What Happened to Lani Garver by Carol Plum-Ucci

Author:Carol Plum-Ucci [Plum-Ucci, Carol]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

17

"Ambush! Ha-ha." Vince landed about three feet from me, laughing like crazy. "How the hell are you, Claire?"

Phil and Scott landed behind him, cracking up in a goofy way. And I laughed, too, though I never felt so spun around in my life. A part of me wanted to say, "Hey," and be glad to see them. The other half suddenly knew what it was like to be some dork, terrified instead of swooning over their sheer size.

"Going somewhere?" Vince said, like he already knew the answer.

"My dad's."

"I don't think so." Scott stepped up and grabbed me by the wrist, and since all my jerking was no contest for him, he just sounded off while he dragged me a few feet. "Your mom called Macy's cell, said she got home, and you had left her a note saying that you're going on a bus to Philadelphia. She's wigging out, and you ain't going, Claire. No girlfriend of mine is getting on a bus to Filthydelphia."

"My dad is meeting me at the other end!" I twisted my arm, but he had my wrist in a vise grip.

"Oh. Is this the same dad who sparked a doobie and got high with his daughter?"

I quit fighting him and froze.

"Macy!" My yell bounced around in the rafters. "Come out, and tell me you did not also tell my mother that secret!"

That wasn't even how the story actually went. After my fifth chemo treatment when I was totally sick, my dad brought home a joint he got off some musician and let me have a few hits. He didn't even have any himself. I was way past desperate, and he was running low on sanity, watching me suffer while nothing else helped. One of his L.A. musician friends swore marijuana stopped chemo nausea when nothing else worked. I brought it up to Macy once, when she got curious about why I waved the smell away when anyone got high around me.

"I didn't tell her, but I could, if you get on that bus." Her form followed her voice out of the ladies' room.

"We're hiding in the bathroom. Great," I muttered, turning my eyes to Scott, because hypocrisy ran supreme here. "And I haven't seen you with any problem sparking a doobie—"

"I'm not your old man! That's disgusting, Claire! Your mom says you ain't going, and you ain't going." He turned and looked coolly over my shoulder. "Some of us care if you get yourself mugged on a bus. Some people don't."

They were all staring at Lani, who was leaning back against the ticket machine, just chewing his gum like mad and finding something on the floor to stare at.

Lani's eyes moved to watch Vince's feet come slowly toward him. He didn't meet Vince's eyes until Vince spoke up. "What are you doing here, sweetheart? What, you learned your lesson from us about hitting on guys, so now you're gonna try Dern's girl?"

I thought of a porno magazine tossed into the middle of Lani's bedroom floor, shaking us up enough to leave the island for a weekend.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.