Read Online The Perfect Place by Teresa E. Harris - Free Book Online Page B

make her braided ponytail smack her on each cheek. “The cash register needs me.”
    And that’s that. Great-Aunt Grace all but shoves us out the door.
    Now it’s my turn to talk. “There’s no need to show me around. I won’t be here long.”
    â€œWhen you leaving?”
    â€œTwo weeks.”
    â€œWhere you going?”
    â€œDon’t know.”
    â€œO-kaaaay.”
    I stop on the cracked sidewalk and face Terrance. “So you can stop trying to be my friend. I won’t be around long enough for all that.”
    â€œTwo weeks isn’t that short of a time. Mayflies only live a day and they get a whole lot done. Mayflies are an insect belonging to the order Ephemeroptera, which literally means ‘lasting a day.’ In case you were wondering.”
    â€œI wasn’t.”
    â€œWhatever. Now for the tour.”
    â€œI said no tour.”
    â€œLook, it’s not a
tour
tour, just me pointing stuff out to you. I’m saying, it’s either this or the shelves.”
    He’s got a point, so I fall silent, and for the next twenty minutes Terrance points stuff out to me. A place that sells frozen yogurt and T-shirts (“I buy all my shirts from there”), a nail salon (“If you’re into that sort of thing”), and the library (“Their science fiction collection is the worst”). I could fit this whole town in my back pocket.
    We pass a storefront with newspaper clippings taped to the window.
    â€œ
Black Lake Daily,
” Terrance says. “Pretty small operation.”
    It sure is. There are only two desks inside, one of which is occupied by a woman with bright red dreadlocks.
    â€œThat’s the editor-in-chief. It’s just her and a photographer, but she manages to crawl up in everyone’s business anyway.”
    As we come upon two men sitting outside a small restaurant playing checkers, one of them says, “Hey there, Mr. T. Hot enough out here for you?”
    â€œI’m telling you, it’s global warming,” Terrance replies. The men laugh and wave him off like a haze of gnats. “That’s Dexter and Raymond,” Terrance tells me as we walk on. “They play checkers every day, no matter the weather. Ray—the one who said hey—his wife, Jane, owns the diner they were sitting in front of. She makes the best meat loaf in the world, and on Wednesdays she does psychic readings.”
    â€œHuh?” I say.
    â€œYou know, she tells you what the future holds.”
    â€œI
know
what a psychic reading is. I just didn’t know you could get one with meat loaf.”
    My mind starts going as fast as Terrance’s mouth. Faster. If the lady who owns the diner can tell the future, maybe she can tell me exactly where to find Dad, so I can tell Mom. Then the two of them can come get Tiffany and me and we can leave Black Lake in our rearview.
    I’m so busy imagining driving out of Black Lake without so much as a glance back that when Terrance stops and says, “Aw, man, there’s trouble ahead. Quick—let’s cross the street!” I keep right on walking.
    â€œHey, Yuck Mouth.”
    Two girls are sitting on the back of a bus stop bench just ahead, lined up like crows on a fence.
    Terrance waves and starts to cross the street, but they’re not going for it. “Come over!” they shout. “We want to talk to you.”
    We walk over to them slowly. They’re chomping on gum, their mouths glistening with tinted lip-gloss.
    â€œGosh, Yuck Mouth, why you wanna act like you don’t know folks today?” one of them says.
    â€œHey,” Terrance says dully.
    I stand a good yard away from him, doing my best to adhere to Moving Rule Number Two:
Be invisible. Don’t do anything to draw attention to yourself.
    â€œSo, Yuck Mouth,” says the same girl who called to him the first time. “Pamela and I were just talking about the best way to way