Confessions of the Sullivan Sisters Read Free Page A

always says “What d’ya know?” (Doesn’t that ever get on your nerves?)
    “Spare me,” Jane muttered.
    “You didn’t have to come,” I said to her.
    “I wanted to go for a swim.”
    “So go for a swim.”
    “I will. Come on, Bridget.” She stood up, gave Bridget a little kick, and walked petulantly toward the water, where Sassy and some other kids were splashing and having chicken fights.
    “Oh no,” Lily said. “Here comes that St. Haggie’s slut.”
    I bristled, since the Radnor girls are always calling us sluts just because we’re Catholic school girls and the boys think that’s sexy for some reason and it makes the Radnor girls jealous. I looked back to see which “slut” was coming toward us.
    Shea Donovan. Who actually is kind of a slut.
    Shea stumbled toward us through the graveyard wearing flip-flops, very short cutoffs, and a T-shirt sawed off at the rib cage over a pink bikini top. Her dark blond hair hung in her face and her eyes were covered by aviator sunglasses. As usual, she was slouching slightly, with this way of ducking her head, ready to flinch, like a dog who’s used to being hit.
    “I heard she’s going out with some guy who’s, like, thirty,” Phoebe said.
    “Is that true?” Lily asked me.
    As if I’d know. “Maybe. I don’t know her very well.”
    “She’s hooked up with every boy on T&A’s lacrosse team,” Phoebe said.
    Shea had arrived, so the gossip stopped. She glanced around in search of a friendly face.
    Sassy ran out of the water then and grabbed her towel. “The water feels great! Hi, Shea. Sit in the sun with us.”
    “Okay.” Shea spread her towel near Sassy’s.
    Shea’s kind of pretty in an off-kilter way, her nose and mouth not quite centered on her face. But the girls at school don’t consider her pretty. Her only friend is this other slutty girl, Caitlin, who wears a lot of eyeliner. There’s something about them…. They seem contagious, as if you could catch misery from being around them. I don’t know why I get that feeling. They might not be unhappy at all.
    After a short swim, Jane came back to her towel, Bridget nipping at her heels. “It’s frickin’ cold,” Jane grumbled. She sat her cold wet butt on my stomach.
    “Ow. Get off me.” I pushed her over. Since I was now wet, I figured I might as well swim. “Want to go in?” I asked Claire.
    “Yeah.”
    We got up and dove into the water. The cold snapped me awake. I swam a few hundred feet out to the wooden float anchored offshore, letting the sun sink into my bones. Across the water I heard laughter and squealing. It didn’t sound like anything unusual. It crossed my mind that maybe somebody had done something mean to Shea.
    By the time Claire and I crawled back onto the shore, it was clear we’d missed something. I glanced at Shea, but she washovering on the sidelines, watching. Bibi was the focus of attention. She stalked toward the road, blood dripping from her nose. Brooks, of all people, was trailing after her. Brooks’s friends and the Radnor girls were laughing, and Jane and Bridget huddled on their towels, snickering. I zeroed in on Jane. She’s always my prime suspect.
    “What was that all about?”
    “Just Bibi being Bibi,” Jane said. “You know how she is.”
    “Not really,” I said. “She’s your friend.”
    “She was my friend,” Jane corrected.
    Brooks came back from the road, frowning, Bibi having left in disgrace. He opened up a cooler and hefted out a huge watermelon. “Who wants some? Last melon of the season.” He dropped it on the ground and it broke into pieces. Davis reached for one and bit into it. Brooks passed chunks of watermelon around, and soon everyone was drooling pink juice and spitting seeds. Just like that. Whatever had happened, he was over it. That’s part of his charm.
    But was that enough for me?
    Well, that was the question, wasn’t it?

THREE
    THE NEXT WEEK, I WORE JEANS TO SPEED READING, TRYING TO look more like a college