White Teeth by Zadie Smith Read Free Book Online

telescope. It was only moments, surely, before she disappeared entirely.
    â€œI ’ave some materials of readin’ for your perusal—” She fumbled with the lock of the suitcase, flipped the catch with her thumb, but neglected to hold the other side of the case. Fifty copies of the
Watchtower
spilled over the doorstep.
    â€œBwoy, me kyant do nuttin’ right today—”
    She fell to the ground in a rush to pick them up and scraped the skin off her left knee. “Ow!”
    â€œYour name’s Clara,” said Ryan slowly. “You’re from my school, ain’t ya?”
    â€œYes, man,” said Clara, so jubilant he remembered her name that she forgot the pain. “St. Jude’s.”
    â€œI
know
wot it’s called.”
    Clara went as red as black people get and looked at the floor.
    â€œHopeless causes. Saint of,” said Ryan, picking something surreptitiously from his nose and flicking it into a flowerpot. “IRA. The lot of ’em.”
    Ryan surveyed the long figure of Clara once more, spending an inordinate amount of time on two sizable breasts, the outline of their raised nipples just discernible through white polyester.
    â€œYou best come in,” he said finally, lowering his gaze to inspect the bleeding knee. “Put somefin’ on that.”
    That very afternoon there were furtive fumblings on Ryan’s couch (which went a good deal further than one might expect of a Christian girl) and the devil won another easy hand in God’s poker game. Things were tweaked, and pushed, and pulled; and by the time the bell rang for end of school Monday, Ryan Topps and Clara Bowden (much to their school’s collective disgust) were more or less an item; as the St. Jude’s phraseology went, they were “dealing” with each other. Was it everything that Clara, in all her sweaty adolescent invention, had imagined?
    Well, “dealing” with Ryan turned out to consist of three major pastimes (in order of importance): admiring Ryan’s scooter, admiring Ryan’s records, admiring Ryan. But though other girls might have balked at dates that took place in Ryan’s garage and consisted entirely of watching him pore over the engine of a scooter, eulogizing its intricacies and complexities, to Clara there was nothing more thrilling. She learned quickly that Ryan was a man of painfully few words and that the rare conversations they had would only ever concern Ryan: his hopes, his fears (all scooter-related), and his peculiar belief that he and his scooter would not live long. For some reason, Ryan was convinced of the aging fifties motto “Live fast, die young,” and, though his scooter didn’t do more than 22 mph downhill, he liked to warn Clara in grim tones not to get “too involved,” for he wouldn’t be here long; he was “going out” early and with a “bang.” She imagined herself holding the bleeding Ryan in her arms, hearing him finally declare his undying love; she saw herself as Mod Widow, wearing black turtlenecks for a year and demanding “Waterloo Sunset” be played at his funeral. Clara’s inexplicable dedication to Ryan Topps knew no bounds. It transcended his bad looks, tedious personality, and unsightly personal habits. Essentially, it transcended Ryan, for whatever Hortense claimed, Clara was a teenage girl like any other; the object of her passion was only an accessory to the passion itself, a passion that through its long suppression was now asserting itself with volcanic necessity. Over the ensuing months, Clara’s mind changed, Clara’s clothes changed, Clara’s walk changed, Clara’s soul changed. All over the world girls were calling this change Donny Osmond or Michael Jackson or the Bay City Rollers. Clara chose to call it Ryan Topps.
    There were no dates, in the normal sense. No flowers or restaurants, movies or parties. Occasionally, when more