Read Online My Almost Epic Summer by Adele Griffin - Free Book Online Page A

it could be anywhere.”
    “I need to finish my breakfast before I start looking again.” Lainie zips off to hide in the kitchen.
    Evan and I bang around a few more minutes before he gives up, too. “It’s just a lame-o doodle book, anyhow,” he huffs. “I don’t see what the big deal is.”
    I whirl on him. “The big deal is it’s my future business!”
    “Well, if you want my opinion,” Evan says loftily, “you’re not the right person to be a small-business owner.”
    “That’s not your opinion!” Lainie shouts from the kitchen. “You’re only copying what Mom said about Irene last night!”
    “What?” Picturing the Prior family discussing me over the dinner table is a really bothersome image for me, which isn’t lost on Evan. His eyes get big and round.
    “No, all I . . .” Evan backs off me a step. “Mom was just saying . . . I mean . . . hey, don’t look at me like that, Irene, okay?”
    “You don’t trust I could do what your mom does? Or my mom? You think I’m not as capable as either of them?”
    For a second, I think Evan might turn and bolt upstairs, but he holds his ground. “Be mad if you want, but didya ever notice how Mom acts in her store? How she can remember eighty-six things all at the same time? The nuts and bolts, Mom calls it.” He twists his mouth, scrutinizing me. This expression makes him seem wiser than his age.
    I know what Evan’s getting at, but I refuse to make it easy for him. “You don’t think I’m a nuts-and-bolts person?”
    He pauses, then plunges. “No. You’re more of a sit-around person.”
    “Okay, so basically you’re telling me that I’m lazy ?”
    “Not lazy, just—you know how you are, Irene. How you sit doing those ladies’ heads and you don’t hear if Poundcake’s scratching to come in or notice other stuff going on around you.”
    “Evan,” I begin, “that notebook is my research. I don’t draw heads to amuse myself. I draw heads because I have to.”
    “You’re taking this as an insult, and that’s not how I mean it,” says Evan.
    It’s true and he’s right. In the back of my mind, I fear Judith’s job. And Mom’s. The nuts and bolts of Style to Go got me in trouble. Fill the shampoo dispensers, sweep up the hair, fold the towels, show Mrs. Gonzales to the changing room. It was too much to keep track of, my mind would get scrambled and inevitably I’d make a mess, just like poor, fat Ignatius—only his loving mother didn’t thwack him with the back of a hairbrush every time he screwed up.
    “So what did you all decide I should do with my life?” I ask.
    “Start a paper doll company!” hollers Lainie.
    “Mom thinks you’d make a good teacher,” says Evan, “if you put your mind to it.”
    “And Dad says you have the right concentration for being a lawyer!” Lainie shouts. “But only a lawyer for public defense, like him. Not the kind who has yachts.”
    “Gee, thanks. Tell your parents I’m glad to come in so handy as a subject of debate . . . ” My voice drifts off, because my tone shames me, especially since I’m pretty sure I once read a Bartlett quote about sarcasm being the lowest form of humor. Even though my future is always an extremely interesting topic to me, it feels strange to be noticed by the Priors, and I’m not sure how much I like the sudden spotlight.

A Small Reprimand
     
     
     
    From: [email protected]
    Ireney-bean,
    Carrie my doubles partner is starting to call you my “friend” with quotation marks around it because she thinks I’m making you up. That would be on account of you never e-mailing which consequently results in me never having any news about you.
    Maybe I am making you up????
    But I will keep writing you because I am that kinda pal. Sooo . . . Walt Waterman and me are still Love-All. That’s a little tennis humor for ya. On a recent excavation of his superfine bod I discovered a tat of a snake on his thigh and another on his shoulder of a broken heart.