I'll Give You the Sun by Jandy Nelson Read Free Book Online

romantic sculpture
The Kiss
. The caption read:
Guillermo Garcia:
The Rock Star of the Sculpture World
. On the cover of
Interview
! I stopped there because of the cardiac symptoms.
    â€œYou look like a hoodlum in that getup,” Grandma Sweetwine says, sweeping along beside me a good foot above the ground, twirling a magenta sun parasol, without a care for the dismal weather. She’s dressed to the nines like always, in a color-splashed Floating Dress that makes her look like a billowy sunset, and enormous tortoiseshell movie-star sunglasses. She’s barefoot. Not much need for shoes if you hover. She got lucky on the foot-front.
    Some visitors from the beyond return with their feet on backward
    (Beyond disturbing. Thankfully, hers are on right.)
    She continues. “You look like that fella, you know, whosamacallit, Reese’s Pieces.”
    â€œEminem?” I ask, with a smile. The fog’s so thick, I have to walk with my arms out straight so I don’t collide into any mailboxes or telephone poles or trees.
    â€œYes!” She taps the sidewalk with the parasol. “I knew it was some kind of candy. Him.” The parasol’s pointing at me now. “All those dresses you make locked away in your bedroom. It’s a travesty.” She sighs one of her record-length sighs. “What about the suitors, Jude?”
    â€œI don’t have any suitors, Grandma.”
    â€œMy point exactly, dear,” she says, then cackles with delight at her own wit.
    A woman passes us with two kids in fog harnesses, also known as leashes, not unusual in Lost Cove during a white-out.
    I look down at my invisibility uniform. Grandma still doesn’t get it. I tell her, “Being with boys is more dangerous for me than killing a cricket or having a bird fly into the house.” Other serious portents of death. “You know this.”
    â€œNonsense. What I know is you have an enviable love-line on your palm, just like your brother, but even fate needs a goose in the rear sometimes. Best stop dressing like a life-size rutabaga. And grow the hair back already, for Pete’s sake.”
    â€œYou’re very superficial, Grandma.”
    She harrumphs at me.
    I harrumph back, then turn the tables. “I don’t want to alarm you, but I think your feet are starting to point the wrong way. You know what they say. Nothing ruins an ensemble like ass-backward feet.”
    She gasps, looking down. “How to give an old, dead woman a heart attack!”
    By the time we get to Day Street, I’m damp through and shivering. I notice a small church at the end of the block, a perfect place to dry off, warm up, and strategize about how I’m going to convince this Guillermo Garcia to mentor me.
    â€œI’ll wait outside,” Grandma tells me. “But please, take your time. Don’t worry about me, all alone out here in the cold, wet fog.” She wiggles her bare toes on both feet. “Shoeless, penniless, dead.”
    â€œSubtle,” I say, heading down the path to the church.
    â€œRegards to Clark Gable,” she calls after me as I pull the ring to open the door. Clark Gable is her pet name for God. A blast of warmth and light embraces me the moment I step in. Mom was a church-hopper, always dragging Noah and me with her, except never when a service was going on. She said she just liked to sit in holy spaces. Me too now.
    If you’re in need of divine help, open a jar in a place of worship
and close it upon leaving
    (Mom told us she sometimes used to hide out from her foster “situations” in nearby churches. I suspect she needed more than
a jar of help, though it was impossible to get her to talk
much about that time in her life.)
    This one is a beautiful boat-like room of dark wood and bright stained-glass panels of, it looks like, yup, Noah building the ark, Noah greeting the animals as they board, Noah, Noah, Noah. I sigh.
    In every set of twins, there is one