Evvie at Sixteen by Pfeffer Susan Beth

Author:Pfeffer, Susan Beth [Pfeffer, Susan Beth]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Young Adult
ISBN: 9781453201053
Amazon: B0CJBSGNJ4
Goodreads: 23435998
Publisher: Open Road Media Teen & Tween
Published: 1988-01-01T08:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TEN

“Pass me the suntan lotion.”

Evvie did as Schyler requested. She watched him spread the liquid over his arms and chest. It hadn’t taken Schyler long to acquire a perfect tan. She, on the other hand, was a blotchy combination of sunburn and freckles. The only one in her family with even the remotest chance to tan well was Claire, and Claire insisted on keeping her complexion creamy white all year round. “I will not pay for a tan now with wrinkles when I’m fifty,” she’d declared when she was ten. Claire believed in advance planning.

“What if there’s a nuclear war?” Sybil had asked at the time. “Then you’ll just end up wrinkled like everybody else in the world.”

“I will never be like everyone else in the world,” Claire had replied.

Evvie grinned at the memory. Claire, of course, had been right, but Sybil had chased her around the house—or was it an apartment that year?—demanding a different answer. Claire proclaimed, Sybil demanded. It had been that way for quite a while.

“A penny for your thoughts,” Schyler said.

“You’d be cheated,” Evvie replied. “They’re not worth that much.”

“That’s all right,” Schyler said. “I’ll take my chances.”

“I was thinking about my family,” Evvie said.

“That’s sweet,” Schyler declared. “You’re a very sweet girl, Evvie.”

“Am I?” Evvie asked. “I doubt Aunt Grace thinks so.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Schyler said. “I’m sure she’s very fond of you. Clark says so. He says in spite of everything, Grace loves your mother and all you girls a great deal.”

“Clark’s very dear,” Evvie said. “But he still believes in Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy. Come to think of it, in my family, he is Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy.”

“Clark says your father is an innovative businessman,” Schyler said. “And that many of his deals have proven quite lucrative.”

“Clark’s right,” Evvie replied. “There have been times we’ve had money to burn.”

“Then what happened?” Schyler asked.

“We burned it,” Evvie said. “That’s the nature of our family.”

“It sounds,” Schyler began, but then he obviously couldn’t think of just how it sounded. “It sounds interesting,” he finally ended with, and Evvie laughed.

“Very interesting,” she replied. “No one’s ever accused us of being boring.”

“I envy that,” Schyler said. “Boring is on my family’s coat of arms. There’s a picture of some ancient knight named Hughes yawning.”

“You don’t really have a coat of arms, do you?” Evvie asked.

“Of course we do,” Schyler said. “Mother researched it. She’s a fanatic on family history, traced hers and Dad’s, all the way back to some ungodly century. I made up the part about yawning, though.”

“I suspected you might have,” Evvie said.

“This is a perfect beach,” Schyler said. He leaned over, and kissed Evvie. “And you are a perfect girl to be on the beach with.”

“No, I’m not,” Evvie replied. “The perfect girl would have a perfect tan.”

“I can overlook that,” Schyler declared, and proved it with another kiss. This one lasted longer, and like the day and the beach was, in its own way, perfect, too.

“Thank goodness for Aunt Grace’s naps,” Evvie said.

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.