Read Online Where She Went by Gayle Forman - Free Book Online Page A

you go,” she tells me, pointing to a hedge and a gazebo behind it. “Duck in the gazebo. I’ll lock up.”
    I do as she says and a minute later she’s back at my side. It’s dark in here, the only light the soft glow of a nearby street lamp. Mia puts a finger to her lips and motions for me to crouch down.
    “Where the hell did he go?” I hear someone call from the street.
    “He went this way,” says a woman, her voice thick with a New York accent. “I swear to ya.”
    “Well then, where is he?”
    “What about that park?” the woman asks.
    The clatter of the gate echoes through the garden. “It’s locked,” he says. In the darkness, I see Mia grin.
    “Maybe he jumped over.”
    “It’s like ten feet high,” the guy replies. “You don’t just leap over something like that.”
    “D’ya think he has superhuman strength?” the woman replies. “Ya could go inside and check for him.”
    “And rip my new Armani pants on the fence? A man has his limits. And it looks empty in there. He probably caught a cab. Which we should do. I got sources texting that Timberlake’s at the Breslin.”
    I hear the sound of footsteps retreating and stay quiet for a while longer just to be safe. Mia breaks the silence.
    “D’ya think he has superhuman strength?” she asks in a pitch-perfect imitation. Then she starts to laugh.
    “I’m not gonna rip my new Armani pants,” I reply. “A man has his limits.”
    Mia laughs even harder. The tension in my gut eases. I almost smile.
    After her laughter dies down, she stands up, wipes the dirt from her backside, and sits down on the bench in the gazebo. I do the same. “That must happen to you all the time.”
    I shrug. “It’s worse in New York and L.A. And London. But it’s everywhere now. Even fans sell their pics to the tabloids.”
    “Everyone’s in on the game, huh?” she says. Now this sounds more like the Mia I once knew, not like a Classical Cellist with a lofty vocabulary and one of those pan-Euro accents like Madonna’s.
    “Everyone wants their cut,” I say. “You get used to it.”
    “You get used to a lot of things,” Mia acknowledges.
    I nod in the darkness. My eyes have adjusted so I can see that the garden is pretty big, an expanse of grass bisected by brick paths and ringed by flower beds. Every now and then, a tiny light flashes in the air. “Are those fireflies?” I ask.
    “Yes.”
    “In the middle of the city?”
    “Right. It used to amaze me, too. But if there’s a patch of green, those little guys will find it and light it up. They only come for a few weeks a year. I always wonder where they go the rest of the time.”
    I ponder that. “Maybe they’re still here, but just don’t have anything to light up about.”
    “Could be. The insect version of seasonal affective disorder, though the buggers should try living in Oregon if they really want to know what a depressing winter is like.”
    “How’d you get the key to this place?” I ask. “Do you have to live around here?”
    Mia shakes her head, then nods. “Yes, you do have to live in the area to get a key, but I don’t. The key belongs to Ernesto Castorel. Or did belong to. When he was a guest conductor at the Philharmonic, he lived nearby and the garden key came with his sublet. I was having roommate issues at the time, which is a repeating theme in my life, so I wound up crashing at his place a lot, and after he left, I ‘accidentally’ took the key.”
    I don’t know why I should feel so sucker-punched. You’ve been with so many girls since Mia you’ve lost count , I reason with myself. It’s not like you’ve been languishing in celibacy. You think she has?
    “Have you ever seen him conduct?” she asks me. “He always reminded me of you.”
    Except for tonight, I haven’t so much as listened to classical music since you left. “I have no idea who you’re talking about.”
    “Castorel? Oh, he’s incredible. He came from the slums of Venezuela, and through this