Read Online Two Parties, One Tux, and a Very Short Film about The Grapes of Wrath by Steven Goldman - Free Book Online Page A

projectile-vomit across the room. I consider faking it, but I’m afraid it might bring the real thing back up. Carrie eyes me warily. “Are you going to school tomorrow?”
    â€œYeah. I’m going.”
    â€œAnd …?”
    â€œI think I might write the paper.”
    â€œYou suck,” Carrie declares at my forehead, since I won’t lift my face and look her in the eyes. “I can’t believe how badly you suck. You’re going to chicken out. What a complete wimp. I can’t believe you.”
    Unable to face my sister, I shift my attention to M.C., who is still smiling. She has a piece of green apple skin stuck between her teeth, right next to her left upper canine. I start to tell her, then get embarrassed, and decide instead that it goes well with the freckles on her nose. Something about the freckles and the apple she is chomping on makes me think of Tom Sawyer. M.C. looks out of place in our living room. She should be out convincing someone to whitewash a fence.
    I really want to ask her about Curtis, but I don’t thinkI’m supposed to know and anyway, I’m not sure how I could ask her. I try to imagine her kissing Curtis, but I just can’t see it. They don’t fit in the same picture. I can imagine M.C. kissing, in fact I can imagine
kissing
M.C., which isn’t something I have thought about before—I am suddenly uncomfortable.
    M.C. stops chewing for a moment, the half-masticated apple still in her mouth, and shakes her head. The smile never leaves her face. Holding a hand in front of her mouth to block our view of its contents, she declares, “Nope. No paper. You can’t write the paper. You have to show the film.” Mary Clarissa frequently speaks in pronouncements.
    â€œI don’t recall putting you in charge of my life.”
    â€œSorry, but it’s true. Can’t chicken out now.” She returns to chewing happily.
    â€œBut I read the book!”
    I don’t write the essay. It isn’t so much that I’m convinced by Carrie and M.C.; I’m just not sure how I would explain to Curtis that I changed my mind. So instead I rip a piece of paper out of my math notebook and jot down all the ways my movie is thematically connected to
The Grapes of Wrath
, in case Curtis challenges me. I come up with four pretty good ones and two more that are kind of a stretch. I don’t include Steinbeck as Satan, which would make it seven. I’m back to feeling pretty confident and I start to pick up the phone to call David, which is whatI would normally do, but I don’t want to hear him tell me I’m an idiot again. It occurs to me that I always call David. He almost never calls me. Maybe he wouldn’t want me to call. I’m still sitting at my desk, phone in hand, ten minutes later when my mother calls me down for dinner.

CHAPTER 11
A Short Dramatic Presentation of a Wells Family Dinner, Followed by a Quick Review of the Entire History of My Love Life
    So, dinner
    Usual chaos. Conversation of a sort. I imagine conversations the way they appear in books. Orderly paragraphs, properly punctuated. Not in my house.
    Carrie and I eat at the breakfast bar, perched on lime-colored vinyl-covered stools that must have been popular in some decade I missed. Mom usually eats standing on the other side of the bar. Tonight she’s just standing with her glass of white wine. I always worry a little when Mom isn’t eating her own cooking. Maybe she’s waiting for Dad, who called and said he would be home in time for dinner. None of us believed him. He’s still at work.
    Carrie begins:
    â€œDid you buy your prom tickets yet?”
    At least it’s a new topic. I am not up for another discussion about my English project. While I’m answering that I haven’t decided whether or not I’m going, Mom has already jumped in. “Why don’t you take M.C.?”
    Carrie makes a choking noise, which mirrors