Who Do You Love by Jennifer Weiner Read Free Book Online Page A

him off me! Get him off me!” and the Sisters had come with their habits belling out behind them, rulers at the ready.
    Andy went to the kitchen, cracked ice cubes out of their battered metal tray, wrapped them in a dish towel, and held them against his knuckles. When the ice melted, he helped himself to a bowl of Cheerios with cut-up banana while he watched cartoons. They didn’t have cable like the Strattons, who lived down the street in a row house that looked just like theirs, except it wasn’t apartments and the family rented the whole thing, all three floors just for them. Miles Stratton was in his class at Holy Innocents, not exactly a friend, but friendly. Sometimes Andy would go over in the afternoons and they’d watch The Dukes of Hazzard and Three’s Company . Here, he was stuck with a choice between Looney Tunes and soap operas. He watched the Road Runner chase Wile E. Coyote off cliffs and under trucks filled with dynamite while he slurped the last of the milk, rinsed the bowl and spoon, and put them in the dishwasher. He made sure he returned the milk to the fridge and the cereal to the cupboard, checked to see that the tiny square of their table was wiped off and the rickety wooden chair was pushed in, before he went back outside.
    â€œYou’re so considerate!” Miles’s mom always said when he came over. “My mom always says it’s the maid’s day off,” Andy would tell her. It was one of Lori’s refrains, one that she’d repeat if she ever saw Andy’s dirty clothes on the bathroom floor or if he’d forgotten to put the seat down. Mrs. Stratton was always nice to Andy. She’d ask him to stay for dinner and she’d always bake something for dessert and give him some of it, a big chunk of cake or a slice of pie, to bring home. “Tell your mother hello,” she would say, but Andy never would, and he’d throw the sweets in the trash can by the bus shelter before he got home. The Strattons were black, like Andy’s father; like Mr. Sills, the handyman who came around every week or two, tightening dripping faucets and oiling squeaky doors; like most of the people in the neighborhood. They were black, and Lori was white, and he was pretty sure that Mrs. Stratton didn’t really like her. Once, when he’d left Miles’s bedroom to use the bathroom, he’d heard Mr. Stratton, who worked for the gas company, talking down in the kitchen. How come she moved here? How come she’s not back with her own? Mrs. Stratton had murmured something—Andy had heard his own name and nothing more—but then Mr. Stratton had said, “Well, how sure are we about that? She wouldn’t be the first bird to try to slip an egg into another man’s nest.” “Stop,” his wife said in a cold voice Andy had never heard her use. After that, Andy had never felt like just a regular friend of Miles’s, a normal kid from school. Instead, he’d thought that they looked at him as the kid with the white mother and a black father, half one and half the other, a kid who didn’t belong.
    Mrs. Stratton was a stay-at-home mom, but Andy’s mom worked at a beauty salon called Roll of the Dye in Rittenhouse Square, which was Philadelphia’s fanciest neighborhood. She left the house at nine-thirty Tuesday through Sunday and came home at seven, smelling like perm solution and cigarette smoke, with sneakers on her feet and her high heels in her purse. Andy had to have the stoop swept, the floors vacuumed, the couch pillows smoothed, the table set, and dinner —boiled noodles with canned spaghetti sauce, or frozen pizza or pot pies or a Swanson Hungry-Man for him, a Lean Cuisine for her—heated up and ready. By second grade, he knew how to use the microwave and the oven, and Lori had taught him to run the dishwasher and the washer and dryer. Most kids aren’t responsible enough for this, but I think you are,