The Petty Details of So-And-So's Life

The Petty Details of So-And-So's Life by Camilla Gibb Page A

Book: The Petty Details of So-And-So's Life by Camilla Gibb Read Free Book Online
Authors: Camilla Gibb
Tags: Fiction, General, Psychological, Sagas
Ads: Link
Dillon’s back.
    â€œNo way,” Emma mouthed back at Charlene.
    In the alarming glare of the gymnasium lights, after seven whole minutes of “Stairway to Heaven,” Fraser said, “Uh, thanks,” and then popped the big question: “Hey, like, you wanna go around with me?”
    â€œSure, I guess so,” Emma said, looking at her shoes.
    â€œWell, I guess I’ll be seeing you then,” he said, leaning over and giving her a peck on the cheek.
    â€œSure, see ya,” she said, still standing there staring at her shoes.
    He walked off with his hands in his pockets and Charlene came running up to Emma and squealed, “Score!”
    â€œCharleeeene,” Emma protested.
    â€œDid he ask you to go around with him?”
    â€œYeah. So?” she shrugged.
    â€œI knew it!” Charlene shrieked.
    â€œIt’s no big deal,” Emma said, taking a stab at sounding dismissive.
    â€œOh, yeah,” Charlene groaned, rolling her eyes. “Like, Miss Snotty-big-tits Brenda Tailgate doesn’t even have a boyfriend. She’ll be so mad!” she giggled. “So, is he a good kisser?”
    â€œHow should I know?” Emma said defensively.
    â€œWell, didn’t you?”
    â€œNo. Gross.”
    â€œWell, you’re going to have to kiss him.”
    â€œWhat for?”
    â€œElse he’ll think you’re a lezzy,” she declared.
    Ugh. Emma was now obliged by the perverse protocol of junior high to let him be a disgusting boy. But only the once. She and Fraserwalked home together awkwardly after school the following Thursday. They sat in the park on swings opposite each other as he blathered on about his drum set and the band he was going to form. Emma stared at her hands and picked at her cuticles. Fraser asked her if she wanted to do backup singing on one of the tracks he wanted to lay down. “You know, you look a little like Karen Carpenter,” he said, nodding his dopey head.
    Emma wasn’t sure if that was a compliment, but she blushed anyway, and that was when Fraser made his big move. He stood up, stumbling over his big flat feet, and lunged across the sandbox with his tongue outstretched. He plunged the purple splatter into Emma’s mouth and she felt the horrific sensation of peanut butter over bristly taste buds. She thrust out her arms like an automatic weapon and pushed him and his purple peanut splatter about seventeen feet across the park.
    After that, Fraser did start calling Emma a lezzy. In fact, so did Charlene. “I don’t know if we can be almost-best friends any more,” she said one day after school. “You’re ruining my reputation.”
    So for the next three months it was Charlene and Fraser holding hands in the schoolyard, Charlene rolling her eyes melodramatically every time they walked by Emma and claiming that Brenda Big-tits was her new best friend.
    But Emma didn’t care. She had Blue. And Blue had her. With Oliver’s disappearance, they’d lost whatever had remained of Elaine. It seemed he had dragged Elaine’s entrails with him: she was the vessel of their mother, but with the contents poured out. She put a brown casserole dish into the oven every morning before she went to work and didn’t return home until late. She slammed the door when she got back, gave her children a refrigerated glare that collapsed into a frown, and made her way straight to the liquor cabinet.
    Emma and Blue, hungry for her, buzzed around like flies. She greeted their frenzy with bitter silence and switched the lights off in her head. She was too tired, too angry to be Mother, but they gravitated toward her, sticking against her flypaper skin, flailing their limbs, struggling frantically.
    â€œMa?” pleaded Blue.
    â€œLlewellyn, not now,” she groaned, putting her palm to her forehead and squinting under a headache as dense as concrete.
    â€œBut when then?”
    â€œIf you could

Similar Books

The Crystal Mountain

Thomas M. Reid

The Cherished One

Carolyn Faulkner

The Body Economic

David Stuckler Sanjay Basu

New tricks

Kate Sherwood