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FOR THE REST OF THE WEEKEND, THE HOUSE IS EERILY quiet. We all stake out safe spaces. Mom in the living room. Aunt Marty on the sunporch. Mr. Arthur on the third floor, and me in my room. The house doesn’t smell like fresh paint anymore. But it feels like a fresh wound. “Finish your milk, Ruthie,” Mom says to me at dinner. Aunt Marty isn’t there. She said she had to take care of 136
something in Wilmington, but the stiffness in her voice made me not believe her. I think she just wanted some time alone. I finish my milk. Mr. Arthur doesn’t even mention that milk is Delaware’s state beverage the way he does practically every night. Like my mom and me, he chews quietly, then excuses himself from the table and disappears. Up in my room, my head feels like cotton candy. I don’t know what to think. My emotions are on overload. So, I decide to focus on the one thing in my life that makes perfect sense: the Perry Plan. Now I know exactly what I have to do. It’s lunchtime at school, and the library is deserted. Except, of course, for Walter Maynard, who’s online researching nuclear waste disposal for an extra-credit report. I know this because I sit next to him at the computer bank and he tells me about it while he stares straight at my boobs. Not that I’m wearing my Sharpie bra anymore. But that’s not stopping Walter. “Yucca Mountain can only hold the waste for ten thousand years,” he says, eyes shifting from one boob to the other. “What then?” I cross my arms, face the computer screen, and say, “I can’t worry about that now, Walter.” “If we don’t worry now, who ever will?” He has a point. Still, I have work to do. And no way can 137
Page 3:
Mary Hogan
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15 IF AUNT MARTY WEREN’T SMACK IN
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SHE WALKS INTO CLASS TEN MINUTES AF
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“DUCK.” That’s the first word
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“Wasn’t the president’s daugh
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“If it isn’t P. Nerdy in his ga
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IT WAS DELICIOUSLY WARM OUT, ONE OF
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The two of us were trapped in a mat
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you see all four of them? They’re
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MOM HAS HER FEET PROPPED UP ON OUR
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Mom—her kinky reddish-gray curls
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ping powerhouse, Odessa, Delaware,
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when I’m in love with a boy who h
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four, but it felt like forty. We le
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a giant looping ramp. Suddenly, I s
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and Destruction” lectures. “Eve
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Before I could figure out what to s
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I laughed, too. Tried to look as ca
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“Do you have these in red?” she
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what everyone else did. “These cr
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sure they’d been ironed. Everythi
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in front of other males, about not
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“WE CAME ALL THIS WAY FOR A DAY ?
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“Who told you?” my mother asked
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The last thing I saw were Aunt Mart
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Far back in the corner of my closet
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emember it. Like the soft, warm com
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asking Aunt Marty for advice about
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un both hands down the front of her
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Mom is speechless. Her hair is a kn
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She slams the freezer door shut in
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WE’RE TOO LATE. BY THE TIME I BRI
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“We have company!” he exclaims.
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ack). He’d round a corner, wearin
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I’d say, “Sure,” without worr
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I wiggle my freshly painted toenail
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“Thanks,” I say, calling after
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But—and this is a humongous but
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Arthur turned into a puppy. I kept
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IF AUNT MARTY WEREN’T SMACK IN TH
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the wall that separates the living
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about your birth.” “What have y
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“She was the only member of my fa
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Quietly, she repeats, “There is o
Page 93 and 94: Swiveling, she turns her back on me
Page 95 and 96: corn. I want to bury my face in it
Page 97 and 98: “Check this out,” Perry says, s
Page 99 and 100: We sit. On the white couch. Like tw
Page 101 and 102: Aunt Marty steps back and watches o
Page 103 and 104: “I want my daughter to be prepare
Page 105 and 106: AUNT MARTY’S CAR SMELLS LIKE HER
Page 107 and 108: loop of their relationship going. I
Page 109 and 110: “I know.” Truth be told, it’s
Page 111 and 112: sunscreen, and something I can’t
Page 113 and 114: Only, when I see Frankie, she hands
Page 115 and 116: IT’S THE SMELL OF CINNAMON AND BU
Page 117 and 118: Aunt Marty beams. She races ahead,
Page 119 and 120: Lilah impatiently asks, “What siz
Page 121 and 122: “Nothing,” I say. “Good. Now
Page 123 and 124: Shop, the Gap, Tower Records, Banan
Page 125 and 126: Serrano is as excited to see Celest
Page 127 and 128: “A Cosmopolitan, please,” Aunt
Page 129 and 130: Celeste and Frankie excitedly bob t
Page 131 and 132: ultimate ego trip.” Caressing my
Page 133 and 134: oth heart and soul. Trust me. That
Page 135 and 136: “That’s why I’m here in Odess
Page 137 and 138: IT’S ABOUT NINE O’CLOCK WHEN WE
Page 139 and 140: fill my daughter’s head with garb
Page 141 and 142: “You don’t hate me, Fay. You ha
Page 143: My mother moves even closer to me,
Page 147 and 148: I can barely breathe. “You busy S
Page 149 and 150: “Props?” “You know, setting s
Page 151 and 152: your nose, one eyebrow or the other
Page 153 and 154: “Tell your mother the truth.” M
Page 155 and 156: THROUGH THE BUS WINDOW, WE BOTH WAT
Page 157 and 158: “Let’s jam!” he shouts. The G
Page 159 and 160: scope out each mouth-watering possi
Page 161 and 162: “We’ll make it,” Perry says w
Page 163 and 164: appears on the pay line, an astrona
Page 165 and 166: “We can’t.” “We must!” I
Page 167 and 168: completely. My body jingles like a
Page 169 and 170: fantasies. The reality of it is . .
Page 171 and 172: that. Things are flying smoothly ag
Page 173 and 174: twenty minutes, then twenty-five. I
Page 175 and 176: the blood throbbing through my temp
Page 177 and 178: Aunt Marty brings my mother Little
Page 179 and 180: speaks to the coroner about Mr. Art
Page 181 and 182: emember most about Mr. Arthur. It d
Page 183 and 184: “Me?” At that moment, I realize
Page 185 and 186: of the talking.” Then she added,
Page 187 and 188: my head: For fourteen years, I’ve
Page 189 and 190: As I look at my mother standing the
Page 191 and 192: This year, three weeks after Mr. Ar
Page 193 and 194: last pool of syrup with my last for
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much smaller) head. “So do I.”
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WE HAVE ONE LAST FAMILY DINNER—TH
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makeup somehow remains perfect), Au
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in Dover Mall as often as Mom will
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“Hey,” he says to me, nodding a
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ETERNAL THANKS TO THE AMAZING Amand
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THE SERIOUS KISS PRETTY FACE
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Copyright PERFECT GIRL. Copyright
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