Girlfriend Material Read Free Page A

surprised by how different she looked. She was a lot taller than I was, and her hair wasn’t curly anymore; it fell in soft waves down to her shoulders. “Hey,” I said. “Hey,” she said, her back to me as she slid the door closed.
    I don’t know if it was her being so pretty or just the fact that I hadn’t seen her in a decade, but I suddenly felt awkward. Was it okay to hug her hello?
    My mom clearly wasn’t having the inner dialogue I was. She pushed her chair away from the table and crossed the deck to where Sarah was standing. “Sarah, you’ve gotten so big,” she said. “I can’t believe how long it’s been since I’ve seen you!”
    “Hi, Jane,” said Sarah. She didn’t hug my mom back so much as she briefly draped her arms around her. “Sweetheart,” said my mom, turning around to face me, “don’t you have that present for Sarah?”
    For the first time since she’d arrived, Sarah actually made eye contact with me. I smiled at her, but she didn’t smile back. It was hard to qualify the look she gave me, but something about it made me feel less like an old friend and more like a stain she’d discovered on an expensive item of clothing.
    There was a beat of silence, and I realized everyone was looking at me. “Oh,” I said. “Yeah, I do. But it’s, um, packed.”
    Sarah, who hadn’t seemed excited by the announcement that I had a gift for her, wasn’t exactly devastated by the news that it was currently inaccessible.
    “It’s a shirt, just like Katie’s,” said my mom, forgetting, in her enthusiasm, not to use the nickname that made me sound like the six-year-old I’d been the last time Sarah and I shared a roof. “She thought you’d like something truly Utah!”
    Now everyone was looking at my University of Utah shirt as if they expected it to do something emblematic of my home state (like maybe take a second wife or something).
    Okay, for the record, when I’d bought Sarah a replica of the red T-shirt I was wearing, I hadn’t gotten it for her because I thought it was truly Utah . I just figured, I don’t know, it’s a shirt I’ve had for a long time and it’s faded in this fairly cool way, and I thought maybe Sarah might like to have a nice soft faded T-shirt, and why was this suddenly such a BIG FRIGGIN’ DEAL?!
    Incredibly enough, my mother was still talking . “Katie wears her shirt all the time. You’ll be two peas in a pod, right?”
    Sarah didn’t say anything. Was it possible she just thought my mom’s question was a rhetorical one?
    “Honey, you’re not working tomorrow, are you?” asked Tina quickly.
    “Why?” asked Sarah. The way she glanced briefly at me before looking at Tina made me feel self-conscious about my ponytail. Not that my hair exactly frames my face the way Sarah’s blond tresses do, but at least when it’s not up in a lumpy ponytail it doesn’t make my head look like a mishapen bowling ball.
    “I thought you could take Kate to the club, introduce her to everyone.”
    “It’s supposed to rain,” said Sarah. “Again.”
    “I heard it’s supposed to clear,” said Tina.
    Okay, maybe I’d been misreading Sarah’s behavior up until now, but I was most definitely not imagining how firmly Tina was talking to her daughter. If Sarah was, in fact, “so excited” to have me on Cape Cod, why was Tina talking to her as if money was going to be changing hands over me sometime before July Fourth. Let’s cut to the chase, Mom. What’s my being nice to this girl with the tragic hair and total lack of fashion sense worth to you?
    “Well,” said Tina, when Sarah didn’t respond, “you two can go if it’s nice out.” It seemed to me I could actually see Tina clenching her jaw.
    Sarah glanced up at the sky, where swirling clouds massed in the distance. A betting person might have been willing to play the odds that tomorrow would bring rain.
    “Sure,” said Sarah. “If it’s nice out.” She gave a little wave, like we were saying