The Last Embrace by Pam Jenoff Read Free Book Online Page B

done all right. But Charlie did not look away from me, until finally Liam followed the others reluctantly.
    Charlie put a hand on my shoulder and slid closer. “You want to talk about it?”
    My trembling eased slightly. “There’s nothing to tell.” I fought the urge to put my head on his shoulder. Though I’d only just met Charlie, he seemed to have a way of making everything okay—even the beach.
    â€œBut Trieste is on the coast, isn’t it? You’ve lived by the water your whole life. You can’t swim at all?”
    â€œI don’t know,” I confessed, pulling the towel closer around me. “I can’t even breathe when I get near the ocean.”
    â€œI could try to help you.”
    â€œNo, thanks.”
    â€œYou’re not ready. I understand.” I wanted to tell him I never would be. “I hope you’ll come to the beach with us anyway. ’Cause I promise,” he added, shooting a murderous look down the beach toward Liam, “that what happened today will never happen again.”

I was losing the battle to stay awake in civics class as Mrs. Lowenstein droned on about wartime production in Britain. I blinked against heavy eyelids, but the polka dots of her dress seemed to blend together, making my vision swim. Normally I enjoyed the class, which purported to be about the past two centuries of history, but in fact focused unabashedly on the war in Europe. But Mrs. Lowenstein’s monotone recitation of facts about steel manufacturing today hardly seemed relevant.
    The rest of summer had passed much like that first day with the Connallys, afternoons on the beach with the boys and trips to the boardwalk in the evening. But then the days began to shorten and we only had a bit of time on our Schwinn bikes after dinner before the sun dropped low to the bay. There was a tiny release in the humidity, like air leaking from a balloon.
    One day I spied Aunt Bess taking out a large box. “What are you doing?”
    â€œPacking. It’s only a week until we return to the city and we have to register you for school.” Life at the shore was all that I had known here. I had almost forgotten about Philadelphia.
    â€œWhat grade will I be in?”
    Aunt Bess looked confused. “I suppose they’ll have to test you.”
    â€œWill I need to bring my own school supplies? How will I get there?” I piled my questions on top of one another, realizing from her expression that she did not know the answer. She had not done this before either.
    She paused to set down the pile of shirts she’d been packing, then swiped at her brow. “I suppose,” she said, “we will have to figure out all of this together.”
    â€œI don’t want to go,” I had burst out to Jack as he helped me through Steinbeck’s
Of Mice and Men
on the porch of his family’s beach house that evening.
    â€œWe’re not that far from you in the city,” Jack offered. “We might even have classes together.” But I was not consoled—it was not the same as being next door, hearing their laughter through the open window as I fell asleep.
    I waited until a few days after we returned to the city to ask. “I want to go see the Connallys.” We had just finished supper at Aunt Bess and Uncle Meyer’s house on Porter Street in the small dining room sandwiched in between the parlor in front and kitchen in back. The row house was so narrow I could almost touch both sides with my arms outstretched.
    We’d moved into the parlor after eating, sitting three across on the flowered, slip-covered sofa, facing the fireplace we never used. Aunt Bess may have tried to seem American outside, but the house was filled with tarnished framed photos of grandparents and other relatives from the old country and the Shabbes candlesticks and Kiddush cup sat on the mantel.
    Aunt Bess was reading
Home Chat
magazine while Uncle Meyer smoked his