Lipstick Apology by Jennifer Jabaley Read Free Book Online

pulled out a wooden lunchroom chair and motioned for me to sit down. “So,” he said. “Where are you from?”
    â€œCut the crap,” Lindsey interjected, sitting down next to me. “She knows that we know about her situation.”
    â€œI’m so sorry about your parents,” Owen said, resting his hand lightly on my knee.
    Spark, spark, spark. I looked down for steam coming off my khakis. His forearms were tan and muscular, and I wondered if maybe he played tennis like me.
    â€œSo,” Owen continued. “Tell me how, after such a tragedy, do you look so amazing?”
    Oh my God. Thank you, Jolie, for the body massage and cleavage-enhancing bra. Thank you, Trent, for the highlights and layers.
    I was still struggling to respond when Aidan released his grip on Andi and made a motion with his hand.
    Owen looked at the time on his cell phone. “Gotta go. See ya.” He smiled at me. As he followed Aidan and Ethan, the sun from the big bay windows cast a pale glow on his short golden hair.
    The rest of the day, I floated on clouds. Owen thought I looked amazing. Owen, the most perfect, beautiful guy I’d ever met, thought I looked amazing. Who cared if everyone was being nice to me just because the principal instructed them to?
    For the first time since my move to New York, the constant visions of airplanes and tray tables were replaced by a thirty-second conversation with a hot boy.

chapter four
    â€œSO, HOW WAS YOUR FIRST DAY?” Jolie chirped as she came through the apartment door later that night.
    â€œIt was,” I looked up from my homework and thought for a minute,“different.”
    Jolie nodded as if that was exactly what she expected me to say.
    Trent barged in right behind her, juggling several Thai food cartons. He set the boxes down on the oval table on the far side of the kitchen bar.
    â€œDo you live in this building too?” I asked. He always seemed to be two minutes away.
    â€œOh, honey. I’m rich, but not this rich.” Trent winked.
    Jolie sat down at the table. “He lives in a brownstone a few blocks away.”
    â€œRight near where the Sex and the City tour bus stops. My home may not be as posh, but it’s trendy.” He pulled out a chair and sat down. “How was your first day? What’d I miss?”
    â€œNothing, I just said it was different.” I walked toward the steaming food.
    â€œOh, no,” Trent moaned. “Different, like all the guys have tattoos that say MOM and insist on teaching you how to hock a loogie?”
    Jolie rolled her eyes and mouthed, His college years, under her breath.
    Trent snarled toward Jolie. “Don’t dismiss my awful, damaging experiences.”
    I smiled.
    Jolie opened a carton of pad Thai. “That was twenty years ago; will you let it go?”
    Trent quivered. “I still have nightmares about my freshman roommate, Bobby Joe, and his obsession with tractors.”
    Jolie rolled her eyes, then opened the plastic silverware from the wrappings.
    I set the paper plates out. “No tattoos and no loogies,” I said. “Just . . . different.”
    Jolie raised her eyebrows at me.
    It was so hard to pinpoint. Darlington seemed like a whole other universe. At my old high school our girls didn’t carry Prada bags and have modeling jobs on the side. Our lunchroom didn’t have a fireplace and Starbucks Frappuccinos in glass bottles. No one knew parental employment histories or compared whose apartment had the best view of the river.
    I looked at Jolie and Trent’s eager eyes and decided to narrow my focus to something they could relate to: appearances. “They all looked effortless,” I said, scooping up some rice.
    â€œBut Em,” Jolie said, setting her spoon of tom ka ga back in her bowl. “Look at you. You look effortless too.”
    â€œIt took a whole TEAM of people to make me look this way,” I protested.
    â€œLife is