Read Online Girl Defective by Simmone Howell - Free Book Online Page B

His eyes met mine and he smiled again. This time it was brief and there was something tender-awkward in it. I couldn’t work out what it reminded me of, but then I realized it was Mia. I saw her walking with her bare feet and flower crown—the image almost felt religious. What had it been like, to lose her? Were they close? Had Mia looked out for Luke the way I looked out for Gully? Where was she buried? What song had they played at her funeral? All my unanswered questions were banking up, making my brain hurt. I turned up the volume and let drums and cymbals and driving guitars numb my mind.

    Dad and Gully returned just before lunch. They came with toasties and tales of grade-three records—g-sale stock, an insult to the discerning musicologist.
    â€œHow’s it been?” Dad asked.
    Luke and I gave him matching blank faces.
    â€œWhy so quiet?” Gully demanded. It was only then that I realized there was no music playing. The last record had finished half an hour ago, and I’d been too distracted to notice. It was a shop rule that we took turns playing records. Dad was a hog. Gully would get stuck on the same track forever. Now Dad turned to Luke like Mr. Magnanimous.
    â€œPut something on. Whatever you like.”
    To some eyes this could look like a test. The first track a newbie played might set the tone for his employment. Luke was right to look uncertain. He wandered around the aisles for ages, coming back with Simon & Garfunkel.
    I snorted. Even Gully shook his head.
    â€œWhat?” Luke asked.
    â€œThat record doesn’t tell me anything about your inner emotional landscape,” I told him.
    Luke stayed poker-faced. “Don’t have one of those.”
    â€œBullshit.”
    â€œSky—don’t psychoanalyze the new guy.” Dad turned to Luke. “Gully reads faces, Skylark reads records. We, the Martins, have superpowers.”
    â€œWhat’s yours?” Luke said.
    â€œDad’s able to drink a whole case in a single sitting,” I cracked. The look on Dad’s face made me wish that I hadn’t. Actually, that was his superpower: Dadwas great at guilting me. Simon & Garfunkel’s harmonies folded over each other. My brain was squeezing into itself.

    Luke’s presence put a bump in things. Dad wouldn’t stop talking, booming his rock alphabet from Aswad to the Zombies. Gully was infected too, more boisterous than usual, with groaning and fidgeting at a premium.
    He crowded Luke, putting his snout up close. “Who do you like?”
    Luke blinked. “What do you mean?”
    â€œI mean, what are you into? We’re Team Lennon, Team Richards. Dad likes punk and country. He thinks Arthur Lee is underrated and Bono should be shot. Sky likes sixties psych and folk. I’m into space music.”
    â€œI don’t think he understands you, Gully,” I said.
    â€œSkylark,” Dad warned.
    â€œI like a bit of everything,” Luke said.
    I scoffed again. “People who say they like everything have no taste. And having no taste is worse than having bad taste.” Dad was giving me the evil eye, but I kept going. “I know you. You don’t care about history or culture or lineage. If Lonnie Donegan had never made a skiffle, then the Beatles would never have happened, and if the Beatles and Bob Dylan had never gotten stoned together, then John Lennon would never have written ‘Norwegian Wood,’ and if Joni Mitchell hadn’t mesmerized half the Byrds, then all those LAsinger-songwriters wouldn’t have bared their souls and gotten all mellow and flaccid and then morphed into stadium rockers like the Eagles and Fleetwood Mac, and then punk rock would never have happened, and then . . .”
    Luke’s mouth twitched. He was laughing at me. I turned away, my cheeks hot. It wasn’t even my rant; it was Dad’s. I heard Luke’s voice behind me.
    â€œYou don’t know me,”