Viola in the Spotlight Read Free

his long legs, so long they practically reach from the second step on the stoop down to the sidewalk. He turns and looks at me. “So, what are your plans?”
    “I have to regroup. Now that you’re going away, I might have to actually come up with something to fill the days.”
    “Hey, guys!” Caitlin Pullapilly breaks into a run when she sees Andrew and me on the stoop. Her long black hair sails behind her like a silky veil. She really is the most beautiful girl in Brooklyn or anywhere else. She’s a mermaid on dry land.
    Caitlin takes the brownstone steps two at a time to hug me. “Boy, did we miss you.”
    “I missed you, too.”
    “I love your hair,” she says, as she turns my shoulders to check out how long it has grown in the back.
    “Viola grew out her feisty bangs.” Andrew looks at me and smiles, as though he couldn’t wait to repeat that phrase, it delights him so.
    “The bangs took, like, nine months. But I’m not the only one.” I point to Andrew’s hair to get him back. I turn to Caitlin. “So tell me absolutely everything, and don’t leave out anything.”
    “There’s so much going on, I don’t even know where to start. I got a summer job.” Caitlin smooths her capris, embroidered with different diamond shapes in shades of blue.
    “A job ?” I say it like it’s the worst news since they canceled The O.C.
    “I know. My mom is making me,” Caitlin says.
    Besides being the mother with the most rules, and by the way, she makes up new ones on the fly, now it turns out that Mrs. Pullapilly is also a real slave driver. She doesn’t let Caitlin do anything—she has to sign up in her own home to use the computer, whose screen faces Mrs. Pullapilly’s desk, so zero privacy. And Caitlin can’t IM or text until college. The cell phone she gave Caitlin is one of those cheesy for-emergency-only cell phones, which can dial 911 or Mrs. P’s personal cell phone only. It’s insane.
    “Mom wants me to do something all summer so my brain doesn’t turn to mush,” Caitlin says defensively.
    “So what’s the job?” I ask.
    “I’m going to do all the filing at our dentist’s office. He’s a good friend of our family. Dr. Balu.”
    “His partner, Dr. Desloges, did my braces,” Andrew says.
    I couldn’t wait to break out of boarding school to come home and hang with my friends. Now that I’m here, it turns out the Bozellis and the Pullapillys decided that it was best to keep Andrew and Caitlin so busy, they’d hardly have time for me. I forget that parents in general still make decisions for their teenage kids. My parents made me go to boarding school, and even though I didn’t have a choice in the matter, once I got there, I was on my own. I had an entire school year of making every decision for myself, so it’s pretty weird to come home and find that my friends hardly make any for themselves.
    I had big summer plans for the three of us. Meals included. I wanted to order in sesame noodles and eat them on the roof. We’d take the water taxi to the South Street Seaport, sail a couple of 360s around Manhattan on the Circle Line, and take bike rides in Prospect Park. Dad said he’d drive us to Far Rockaway beach during the week to avoid crowds, and to Coney Island on Saturdays. I was even going to ask my mom to drive us to Jersey to Great Adventure. But now all my plans just blew up like a bald tire on a hot road. Here’s the summer: Andrew decides to temporarily relocate to Maine while Caitlin disappears as an indentured servant at a dental office. And I’m alone.
    “I’ve still got a few weeks before camp starts,” Andrew reasons.
    “I don’t start working until a week from Monday,” Caitlin explains.
    “We’ll just have to cram a lot in,” I tell them. My mind begins to race with possibilities. I’ll have to put my plans on turbo, and fill the days before Andrew and Caitlin disappear into camp and work.
    “Whatever you want to do.” Caitlin shrugs.
    “I want to have dinner