Gingerbread Read Online Free Page A

about dancers from the island of Bali. While I dance I hum this possessed chant like I am in an Islamic mosque even though my dance is probably sacrilegious.
    "Do you like my dance?" I asked Sugar.
    "I like your dance," Sugar said. "But I'm thinking it's not a good idea for a nice young lady to perform such a dance while wearing a string bikini and see-through wrap skirt on a beach swarming with young men. Could get you into trouble."
    Twirling my head round and round, I pulled the hairpins out from the top of my head so my long black hair swished over my back as I harem-danced in time to the beautiful Mexican lullaby. I winked at Gingerbread. She winked back. She loves my harem dance.
    "Don't worry about me, Sugar," I said. "I've already been in enough trouble for a lifetime. I might have run out of trouble."
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    "Girl, you look like trouble."
    "Thank you, Sugar," I said.
    For a second I had an urge to tell Sugar about last fall, when I was really in trouble. I have not even told Shrimp about that. The only people who know are Justin and my real dad, and that's only because I had no dinero to take care of my little problemo , and Justin kept promising to get the money and every day that passed I threw up more and more but no money from Justin. One day I was almost out of excuses for getting out of gym class, so while I was in the nurse's office I called Manhattan information when the nurse wasn't in the room and I got the listing for Frank real-dad's company. I called the company switchboard and asked for him but they switched me to his secretary. She had this thick, nasal New York accent. I said, I would like to speak with Frank, please, and she said, Who's calling and I said, Please tell him it's Cyd Charisse. Right, the secretary said, and I'm Greta Garbo. I get that all the time. But maybe she heard the panic in my voice and maybe she was impressed that I used the word "please" twice, because when I asked for him a second time, she put me on hold and sounded surprised when she returned to the line and said he would be right with me.
    "What's up, kiddo?" he said when he picked up the phone. His voice was all cheery and familiar, like this wasn't the first time we had talked since that time at the airport when I was five and he bought me Gingerbread. He did not have me on speakerphone like Sid-dad always does and he was a little out of breath, like he had just bolted up from his chair and run to close his executive office door so his un-Greta Garbo secretary would not hear him.
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    I couldn't believe it was actually him on the phone. I wished I could tape-record his voice so I would never forget the sound of it. "I still have Gingerbread," I told him, speaking softly.
    "What's Gingerbread?" he said. He almost sounded annoyed, like he was worried I was speaking in some cryptic code.
    What's Gingerbread? I couldn't believe my ears. I felt so betrayed I wanted to scream but instead I got mad and went straight to the point. "I need three hundred dollars," I said, matching his tone of voice. "I'm in trouble."
    "What kind of trouble?" he asked.
    "What kind do you think? " I said. That was all I needed to say. He wired the money to me by dinnertime that night. So counting the time when I was five, that call made it two times I have spoken to my real father in my life.
    I stopped my harem dance to admire Shrimp right as his tight little bod grabbed a killer tall wave and the ocean curl rose over his head and the painted skull at the tip of his surfboard peeked through the water. It was like this perfect Shrimp moment. I asked Sugar, "Did you ever have a boyfriend where right away it felt like you just belonged together, like you had known that person your whole life?"
    "I did," Sugar said. '"Cept turned out he felt that way about my sister, too."
    Ouch.
    "Maybe you just haven't found your soulmate yet," I told her. "C'mon, let's go find him." I dragged her off the sand and, arm in arm, we headed for the boardwalk. As we walked