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

more information. She was lost in Jason Barry Gold. She was replaying their slow dance—step by step, turn by turn. It wasn’t easy after Leonard cranked up the volume on the radio and cheeped, “Oh, I love this piece”—just like he always did when the
Symphony Fantastique
came on. But this time she kept her annoyance to herself. Right then, right there, she understood that
no one was to blame
—not even her father.
    SURE ENOUGH, RACHEL wasn’t talking to Phoebe the next morning. But that afternoon they had it out. Rachel didn’t mention Jason Barry Gold’s name even once. Instead, she made the case that Phoebe had abandoned her at the party—
even
though Rachel was the one who drove off without telling Phoebe she was
driving off.
At least, that’s how it seemed to Phoebe. She said, “I thought you left. I looked all over for you.”
    â€œObviously you didn’t look all over,” said Rachel. “Because I was in the bathroom. Okay?”
    â€œFor forty-five minutes?”
    â€œI had my period?”
    â€œWell, I thought you’d gone home.”
    â€œWell, you thought incorrectly.”
    â€œWell, sorry.”
    â€œWhatever.”
    Then they drove to the upscale mall at the intersection of Route This and Route That, where they bought Rachel some long-sleeved rugby shirts at the Ralph Lauren store, a peach sleeveless turtleneck at Ann Taylor, and a pair of Guess overalls at Saks Fifth Avenue (by way of Hackensack). By the time they pulled out of the parking lot, they were best friends again. Though Phoebe sometimes wondered why. In truth, Rachel Plotz wasn’t so much nicer to her than Jennifer Weinfelt was. But then, niceness had never been the glue that kept the two girls best friends. Rather, it was loyalty that bound them— loyalty that allowed Phoebe to keep excusing away Rachel’s chronic bitchiness. To know that she had someone to sit with in the cafeteria at lunch, someone to gossip with on the phone at night, someone to drive to the occasional party with on the weekends—someone whose mere existence in her life and phone book served to assuage the persistent fear that she was a complete and total retard—for Phoebe, that was, if not enough, then at least something to hold on to in the sleepless hours of the night.
    THE NAME CALLING had begun in seventh grade. In addition to being termed a retard, Phoebe had been labeled a dexter, a dufus, and a dorkmeister. It wasn’t entirely her fault. There was her bowl haircut, her goofy grin, her good grades, her visible violin case, her no-name sneakers (derided as “skips”), and her body’s stubborn refusal to develop secondary sexual characteristics in keeping with her age group—sure. And yes, thanks to a sudden vertical growth spurt, she occasionally walked into walls, hit her head on hanging plants, that kind of thing. But it was also in seventh grade that Whitehead Middle opened its doors to the school-poor “toughs” of neighboring Riverbank, a dilapidated old fishing and dredging village that cut a two-mile tapeworm beneath the undulating cliffs of the Hudson.
    Several years into the future, Riverbank would be overrun by cash-rich Korean car-company executives, who would bulldoze the old paper-cup factory on the hill to make room for condominiums built in the style of English manor homes. Many would be equipped with sunken Jacuzzis. Almost all would feature exquisite views of the Manhattan skyline. A certain percentage would house obedient tots whose first instruction on the viola would come courtesy of Roberta Fine. (A lesser percentage would seek out Leonard for instruction on the oboe.) Back in Phoebe’s time, however, go-go bars and head shops were still the biggest business in Riverbank, while the two-family houses that lined the town’s elevated main thoroughfare had yet to be vacated by the offspring of the river workers—truck