Looking for Alibrandi by Melina Marchetta Read Free Book Online Page B

Sometimes I think that this life is shit. I mean, don’t you find it pathetic?”
    I had never seen John like that before. I wondered if it was something new or if he hid those moods well. Whatever it was, I found it a bit freaky. My friends and I always muck around that life is shit, but none of us actually believes it.
    I looked at him for a moment, finding his copper cowlick irritating and wanting to hand him a comb.
    “Only when my mother comes up with excuses why I can’t go out. Or when I feel that I’ll be a nothing because socially I haven’t got a foot in the door,” I answered as truthfully as I could.
    “Well, as I’m allowed to go out whenever I want to and socially I have got a foot in the door, I can’t really understand your problem.”
    “So what’s your problem, John?”
    “I don’t know what I want out of my life, but I know what I don’t want. I don’t want to make promises I can’t keep. I don’t want my children embarrassed every time I make the wrong decision and some journalist shits all over me in the paper. I don’t want a lot of responsibility in life. Does that sound weak and unambitious? Well, that must mean that I am weak and unambitious. I don’t want to climb to the top, Josephine. I’m comfortable enough where I’m standing. But when you have a father who is a minister in Parliament, you are expected to have ambition. And when you can’t work out your ambition, good old Dad does.”
    “Then tell him what you told me.”
    “Okay, I’ll just go find him. I’ll be back in a minute,” he said, standing up.
    I grabbed his arm and we both burst into laughter.
    “It’s obvious that you don’t know my father, Josephine.”
    I heard a noise behind me and winced when I saw Ivy approaching us.
    “I’ve been looking all over for you,” she told John, smiling. I rarely see Poison Ivy smiling unless she’s crawling to Sister.
    “Just appreciating the presence of a beautiful, fascinating, exotic woman,” he said.
    “Oh, really, where did she go?” she asked, giving me a sweet, insincere smile.
    “So you’ve found me, you parasite. I bet it’s for a lift home.”
    “You bet right, and in the meantime think of Sarah Spencer’s party. I’m not going alone.”
    “I will not associate with pretentious people with nothing constructive to discuss except what kind of car they’re getting for their eighteenth birthday,” he said, looking at her with a raised eyebrow.
    “Come on, John. She’s Dr. Spencer’s daughter. He’s my father’s best friend. I have to go,” she begged.
    He thought about it for a moment and then shrugged. “I’ll keep it in mind. Bribes over two dollars are tax deductible.”
    “Thank you,” she said victoriously. “I’ll meet you outside in five minutes.”
    We watched her walk away and then he turned and smiled at me.
    “Are you going to go to that party?” I asked.
    He gave me a mock horrified look. “Dr. Spencer is my father’s biggest backer. Of course I’ll go to that party. I’ll even be charming to Sarah Spencer and try not to froth at the mouth when her father presents her with the keys to the Ferrari.”
    “A Ferrari?” I asked, shocked. “I’d kiss the dirtiest part of the ground just for a secondhand Mini.”
    “On the North Shore, in our circle of friends, the fathers all try to outdo each other. Ever since we were young. If Ivy got a ten-speed bike for her tenth birthday, my father would get me a better one. We got to the stage that if I wanted something really badly I’d tell Ivy and she’d get her father to buy it for her and I was guaranteed to get it next birthday and vice versa.”
    “I didn’t realize you and Ivy were such close family friends.”
    “We had no choice, but it’s worked out well because we get on,” he said, sighing and standing up. He extended his hand and we made our way back into the building.
    “What do you think of the English texts?” he asked.
    “
Macbeth
is all right.