North of Beautiful by Justina Chen Headley

Author:Justina Chen Headley
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Social Issues, Young adult fiction, Girls & Women, Self-Esteem & Self-Reliance, Family, Health & Daily Living, Personal, Juvenile Fiction, Beauty, Beauty & Grooming, Daily Activities, Fiction, Hygiene, Birthmarks, Health & Fitness, JUV013000, General
ISBN: 9780316025058
Publisher: Little, Brown
Published: 2009-02-01T04:18:50.900462+00:00

“I’ll clean up, Dad,” I assured him as soon as he stalked into the kitchen, his lips tightening imperceptibly at the untidy pile of cut wicks, the boxes of glass jars for the candles, Trevor’s snowdrift of wax flakes powdering the table and the floor.

“That’s okay,” he said amiably, playing the good-natured father for his audience. Norah, thankfully, was still here. He wouldn’t dare display his temper before her, not this powerful coffee buyer for a major company.

“So it looks like I’m taking your wife and daughter to China,” said Norah brightly, almost too sweetly. I heard the challenge in her words, wondered how much Mom had divulged about our family to her when I wasn’t listening. Or was off with Jacob. She continued, “You’re more than welcome to come with us.”

Dad was stuck; I could see it in the set line of his jaw. He couldn’t order Mom not to go, not with Norah around. And he would never consent to visiting China himself, not the source of his humiliation. Still, without a word from Dad, without a shift in his expression, Mom clasped her hands worriedly. I could see our China plans wasting away in the tide of Dad’s unspoken disapproval. I clamped my lips together, swallowing any antagonizing outburst I wanted to make, forced myself to straighten a line of finished candles. In the hallway hung Dad’s prized collection of antique maps. All matter of monsters on these maps of Europe, Africa, and the Americas were called upon to scare off would-be travelers. But those monsters, beastly warnings, never really roamed our lands, not the two-headed flesh-eating creatures, not the gryphons, not the sharp-toothed dragons.

I turned my back on those cautionary maps now to face Mom and reminded her softly, “You always wanted to travel.”

Mom licked her lips, parched of confidence. Dad made an impatient sound. So I told him firmly, “I’ll plan everything with Norah,” glad that Jacob’s mom nodded her assent back at me. The expression on her face stayed resolutely unfathomable, completely unobjectionable so Dad had nothing to pick apart. I continued, “And we’ll be able to see where Merc lives and where he works.” With a meaningful look at Dad, I added, “Wouldn’t it be great to see how he’s really doing?”

“Yes,” he admitted reluctantly.

I returned to the candles, sharing a private smile with Norah and aiming a reassuring one at Mom. Like world describers before me, those mapmakers in the seventeenth century, I had laid down my first faintly drawn border. With that one tentative mark, my world expanded by a few freeing degrees.

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