Read Online The Smart One by Ellen Meister - Free Book Online Page A

from Lydia, I’d have to gag her and bind her and lock her away.
    “Maybe a neighbor,” Joey said.
    Clare lit up. “Like Mrs. Bianco!”
    “Dawling,” Joey said, imitating Helen Bianco’s smoker’s rasp. “I can’t keep my hands off your pepperoni. You make me so hot I could…” Here she pretended to succumb to a disgusting smoking jag and Clare laughed in delight. I was too distracted by the terrible thought of Lydia’s predicament to join in the fun. What had happened to her? She was a poor immigrant in a strange country with no friends or family. Where did she go? Who did she turn to? Did she go back to Hungary?
    I glanced back at the letter to see if there was a date, but there wasn’t. I did some quick math and figured it had been about twenty years since Lydia left. If the letter was indeed from her, Kenny might have a grown-up brother or sister somewhere.
    The thought gave me a shiver, compounded by the fact that I was still wearing wet clothes. I started to tremble.
    “You look cold,” Clare said.
    “I’m freezing.”
    “Let’s go home and change,” she said. “Joey, go borrow something more appropriate from Renee’s closet so we can go next door and get showered and cleaned up.”
    “I’m on it,” Joey said, dashing from the room.
    “Wait!” Clare shouted after her. “Put the gown back! And the letter!”
    Before Joey could answer, the doorbell rang.
    Clare looked at me. “Who could that be?”
    I shrugged.
    “I’ll get it!” Joey shouted, her footsteps trampling back down the stairs.
    “Not in your underwear!” I called, knowing full well Joey wouldn’t listen. I quickly folded the letter and stuck it in mybra—the only dry spot on my body—then pulled off my shoes and socks and rushed from the mudroom, but it was too late. By the time I got to the front door, it was wide open and Joey stood there, in her panties and bra, talking to the Goodwins.
    “Look,” she exclaimed, “midgets! Aren’t they cute?”
    At that moment, I wished I had the power to disappear. Or spontaneously combust. Anything but have to endure the chagrin of seeing the Goodwins suffer such a horror of insensitivity.
    “Joey!” I admonished. “I’m so sorry,” I said to the couple. “She doesn’t always think before she speaks.”
    Mrs. Goodwin waved the comment away. “Nothing we haven’t heard before.”
    “Besides,” her husband added with a wink, “we think she’s cute, too.” He looked from me to Clare, who had followed me from the mudroom, and said, “You two, however…”
    Clare covered her mouth with her hand, horrified. “God! I can imagine how we must look!”
    I explained what we had been doing and why we were caked with mud. All the while, Mr. Goodwin stared quizzically at Joey.
    “I just realized why you look so familiar,” he said, pointing at her face. “You’re Joey Bloom from Phantom Pain!”
    Joey ran her hands through her mud-caked curls and nodded.
    “I knew it!” he said. “‘Tiger Attack’ was a monster hit. I loved that video—must’ve watched it a hundred times!”
    Joey barely smirked. “Thanks.” She shrugged.
    Mr. Goodwin stuck out his hand. “I’m Teddy Goodwin,” he said, “and this is my wife, Alicia.”
    “Teddy works in the video business,” Alicia Goodwin said. “He’s in postproduction.”
    “Cool,” Joey said.
    “In my spare time I’m also a songwriter,” he added. “Kind of a hobbyist, but I have some edgy rock tunes.” He fingered the fringe of hair that extended just past his collar, as if he were suddenly conscious of this modest symbol of hipness. “Do you still sing?”
    Joey took a step back, planted her feet apart, and belted out the beginning of “Tiger Attack,” her band’s one-hit song, in a voice so strong I was momentarily stunned:
    “We didn’t go to Paris or on any damn plane ride, but I showed him how to sweat when the radiator died!”
    Man. If Joey’s drug habit had taken its toll, you’d never know it