Read Online Crystal by Walter Dean Myers - Free Book Online Page B

success and it was time to go, she followed numbly to the waiting limousine.
     
     
    When Crystal got home, it was almost three in the morning. Her father was in his shirtsleeves in front of the house drinking a beer. The wooden box he was sitting on leaned at a precarious angle to the red-brick wall.
    “Hi, Daddy,” Crystal said.
    “Don’t ‘Hi, Daddy’ me, girl.” Daniel Brown turned his head away. “You know what time it is?”
    “The limo brought me home.”
    “The hell do I care about that?” Angry lines appeared on his forehead. His eyes were bloodshot and the smell of stale beer on his breath made Crystal nervous.
    “I’m sorry, Daddy.” Crystal put her hands on her father’s. “I didn’t think I was going to be out this late.”
    “You have a good time being out here all hours of the damn night?”
    “It was okay.”
    “What you mean it was okay ?”
    “It was really kind of great,” Crystal said.
    “You gonna tell me all about it, so I can eat my heart out?”
    “Yep, even the part about me dancing with Earl Morgan!”
    “Earl Morgan? Get out of here!”
    “Really!”
    “Well, let’s get on upstairs. You can tell me about it in the morning. I’m too mad to listen tonight.”
    “I’m sorry, Daddy.”
    “Ain’t no child looking as good as you supposed to be out this late, girl.”
    “You really think I look good tonight, Daddy?”
    “Crystal”—Daniel Brown turned and took his daughter’s face in his hands—“sometimes I look at you and see how good you look and it scares me. Being as pretty as you are and all, it may make you think it’s all too easy.”
    “It seemed pretty easy tonight, Daddy.”
    “Yeah, honey.” Daniel Brown and his daughter, Crystal, their arms around each other, started up the stairs. “But I still got to find out if Earl Morgan got frisky. I mean, if he did I’m going to have to go knock him out.”
    “He said he was going back to Hollywood tomorrow.”
    “That’s okay, baby, people get knocked out in Hollywood, too.”

5
     
    BUT, EARL…
     
    Earl Morgan, hot from the movie set of A Matter of Love , was in Sharo’s last night. We caught the Torrid One with Crystal, the exotic and ravishing newcomer to the club scene. Which brings up two questions and a but…Question number one—Where was Denise Sarno, the Torrid One’s live-in throb? Question two—Is Crystal the Lady X that figures in Paramount’s planned pic? Now, for the but…Crystal’s gorgeous, Torrid One, and charming…BUT…didn’t she arrive at Sharo’s with none other than Sean Farrell???? Will this be just a cozy coffee klatch or do I smell T-R-O-U-B-L-E brewing?
     
    “Now you can tell me the truth,” Pat said, pushing a glob of Jell-O to one side of her tray in the noisy lunchroom. “How does he look up close?”
    “He’s really nice looking,” Crystal answered.
    “Really nice looking?” Pat frowned up her face. “What kind of talk is that? Is the fool as fine in person as he is in the movies, that’s what I want to know.”
    “I guess he is,” Crystal said. “I mean, like the article said, I did go with Sean, so I was a little worried when Earl asked me to dance.”
    “You were?” Pat’s attention drifted away to a dream world of her own.
    “Sean was furious!”
    “He was?”
    “Did you know that he was short?”
    “Earl?”
    “Uh-uh, Sean,” Crystal said. She had brought a plastic cup of fruit salad from home for lunch and was picking out the bananas. “He’s about my height.”
    “He’s got nice eyes, though,” Pat said.
    “They’re deeper blue than they look on television,” Crystal said, smiling at her friend. “You can really tell when he’s close and you look right into his eyes.”
    “How about Earl?” Pat wriggled in her seat. “Tell me about Earl.”
    “He’s okay, I guess,” Crystal said, pretending to examine her nails. “I mean, if you like chocolate pudding that’s six foot two, a mustache, pearly white teeth, black