The Last Little Blue Envelope

The Last Little Blue Envelope Read Free Page B

Book: The Last Little Blue Envelope Read Free
Author: Maureen Johnson
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horrible on-off girlfriend, Fiona, the human cotton swab. She got closer and listened carefully. The noise was coming from the window on the left—that was Keith’s.
    For the first time since she’d cooked up this idea, she felt a surge of nervousness. This had all felt so hypothetical up until this point. In the time between turning out her light at night and going to sleep, she had imagined this moment, the exact way she would knock, his face when he opened the door. . . . Now she was really here, and in a minute, she would really see Keith. Imagination was about to collide with reality.
    “Relax,” she told herself. “You have the advantage of surprise. Just be normal .”
    Of course, the first step toward normalcy probably didn’t include sneaking around in front of the house, looking through the car windows, and talking to herself.
    She reached up and knocked hard on the plastic panel. One of the windows above slid open a little bit.
    “THE DOOR IS OPEN!” Keith yelled out.
    Ginny looked up to see if he was peering down at her, but there was no head sticking out of the window. He was just letting whoever it was come in. While that didn’t seem especially safe, it did work to her advantage. She pushed the door open slowly.
    Instantly, she was overwhelmed by the familiar smell. Detergent, a spicy incense, some kind of dish soap, wet clothes, theater dust . . . it was Keith smell. The door opened onto a hall and a set of stairs. The little foyer area was crammed with things—plastic bags full of newspapers, Keith’s sneakers, umbrellas, books. There was, for some reason, a hammer in the middle of the floor and rolls of toilet paper piled in the corner. T-shirts and boxers were spread over the heater on the wall to dry.
    “Top of the steps!” he called. “Just come up!”
    Ginny steadied herself and quickly checked her warped reflection in a cheaply framed poster for Keith’s last show, Starbucks: The Musical . Someone’s black scarf had fallen just at the foot of the steps, marking the line she had to cross to continue. She stepped over it and made her way up the steps.
    Keith sat on the sofa, his legs stretched out and his feet balanced on a plastic crate. The first thing she noticed was his hair. It was a little shorter, and not quite as shaggy as it had been over the summer. The haircut made it look darker and brown, not quite so reddish blond.
    He was half-scowling at a computer screen, squinting a bit as he typed away feverishly. He was so intent that he didn’t notice her standing in the doorway. He turned and opened his mouth, ready to call out again, and caught sight of her in his doorway.
    He actually jumped back an inch or two.
    “Hi,” she said, grinning. “Remember me?”
    For almost ten seconds, Keith did nothing but stare. Ginny clung to the door frame.
    “There is something terribly, terribly wrong with you,” he finally said. “And I intend to have you put in a home. Are you going to come in, or are you going to hang in the doorway like that?”
    He pushed some papers off the sofa to make room for her. She came in and sat down carefully, barely able to look at him directly at first. The sensory overload took some time to get used to. He wore a black sweater, ragged jeans, and a pair of bright socks with visible holes. She smiled at his toes poking out.
    “Why didn’t you say you were coming?” he asked.
    “I wanted to surprise you,” she said. “Do you let every weirdo who knocks come into your house? You didn’t even look.”
    “I thought you were here to audition,” he said. “People have been coming here to read for the last few days.”
    “Audition?”
    “New play about the financial crisis. It’s called Break the Bank. It’s the evolution of something I started a while ago called Bank: An Opera of Greed .”
    “Aren’t you in that . . . panto thing?”
    “Ah,” he said. “I had an . . . artistic disagreement with the director of the panto. As it happens, I take

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