Pretty Amy by Lisa Burstein Read Free Book Online

could end up with a year inside, but we can probably get you off with probation if you cooperate. At least that’s the feeling I’m getting from my buddy.” He paused and pointed at me. “He’s going to need to see a real commitment before he’s willing to give you any deal.”
    “But we weren’t even doing anything. We didn’t sell anything or intend to sell anything,” I said, using the words he had given me for what I was supposed to be sorry for doing, even though I hadn’t done it. “It wasn’t even ours,” I added.
    “Whose was it?” he asked.
    My mother looked at me from one side, my father from the other. I looked down.
    “Welcome to the twisty web of drug law,” Dick said. “It wasn’t what you were doing with it, or even that it wasn’t yours, but the amount you had when they picked you up.”
    I found myself wishing that we had been pulled over later, after we’d had a chance to smoke more. Though I’m guessing the amount we would have had to smoke would have taken six months or killed us in a week.
    “She’ll cooperate,” my mother said, looking at my father. I knew she was picturing the scandal, the whispers and shaking heads.
    “Just tell her what she needs to do,” my father said, finally taking my hand and squeezing. I squeezed back harder, involuntarily, a game we used to play when I was little, going back and forth until our hands ached. But he wasn’t paying attention.
    “You need to be just like corn. All ears,” Dick Simon said, looking at me and pointing to his head.
    His secretary walked in and handed a piece of paper to my mother. She looked at it and handed it directly to me.
    It was my first bill. My mother was really going to make me pay him. As he listed everything I would have to do to keep myself out of jail, I stared at it. The amount listed made me consider surrendering. The time I would need to spend working to pay him for just the first hour of his services—not to mention everything else he was telling me I would have to do—made being locked up seem like an easier option.
    I knew I had to pay him. Just like I knew I had to do everything else he told me to. I could barely survive standing in line at Starbucks. There was no way I could last any amount of time waiting for freedom, when I couldn’t last five minutes waiting for a latte.

Seven
    For my mother, finding the therapist Dick Simon insisted I start seeing was as important as finding my future husband. We even sat at the dining room table, which we never did unless it was a special occasion. Evidently I was supposed to believe this was.
    She walked into the kitchen to grab the phone book, and for the first time that week I thought about my cell phone—still turned off, still up on that high shelf.
    I found myself craving it at first. I wanted to talk to Lila. I wanted to talk to Cassie. I wanted to talk to anyone my own age.
    Then I realized that everything waiting for me on it would probably be in response to the arrest. Unending unanswered texts and e-mails asking WTF happened? and I was suddenly thankful it was locked away, jealous that I didn’t have an off button, too.
    “Why am I even here for this?” I said as she sat down. The question was not just one I was asking that day, but about the whole process. The world would still be making plans for me, whether I was present or not.
    She ignored me and dialed the first number. As the phone rang, her face looked like she was waiting at a starting gate. I noticed her eyes contract as someone on the other end answered. She took a deep breath and began. The voice that came out was one I heard only rarely. It was her first-impression voice. All enthusiasm and inquiry, all How do you do and Gosh, you’re sweet. It was enough to make you puke.
    She talked with one pencil behind her ear, another quickly jotting on a stationery pad next to her. As she wrote she looked at me, as if seeing how well I would match up with the therapist she was considering at