Read Online Sass & Serendipity by Jennifer Ziegler - Free Book Online

had always liked that rebellious little lock. Daphne had had it since she was a toddler, and Gabby used to twirl it in her fingers when they snuggled up together. Maybe all those years of her fiddling with it had made it so mutinous.
    “So we came up with a plan,” Gabby said, resisting the urge to toy with the cowlick. “Mom and I will find us a new place. You’ll get a job and contribute a small amount with each paycheck. Plus, Mom and I are going to ask for more money at our work. If Mom gets her hours extended, you’ll have to help out more around the house. All right?”
    “Okay,” Daphne said, without looking up. She sniffed a few times and turned the page, revealing more shots of their snow-day revelry.
    Gabby sighed. “I don’t get it,” she said. “Why do you always do this to yourself?”
    “Do what?”
    “This.”
Gabby waved toward the photo albums. “Wallow in the past. It’s not like it can magically change the present, you know.”
    Daphne glanced up at her with watery, red-rimmed eyes. “I know. And I don’t always do this to myself. Just now and then. When I feel like it.”
    “But why do it at all? It only makes you depressed.”
    “No, it doesn’t.”
    “What are you talking about? You’re bawling your eyes out.”
    “Of course it makes me cry. But then I feel better.”
    “What? You’re making no sense. If reliving the past upsets you, stop doing it.”
    “I like remembering that there were nice times. That things weren’t always so crazy.”
    “Whatever.” Gabby shook her head.
God
. It was like the girl wanted to be miserable.
    That was the thing about memories. It was impossible to recall only the good ones. Instead, you had to take good, bad, sad, and embarrassing all in the same bundle, like a cable TV plan.
    Gabby would give anything to eradicate all the awful moments of her life, to take a magic squeegee and wipe awayher parents’ fights, her grandmother moaning in a hospital bed, excruciating situations at school, and all traces of Sonny.… Not that her time with Sonny had been bad; remembering it just brought on bad feelings. And yet here was Daphne deliberately seeking out such emotions, purposely reviving them. It seemed so pointless and reckless.
    Daphne flipped another page to reveal an eight-by-ten glossy of Gabby in the midst of a hellish puberty, all braces and pimples and crookedly cut bangs.
    “Oh, please!” Gabby exclaimed. “At least turn the damn page. I really hate that picture.”
    “I like it,” Daphne said in a completely serious tone. “You look so … happy. You never smile that way anymore.”
    Gabby gazed down at her younger, metal-enhanced grin. It was true. She did look happy, in a goofy and completely oblivious way. That girl’s biggest worry was that she’d never learn how to do a perfect cartwheel; she couldn’t even fathom how much suckage was just waiting to happen to her.
    Growing up, it seemed, was just a series of disenchantments. First you find out there’s no Santa Claus; then you find out there’s no such thing as a happily-ever-after. Then you end up working some soul-sapping job where you have to wear red knit polyester and get bossed around by an evil ghoul.
    So of course Gabby didn’t smile that way anymore. She knew things now that that girl didn’t.

 
    “Are you sure you won’t have any other units available in the next few weeks? … I see.… Yes, I understand.… Please hold on to my number and call me if anything should open up.… Thank you.” Mrs. Rivera turned off her phone and stood staring out her bedroom window.
    Gabby waited a few beats before saying “So … no luck, huh?”
    “No.”
    Just one tiny word, and it sounded distant, feeble. Gabby wanted to spring forward and throw her arms around her mom. Instead, she forced herself to stay in the squeaky vinyl office chair in front of her mom’s desk. The last thing Mom needed was for Gabby to behave like a scared little girl. She should act