Read Online Barefoot Girls by Tara McTiernan - Free Book Online Page A

there on the table, untouched and covered with the magazine for the rest of August. She had packed it up with the rest of their things when they left and it sat now, in a pile of other books, on her bedside table at home in Westport. She had been meaning to pick it up again.
    Zo felt her face grow hot as she saw the look of shock her friends were giving her. “I don’t know why I didn’t say anything. Really! I guess…because I never got a chance to finish it?” Boy, that was pathetic.
    Amy shook her head and said, “I can’t believe you didn’t tell us.”
    “At least you could have told me!” Keeley said. “Especially when that review came out! I’ve been going nuts!”
    “Hey!” Zo said, her embarrassment morphing into anger. “Since when it is just my responsibility to read our daughter’s book? I would think all of us would’ve read it by now. Did any of you even pick it up?”
    Pam cleared her throat, nodded enthusiastically, and said, “No, and I meant to. I will! I can’t wait!”
    Amy said, “I…I’m so not a fiction person. You guys know that! I’ll read it, but it’s going to take me awhile.”
    Zo turned and stared down Keeley, who was still staring right back at her. “Well, have you read Hannah’s book? Any of it?”
    Keeley’s face, which had that walled-off look she got in any situation where negative feelings were involved, revealed nothing. “I don’t…I’m not…we’re not here to talk about Hannah’s book. We’re here to talk about her and Daniel. The letter,” she said, and flicked her hand out at where it lay in Zo’s lap. “That’s why we’re here. I may be mad at her, I may never be able to talk to her again, but I’m not going to sit back and watch her throw away the very thing I threw away with Michael.” Her eyes welled when she said his name.
    Pam reached over and put her hand on Keeley’s knee. “You were just a kid. Forgive yourself already.”
    Keeley shook her head and turned to look at Pam. She said softly, “I can’t. I’ll never forgive myself.”
    Zo looked at them, watched Amy reach over and rub Keeley’s arm. And you’ll never forgive me, none of you. Or have you already? Are we all always just putting ourselves in our own private prisons?
    Doubt nagged once again, her shoulda-woulda-coulda nighttime companion, and she brushed it away. Daytime was for action, not for wobbling about filled with worries. She had a mission here. “Keeley. Hannah wouldn’t be talking about not getting married to Daniel if you were talking to her. Just call her. Go see her! The reviewer made a mistake in judgment. That’s what clearly happened, and she was morally and professionally wrong to put her assumptions in her review. But let’s not forget that the book is a novel. A work of fiction! A dark spooky piece of work, I admit, but a story nevertheless. Please! You owe it to…us.”
    Keeley looked up at Zo again and then away, reaching for her drink. “I can’t,” she said.
    “What do you mean, you can’t?”
    “Now, you guys,” Pam said.
    “No, Zo has a point,” Amy said, sitting back in her chair, folding her arms over her chest, and looking at Keeley. “Why can’t you?”
    Keeley shook her head slightly, and took a sip of her drink, licking the salt off the rim of the glass delicately. She didn’t answer.
    “Keeley?” Amy said in her no-nonsense voice she used with her boys when they were out of line. “Answer my question, please.”
    Keeley sighed loudly, still looking at her glass and not at her friends. “I will, I promise. But not right now. I’m just too angry and I know I won’t be fair to her.”
    “Oh, come on-“ Zo said.
    Pam waved her hand in the air. “Wait! I think we should call a truce. Keeley said she would talk to Hannah, and I’m sure she will very soon, so let’s talk about the letter and Daniel. I don’t know, but it just sounds like she’s getting cold feet. That’s all, right? Cold feet are pretty