That Summer by Sarah Dessen Read Free Book Online Page B

myself dwarfing the Lakeview Models in their heels and lipstick, a freak among fairies.
    “Girls, girls, listen up.” The woman in the jogging suit clapped her hands, bringing quiet except for the pop pop pop noise of the staple gun a guy on the stage was using to attach giant leaves to a backdrop. “Now, we have less than three weeks until this fashion show must come off, so we’ve got to get serious and get working. As the Lakeview Models it is critical that you present the best possible image to the community.”
    This seemed to calm everyone down but the staple-gun guy, who just rolled his eyes at no one in particular and hoisted another leaf up on the stage.
    “Now,” the woman continued, “we’re going to do it just like we practiced last week: you enter, walk down the center aisle, across the stage, pause, and then go back down the way you came in. Remember the beat we learned last week: one, two, three.” She snapped her fingers, demonstrating. One of the models, a short girl with long black hair, snapped her own fingers in time to make sure she got it. I finished my Coke and tossed the cup in the trash.
    “Okay, let’s line up and do it.” The woman climbed down the small steps at the side of the stage, with the Lakeview Models clackety-clacking along behind her. Their voices and hair tossing melded into one long stream of girl, a blur of makeup and giggling and clean skin. They lined up just to the right of me and I could feel my hipbones sticking out and wanted to cut myself to half my size, small enough to fit in a corner, under a table, in the palm of a hand.
    I got up quickly as they were still shuffling into order, red shirt after red shirt, curve after curve, the same white toothy smile repeated into infinity. I turned and walked back to Little Feet while the purple-suited woman clapped out the beat behind me and the first girl started down the aisle, mindful of the pace: one, two, three.

Chapter Four

    Lydia Catrell had changed my mother’s life. With her tan and frosted hair and too many brightly colored matching shorts-and-sandals outfits, she had brought out a side of my mother that I believed would otherwise have lain dormant forever, never shown to the world. My mother, who had spent most of her life smiling apologetically while my father entertained and offended everyone around him, had to wait until he had stepped out of the spotlight before she finally came into her own. And like it or not (and I usually didn’t), Lydia Catrell had shown her the way.
    Lydia was a widow, like all women from Florida seemed to be. Her husband had been involved in the plastic utensil business and her house was filled with more colorful plastic bins and spatulas and bathtub mats than you could shake a stick at. She moved in with a flourish of bright furniture all making its way up the driveway right next to ours; a pink couch, a turquoise easy chair, a lemony-peach divan. My mother went over the next day with a mason jar full of roses and zinnias and stayed for three hours, most of it spent listening to Lydia talk about herself and her children and her dead husband. Lydia was all color and noise, in her bright pink shorts and sequined T-shirts with fringe, zooming through the neighborhood in her huge Lincoln Town Car that seemed to suck up the road as it passed. Lydia blew in like a cyclone, altering the landscape around her, and my mother was pulled in immediately.
    Within a month you could see the change. My mother was wearing sandals and even the occasional sequined shirt, frosting her hair, and going out every Thursday night to Ranzino’s, the bar at the Holiday Inn that featured easy-listening hits, dancing, and tons of paunchy men in toupees out for a good time. My mother came home with her cheeks flushed, tossing her newly frosted hair, saying she couldn’t believe she’d ever go to such a place and Lydia was such a card and it wasn’t her thing, not at all, only to head right back the next