Read Online Mockingbird by Sean Stewart - Free Book Online

First, because I had always despised the kind of women who spent all their time hanging out in the Galleria trying on glamorous clothes. Second, because I was afraid the glamorous clothes weren’t going to look good on me. Go figure.
    â€œHelp! We’ve crashed on the Planet of the Babies,” I murmured as we left the stairs. There were babies in strollers, babies in backpacks, babies in Snuglis on their fathers’ chests. Babies tucked into Mom’s tummy, waiting to come out. A snot-nosed toddler gimballed by, dragging a crying sister behind him like a teddy bear. If the kids weren’t crying or peeing or drooling or actually throwing up, their noses were running, or a sort of thin cottage-cheeselike substance was hiccuping from their tiny mouths. “I never realized how damp children are.”
    â€œBuy permanent press,” Candy said.
    â€œHey—Versace,” I said, stopping in front of a shop window. “I’ve heard of this guy, haven’t I?” The mannequins were all incredibly thin and had this Italian arrogance to them and sported clothes that looked like what Jackie O. would have worn if she had been a streetwalker: pleated stirrup-pants, or little sleeveless lemon-yellow dresses that came a third of the way down their thighs, or tall leather boots in black and white checks.
    Candy winced. “You could never wear this stuff.”
    â€œWhy not?”
    â€œToni!” She waved at the models. “You, you’ve got, oh . . . too many knees or something. Trust me on this.”
    â€œToo many knees? ”
    â€œHere. Definitely more your speed,” she said, stopping in front of the Gap.
    â€œCandy, you’re patronizing me. No. No! I told you. I want something new. Something different. Something with some style, not just . . .”
    Candy tried to smile. Candy with the great tits and the little waist and the ass men would pay to slap with a Ping-Pong paddle. “Toni . . . let’s keep the training wheels on for a bit, okay?”
    Unlike Candy, whose figure you could appreciate from the front, I only had contours when viewed in profile: a little slope forward on top, a little shelf down on the bottom. In the middle, only a dictionary would call what I had a “waist.” “All my parts function,” I said. “What’s this fascination with topology, anyway? If I had a great pair of breasts stuck to my elbows, would that be a turn-on?”
    â€œ What? ”
    When I told Momma I didn’t care about makeup or hairstyles or what dress I was going to wear, she used to say to me, “Honey, I’ve been pretty and I’ve been ugly, and ugly’s worse.” Another one was, “Beauty is only skin deep, but ugly goes clean down to the bone.”
    I stared through the Gap window at racks of sensible cotton pants and comfortable casual sweaters and cheeky girl-next-door vests of the sort you wore to spruce up that old blouse you were getting tired of. “Oh, Candy. It’s so . . . me.”
    My sister regarded me. “You’re a mess, aren’t you?”
    â€œI know,” I said humbly. “When did I get to be an old maid? You know, lately I’ve been having this fantasy. I’m at a party, like an office Christmas party. All of a sudden, across the room, I see a man.”
    â€œI know the fantasy. He sees you. Your eyes lock.”
    â€œAnd I know, I know at that instant, it’s . . . it’s . . . it’s Mr. Anybody! ”
    Candy sighed. “You’re not making me look forward to turning thirty. Okay. Are you really sure about this style thing? You’re in the Galleria. Style is going to cost.”
    â€œLet it. I want to spend money. You know what Time magazine rated the best job in America? Actuary. Most money for the least risk. And by God I spent seven years with no life, taking my damn exams, and now I’m making some money and I deserve to spend it. I deserve