For Keeps by Natasha Friend Read Free Book Online

store looking for a book . (Except that the book just happened to be The World Is Flat , which my mom just happened to have finished reading last week, and which just happened to jump-start a two-hour conversation.)
    “He’ll be back,” I say.
    “You think?” She pours juice into my cup, which already has juice.
    “Yes.”
    She sits down next to me but doesn’t say anything for a minute. “It’s just . . .”
    “What?”
    “It’s been a long time since I . . .”
    “What?” I say, even though I know. Two words, rhymes with “Saul Crucci.” It’s been a long time since she felt anything even remotely close to the way she felt in high school.
    “I don’t know!” she says. “Just . . . I know it sounds crazy. We just met! But there was something there last night.”
    “What kind of something?”
    “Something . . . I don’t know. . . . I’m being ridiculous.”
    “No, you’re not,” I say.
    She shakes her head.
    “You’re not , Mom.”
    She shrugs, smiles.
    “I get it,” I say. Because I do. I get that she’s giddy and insecure and scared and hopeful and utterly confused. All because of a guy.
    “I guess I’ll go for a run,” she says.
    “Do it,” I say.
    “You’ll take the bus?”
    “Unless you want to give me the car. I’m an excellent driver. . . .”
    “I will give you the car when you get your license.”
    “Fine,” I mock-grumble. “Be that way.”
    But then I hug her and say thanks for the pancakes. “I could get used to this,” I tell her. “What do I get when he asks you out? Eggs Benedict?”
    My mom snorts. I snort back. She snorts again, louder. This is how the Gardner Girls do the levity thing: We impersonate livestock.

    “Close your eyes,” Liv says on the bus.
    “What?”
    “Just do it. I have something for you.”
    “Fine.” I close my eyes. “I don’t know why you have to be such a—”
    “Open!”
    She’s holding up a piece of paper. It’s a photo of a house—a humongo white colonial with a three-car garage and a circular driveway.
    “So?”
    Liv smiles. “So . . . Nico and Christina Tucci. Forty-four Lehigh Street. North Haven, Massachusetts.”
    “What?”
    “I know, right? They closed two weeks ago.”
    “But how did you—?”
    “One of Dodd’s clients at Trillium runs a real-estate agency. . . . Anyway, it’s a matter of public record.”
    All I can do is stare at her.
    “I thought you should have the information,” she says. “You know . . . just in case.”
    “In case what ?”
    Liv shrugs. “In case you decide to get in touch.”
    “I won’t .”
    “Well . . .”
    “Like, ever .”
    “Completely your call.” She folds the paper in half, then in quarters. “We’ll just put this away for now.” She unzips the side pocket of my backpack, slides the paper in. “For safe-keeping.”
    “You’re unbelievable . Do you know that?”
    “So I’ve been told.”

    All day in school I’ve been thinking about the Tuccis. But I’m not going to think about them anymore. I am done. Finito . The only thing I’m going to think about right now is the fact that it rained last night and the fields are soaked for our coed scrimmage.
    The coaches spend ten minutes bitching about the lack of drainage and another ten debating the merits of playing in a swamp versus preserving the grass. Finally they decide we should just use the baseball field because their season doesn’t start until spring, and their grass will grow back by then.
    They split us into teams by position until we’re evenly matched. I’m on the blue team. So is Liv. Matt Rigby is on the gold team, and try as I might not to notice these things, I do: The gold pinny matches his hair.
    How pathetic am I?
    So pathetic.
    I am not, however, pathetic enough to be wearing either “Juicy”-across-the-butt shorts (Schuyler) or blue eye shadow (Jamie) in honor of the occasion. No. I am my usual slobby soccer-playing self, because I didn’t come to this scrimmage to impress anyone.