Read Online Under Cover by Caroline Crane - Free Book Online Page B

was a lifelong
habit.
    She didn’t need my whole itinerary. “I ran
into Stacie Marr,” I said.
    “Yeah? How’s she doing?”
    Grandma knew all about the thing with
Stacie’s dad. I said, “She tried to make me think it was a big
rumor some woman made up. A model who worked for him.”
    “In New York? How’d it get all the way to
Southbridge PD?”
    “I asked her that. She did a quick reshuffle
and said the model went straight to them. Either she didn’t plan
the story very well, or she thinks I’m a total idiot.”
    “Hmpf,” said Grandma. “I’m sure our
Southbridge guys would look for something to back it up before
they’d run him in. They did run him in, didn’t they?”
    “I think so. Maybe they’re still
investigating. I could ask Maddie’s boyfriend.”
    “If he’ll talk. Cops like to keep their
secrets.”
    “I pretended to go along with her,” I said,
“but now I wish I hadn’t. It’d be fun to see what she comes up
with.”
    “She still living at home?”
    “She didn’t say, but he isn’t. He has a place
in the city.”
    “Just as well, keep him away from her. Horny
old guy.” Grandma wound up the vacuum cord.
    “She thinks he’s good-looking,” I said.
    “Phooey. I never thought so. She must be on
the defensive, or something.” Grandma had known the Marrs when they
lived on Riverview.
    The afternoon had left me exhausted, mostly
from frustration. I couldn’t face a whole summer not earning any
money, and with Ben going away at the end of it. What was my life
coming to?
    Maybe it wouldn’t make a lot difference about
Ben going away. Not if I was losing him, which was how it seemed,
with Miss Brown Shorts, and all. There were too many other chicks
out there for him to bother with me.
    I plodded through the week hardly seeing Ben
at all, even at school. He was busy boning up for exams. I could
understand that. What I couldn’t understand was why he took that
stupid job when it was almost the end of his senior year and he had
finals coming. Was it to get away from me? Or was I being
ridiculously self-centered and it had nothing to do with me?
    Let’s face it; I didn’t understand Ben at
all. Maybe I wasn’t as good with Asperger’s as I thought.
    I especially wasn’t prepared for the way he
kept ignoring me. Or not so much ignoring me as treating me like
one of the public instead of someone who should have been special
to him. I wasn’t just any old customer at Frosty Dan, I was me, Cree Penny. You would never know it from the way he
acted. I might have to go back to my dream of Broadway just to stay
alive. A girl needs something to live for. But I wanted to live for
Ben.
    Thoughts of Broadway got me job-hunting
again. Friday afternoon I tried calling Phil Reimer to ask if there
was anything at The Chronicle that I could do, like
answering phones or making coffee. Phil wasn’t there and the person
who took my call said there was nothing at the moment.
    Or any moment, most likely. The story of my
life.
    I went down to the basement where Grandma
stacked all the old newspapers in a recycle bin. I dug out the want
ads and took them upstairs to my room.
    There wasn’t much. Not even enough to keep me
awake. I didn’t know I’d fallen asleep until I heard a car outside.
It couldn’t be Mom. She never came that early.
    It was Ben’s truck in the driveway.
    Grandma shouted from downstairs, “Hunk’s
here!” I heard her going outside.
    I ran a comb through my hair and tried to
remember what day this was. Friday? Late afternoon or early
evening. Ben should have been at work. Was this some kind of
emergency? I hurried downstairs.
    I almost melted at the sight of his smile.
Grandma had been flirting with him, as she always did, but the
smile was for me.
    “Feel like eating?” he said.
    “Eating?”
    “Like when you put food in your mouth, and
chew it, and swallow.”
    It sounded gross the way he said it, but that
was Ben.
    I said, “Can I do a quick change first? I
feel