it?"
    Nothing felt good in Frank's apartment, except for the quiet hum of the A/C. It's not the type of place where a new daughter would feel comfortable reclining on a leather sofa, for instance, or throwing water balloons down to the street from the balcony. In Frank's world the furniture and surroundings looked corporate and
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    stiff--except for the high-rise view overlooking Central Park, which was totally ace.
    Lunches of New York deli sandwiches, I guess, were what Frank had to offer at this point in our relationship. Having spent a career mastering the art of the business lunch, well, lunch is what Frank knows. And frankly, Frank probably doesn't know what else to do with me. Again, I choose not to take it personally. I don't know what to do with him.
    "Why are your fingernails green and blue?" Frank asked me as he poured tea for us following our pretty much silent lunch experience, catered courtesy of Frank's morning walk across the park to Zabar's.
    '"Why are yours not?' is the better question, I would say," I answered.
    Frank shook his head in confusion. A guy in his late sixties really should have the dignity to be balding and graying, or at least to not have that aging debonair movie star look about him. It's freaky for me how, along with my movie star name to go with his movie star looks, I look so much more like him than like my mother. I doubt there's anything about Frank I would hope to emulate.
    "Would you like to make a regular date of us having lunch together?" Frank asked.
    Because this silent experience had been so much fun!
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    I said, "I believe in randomness over regularity. Let's play it by ear?" I wiggled my outstretched green-blue pinky and thumb fingers in the Call me! gesture.
    "Huh?" Frank said.
    "Never mind," I said.
    The Rule of CC: Frank will have to learn to take what he can get from me, too.
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    ***
    NINE
    There's a big city out there waiting to be explored, sure--but
    Autumn and I prefer our Central Park hideaway. We're California spawn. We need to be outside while we can, before that fearful experience called winter sets in. Even if meeting that need means ditching school.
    The stone ledge bench outside the top level at Belvedere Castle, a small building built in the style of a medieval castle, could possibly become permanently engraved with our butt imprints, based on how many hours we've whiled away here. Our post at the top of the moat-encircled castle offered a dazzling display of hazy dusk sky flirting over the grand apartment buildings along Central Park West, as the sun prepared to set over that unknown westerly wilderness called New Jersey. What better way to pay tribute to the sun
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    and the choicest spot in all of Manhattan than by neglecting our new lives to idle our afternoon there?
    Adapting to New York turns out to be not so hard. So the buildings are tall and there are lots of people. The noise never stops, and the energy is unrelenting. Breathe. Then buy yourself a MetroCard, get some exploring going on, just try not to walk down dark alleys alone at night. Go with the flow. Because the hard part isn't the intimidating masses of strangers, skyscrapers, and energy. The hard part is that which you can't see--it's adapting to the expectation that you're supposed to Do Something with your new life.
    Autumn said, "I don't quite understand how I was ranked fifth in my senior class, practically killed myself through four years of high school taking honors and AP everything, and now that I am Ivy League Girl--you know, the whole goal of all that ass-kicking study regimen--I am barely passing Lit Hum because I couldn't give less of a shit about so many dead white guy philosophers. And it's likely I will outright fail astronomy. Not to mention