Read Online No Ordinary Life by Suzanne Redfearn - Free Book Online

call my mom. No answer.
    “I cowld,” Molly says.
    It is cold. Despite it being summer, the sun is now gone, and a frigid wind rattles through the windows.
    Tears fill my eyes, and I hate that I’m so pathetic. I hate that I’m scared and that I can’t even figure out how to call for a stupid tow truck when my car breaks down. I bite my lower lip to stifle the emotions, to keep them from pouring out and freaking out the kids.
    “911. What’s your emergency?”
    I mutter my distress, and the woman instructs me to calm down, then she tells me to stay on the line so she can track my location. Within minutes, a highway patrol car pulls up behind us. A few minutes after that, a tow truck arrives.

13
    I t’s after nine when we stumble through the door of the condo. Taking pity on us, the highway patrolman offered to drive us home after our van was hauled away. The kids found it thrilling to ride in a police car; I found it humiliating. He assured me I did the right thing calling 911, but my breakdown preceding the drive home and my incoherent mumblings during it were what had me stammering apologies when he finally dropped us at the curb. The culmination of emotions did me in. Between Bo’s terse words, Emily’s sob-fest, leaving Yucaipa for a second time, and the van dying, I just couldn’t take it.
    Too much , I want to scream. You win! I’m not entirely certain what God I’m screaming at, but I imagine some supreme Buddha sitting on a cloud holding his fat belly and laughing as he sharpens his lightning bolts and contemplates what diabolical blow he’s going to deliver next.
    Uncle. Mercy. I give up. Please, just stop.
    “What happened to you?” my mom says. “You were supposed to be back hours ago.”
    “Ouwr van died,” Molly says, sounding almost as sad as me about our loss.
    “I told you not to go to Yucaipa,” my mom says, as if she divined our car’s death.
    She told me not to go to Yucaipa because she wanted us to stay here and have a party with her friends when Molly’s commercial aired.
    With the name of her longing pronounced, Emily remembers her despair, drops her load on the floor, and runs into the bedroom, slamming the door behind her.
    “I see you two are getting along well,” my mom says, with a look that plainly says this is all my fault. Then she kneels with her arms open for Molly to walk into. “I’m so proud of you. That commercial was wonderful, and I bet every kid in America is going to be asking their moms for overalls.”
    “I hope they get the ones fwrom Wawlmawrt,” Molly says. “They’wre way mowre comfowrtabwle.”
    “And guess what?” my mom says, holding Molly by her shoulders so she’s pinned in place.
    “What?”
    “Your agent called. A casting director saw your commercial, and she wants you to come to an audition.”
    “Really?” I say, my emotions reversing course at the thought of doing another commercial and earning another boatload of money that could possibly buy us a new car.
    “What’s an audition?” Molly asks.
    “It’s where you try out for a part on a show, and if they like you best, you get the part.”
    “And the othewr kids get the othewr pawrts?”
    “And the other kids go home until their agent calls for them to try out for a different part. But this is a really good part, so I really hope you get it. It’s an audition for The Foster Band .”
    The words electrify the air.
    “I wlove The Fostewr Band ,” Molly says.
    Everyone loves The Foster Band .
    “With Cawleb?” Molly says.
    “With Caleb. And they want you,” my mom says.
    “Want me fowr what?” Molly asks, confused.
    “To be another Foster kid, to join the band.”
    Molly’s face tilts, and I can tell the idea is too abstract to get her head around. To her, the show is real and so are the Fosters, and you can’t just join a family. It’s like telling her Santa Claus isn’t real. At this age, she simply wouldn’t believe you.
    “You don’t worry about it,” my mom