Read Online What She Saw... by Lucinda Rosenfeld - Free Book Online

clogged—that Phoebe settled her score with Pringle’s most notorious bitch. Their eyes met for no more than a second.
    It was a second that Phoebe would replay for months to come.
    And it was a second that inspired Phoebe to succumb to the sensation of Jason Barry Gold himself—to press her stunted hips into his pleated pants and close her eyes. That way, she could enjoy the friction between them without having to think about its origin. She was squeamish about sex, but she wasn’t not interested.
    THE NIGHT PROGRESSED. The ranks of more and less embarrassing relatives began to thin. The buffet table was cleared and filled again—this time with two enormous chocolate tarts, one in the shape of a 1, and the other in the shape of a 6. Whereupon deejay Johnny Jamtastic interrupted the musical proceedings to wish the birthday girl “a really good one,” prompting Aimee Aaron’s twenty-five best friends to break into song— “Happy Birthday,” in particular. At which point, sweaty and exhausted, Phoebe and Jason parted ways—Jason in the direction of the cake, Phoebe in the direction of Rachel Plotz. But where had she gone? And could she have been mad enough to leave without Phoebe? And what was Phoebe supposed to do now— now that it was twenty to twelve?
    If he didn’t hear otherwise, Leonard had promised to swing the Electra around at midnight. So Phoebe would have to call home now if she was driving back with Rachel, who lived in Franklin Lakes, a good twenty-five minute drive from Whitehead. Which is why Phoebe always made backup arrangements to get home, even if Rachel always ended up driving her there. But if she called to cancel Leonard, and Rachel really
had
left, then how would she ever get back to Whitehead?
    Phoebe circled the ballroom a final time, pausing here and there to inquire as to her erstwhile best friend’s whereabouts— all to no avail. (“Rachel Plotz was here?” was the common refrain.) Eventually resigned to the idea that Rachel had left without her, she decided to pay a quick visit to the fortune-teller. For a Carmen, she looked pretty Anglo-Saxon. She had a small, turned-up nose, a pale blond bun, and a freckly forehead. She reached for Phoebe’s hand with her long, gem-laden fingers. “Your life line is long,” she purred. “What else can I tell you?”
    Phoebe kept her voice low. “How old will I be when I lose my virginity?”
    Carmen ran her index finger down the length of Phoebe’s thumb, then diagonally across her palm in the direction of her wrist. Then she came to an abrupt halt, gazed up and into Phoebe’s eyes with her own watery blue ones, and whispered, “You’ll be nineteen.”
    â€œNineteen?” Phoebe croaked in frustration.
    â€œYou’ll appreciate it more at that age,” clucked Carmen.
    â€œI’m sure I will,” grumbled Phoebe.
    Then she made her way over to the coat check.
    â€œThanks so much for having me,” she told Aimee Aaron on her way out.
    â€œThanks so much for coming!” said Aimee.
    Phoebe might have said good night to Jason Barry Gold as well. But he was currently huddled with his lacrosse-team buddies, and the prospect seemed daunting. Instead, like a suburban Cinderella, she scurried out the side entrance and into her father’s waiting car. “Hi, Dad,” she said, relieved to find none of her classmates watching. (It was bad enough getting picked up by your father; getting picked up in a barge with a taped headlight was unspeakable.)
    The two of them vanished into the maze of malls, car dealerships, plastic-surgery offices, and discount bedding outlets that passed for “the way home.”
    â€œDid you have a good time?” Leonard asked her somewhere between Bloomingdale’s and Bennigan’s.
    â€œIt was okay,” she told him.
    He didn’t ask any more questions. She didn’t volunteer any