Everything Is Fine. Read Online Free Page A

get dressed and we could go to the beach.
    When I say that, she turns and says one thing: “Quiet.”
ORANGES
    Lisa got us three oranges.
    I peel one and mash it into orange juice for me and Mom.
    Mine tastes good but I think Mom’s doesn’t.
    I put the other two in the black bikini top and go to the mirror.
    It looks okay except you can see that they are oranges and not boobs.
    They still aren’t as big as Dixie’s.
ALOE VERA
    I have a sunburn from sitting outside, which on
Oprah
they say is very dangerous.
    I put my mom’s aloe vera on it.
THE DEAN MACHINE
    When the Dean Machine comes back, there is only Mr. and Mrs. Dean and Colby getting out.
    I watch them get out and Colby run toward the house.
    Mr. Dean yells, “Get your butt back here!”
    Mrs. Dean is getting something out of the hatch and doesn’t say anything and Colby is turning around.
    Mr. Dean gives him a towel and says something I can’t hear.
    Colby starts wiping the Dean Machine.
    I am wearing the oranges.
    I put on one of Dad’s old T-shirts over them and go outside.
    “Hi.”
    Colby doesn’t say anything. He just keeps wiping.
    His dad and mom are carrying bags and coolers into the house.
    “Hi, Mazzy,” Mrs. Dean says.
    “Hi, Mrs. Dean,” I say.
    And she doesn’t say anything about the oranges. Colby hasn’t even seen them yet.
    “What are you doing?” I ask him.
    “Crapping my pants,” he says.
    But he isn’t. He is wiping down the boat.
    “Oh,” I say.
    Then I say, “Who was that girl?”
    “What girl?”
    “That girl who went with you guys.”
    He stops wiping but still doesn’t look at me. “Nobody.”
    “Nobody?”
    “My girlfriend, I mean,” he says.
    I swallow and say, “I know.”
    He looks at me now. “What do you mean, you know?”
    “I could tell it was your girlfriend.”
    “How?”
    “By things I know.”
    “What does that mean?”
    “Just how I know things.”
    He sticks a finger in his ear and then his dad comes out and says, “You can work while you talk to Mazzy, Colby.” And Colby
     starts wiping again.
    “What’s her name?” I ask.
    He wipes and then he says, “Sexy.”
    “Oh,” I say. “Where’d you meet her?”
    “She saw me at McDonald’s and said I was the hottest guy she’d ever seen and she got my number.”
    “Oh,” I say. I think about giving him the Frosty coupon. But I don’t.
    Then he says, “What happened to your . . .” and he sort of points to my orange boobs.
    “They got big.”
    “How?”
    “Just grew.”
    “How?”
    “I took some pills.”
    He stops wiping again and looks more closely at the oranges even though they are covered by my T-shirt.
    “Do you like them?” I ask.
    “No.”
    “Why not?”
    “They look weird.”
    “They do?”
    “Sort of. But . . .”
    “But what?”
    “Nothing.”
    “But what?”
    “Nothing.”
    And then I think he is almost going to tell me but his mom comes over and says, “Mazzy, we were so sad you couldn’t come on
     the lake with us today.”
    She looks really tan and sort of even beautiful.
    But she is never as beautiful as my mom.
    She used to kind of be my mom’s friend.
    She’s not her friend now.
    She keeps talking. “Colby said you had to do some things for your mom.”
    Colby doesn’t look at me or his mom because he didn’t even invite me at all.
    “Maybe next time?”
    “Okay,” I say.
    Then she says, “Colby’s cousin went with us today. Do you remember her? Ruthanne?”
    I don’t say anything. Instead I stick my oranges out.
    She looks at them and sort of smiles. I don’t know if she is laughing at me or if she likes them or what she is doing.
    Then she says, “I only mention it because Ruthanne used to babysit you and your sister and she wanted me to tell your mom
     and you how sorry she was.”
    I don’t listen to what she says. Instead I sort of shake the oranges around and flick my hair.
    Colby is on the other side of the boat then.
    Me and Colby’s mom just stand there for a while. Me