We Are All Made of Molecules Read Free Page A

White
—beautiful but oh-so-cold.
    I crossed my arms over my chest. “I’m not coming down.”
    “Fine,” she said in her fake-reasonable voice. “But if you don’t, you will not get your allowance this week.”
    So
unfair! I am
this close
to being able to afford an amazing skirt I saw at H&M, and she knows it. “You are so
evil
,” I said as I stood up to follow her.
    “Yup. I’m right up there with Idi Amin and Slobodan Milosevic.”
    I have no idea who she was talking about. Probably a couple of guys from work.
    —
    WHEN I GOT DOWNSTAIRS , the freakazoid was already at the table. I sat down across from him and gave him the once-over in a very obvious way.
    He is a seriously funny-looking kid. He has a mass of thick, unruly brown hair that is neither straight nor curly. It’s cut short, which only accentuates his sticky-outy ears. But even though it’s short, there’s still so much of it, like he has a furry rodent perched on top of his head. And speaking of short: he is. I wanted to offer him a booster seat.
    “Hi, Ashley,” he said as I sat down.
    “Hi, Spewart.”
    “Actually, it’s Stewart.” He shouted this, like I was deaf or something.
    Mom came in from the kitchen, carrying a salad. She was followed by Leonard, who was carrying our favorite pasta bowl, the one with tomatoes painted all over it.
    It twisted my insides, seeing that bowl in his hands. Up until now, every single thing in this house had belonged to me and my mom. But from this day forward, it would belong to Leonard and his Mini-Me, too.
    It wouldn’t be so bad if I could figure out what my mom saw in Leonard, but I honestly one hundred percent truthfully could not. My mom is gorgeous, even if she has crow’s-feet around her eyes that get deeper with every passing year and even if she needs serious help with her wardrobe. She is
statuesque
, which is a fancy word I learned in my fashion magazines for “tall.” She has long red hair and, so far, no gray. She has high cheekbones and big green eyes. No wonder she was promoted to news anchor from reporter all those years ago; sure, she’s a serious journalist, but she’s also “easy on the eyes,” as her hair-and-makeup guy, Geoffrey, likes to say.
    Leonard, on the other hand, is just a grown-up version of his weird-looking son, with the same ears and the same hair, only better styled. And while I wouldn’t call him short, he isn’t tall like my dad—maybe five feet ten, tops, which is practically the same as my mom. He is also scrawny; the guy has clearly never lifted weights in his life. My dad, on the other hand, works out all the time, so he has a lot of muscular definition, and his clothes fit him perfectly. And he’s always been a very sharp dresser, whereas I’m willing to bet Leonard shops in one midrange store and buys two ofeverything he likes in different colors. He obviously doesn’t put much thought into it. Also he wears pants that show off his MPAL (Male Pattern Ass Loss, a tragic and devastating syndrome common in aging men that I read about in one of my magazines).
    I asked my mom bluntly last week what she saw in him. Her face lit up and she said, “He’s so smart. And so kind. And he makes me laugh like no one else.”
    “So? Don’t you want to be attracted to him, too?”
    “Oh, I am. He’s gorgeous. I could get lost in those big brown eyes. And his smile…and those lips…” I didn’t like where this was going and raised my hand to stop her, but not before she said, “I find him incredibly sexy.”
    “Ewww! Enough!” I shouted.
    Clearly my mother is delusional. Leonard is a huge step down. In fact, as far as I can tell, the only thing he has over my dad is that he is
not gay
—which I guess is a biggie, but still. There are a lot of
not gay
men out there, so why on earth did my mom go for this one?
    “Isn’t this nice?” Leonard said as he sat down across from my mom. His upper lip looked a bit moist, and I realized he was nervous. “Our