The Ashley Project by Melissa de La Cruz Read Free Book Online

who was on, like, a tissue diet in public, was a total hog in private. The girl had such a complex she never even let Lili see her eat. Those two were way too competitive.
    A. A. counted herself lucky. She lived on ice cream and hamburgers every day and never gained any weight.
    â€œDid you see her face when Sheridan’s mom announced that there was something wrong with the chocolate in the fountain?” Ashley asked, piling her plate high with totally tasteless gluten-free potato salad and organic crème fraîche squares.
    A. A. nodded. It had been pretty funny. Trudy Page had been totally offended and had eaten a huge dollop of melted chocolate on a slice of pound cake. A few minutes later, she was clutching her stomach and hurrying Lauren out the door. The other mothers had quickly pronounced the fountain off-limits. Sometimes you had to hand it to Ashley. She knew how to make things exciting.
    â€œYes, wasn’t that odd?” Ashley’s mom mused,playing with her pearls and picking up a stick of celery. “I never trust those things.” She shuddered. “All that chocolate just melting there . . . it’s a haven for bacteria. I can never understand why people get so excited about them. They’re so tacky.”
    Ashley smirked, and A. A. coughed into her hand.
    â€œWell, I’m full,” Ashley’s mom announced, after having eaten, from what A. A. could tell, two pieces of vegetables. “I can’t possibly eat dinner.”
    A. A. bet that Ashley’s mom was just like her mom, subsisting on tidbits and vitamin supplements instead of real food. Her mom always told her that one day she wouldn’t be able to eat the way she did, and A. A. hoped for her own sake that that day would never come. “Scone?” she asked, offering Ashley the silver bowl.
    Ashley looked longingly at the buttery biscuit. Her mother paused, looking back at her daughter. Then Ashley quickly shook her head. “Carbs? Uh-uh.”
    â€œMore for me.” A. A. shrugged as she finished off the last of the golden brown pastries. She could never understand why anyone would deprive themselves of the good things in life.

9
FACEBOOK ISN’T THE ONLY ONE WITH PARENTAL CONTROL
    LILI WISHED HER MOM WOULD have let them stay longer, but there was no arguing with her mother’s wishes. Her parents were convinced that if she tried hard enough, she would be another Sarah Chang—the Korean-American child prodigy who was one of the top violinists in the world before she turned eighteen. Violin was the least of it—Lili was signed up for a ton of after-school activities that were tailored to fit her mother’s idea of a well-rounded Ivy League–bound profile, even though college was light-years away.
    On the schedule: community service—and not mere candy-striping, but assisting a genetic researcher at Stanford; foreign language fluency in French, German,and Mandarin; art appreciation—black-and-white still photography lessons with a renowned artist, as well as becoming the youngest-ever docent at the de Young museum.
    Any other kid might have buckled under the weight of so much expectation, so much parental pressure. Luckily enough, Lili was good at everything. It all came easily to her—too easily, maybe. She had a talent for being “talented.” And since it came easily, Lili could care less about any of her accomplishments. Her mother wanted her to grow up to be a combination of Miss America, Wonder Woman, and Hillary Clinton. But Lili had bigger dreams.
    When she grew up, she wanted to move to New York and run a nightclub.
    Not that she’d ever been to one, but it sure sounded like a lot of fun. Lili liked having fun, especially since fun was not something you could “schedule.”
    It sucked that she had to leave the tea, since it meant she would miss out on something important as usual, because Lili guessed that when she wasn’t