Read Online Best Friends Forever by Jennifer Weiner - Free Book Online

said, and reached down to give Val a push.
    “Go throw some Tabs in the cooler. Oh, and Addie,” she said as she walked out of the room, hips swaying, bangles chiming. “Ask your parents if you can come, too.”
    I exhaled, giddy with excitement and relief. Val’s lips were tight as she bent down, dumped the paint out of the pie tins and into the cans, and tamped the metal lids back in place, but when she straightened, her eyes had their familiar spark. “Do you like clams?”
    “I love clams!” I’d never eaten clams, but this didn’t seem the time to say so.
    “Okay.” Val put one finger in the center of her chin. “You’l need a bathing suit and pajamas.” She opened up her closet—my quick glimpse revealed that it was surprisingly empty—and pul ed out a pink backpack and a sleeping bag that was ripped along one seam.
    Then she looked down the hal way and brought her lips so close to my ear that I could feel her breath, humid and maple-scented, against my cheek. “If you have any money, bring that, cheek. “If you have any money, bring that, too.”
    Across the street, my parents had a brief, quiet discussion in the living room before deciding I could go (looking back, I think they were probably so relieved that I’d final y made a friend that they would have let me go to the moon with Valerie Adler). My mother gave me thirty dol ars, which I folded careful y into my pocket before I raced off to grab my own backpack, clothes, money from my piggy bank, food from our cupboards
    …and then we were in the car, with Mrs. Adler beeping the horn as we sped down Crescent Drive, on our way to the ocean. I was only nine years old that summer, but I can stil remember every detail of that trip: the sticky crosshatched vinyl of the Bug’s bucket seat brand-ing the backs of my thighs, the salt and chemical taste of Tab in the back of my throat. I can remember the wind tangling my hair as we drove along I-90 through Indiana and Ohio, with the windows rol ed down, Mrs. Adler’s elbow cocked on the windowsil and Val sitting beside her with the atlas open in her lap, tracing our route with her finger.
    At five o’clock, Val told her mother it was time to stop for dinner. Mrs. Adler seemed surprised to hear it, but she pul ed into a McDonald’s, where Val and I feasted on cheeseburgers and French fries while she sipped Diet Dr Pepper and smoked. By midnight we were in New York, between Buffalo and Albany, according to Val. Mrs. Adler pul ed into a rest stop and parked the car way down the parking lot, as far away from the other cars and the glare of the lights as possible. I fol owed Val’s example, carrying my backpack into the bathroom, where we used the facilities, washed our faces, brushed our teeth, and pul ed on our pajamas. Then Val pul ed out her sleeping bag, spread it on top of herself, and curled up in the Bug’s backseat. Mrs. Adler got back in the driver’s seat, reclining it as far as it would go. From the matter-of-fact way the
    two
    of
    them
    handled
    these
    arrangements, I figured this was something they’d done before.
    “Are you okay, Addie?” Val whispered. Her eyes shone in the darkness as she popped her head between the seats to look at me.
    “I’m fine,” I said, pushing the passenger’s seat backward until it was almost flat. I was actual y thril ed. This, far and away, was the best adventure I’d ever been on.
    “Goodnight to the back!” Mrs. Adler cal ed.
    “Goodnight to the front,” Val muttered a little grudgingly. I wanted to tel her not to worry: that having a beautiful mother who would take her on trips like this was a hundred times better than a pink-and-green bedroom. I wanted to promise that I would paint her bedroom, and I’d get my father and brother to help; that I would do anything as long as we could be best friends forever.
    “Goodnight, Addie,” they said, and I said goodnight back. I was sure I’d never be able to sleep—the car was hot, and the seat was