Winter Winds by Gayle Roper

Author:Gayle Roper [Roper, Gayle]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-307-78168-0
Publisher: The Crown Publishing Group
Published: 2011-03-02T05:00:00+00:00

Eighteen

JOANNE AND VINNIE STOOD in front of the big brick house with the name Trevelyan on the mailbox. Even with the lawn frost-killed and the flower beds empty of everything but shriveled azaleas and rhododendrons with their leaves puckered shut, it was still a beautiful place.

“I always wanted to live in a house like this,” Joanne whispered. “It’s like a house someone on TV lives in. Not a dumpy little three-room apartment on the third floor of some shabby old boarding house but a real house with lots and lots of rooms.”

“I don’t care if the Sopranos themselves live here. You just get that suitcase, idiot girl.”

“Not the Sopranos.” Joanne shook her head. “The good guys. The Nick at Nite guys. They all live in real nice houses just like this one.”

The yearning for the better life that came with the big house filled Joanne. She knew that people in these big houses loved each other and helped each other. Just look at the Brady Bunch, though she had to admit she didn’t have as much need for a celebrity to sing at her prom as Marcia Brady did, especially since she quit school and never went to a prom. Still, their lives always worked out. Hers never did, no matter how hard she tried.

Except maybe for Vinnie.

“Like you think TV’s real?” Vinnie straightened his leather coat, twisting his neck like his tie was too tight, except he wasn’t wearing a tie. He was wearing a snug blue sweater that showed off his hard abs. Eye candy. “You think they actually live in those houses you see shots of? They’re just front walls, not real houses.”

“They are not!” She stamped her stiletto-booted foot. “They’re real!”

“Sometimes you’re so dumb it scares me.”

“Dumb! I am not. What about when you see them in their living room, huh? Or their kitchen? That’s real, Vinnie. They have such pretty kitchens.” Joanne sighed, then continued in her feathery whisper. “And I’d have my own pretty bedroom and a bed with a canopy thing over it.”

Vinnie threw her another of his scornful looks. “Why do you want a stupid canopy? It just collects dust. And who do you think you are? Some prissy little princess?”

“Just because I want the better things in life doesn’t mean you can mock me,” she hissed. Sometimes he made her so mad! “So just shut up, Vinnie.”

He scowled at her for a minute, his eyes real narrow and mean, and she knew she’d better watch it. He didn’t like it when she spoke like that to him.

“Sorry,” she mumbled.

“Yeah, yeah. That’s what they all say.” He wasn’t convinced.

“I am. Really Really, really.” She put as much sincerity as she could behind her whisper.

“What’s with all the whispering anyway?” Vinnie asked.

“Shh! Mind your manners. I don’t want they should get a bad impression of us.”

He just stared. “Like they’re watching us out their window.” His voice dripped scorn.

Joanne jabbed him in the ribs.

He grunted and glared at her. “You got sharp elbows, idiot girl.

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