Read Online Tart by Jody Gehrman - Free Book Online Page A

me of dead butterflies pinned under glass: beautiful, perfectly preserved, but eerie when they’re so still.
    â€œCan I help you find something?”
    I spin around and there he is, barely two feet from me. His question reverbs off the walls of my mind. Can he help me find something? What am I looking for?
    Of course I’ve thought about this moment. In a town the size of Santa Cruz, running into him was inevitable—I knew that. I’d planned a cold shoulder: aloof, busy, pleasantly cruel. I wasn’t going to get caught up. Now I bite my lip shyly and say, “I’m just looking, thanks,” with all the coolness of a starry-eyed groupie dying for an autograph.
    â€œClaudia Bloom,” he half whispers. I see him swallow, and he folds his arms across his chest, pins his hands in his armpits. We stand there, staring at each other for a dizzy five seconds, until an astonishingly fat woman and her three kids come barreling through the door in search of The Little Mermaid soundtrack. I gnaw on my apple and flip through the bluegrass section aimlessly, trying not to be nervous.
    Why am I nervous? He’s the one with the wife. I flash on a memory of myself digging frantically under his covers, trying to locate my panties amid the tangle of sheets and watching the door for his gun-toting wife at the same time.
    After they leave, a thick silence falls over the store like snow.
    â€œI was just about to close,” he says finally.
    â€œOh, okay—sorry I’ll get—”
    â€œNo.” He laughs. “I mean, you know. Do you mind if I lock the door?”
    â€œWith me on this side of it?”
    â€œExactly. If you don’t mind.” Oh, God. He’s just so damn attractive. There’s some sort of heat coming off him, I swear. An image of our bodies braiding together and tumbling to the floor flashes through my mind. Brain, do not think like that. He’s waiting for an answer. Scoot out the door. Plan of cold, disinterested shoulder is not happening. Abort. Abort.
    â€œOkay. I mean, sure,” I say.
    I watch as he walks to the door (that butt—it slays me), moves the flowerpot inside and turns the key in the lock. “So,” he says, coming back to the bluegrass section, where I’m nervously teething on my apple (the thought of actually eating it now seems repugnant, but the tough skin is comforting between my teeth). “I wasn’t sure I’d see you again.”
    I force myself to stop gnawing on the apple and shrug. “Small town, I guess.”
    He nods. We both start to say something at once; we stop, laugh, start again, interrupting each other once more. “Go ahead,” he says. “I didn’t mean to—”
    â€œNothing—no, I was…” I’ve totally forgotten what I was going to say. “G-go ahead,” I stammer. “You go first.” Claudia, you’ve got a terminal degree, for Christ’s sake—can’t you do better than this? This is thirteen-year-old girl waiting for an invitation to ice cream social, okay? This is not scarf-wearing queen of intellect. That reminds me: must buy scarf.
    â€œUm…I’m just really embarrassed,” he says. “About what happened last week. You know? It looked really bad and everyone was put in an awkward spot and I just…I’d like a chance to explain.”
    â€œOkay…”
    â€œWell, do you want to talk here or…are you hungry?” He nods at the apple. “Is that your dinner?”
    I smile. “Sort of. Yeah, well, I’ve been pretty busy—I guess I am a little bit hungry. Except…” I glance down at the too-tight Goodwill shorts I’ve been wearing for days and my father’s ancient, grease-spotted Calistoga High T-shirt. Did I even comb my hair today? “It can’t be anyplace even remotely nice.”
    â€œWhy—what do you mean?”
    â€œLook at me, Clay. I’m