Beyond Blonde Read Online Free

didn’t understand the first thing about basketball. Basketball was Papa’s game.
    “So, dis boy coach is very good ting, da ?”
    “ Da, yeah, sure, maybe, don’t know,” I said. David used to be Luke’s best friend. He was also beyond gorgeous. The whole team went on high alert as soon as he walked into the gym. Thing is, maybe he knew about Luke and me last year, even though we were a secret, and maybe he felt sorry for Alison, I mean, the new Mrs. Luke Pearson. Okay, none of that made sense, but I just couldn’t shake the feeling that David Walter got a rash when he looked at me.
    “It’s a wait-and-see kind of thing,” I said.
    “ Que sera, sera, vatever vill be, vill be.” Hand Mama a slice of uncertainty, and she’ll hand you back a twenty-yearold Doris Day song.
    “Uh, yeah.” I wriggled out of her arm lock. “Have you talked to Papa this week?”
    She nodded absently, taking in my clothes sculptures out of the corner of her eye. She sighed but swallowed anything she was going to offer up about the unfinished state of my room.
    I was impressed. Good control on her part.
    “It’s not so crazy dis time, Sophie. Not like da last time, da prison time. Dis time vile he is avay is totally positive, totally healty, and very good.”
    That was more like it. “Wow, you must not have been here for those weekends in the summer when you spent the whole time locked up in your room with a box of Kleenex.”
    “I don’t like it ven you use da ironing tone vit me, Sophie,” she sniffed.
    “Ironic,” I said. “And you mean sarcastic, not ironic.”
    “I mean, don’t use dat voice to me.” She patted her hair. “Dis is good. Papa vill drying out like a prune. Ve saw how it goes at da alcoholics’ club.” More hair patting. “Den he vill come home and stay to da home, finish.”
    Mama, who would rather undergo surgery with a stick than talk about any of this, walked over to my closet and pulled out a rolled-up poster. “Ve bought you dis poster two years ago, Sophie.” She waved it at me accusingly. “Vhy don’t you put it on your valls?”
    My Endless Summer poster. I loved that thing. It was a heat source of burning oranges, flaming yellows, and hot pinks with a silhouette of a guy carrying a surfboard on his head. I’ve barely been on a ferry on Lake Ontario, but that poster made me believe I could surf monster waves on the Pacific. My room was not worthy of my poster. “Yeah, soon, Mama,” I lied.
    “Good.” She smiled. I smiled back. It was our version of a truce, times when we pretended to believe each other rather than duke it out. Mama headed for the door and then turned her head. “Ven is your first big practice?”
    “First full practice is tomorrow.” Wait a minute. Mama might turn up. I hated it when she came to the games, let alone the practices. She was beyond embarrassing.
    She reached for the door.
    “Don’t come, Mama.”
    I felt like a piece of gum as soon as the words were out of my mouth. I saw her shoulders tense through the suit-jacket fabric. “It’s just a practice, after all. I’ll bring you the gameschedule as soon as I get it.” Her shoulders lowered an inch as she reached for the handle.
    “I vas being very busy anyvay,” she said to the door. “You vill be captain?”
    Good question. I was the best player. We both knew this. I was captain of the last two teams, when we were city champions as juniors and when we were blown out of the water last year, when me and the Blondes were made to move up too early into seniors. The Blondes would make sure that the team, whoever made the final cut, would vote for me, but someone like David would have a say, maybe a big say.
    “Could be, maybe. I don’t know. I don’t want to talk about it.”
    “Sorry,” she whispered to the door and left.
    What was the matter with me? Thank God Mama signed a blood oath when I was born that she had to love me no matter what an awful twerp I was.
    If only I had signed one too.

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