Read Online Outrun the Moon by Stacey Lee - Free Book Online Page B

seat, I search for a last glimpse of Tom.
    The sight of Ling-Ling talking to him hits me like a fist to the face. Her gaze is cast demurely, her body angled to show off her slender figure. Ling-Ling’s ma, standing behind her, lifts her cunning eyes to me, and a smugness creeps over her hard features.
    I am tempted to tell William to turn around and, while he’s at it, aim for the crone with the lacquered bun. As soon as Ling-Ling’s ma digs her claws into anything, it is hard to escape.
    As the expression goes, when there is no tiger in the mountain, the monkey declares himself king. Well, let them try to snare Tom. Didn’t he once tell me Ling-Ling’s breath stank of onions? Then again, that was when we were ten and still racing pill bugs.
    I am so consumed by my thoughts that I don’t notice we’ve stopped in front of the St. Francis hotel until the door swings open.
    Elodie Du Lac steps out in a cream-colored coat that perfectly matches her silk gown. She stops short when she sees me in her automobile. Our gazes meet, but I am the first to look away, focusing instead on the wood of the steering wheel.
    Elodie slides in beside me. She doesn’t bother to say hello, so I don’t, either.
    William starts the car again. “How was your dinner, Miss Du Lac?”
    â€œMediocre.” She arranges her gloved hands over a beaded purse. “My pheasant came with an artichoke that looked like a squashed toad on my plate. I wanted to complain, but Maman said that was the way it was and I had to accept it.” She smirks at me, and I realize she is not talking about the artichoke. “Rather dismal way to live life, don’t you think?”
    William doesn’t reply, eyes focused on the road.
    I cough. “For the artichoke?”
    Her rosebud lips crush together, then pop open with a
tsch
! “My papa tells me I am to pretend you are an heiress from China. I am not fond of make-believe.”
    â€œThen I suggest we interact as infrequently as possible.”
    She frowns, reminding me of Tom’s old bulldog, Chop, who never seemed happy, even in front of the meatiest bone. “Suits me fine.”
    She gathers the silk folds of her coat around her, hoods her eyes, and stares straight ahead. A clammy sort of anxiety settles on me. She could make my life very difficult, even if she keeps my secret.
    For the rest of the trip, we sit in thorny silence, made even thornier by a parade down Market Street, which slows traffic to a walking pace. San Franciscans love to parade—even the Chinese, though we generally reserve our processions for funerals.
    When we finally arrive at the school, the house lights are lit, casting golden halos over the brick facade. Elodie hardly waits for William to stop the car before she alights from the cabin. The door nearly swings shut on me, but William grabs it.
    â€œThank you,” I say.
    William winks. “I’ve been catching doors for forty years.”
    Mrs. Tingle waits for us on the stoop. I confirm that my skirts are straight, then follow Elodie into the mansion. She flounces up a winding staircase, but I stop at the foyer, feeling like an intruder.
    â€œPlease wait here,” says Mrs. Tingle, bustling away.
    Ma would disapprove of a door-facing stairway. The door is the mouth through which energy flows into the house, and a staircase opposite causes energy to rush upstairs, leaving the first floor empty. Keeping flowers on the ground level helps encourage energy to linger, but the only vase I see—a heavy white and blue one that looks, ironically, Chinese—sits empty.
    The cut carpet features a peacock, its head turned towardthe name of the school, while an enormous Tiffany chandelier, as big as the one Jack and I saw at the Palace Hotel, hangs over the staircase. More peacocks are pieced into the glass. It’s an interesting choice of mascot. For the Chinese, a peacock symbolizes compassion and healing as the