Girlfriend Material Read Free Page B

good-bye instead of hello. “It’s good to see you again.” Then she turned to go inside.
    “I’ve got to shower.”
    “If you’re going to the movies with your friends,” said her mom, “I’m sure Kate would love to join you.”
    Sarah pivoted in my direction slowly, not saying anything.
    In the back of my mind I could still conjure up the picture of me and Sarah in her convertible, sun-kissed and tired from our day at the beach together. For a second it hung there, a perfect soap bubble suspended in thin air.
    And then it popped.
    It was kind of miraculous that I didn’t start bawling right on the spot. Did she have to make it so humiliatingly obvious that not only did she have no interest in our being friends, she didn’t even want to go to the movies with me? I mean, you don’t have to talk to someone if you go to the movies together. You can just, like, sit there, staring at the screen and eating your popcorn. You don’t even have to acknowledge the person.
    Actually, Sarah was doing a pretty good job of not acknowledging my presence even as she was supposedly issuing me an invitation. She just stood there staring at a point slightly beyond my shoulder. For about half a second I thought I’d wait her out, force her to speak first, but never had it been clearer to me that I was outmatched. My words tumbled out almost faster than my tongue could form them.
    “Actually, I want to unpack,” I said. “But thanks for the offer.”
    “No problem,” said Sarah. Nobody pointed out that there hadn’t actually been an offer, and she walked back across the deck and slid open the glass door to the kitchen.
    “Well,” said Henry. He and Tina exchanged a quick look, and I saw him shake his head slightly. I hoped it was the kind of head shake a dad gives right before he grounds his daughter for the entire summer, not the kind he gives before resigning himself to some kind of girls will be girls philosophy.
    “Well,” Tina repeated, “why don’t I show you the guesthouse?”
    “That would be great!” said my mom, practically pirouetting with enthusiasm. “Last time I was here it was still the garage.”
    The garage? The garage ?!
    The path wound around the side of the house past a small fenced-in herb garden. The building Tina was leading us to was, in fact, the building I’d pegged as the garage—for good reason. It was roughly the width of two cars, and it had garage doors on it (though, now that I looked more closely, I realized they were made of frosted glass, not metal, as I’d originally thought). The flame of optimism that had been burning in me as I imagined my chic summer of love was officially snuffed out. It had been but a flicker of its former self after my meeting with Sarah. No way could it blaze bright in the face of the announcement that I’d be spending my summer sleeping in a garage.
    But when Tina led us through a small side door, the garage we entered was nothing like our garage at home, with its outgrown bicycles and newspapers to be recycled.
    The space inside was basically one big room with a couple of pale sofas and some comfortable-looking armchairs. There were bookshelves here too, though they seemed a little more organized than the others, like they were more for show than for use. The floor was blue tile, and there were large, brightly colored throw rugs everywhere. Just like at the main house, sliding-glass doors led to a deck overlooking the water.
    Even though it was clearly a beautiful room, I couldn’t help noticing that there were no beds in it.
    “Both of these sofas open up,” Tina said, as if she were reading my mind. “And there’s a bathroom through that door right there.” She pointed across the room. “I’m afraid there’s not a lot of privacy, but you’ll probably be in the main house most of the time anyway.”
    “Of course,” said my mom. “It’s beautiful.” She looked at me, and I nodded. Now didn’t seem like the right time to say I wouldn’t