Last Dance by Caroline B. Cooney Read Free Book Online

and loud, and set off. One good thing about old station wagons: they were built for power. Touch that accelerator, and you’re in the next state. Emily liked the wagon because of the radio and because she was always getting exhausted on one of Matt’s drives (he liked to say they were going for a “little drive” and come back four hours later) and she could sleep in the back. He loved driving a car with her asleep. It made him feel trusted.
    Matt took the turnpike to Emily’s, which he didn’t usually do: too many state police around. Plus it was boring. Straight roads, nothing happening. Matt liked narrow curving roads, on cliff edges, with steep inclines, because Emily always screamed, “Matt! Don’t drive off the edge!” and then Matt could always answer, “Oh, M&M, you spoil all the fun. I was really looking forward to an air drive.”
    He decided he would just cruise slowly past the Edmundson home, first, see if any bodies were in the yard, if moving vans were pulling away, that kind of thing.
    He had forgotten to put snacks in the car after all. Well, he had the extra ten from his father; he would stop off with M&M at the Dairy Queen and—oh, no! he’d forgotten—they were’ actually on their way to a dance. He looked nervously down to see if he’d dressed properly, and he had, so that was all right. He glanced in the mirror to see if he’d run a brush through his straight dark hair, and he had, so that was all right, too.
    He decided not to take exit 67, which would take him through four traffic lights on the way to her house, but exit 66, so that he could cut through the industrial park and on up to her house the other way.
    Matt swung left, then right, and thought about Emily living with them. He really could not imagine such a thing. The whole idea of a girl in his house—other than his mother—was something he could not even get a grip on. On the other hand—Emily living with her mother was impossible, because Mrs. Edmundson didn’t even like Emily. Matt always felt that Mrs. Edmundson had had someone else in mind entirely when she gave birth to that baby girl and felt cheated that the girl was Emily.
    Matt didn’t feel cheated.
    He adored Emily.
    He thought once Mr. Edmundson calmed down, Emily should live with him. Emily’s dad was an okay person as long as Emily’s mother wasn’t around. He could be funny and affectionate. It was just that the last several months had been such hell for them that the funniness and love were submerged in the separation fights.
    Matt thought he would convince Emily to go back to her father’s place after the dance, and he was pretty sure he could talk Mr. Edmundson into this, too.
    Now the problem was to locate her.
    Matt turned down North Street. Only a few blocks to go.
    It was Christopher Vann.
    Few people had made bigger fools of themselves than Christopher had at last autumn’s big dance when he went with Molly. He’d gotten so drunk he got into a fight with the band and had to be forcibly removed by the police. Emily and Matt had gotten to the dance very late and missed the entire scene, but of course they had heard every detail over and over from Kip and Mike, Beth Rose and Gary. Everybody thought it served Molly right, but not many people stopped to wonder about Christopher.
    Christopher had been a shining star when he graduated and went on to an Ivy League school, but something happened between Westerly and college. Nobody really knew what, because Christopher confided in nobody and went out with girls who wouldn’t care what his problems might be as long as he paid for the evening and the evening was fun.
    Emily barely knew him: he was two years older than she, and when he was a junior, she was a freshman and definitely in her prime wallflower years. When she was in ninth grade, had she spoken aloud even once to a boy? Ninth grade had been a little like having her jaw wired: when she saw boys, Emily’s mouth clamped shut and neither words nor