Audition & Subtraction Read Online Free Page A

baked that afternoon between us.
    I’d turned off the light, but my room glowed so much we could see each other fine. Lori said my room at night felt like the inside of an alien spaceship. My bedside clock gleamed with green letters, and my night-light flashed red, green, and blue. Plus, on the ceiling, a galaxy of stick-on stars shone down on us.
    I loved stars. I always had. When I grew up, I wanted to be an astronomer. I was going to discover a new solar system and name the stars after all my friends. Lori would get first pick.
    She leaned back, resting her weight on her hands, and let out an exaggerated sigh. I knew the feeling. No matter what had happened during the day, when we were hanging out just the two of us, I could let down my guard and just
be
.
    â€œSo why did you have to watch Katie?” I asked.
    â€œMy parents.” She wore a long gray sleep shirt with NEW YORK PHILHARMONIC in black lettering. I wore the same one, only in blue. Lori had brought it back for me after her trip last summer.
    â€œIt’s so humiliating,” she said. “They started dance lessons.”
    â€œSeriously?”
    â€œAt the studio next to Dominic’s Pizza. The one with all the big windows, so the world can see my dad step on my mom’s feet.”
    I imagined my parents dancing out in public, but instead of horror, I felt a stab of sadness. “At least your parents are there together.”
    Her eyes glowed a dark blue in the alien light. “Sorry, Tay. Anything new with your mom and dad?”
    I shook my head. “I don’t know how they’re supposed to work things out if they never talk.”
    â€œMaybe they’ll miss each other more that way.”
    â€œMom misses him enough already. I heard her crying again yesterday.” I picked the edge off a brownie and let the chocolate melt on my tongue. “If she’d just leave him alone about his job, he’d come home.”
    â€œExcept he wasn’t home much, right?”
    â€œIt was still better than this,” I grumbled. Being a pilot for FedEx meant Dad was gone a few nights every week. But after six years, it was part of the routine. And then this new job came along—corporate pilot for some software company in China. No more night flights, better pay, and Dad would get to fly a Gulfstream 5, whatever that was. But it meant he’d be gone a lot more—sometimes a month at a time. I figured that’s what had started the separation talk.
    â€œAt least they’re not using the D word, right?” Lori asked.
    â€œYou mean the D
words
?” I said. “Because there are a bunch.” I ticked them off on my fingers. “Divorce. Dissolve. Disintegrate. Demolish. Destroy.”
    â€œI’m sorry, Tay. Honest. I wish I could do something.”
    â€œI know,” I said. “I wish there were something I could do, too.”
    I’d tried pretending Dad was just working. But thehouse felt weird, because stuff that used to be there suddenly wasn’t. Mom snuck into the laundry room to cry, and Andrew acted like everything was fine, but even he walked around the house as if he were looking for something but forgot where he put it.
    Why can’t Dad just come home?
    I blinked back tears, suddenly so glad Lori was there. “We have to stop talking about this before I go insane. Tell me about today, instead.” I shifted, careful not to wobble the plate. “What’s the new guy like?”
    She shrugged, but the corners of her mouth twitched, and I wondered if she knew she was smiling. “It’s hard to be sure, but he seemed pretty cool.”
    She’d left her braid in, but more wispy pieces had pulled loose. I’d tried to braid mine this afternoon, but so much hair stuck out I looked like the victim of an electrical shock.
    â€œDid you talk about band stuff?”
    â€œA little.” She broke off the corner of a brownie. “He’s definitely