Love, Suburban Style Read Online Free

set out to do; she is—no,
was
—a genuine star.
    And now the star is aging, fading; her voice is mature, but so are her face, her body, her mind. Deeanna Drennan was a blessing in disguise once the dust settled. Losing the part—and accepting that her ingenue days are long over—allowed Meg to realize that she doesn’t need a stage career to fulfill her anymore.
    What she needs at this stage in her life is to move on to something new.
    Perhaps
something old
is more apt.
    Cosette doesn’t know about any of it yet. As far as she’s concerned, this jaunt up the Metro-North tracks to Westchester County is simply a pleasant—for Meg, anyway, if unpleasant for Cosette—way to spend a summer Saturday afternoon.
    Meg isn’t going to tell her daughter anything more until she’s certain what their next move will be—and when it will happen.
    All she knows at this point is that she’s going to be settled in a new life, with Cosette, before the school year resumes in September.
    Glenhaven Park is the natural place to commence the search for a new home… since it once
was
home. And still feels like it… at least, so far.
    “I’m still Meg Addams,” she replies in answer to Krissy’s—rather, Kris’s—question.
    Cosette rolls her eyes at that, undoubtedly thinking,
Still? You haven’t been Meg Addams since you left this place behind.
At least she doesn’t say it.
    “And who is this lovely young lady?” Kris asks, turning to look at her.
    “This is my daughter, Cosette.”
    Who is looking like anything but a lovely young lady. Cosette’s unnaturally black hair has been straightened and shorn so that it falls past her shoulders in a vaguely shaggy nonstyle. Her eye makeup is Halloween-thick and her once rosy, healthy complexion is masked beneath a layer of ivory pancake base. Any curves she possesses are camouflaged beneath a boxy, long-sleeved black T-shirt and black jeans, and she’s wearing black boots—yes,
boots
—in June.
    “It’s nice to meet you, Cosette.” With a jangling of chunky gold bracelets, Kris stretches a manicured hand toward Meg’s daughter.
    Meg wonders if she’s remembering that she, like Meg, was also a nonconformist at Cosette’s age. Though their most extreme physical deviation was to triple-pierce each other’s earlobes using a threaded sewing needle, an ice cube, and a potato.
    Meg still has the battle scars to show for it, though these days, she rarely wears six earrings at once. And a quick glance at Krissy’s lobes reveal only a pair of tasteful gold studs.
    “It’s nice to meet you, too,” Cosette is saying, politely extending her own black-polished fingertips to shake hands.
    Meg heaves an inner sigh of relief that at least the good manners she worked so hard to instill didn’t go the way of Cosette’s auburn ringlets and wholesome prettiness.
    Kris turns back to Meg. “So what are you doing here in town, and when did you get back?”
    “About two minutes ago. We just stepped off the train.”
    “From the city? You’re still in New York? Last I knew, you were on Broadway. Literally.”
    Meg raises an eyebrow, surprised, somehow, that news of her stage career has made it back to her hometown. Then again, it’s not as if it’s all that far away from the city—and perhaps not the cultural morass she recalls.
    “How did you know that?”
    “Mr. Dreyfus talks about you all the time, about you having success on Broadway,” Kris tells her. “I think he takes personal credit for your success.”
    Meg smiles. Mr. Dreyfus is her former high school drama teacher. “He was definitely responsible for getting me started.”
    After all, it was Mr. Dreyfus who believed in her from the start. He even cast her, as a freshman, as the lead in the all-school musical—causing an immediate scandal, particularly among the senior divas.
    “Is he still teaching at the high school?”
    “Sure is. Plus he directs a drama program for teenagers through the town’s recreation