Jailbait by Lesleá Newman

Author:Lesleá Newman [Newman, Lesleá]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780307533050
Publisher: Random House Digital, Inc.
Published: 2005-01-02T08:00:00+00:00

TEN

This is horrible. The pits. Worse than the pits. Life without Frank is one gigantic, stupid, worthless bore. It's like when I'm with Frank I'm alive and when I'm not with him I'm dead. It's only Saturday and I wouldn't be seeing Frank today anyway, but still, knowing that I won't be seeing him until next Friday is really getting me down. And to top it all off, today I have to go to Donna Rizzo's stupid sweet sixteen party.

A few months ago, Shirley actually asked me if I wanted to have a sweet sixteen party. “Get real,” I told her. First of all, I'm not exactly sweet—sour sixteen is more like it. And second of all, who would I invite? It's not like I'm friends with any of the girls at my school. The only reason I got invited to Donna Rizzo's party is that her mother made her send an invitation to every single girl in our class.

If only I'd had a chance to intercept the mail before Shirley got her claws on it, she would never have known about it and I wouldn't have to go. But the mail comes in the morning while I'm still at school, so Shirley always gets to it first. And the day Donna's invitation came, Shirley met me at the door with this big smile on her face.

“What's this?” she asked, handing me an envelope with fancy lettering and a bright green frog sticker on it. She stood there breathing down my neck while I opened it, and then when she saw it was a bona fide invitation— in other words, her loser of a daughter actually had a social engagement—she got so excited I thought she was going to faint.

“Oh, Andrea, let me see.” Shirley practically snatched the invitation out of my hand. “Ooh, it sounds like so much fun. What are you going to wear?”

“If you think it sounds so great, why don't you go?” I asked, but she just shot me a look that said You are going to this party, young lady, so here I am.

“Andrea, are you almost ready?” Shirley hollers up the stairs. Since Fred is at the office, she's my chauffeur today.

“Just a minute,” I call down, even though I'm as ready as I'll ever be. I'm wearing my usual dungarees and black sweater, and I'm just stalling for time. But wouldn't you know it, Shirley decides to come upstairs and check out my attire.

“Andrea, you are not wearing that getup to a sweet sixteen party,” she immediately says with a frown. “Don't you want to look nice for a change? Besides, Four Stars is a very fancy place. I'm sure they have a dress code.”

“Well, then maybe I can't go,” I say, my voice full of hope.

“Andrea, don't be silly. I'm sure there's something in here you can wear.” And before I can stop her, Shirley yanks open my closet door and starts exploring.

“What about this?” Shirley pulls out a hanger and waves around the purple dress I wore to synagogue on Yom Kippur.

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