Best Friends (Until Someone Better Comes Along) Read Online Free Page B

specialty. Sara Hurst-Caravelli (a.k.a. my delightful mother)had a certain way of doing everything, and I was much better off if I just stayed out of her way. If I’d unpacked for myself, I would have been forced to redo it. But if my mom just did things for me in the first place, she had less reason to be critical of how these things were done. That way, we were all winners.
    I could hear my mom talking on her cell phone in my parents’ room, which was just next door. The walls between the bedrooms were thin and the door was a wispy fabric curtain, so I could easily hear snippets of conversation. My mom’s business wasn’t all that interesting—she was probably just talking to one of my aunts, who seemed to be her only real friends these days—so I pulled my own phone out of my bag and checked for new texts.
    Nothing.
    How could there be nothing? Maybe there wasn’t any service at the lake? Nope, three bars.
    I quickly dashed off a short text to Heidi, then sent one to Sylvie. Neither one of them wrote back instantly, which was what I’d really wanted. I wanted my best friends to miss me, and I wanted someone to be thinking of me. But more than anything, I didn’t want to be at a broken-down “cottage” with my griping parents and a bunch of nobodies and two freaksfrom my middle school when I could have been somewhere— anywhere —else.
    After quickly checking for rogue mice who might be hiding under the pillows, I flounced down on my bed. I stared up at the ceiling, which I noticed was also made of wood (was everything made of wood?), and wondered what I was supposed to do next. I flopped from my back to my front, trying to get comfortable on the sagging mattress. My mother had made my bed for me, and I felt a little more comfortable because at least the blanket was from home.
    As I tried not to listen to the sound of my mom laughing on the phone in the next room, I picked at my fingernails. One began to bleed.
    Coco pattered into the bedroom and launched herself onto the bed beside me. “What do we do now?” I asked quietly, stroking my dog’s smushy body. Coco just stared back. It turns out, dogs are great for hugs but not as great for company.
    â€œIsabella?” My mom broke through the silence from the room next door.
    â€œWhat?”
    She sighed loudly enough for me to hear it through both of our curtained doors. “Why aren’t you down at the lake with the other kids?”
    â€œI could ask you the same question.”
    â€œDon’t be like that,” she ordered.
    â€œWhy aren’t I there?” I said, trying to keep my voice pleasant. “Because I’m in here.”
    The mattress in the other room groaned as she stood up and walked into my room. She squinted at me, as though the very sight of me gave her a headache. “But why are you here?”
    â€œWhy are you here? There’s a dock full of adults down there, just waiting to be charmed.” We both knew that she didn’t like strangers. Her best friends are her two sisters, and they can probably only stand her because they live hundreds of miles away. The thing about my mom is, she’s usually sort of friendly to other adults at school events, or at holiday parties with their regular group of acquaintances—but a month with mostly strangers in a foreign land was probably going to make her go slowly insane. She hated making nice with people who didn’t matter. (She also hated when I said stuff like that, but it was the truth and we both knew it.)
    Luckily, Mom had picked up two consulting projects that were due at the end of the month. So that would give her a good excuse to hang out inside and work more than was necessary. I knew Dad had forced my mom to come to the lake—I’d heard them arguing about it plenty of times—probablybecause it would look bad if he came alone. My dad was all about appearances, and if everyone else’s