Read Online Lies Agreed Upon by Katherine Sharma - Free Book Online
Authors: Katherine Sharma
Ads: Link
grandmother made once. She told my mother that I inherited ‘more than green eyes from Louisiana.’ I shrugged it off back then, but I’m pretty sure now my grandmother was talking about my grandfather’s family. My grandfather had dark eyes according to his photo, and the old Louisiana relatives I met when I was a kid had brown eyes, too. So, there must have been some green-eyed ancestors I don’t know about. I’ve been wondering who had those eyes and what else they passed on to me. ”
“Wow, that remark could mean anything. Maybe good old Antonio was a green-eyed Spaniard, so it’s the property you already know about. Maybe it’s some cool trait like the ability to wiggle your ears or psychic powers. Any of those fit?” teased Katie.
“No, not a one,” Tess smiled with a ruefully shake of her head.
“Look, Tess,” said Katie and placed a hand on her friend’s arm, “there are a lot of traits that make you special. First of all, I envy those beautiful green eyes. But you’re also compassionate, honest, intelligent and loyal. Plus, you’re more resilient than you know. You’re doing pretty well given the six months that you’ve just endured.”
“Think of all the more exciting adjectives your friend did not choose to use .” Tess ignored her mother’s sly whisper and focused on Katie’s warm touch.
“Maybe you need to get out of your comfort zone to appreciate who you are under that ‘librarian’ disguise. Go to New Orleans and get a new, positive start,” Katie urged.
Tess pondered Katie’s assessment of her character as she navigated onto the 405 fre eway, sighing as the flow of red brake lights was pinched and clogged by the high sides of the Sepulveda Pass. All the words of Katie’s praise seemed to be elaborations on “nice.” Looking up, she caught sight of a faint half moon in a notch of afternoon sky. “Am I like that, like the moon in daylight—just a faint reflection beside more dazzling personalities like my mother or even my friends?” she asked herself. Was it possible for her to earn descriptors like dazzling, daring or inspiring?
“Are you brave enough, or desperate enough, to find out?”
In the early evening, Tess drove to meet two other friends, Jen and Christina, at Jen’s apartment. The plan was to share pizza and supportive advice on her new prospects and planned trip.
Jen lived in a posh high-rise off Wilshire Boulevard, the kind of address that attracted Hollywood and corporate execs, and it did nothing to improve Tess’s wobbly self-image. She a lways felt déclassé when she crossed the silent moat of gleaming glass and marble to the lobby reception desk, where a uniformed sentry guarded tall, forbidding elevator doors.
Almost as soon as Tess began to rap lightly on Jen’s door, it flew open, and Jen grabbed Tess’s arm and swung her into the apartment as energetically as a partner in a square dance.
“So you’re here at last. I’m famished, and this pizza’s getting cold,” declared Jen in her usual overloud, slightly nasal voice. “I have had a bitch of a day working on that sexual harassment suit against the BIG clothing manufacturer (who shall remain nameless, so don’t ask).”
Jennifer Brigham was a former roommate, an older UCLA law student whom Tess first met when she was an undergraduate. Jen had answered an ad to become a fourth tenant in a rented house that Tess shared with Katie and a classmate named Christ ina Velasquez. Jen was a 5-foot-10-inch warship of femininity, well-endowed fore and aft and sporting the heavy artillery of both high IQ and wealthy family power. With more makeup and a less severe hairstyle, she could have enhanced her attractive features and fine-grained skin, but she found it more profitable to embrace a tough persona for her role in a corporate labor-law practice. She also dressed for work in a severe wardrobe made up entirely of sober skirted suits and pantsuits.
“So let’s talk about your crazy new
“Wow, that remark could mean anything. Maybe good old Antonio was a green-eyed Spaniard, so it’s the property you already know about. Maybe it’s some cool trait like the ability to wiggle your ears or psychic powers. Any of those fit?” teased Katie.
“No, not a one,” Tess smiled with a ruefully shake of her head.
“Look, Tess,” said Katie and placed a hand on her friend’s arm, “there are a lot of traits that make you special. First of all, I envy those beautiful green eyes. But you’re also compassionate, honest, intelligent and loyal. Plus, you’re more resilient than you know. You’re doing pretty well given the six months that you’ve just endured.”
“Think of all the more exciting adjectives your friend did not choose to use .” Tess ignored her mother’s sly whisper and focused on Katie’s warm touch.
“Maybe you need to get out of your comfort zone to appreciate who you are under that ‘librarian’ disguise. Go to New Orleans and get a new, positive start,” Katie urged.
Tess pondered Katie’s assessment of her character as she navigated onto the 405 fre eway, sighing as the flow of red brake lights was pinched and clogged by the high sides of the Sepulveda Pass. All the words of Katie’s praise seemed to be elaborations on “nice.” Looking up, she caught sight of a faint half moon in a notch of afternoon sky. “Am I like that, like the moon in daylight—just a faint reflection beside more dazzling personalities like my mother or even my friends?” she asked herself. Was it possible for her to earn descriptors like dazzling, daring or inspiring?
“Are you brave enough, or desperate enough, to find out?”
In the early evening, Tess drove to meet two other friends, Jen and Christina, at Jen’s apartment. The plan was to share pizza and supportive advice on her new prospects and planned trip.
Jen lived in a posh high-rise off Wilshire Boulevard, the kind of address that attracted Hollywood and corporate execs, and it did nothing to improve Tess’s wobbly self-image. She a lways felt déclassé when she crossed the silent moat of gleaming glass and marble to the lobby reception desk, where a uniformed sentry guarded tall, forbidding elevator doors.
Almost as soon as Tess began to rap lightly on Jen’s door, it flew open, and Jen grabbed Tess’s arm and swung her into the apartment as energetically as a partner in a square dance.
“So you’re here at last. I’m famished, and this pizza’s getting cold,” declared Jen in her usual overloud, slightly nasal voice. “I have had a bitch of a day working on that sexual harassment suit against the BIG clothing manufacturer (who shall remain nameless, so don’t ask).”
Jennifer Brigham was a former roommate, an older UCLA law student whom Tess first met when she was an undergraduate. Jen had answered an ad to become a fourth tenant in a rented house that Tess shared with Katie and a classmate named Christ ina Velasquez. Jen was a 5-foot-10-inch warship of femininity, well-endowed fore and aft and sporting the heavy artillery of both high IQ and wealthy family power. With more makeup and a less severe hairstyle, she could have enhanced her attractive features and fine-grained skin, but she found it more profitable to embrace a tough persona for her role in a corporate labor-law practice. She also dressed for work in a severe wardrobe made up entirely of sober skirted suits and pantsuits.
“So let’s talk about your crazy new
Similar Books
