Lies I Tell Myself by Beth Vrabel

Author:Beth Vrabel
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Atheneum Books for Young Readers
Published: 2022-06-21T00:00:00+00:00

FIFTEENTH LIE: CLEMENTINE CAN’T MAKE ME DANCE.

A couple of days later Jack and Gigi took me to the doctor to get the stitches out of my forehead. “Best I could do,” he said as he pulled the last stitch. The scar looked like a thin pink worm. I bet one of the bulges was a rock.

Gigi parked the station wagon in front of the ice cream shop after we left the office. “How about we get a sundae?” she said. Her face was a little pale. I had held her hand while the doctor snipped the stitches, and she definitely had been squeezing me harder than I was her.

Jack nodded his chin toward Scales of Wonder. “Maybe you two wouldn’t mind if I went over there.”

Gigi’s forehead wrinkled. “The animal store?”

Jack shrugged. “I don’t have to go. Just an idea.” He rubbed the back of his neck.

“No, that’s cool,” I broke in. “Tell Charlie I said hi.”

Jack shook his head. “Not talking to a turtle,” he muttered, and stomped across the street.

Gigi watched him go. “I’ll never understand that man.” She pulled a folded square of paper out of her pocket, rubbed her thumb and forefinger across it, and then put it back in her pocket. She smiled when I asked what it was, but she didn’t answer.

“Oh, gross!” I said. “That’s a love note, isn’t it?”

Gigi laughed, throwing back her head. For a moment, something in my chest collapsed, like one of those craft tables that fold in half. My mom used to laugh like that too. Gigi didn’t notice me rubbing my knuckles against my ribs. She ruffled my hair and unbuckled her seat belt.

Alyssa grinned as we walked into the ice cream shop. She had been at a table with the writer, whose laptop was closed and pushed to the side. Two empty ice cream dishes were in front of them. “Raymond!” she exclaimed. “I was just telling Arthur about your dancing. He might put it in his book!”

Gigi raised an eyebrow at me. “You dance?”

I shrugged. “Not professionally.”

Arthur waved me over to his table. “Don’t worry if you don’t want to be in a book. I haven’t finished a single chapter since that peach,” he whispered, and his eyes slid toward Alyssa, who was now behind the bar. “I’m going to ask her on a date.”

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