Read Online Otherwise Engaged by Suzanne Brockmann - Free Book Online

he glanced at Pres out of the corner of his eyes. “It’s the right color.”
    “I keep wanting to add ears and eyes right here,” Pres said, pointing to his painting.
    “Maybe you should.”
    “Who’d want a picture of a hippo swimming in the Gulf of Mexico?”
    “I would. I could give it to Mom for her birthday.”
    “Your mom’s birthday is coming up?”
    “Yeah—in a couple weeks.” Zander angled his head to look at the picture again. “I bet she’d like it. It would be … unique. That’s my word for today.
Unique
. It means special.”
    “That’s a pretty hard word.” Pres sat back in his chair and fumbled in his pocket for his cigarettes. “And you learn one every day?”
    The cigarettes weren’t there. He’d quit the night before for good, after not kissing Molly. But God, it hadn’t even been twelve hours yet, and he was dying for a smoke. His hands were shaking—nowonder his damned boat looked like a hippo. This not smoking could very well kill him. But if it meant he’d get a chance to kiss Molly Cassidy, then dammit, he’d die smiling. He pulled out a pack of gum, offering it to Zander too.
    The boy eagerly took a piece. “Thanks.” They both unwrapped the gum and chewed in silence for a moment. “The daily word is Mom’s idea,” Zander finally told Pres after his gum was soft enough to talk around. “I learn how to say it right, and we both learn how to sign it.” He held up the pointer finger of his left hand, and with his right thumb and index finger, he took hold of it and lifted both hands upward. “That’s the sign for
unique.”
    Pres imitated the movement. “That’s
cool.”
    Zander brought both hands up to his face, palms in, and flapped his fingers as if fanning himself. “No,
that’s
cool,” he said with a grin.
    “Very funny. Hey, you know, I was serious about wanting to learn how to sign. Will you teach me?”
    Zander made several rapid motions with his hands. He did them again slower. “If you teach me to swim, I’ll teach you to sign,” he interpreted.
    The sign for
teach
looked as if Zander were pulling information out of his forehead.
    “I don’t know the sign for
scuba
or
snorkel,”
he told Pres, “but that’s what I really want to learn how to do. I know my mom doesn’t want me to, though.”
    “Remember you have to be twelve before you can actually start training to get certified to dive. But maybe by then we can talk Molly into taking scuba-diving lessons too.”
    “Mom?”
Zander gave Pres a disbelieving look.
    “Speaking of your mom, does she know you’re down here at the beach?”
    Zander glanced over his shoulder, and Pres turned also to look back toward the Kirk Estate. From where he was sitting, he could just see the red-tiled roof over the tops of the trees.
    “I told her I was going outside,” Zander said. “If she wants me, she’ll page me.”
    “You have a pager?”
    “Yeah, we just got one. The house is so big, and I can’t always hear Mom when she shouts for me. She says it was driving her crazy. This way, she pages me, and we meet in the kitchen. She says it’sa lot more dignified.
Dignified
was yesterday’s word.”
    “Your mom’s pretty cool.” Pres made the sign for
cool
.
    Zander grinned. “Why don’t you come up to the house? It’s almost time for breakfast. Mom makes the best muffins. And I just got a whole bunch of new CDs from the library. We listen to something new every morning at breakfast. My two favorite composers are Wolfgang Mozart and Alan Menken. Mom says Menken is Mozart reincarnated. That was one of last week’s words. I think Mozart’s probably pretty happy to be called Alan this time around instead of Wolfgang. Who’s your favorite composer?”
    Pres shrugged. “I don’t really have one.”
    “You
don’t?”
Zander’s eyes were huge with disbelief.
    “I don’t listen to music that much.”
    “You
should
. Everyone should. I love music more than anything in the world. I wish I could