Love Off-Limits by Whitney Lyles

Author:Whitney Lyles
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Simon Pulse
Published: 2009-03-03T16:00:00+00:00

Grandma Jones lit a cigarette while Natalie pried open the old trunk. Jo and Vincent sat on the edge of Grandma Jones’s bed. Natalie had invited Jeremy to join them, but he was meeting a group of people from his Spanish class to study for a test the next week. Spanish wasn’t his favorite subject and she was impressed and surprised that he’d taken the extra time to study for the quiz. It was more Jeremy’s style to blow off studying for an afternoon at the skate park. He didn’t mind settling for Bs or Cs on tests if it meant he could hang out with his friends. He’d told Natalie to look for “something good” in Grandma Jones’s trunk—“but nothing too girly.” He’d be interested in whatever she found only if it was cool.

“Don’t tell your mom I’m smoking in here.” Grandma Jones waved the smoke toward the open window of her bedroom.

“I won’t.” Her mother probably already knew anyway. Grandma Jones always smoked in her bedroom against Natalie’s parents’ wishes.

“Where did you get this?” Natalie asked as she pulled out a red, white, and blue top hat.

“Grandpa wore it one year for a Fourth of July parade.”

Natalie put it on and her friends began to laugh.

“It’s a little crooked,” Jo said.

Next Natalie pulled out a gold-sequined one-piece with bell-bottoms and a turtleneck collar. “You wore this?” Natalie asked.

“Oh yes. I wore that in the seventies to a New Year’s Eve party. I think there are platform shoes in there to match. I was quite the hit that night.”

“That thing is classic,” Vincent remarked.

Natalie tossed it to him. “Here. One of you guys can try it on.” Vincent passed it to Jo.

“You sure?” Jo held the suit in front of her. “What would Brian think if he saw me in this?”

Vincent was quiet. Jo had never been shy about sharing her feelings around her two best friends. But Vincent always remained quiet whenever Brian came up.

Over the years Natalie and Jo had turned to Vincent as an expert on guys. Back when Natalie had first started hanging out with Jeremy, she’d always asked Vincent questions about guy things, like what kind of Christmas present she should get him or how long she should wait before calling him back. Vincent always had good advice. But whenever Brian came up, Vincent sort of tuned out.

“There’s plenty more in here,” Natalie said as she began to pull out one thing after another.

Prints William wagged his pinky-shaped tail as he hovered around Jo’s feet. Aside from Jeremy, Jo was one of the few people who actually petted Prints William with vigor. Most people patted him gently, then realized their hand reeked so bad they avoided the dog like the plague.

They discovered all kinds of treasures in the trunk from Grandma Jones’s past. She had saved clothes and shoes from every single decade of her life.

“This would make a cool history project,” Jo said.

“I was thinking the same thing,” Vincent added. “You could make a fashion display at school as a glimpse into several decades with all this stuff.

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