Trophy Kid by Steve Atinsky Read Free Book Online Page A

pretty much signaled the end of the game. “Nothing like you had here yesterday, but I thought maybe you’d like to come over.”
    “Okay,” I said. I’d been wanting to see where Tom and Jessica lived but felt funny about asking if I could come over.
    “Rusty’s son, Gary, will be there.”
    “Oh,” I said, going over to the sofa and then pulling two sticks of gum from the pack Tom had set on the coffee table.
    “Jessica’s niece, Martie, is coming over, too. She’s about your age. But I thought it might be good for Gary to hang out with you. He’s having a rough time with his folks breaking up, and Rusty—well, you saw him at the ball game.”
    “Why do you think hanging around me would be good for Gary?” I asked, sort of fishing for a compliment.
    “You’re cool,” Tom said, without missing a beat.
    Good compliment.
    “Okay, let’s see, where were we?” Tom said, pulling a legal pad from his black leather briefcase; the computer was only for video games.
    I could hear Greta’s familiar speedy ascent of the stairs.
    “How’s it going, boys?” she said with a smile upon entering.
    “Great,” I said firmly, trying to say
Can’t you see we’re busy
without actually saying it.
    “Tom, how do
you
think it’s going? Do you have anything I can read?” Greta asked, coyly.
    “Not yet,” Tom casually responded.
    Greta, as usual, was undeterred. “Well, I’m not expecting it to be
War and Peace
at this point, but you’ve been working for a few weeks now, and it seems reasonable that you should have some pages I can look at.”
    “I don’t like to show anything before it’s ready,” Tom said, standing, or in this case sitting, firm.
    “Is that one of your superstitions?” Greta asked.
    “You might say that,” Tom replied, unfazed.
    “Fine, then,” she said. “Well, I have to return some things. Would you like Octavia to make you lunch?”
    I looked at Tom, hoping he’d want to go out for lunch.
    “No thanks,” he said. “I think we’ll go out.” He turned to me. “What do you think?”
    “Out,” I said.
    “All right, I’ll be going.” Greta focused her famously beautiful green eyes on Tom, and her normal cheerful smile disappeared. “I really would like to read something soon,” she said, her words fired as precisely as the ammo we’d been firing in our video game.
    Tom took a moment to respond. “Okay, you got it,” he said. “I’ll put together some pages for you.”
    “Thank you,” Greta said, her America’s Sweetheart smile returning.
    “Oh, we’re having a barbecue at our house on Sunday. Is it okay if Joe comes?”
    “I don’t have a problem with that, but I’ll check with Robert. Bye now.” Greta turned and sped down the stairs.
    “Didn’t she return stuff yesterday?” Tom asked.
    “She’s always buying and returning stuff,” I said. “Dresses, shoes, tables, curtains, wine, pillows, rugs—”
    “I think I get the idea,” Tom interrupted.
    “She would have returned me if she could,” I said.
    “You don’t really think that, do you?”
    “No. But sometimes I feel like I’m not the kid she thinks she bought.”
    Tom leaned forward, propping his right elbow on the desk and setting his chin in the palm of his hand.
    “Who’s the kid she thinks she bought?” Tom asked.
    “The kid they take out in public. The one who’s forever grateful to them and praises them for rescuing him from his pitiful, tragic, orphan life. I mean, what kid wouldn’t want to be adopted by movie stars?”
    “I know Greta and Robert aren’t perfect, but they don’t seem that horrible, either. In their own way, I think they’re doing the best they can.”
    I was ready to tell Tom something important, something that would make him see how inept Greta and Robert were as my so-called parents.
    “You don’t know what it was like when I first got here,” I said.
    “Tell me.”

    Before I left Dubrovnik with Robert and Greta at the age of three, one of the