Read Online Scarlett Epstein Hates It Here by Anna Breslaw - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Anna Breslaw
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IN.
* * *
The delivery was the following Thursday. It was the first day in Pembrooke history that nobody, not even the stoners, cut class—but attendance didn’t matter because class was shot to hell. Students and teachers alike gathered by the window to watch as the Ordinaria Inc. truck pulled around the school’s cul-de-sac. Gideon was the only one in SAT Prep who didn’t leap up to watch the action—even Mrs. Greer, who was ancient and seemed surprised by nothing, was straining at the window like the rest of them.
Gideon didn’t have to run to the window because he had seen it a million times. He knew the deal. Right on cue, all the guys in class sighed and groaned with disappointment when the Ordinarias weren’t pulled out of the truck in clear Barbie-like casing, naked and on display.
It was marginally classier than that. Each one came in along white rectangular container—sort of a coffin/pastry-box hybrid. As per usual, overlaid on a big pink lipstick kiss print, in the company’s iconic cursive font, was AUTHENTIC PRODUCT , ORDINARIA INC. On each of these, though, was a hastily stuck-on label in standard type instead: MISS ORDINARIA—TEST PRO DUCT .
“You think they’re naked in there, bro?” Dylan Dinerstein asked Paul Watts, because of course.
“No,” Gideon said reflexively. Everyone looked at him. He bit his tongue.
Homely, sweet Lisa Lerner turned to him, her cowlike eyes enormous and pleading.
“They’re gonna be nice, right?” she asked.
It was at this moment that Gideon remembered when his father had once described 2001: A Space Odyssey as a slapstick comedy.
“Yeah, um. Of course they will,” he said.
* * *
Even Gideon had been wondering exactly how much would be different from the Ordinaria proper model, with which he was very well acquainted—a beautiful thirty-to-fifty-year-old ersatz woman, brightened, less weary, and not as caustic as a human female of her age. Sometimes they were so lifelike it was uncanny. But Gideon could always tell by their eyes, the one feature that had frustrated his father to no end. No matter how many new developers or how much money he threw at it, there was something impossible to get just right.
The classroom door swung open, and Gideon noticed theabsence of the familiar whirring noise that Ordinarias made. But there in the doorway was a Miss Ordinaria.
The class fell silent, but their expressions were united: Holy shit
.
Gideon’s breath caught in his throat very unexpectedly. She was gorgeous, in a totally different way than the Ordinarias Gideon had grown up with. Her skin was glowing but still seemed real; her face was just unique enough to pass for a real girl’s. She had a little bit of (improbably becoming) rosacea. She was . . . God, just really sexy . As soon as the thought crossed his mind, he was furious with himself, like his father had just scored a point.
She came in and stood at the front of the room, wearing a slightly outdated tank top and jeans, but she was all the more beautiful for it. The girls glared.
“What’s . . . um . . . what’s your name, sweetheart?” asked Mrs. Greer, who barely knew how to use a smartphone and was trembling ever so slightly.
“Hi, I’m Ashbot.” She faced the class and waved a little, tossed her red hair. “I’m here to get an education, I guess, or whatever.”
“I’d like to educate her so hard she can’t walk tomorrow,” mumbled Chris Thompson, and two boys behind Gideon snickered.
“Have a seat, dear.” Mrs. Greer was so freaked out that she was almost imploring Ashbot.
She whirred softly down the third row of desks, towardGideon’s, and he got a whiff of a super-girlie Bath and Body Works perfume that must have scored high on the Preferred Scent of Eighteen-to-Twenty-Five-Year-Old Men Test. Gideon’s demographic. They were dead on , he thought, stupefied.
She stopped at his desk and stood over him, her green eyes wide and loving. The whole class
* * *
The delivery was the following Thursday. It was the first day in Pembrooke history that nobody, not even the stoners, cut class—but attendance didn’t matter because class was shot to hell. Students and teachers alike gathered by the window to watch as the Ordinaria Inc. truck pulled around the school’s cul-de-sac. Gideon was the only one in SAT Prep who didn’t leap up to watch the action—even Mrs. Greer, who was ancient and seemed surprised by nothing, was straining at the window like the rest of them.
Gideon didn’t have to run to the window because he had seen it a million times. He knew the deal. Right on cue, all the guys in class sighed and groaned with disappointment when the Ordinarias weren’t pulled out of the truck in clear Barbie-like casing, naked and on display.
It was marginally classier than that. Each one came in along white rectangular container—sort of a coffin/pastry-box hybrid. As per usual, overlaid on a big pink lipstick kiss print, in the company’s iconic cursive font, was AUTHENTIC PRODUCT , ORDINARIA INC. On each of these, though, was a hastily stuck-on label in standard type instead: MISS ORDINARIA—TEST PRO DUCT .
“You think they’re naked in there, bro?” Dylan Dinerstein asked Paul Watts, because of course.
“No,” Gideon said reflexively. Everyone looked at him. He bit his tongue.
Homely, sweet Lisa Lerner turned to him, her cowlike eyes enormous and pleading.
“They’re gonna be nice, right?” she asked.
It was at this moment that Gideon remembered when his father had once described 2001: A Space Odyssey as a slapstick comedy.
“Yeah, um. Of course they will,” he said.
* * *
Even Gideon had been wondering exactly how much would be different from the Ordinaria proper model, with which he was very well acquainted—a beautiful thirty-to-fifty-year-old ersatz woman, brightened, less weary, and not as caustic as a human female of her age. Sometimes they were so lifelike it was uncanny. But Gideon could always tell by their eyes, the one feature that had frustrated his father to no end. No matter how many new developers or how much money he threw at it, there was something impossible to get just right.
The classroom door swung open, and Gideon noticed theabsence of the familiar whirring noise that Ordinarias made. But there in the doorway was a Miss Ordinaria.
The class fell silent, but their expressions were united: Holy shit
.
Gideon’s breath caught in his throat very unexpectedly. She was gorgeous, in a totally different way than the Ordinarias Gideon had grown up with. Her skin was glowing but still seemed real; her face was just unique enough to pass for a real girl’s. She had a little bit of (improbably becoming) rosacea. She was . . . God, just really sexy . As soon as the thought crossed his mind, he was furious with himself, like his father had just scored a point.
She came in and stood at the front of the room, wearing a slightly outdated tank top and jeans, but she was all the more beautiful for it. The girls glared.
“What’s . . . um . . . what’s your name, sweetheart?” asked Mrs. Greer, who barely knew how to use a smartphone and was trembling ever so slightly.
“Hi, I’m Ashbot.” She faced the class and waved a little, tossed her red hair. “I’m here to get an education, I guess, or whatever.”
“I’d like to educate her so hard she can’t walk tomorrow,” mumbled Chris Thompson, and two boys behind Gideon snickered.
“Have a seat, dear.” Mrs. Greer was so freaked out that she was almost imploring Ashbot.
She whirred softly down the third row of desks, towardGideon’s, and he got a whiff of a super-girlie Bath and Body Works perfume that must have scored high on the Preferred Scent of Eighteen-to-Twenty-Five-Year-Old Men Test. Gideon’s demographic. They were dead on , he thought, stupefied.
She stopped at his desk and stood over him, her green eyes wide and loving. The whole class
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