Karma for Beginners Read Online Free

quite a while now.” She stands up straighter, nervous. I swear, she’s like me on the first day of school or something. Ninyassa spends a long time looking at my mother’s boobs and lip gloss. Then she glares.
    â€œOkay, well, you’ll need to come over here.” Ninyassa walks over to the check-in counter too fast for us to follow behind. When we catch up she already has two blank rose-colored name tags out. She looks at me. “I don’t believe you had decided which name you were using?” And she smiles.
    â€œUh, just Tessa.” My mom looks at me like I should’ve answered something else, but what was I going to say? That’s the only name I have.
    Ninyassa’s eyes flick over to my mom. “And you?”
    â€œMy name is Sarah,” my mom tells her. “I mean, that’s the name I was given by my parents. But it might be changing soon.” She says it like there’s a wink in it somewhere. Ninyassa just blinks. The thick knit ribs of her magenta cotton sweater move up and down with her breath.
    â€œOkay, so Sarah. Come on over here and I’ll take your photos.”
    I always loved Polaroids, the way you wave them in the air and gradually a picture is revealed that looks exactly like the room you’re standing in, so you get to be inside the moment that you’re in and look at that moment at the very same time. I don’t so much love this Polaroid, though, because I have a double chin in it.
    I don’t normally have a double chin. It’s just the way I was spazzy fake-smiling so my face scrunched into my neck. Normally my chin is fine. My whole face is fine: there’s nothing wrong with it, except that there’s nothing really right with it either. It’s just there. Bluish-gray eyes, pale brown freckles, and dark brown hair, straight down to my shoulders. The hair used to be long, back when my mom got to decide. It got tangled and heavy and fell in my face, but when I’d complain, my mom would just say, “C’mere,” settle in with the brush and start French braiding, tie it up in Princess Leia knots. We matched; she’d shake her hair and laugh and I’d copy her. When I was twelve I cut off my braid. After that I let it grow some, and since then it’s been one length, blunt at my shoulders. My mom still tries to play with it, tie it back with silk and paisley scarves, but I don’t let her. She can be beautiful enough for both of us.
    Of course my mom looks gorgeous in her Polaroid, just like in real life—high cheekbones and white teeth that gleam, eyes warm and dark like molasses. Her long silver earrings nestle in her wavy hair. Ninyassa glares again. And then she says, “Wonderful,” in her weird warm voice, and glues the Polaroids to our name tags, right next to the pink swans.
    The weight of the milk crates bites down on my fingers; I know they’ll leave nasty red marks when I finally put them down. This is our fifth trip up the stairs. I can’t wait to get inside my room and shut the door and secretly start a letter to my dad.
    The last few steps, I’m almost panting and I stink. This is the worst part of moving, when you’ve traveled all the way somewhere and all you want to do is stop, sit down, finally land, and instead you have to carry a thousand pounds of boxes until you’re so tired you can barely even walk. I’ve done it a zillion times; I know. When we get to the top my mom hands me the keys. “Here,” she says. “Just put that stuff inside; I’ll get the last load.” I wait till she turns before I open the door.
    I don’t know what I expected the room to look like, exactly. A lot of places we’ve lived have been small;in Big Sur we didn’t even have walls, only tents. But I always had a place where I could close the door. Or the tent flap.
    But here it’s just one room for both of us, on one side a queen bed, a twin