Lila Blue Read Free Page A

Rainbow Village stop, which turned
out to be the village post office, which was closed. By then the clouds had
rained themselves out, so even though I was tired and crumpled, at least I
wasn't sopping wet when Lila found me.
    She looked exactly like the little
picture on her card, red flowers tucked in her white braided crown and all. In
fact, she looked like Santa's grandma, not mine.
    Grandma Betty was an older version
of Janice, only with better tastes in shoes and men. Lila Blue was something
new. She wore red shoes and socks, a baggy red sweater, and a long black denim
skirt.
    "Cassandra," she cried,
circling me in a hug that smelled of carnations and fresh ocean air. "And
so beautiful," she said, holding me away from her to study my face.
"Simply beautiful. I'm so happy you are here. So grateful."
    She hugged me again, and for some
reason, tears ran down my face and dripped on her sweater. I wasn't crying. The
tears must have been from exhaustion.
    "I'm all muggy and
smelly," I said, pushing away from her. My mom hadn't hugged me since I'd
started getting breasts. It felt weird to have someone touch me.
    Lila pulled my grimy hands up to
her face and kissed the tops of them. "Well that's so easily
remedied," she said. "You're here now. That's what matters."
    She dropped my hands and marched
over to get my bag. The suitcase had tiny wheels on the bottom, but when we
tried to pull it along the wet sidewalk, it kept falling over. Finally Lila
lifted it and marched along to her little red Honda car. She was strong for an
old lady.
    At least her house wasn't red. It
was made out of big, smooth gray rocks, and it perched at the top of a hill
overlooking the ocean. When we walked into the kitchen from the garage, my
mouth dropped open.
    A huge picture window, practically
the whole wall was glass, looked over the cliff to white sand, waves breaking
on a rift of black rock, and gray ocean out as far as I could see. A high
blanket of clouds covered the sky but didn't obscure the bright horizon, where
the ocean made a crisp, dark line miles away on the edge of the world.
    I had never imaged a house could
have that kind of view. It made me dizzy, and I grabbed the back of a padded
wooden chair tucked in under the kitchen table.
    "Sorry," Lila said.
"The floor slopes downhill in the kitchen, so everyone feels woozy at
first."
    I nodded, gulped, and looked around
slowly, trying to keep the world from spinning. When I stood still, my body
remembered the motion of the bus, which didn't help. While I clung to the back
of the chair, Lila lugged my suitcase and backpack into the living room.
    "You have a choice of
rooms," she said when she returned. "We can fix you up in my sewing
room or you can have the middle bunk in the Crow's Nest upstairs." She
seemed so happy and relaxed that I took a deep breath.
    "Take your time," she
said, prying my hands off the back of the chair and pulling it out for me to
sit down. I sat and closed my eyes to stop the sensation of being on a ship
bobbing in the sea. I don't know what I expected, but this wasn't it.
    I opened my eyes enough to peek
through the archway into the living room. I could tell by all the light it had
a huge ocean-view window too. Beyond the back of the couch, which sat in the
middle of the room, I saw a piano and a small desk with a curtained window
above it. I was curious about the rest of the house, but too weary and wobbly
to investigate.
    My mother's idea of home decorating
was white leather sofas, glass tables, and pink satin pillows. I didn't mind
that, really, although I would never choose it for myself. The part that
bothered me was she liked to top it all off with some grinning boyfriend whose
only chore was to flatter her. She was a bartender, so what did I expect? When
I suggested she might like to try working in a bank or maybe a dress shop, she
said the tips were good at the club and she liked the hours. Right.
    I was glad there wasn't the
slightest whiff of leather in