Blue Sky Hill [03] Beyond Summer by Lisa Wingate

Author:Lisa Wingate [Wingate, Lisa]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Family Life
ISBN: 9781101456163
Google: DJ0cgXNpWiwC
Amazon: B005D5F1QK
Publisher: Penguin
Published: 2010-07-06T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter 21

Shasta Reid-Williams

I hadn’t ever pictured myself as a teacher. Honestly, I hadn’t ever thought of myself as anything but Daddy’s girl, and then the girl my daddy didn’t want anymore. After that, all I could think about was getting a boyfriend to love me the way my daddy didn’t, and then finally being in love with Cody, getting married, and starting my own family to replace the broken one I grew up in. All my life, I was part of somebody else—somebody’s girl, because that’s what I needed to be. Now I was Benji and Ty’s mama and Cody’s wife, but it never crossed my mind to wonder what else I could be—until the day we were supposed to start tutoring students in the reading class.

I stood looking at myself in the mirror—just stood there in my bra and panties with fifteen outfits piled on the bed. I’d tried every one of them on and yanked them back off, because I couldn’t decide what somebody’s reading tutor oughta wear. It didn’t matter what I put on. I still looked like a total poser that nobody would want for a reading tutor. A week of training doesn’t turn you into someone totally different, like Cinderella heading to the ball. The Literacy Here Group can put you in a class and show you how to use the curriculum materials and teach you ways to relate to adult learners and send you home with videos where other tutors talk about their experiences and their methods. They can try every way in the world to get you ready, but they can’t give you confidence in yourself. Deep down, after all the training, you’re still the same raggedy girl. Whoever ended up with me for a tutor was gonna take one look and laugh their head off.

The phone rang, and I knew it’d be Tam. She was probably out in the driveway waiting for me. She probably looked like Hannah Montana, headed to Beverly Hills 90210.

I picked up the phone and said, “Yeah, hey, I’m almost ready. I couldn’t decide what to wear.” As soon as I said it, I wished I wouldn’t’ve. Someone like Tam probably never had trouble deciding what to wear.

She laughed on the other end of the phone. “T-shirt and jeans,” she said. “Remember, they said not to show up in anything that looked too intimidating. By intimidating, I think they mean expensive.”

“Do you own anything that doesn’t look expensive?” I asked, and she scoffed.

“Just get dressed, all right? We’d better be going. Barbie took off with Fawn again, so I’m taking the sibs with me, and you know how that usually turns out. Prepare yourself.”

“She’s gone again?” For the past week, Tam’s stepmother’d either been passed out in bed, or partying with her friend Fawn. We’d had to drag the kids along to training every single day. Barbie just walked out the door whenever she felt like it, and figured somebody was gonna look after her babies. I couldn’t imagine doing that to kids, especially after their daddy’d just left them.

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