Read Online Crazy About the Baumgartners by Selena Kitt - Free Book Online

I smiled, zipping the mosquito netting back up and checking on
Janie. She was snoring too.
    I
climbed inside her tent, forgoing my air mattress for the night. I would tell
Henry he’d been asleep when I brought out his iPod and I just decided to climb
in with Janie. And no one would ever know that I’d just watched their parents
have sex and masturbated until I came so hard I could barely see. No one would
ever know that I’d watched them have sex with another woman and I’d wished the
whole time it was me.
     
     
     

Chapter Four
    “So
when are we getting the baby?” I flipped through the racks, watching Mrs. B
hold dresses up in front of herself.
    “Next
week.” Mrs. B met my eyes in the mirror.
    Every
time anyone mentioned the baby, her eyes got all dewy and shiny. They’d called
last week, letting the Baumgartners know they had a baby they wanted to place
with them, but it would be a few weeks, because the baby was still in the
hospital. I’d gleaned most of the details from overheard conversations. The
baby was a girl, three months old. She’d been taken away from her parents
before, as a newborn, but she’d been returned. Now she’d been taken away for a
second time, which Mrs. B said was a good sign that they wouldn’t give her back
again. That meant they would probably be able to adopt her permanently.
    Mrs.
B was over the moon. They’d already prepared a nursery, converting Doc’s
office, the room down the hall from mine. It had come together quickly, thanks
to hiring a painter, a muralist and an interior decorator. Now the room was
Pepto-Bismol pink with white stripes and walking into it made me a little
dizzy. There was a mural on one wall of a cherry blossom branch. And Mrs. B
couldn’t stop buying little girl clothes. The closet was already full of
dresses.
    I
thought they were getting a little ahead of themselves, counting chickens
before they hatched and all that—but on the other hand, I didn’t blame
them. This poor little girl had been through so much already in her little
life, she could use parents like the Baumgartners. I didn’t like to think about
the things I’d overheard—being born drug addicted couldn’t be easy for
anyone. Then came the bruises, the contusions, the burns and abrasions. And
then, finally, the ultimate neglect. Leaving her in a hot car while Mom shopped
at Wal-Mart.
    She
probably wouldn’t be alive if some Good Samaritan hadn’t broken the car window
to get her out before calling the cops. I’d seen the story on the news and had
been horrified. It was hard to believe we were getting that baby. The
Baumgartners would be her savior. She would grow up with them, a part of their
family, and they would love her and take care of her and give her more than
most children in the world ever received from their parents.
    “Hey,
Gretchen, let’s go to Gymboree.” Mrs. B had abandoned her dresses—four of
them in all. She was terrible at making up her mind.
    “Again?”
I smiled, putting the dress in my hand back on the rack.
    “Come
on.” Mrs. B seemed to be in a really big hurry all of a sudden, abandoning her
pursuit of the perfect dress and grabbing my elbow, steering me toward the
front of the store.
    “Okay,
okay,” I said, laughing. “Let’s go buy some more pink stuff.”
    We’d
almost gotten to the front of the store when I saw the reason for her haste.
Ronnie was standing at one of the racks, looking through bathing suits. And
Vince was standing beside her, looking all buff in a black tank top and jeans.
The man’s arms were huge. He dwarfed Ronnie, who laughed when he bent to
whisper something in her ear.
    I
stopped, shaking Mrs. B’s arm off my elbow, watching them talk and flirt and
giggle. Ronnie was smiling. Beaming, really. She looked incredibly happy. I
knew I should be happy for her, but something thick and bitter crept into my
throat, constricting it. I knew it was jealousy, and I had no right to be
jealous. We were over. It was