The Care and Feeding of Exotic Pets Read Free Page B

needed school anyway? She could read. She could write. Wasn’t that enough?
    No one stopped her as she pushed open one side of the double glass doors. She paused briefly, waiting for a hand on her shoulder, the voice of Mrs. Lopez, the secretary, saying “Young lady? Where do you think you’re going?” but no one noticed as she went out and down the front steps. Or if they saw her they didn’t care.
    She straightened her shoulders and walked purposefully away from school until she turned the corner. Then she stopped. Where should she go? What would happen when she gotthere? What would Marissa think when she missed the next class? Lacy’s head was filled with questions—as usual. Nothing ever seemed solid or definite to her. She was easily convinced of whatever anyone said, found herself agreeing completely and fervently. But then she would walk away and change her mind. Or forget what she had decided. The answer to anything might be yes. It could just as likely be no. She sighed. Marissa and her friends obviously knew the right answer to everything.
    Lacy fingered her cell phone. Her guy would be at work. That was the disadvantage to an older man. He had a job. He paid rent. Still, if she got stuck somewhere he would leave work and come get her. If she called him, she knew he would come right away. Her hair was curling; she could feel it frizzing up around her face as the wind blew. There was moisture in the air, possible rain. The winds were picking up. She watched a leaf skitter across the sidewalk. She walked and drifted into her fantasy.
    Her hair was long and straight. She stood on a street corner—no—in a parking lot by a 7-11 in a sketchy part of town. A red car filled with boys, maybe a pick-up truck, maybe a low black car with tinted windows, circled her. The boys taunted her, wanted her, called out things about her legs and her ass and what they would do to her. He came squealing into the lot in his silver Audi. Or his hipster classic car. Or his outdoorsy Subaru wagon. He fishtailed to a stop beside her and she leapt into the passenger seat.
    â€œThank you,” she breathed. A single tear on her cheek.
    â€œI want to kill those guys,” he said. “If anything happened to you…”
    They would lean together for a kiss. The first kiss. Her first kiss ever.
    Next time they spoke she would ask him what kind of car hehad. She imagined a nice car, a good car, but she wouldn’t care if he drove an old beater. He was a person to whom exterior, material things did not matter.
    She had never actually seen him—not live and in person—only a photo he had emailed to her. That’s all he had seen of her too, the one picture of herself she liked that she posted on her page. And the photo of the tattoo she wanted. That silly photo had brought them together. He’d thought it was really her leg—that she already had that tattoo. He left a comment, then she replied and they started to chat. She sent him a quotation Mr. Bronson had put on the board by some dead guy named William Durant, “Forget past mistakes. Forget failures. Forget everything except what you’re going to do now and do it.”
    He wrote back, “Yes! Today is the first day of the rest of your life!”
    She had never heard that before and it struck her as amazing. It was so, so true. That was it. They were obviously connected. She wrote him that he had inspired her. He replied she had lifted his spirits, made him glad to be alive.
    â€œHey. Hey, Lacy.”
    She was startled out of her daydream. Buster, a skinny loser she had known since elementary school, hung out his car window. His brown hair fell in his eyes. She could see the green T-shirt he always wore.
    â€œHey,” she replied.
    â€œWhat’re you doing?”
    She shrugged.
    â€œC’mere.”
    She walked over to his car. His eyes were red.
    â€œWanna get high?”
    She shook her head