Meg at Sixteen Read Online Free Page A

I’ll be finished with high school, and I’ll make my debut. All her friends were already discussing what they would wear at their coming-out parties. Meg hoped Aunt Grace wouldn’t be offended if she got one of her friends’ mothers to help her with the gown. Aunt Grace had the most abominable taste in clothes. Not her own, which were tweedy in the wintertime, and floral in the summer, but in the ones she selected for her niece.
    Meg tried to imagine herself in her first formal evening gown. She knew she’d be pretty; everyone always said she was, and that wasn’t the sort of thing people lied about. Boys would dance with her all night long. It wouldn’t matter that all she had left to her was a small trust fund. She was Grace Winslow’s ward, and Grace was a wealthy woman. That made Meg an heiress, as Aunt Grace was fond of pointing out to her. “You can never be too careful about the boys you get to know. Some of them can smell money a mile away. They’ll pretend to be in love with you, only because of your relationship with me, and then they’ll steal your money and break your heart. You must only see suitable young men, young men who come from your own world. No one else can be trusted.” That speech, Meg knew, was the equivalent for Aunt Grace of the birds and the bees.
    Only suitable boys, then, would be asked to her coming-out party, and Meg supposed that a year or two after, she would marry one of them. She didn’t know which one yet, or care. Maybe she’d met him, maybe she hadn’t. She’d go to college for a year or so, then announce her engagement, and get married, probably by the time she was twenty. Being married had to be better than living with Aunt Grace.
    Meg hated herself when she felt like that, disloyal to the only member of her family who was willing to put up with her. She knew she should love Aunt Grace, or at least be grateful to her, or at the very least respect her, but mostly all she could manage was dread. Just being in the same room with her frequently made Meg shiver. And when Aunt Grace turned her full focus of attention on her, Meg didn’t know how she survived.
    â€œWhat a dump,” she whispered again. It was a catchphrase she used to give herself strength. Bitsy Marshall had taught it to her. Bitsy’s mother said it all the time. Bitsy’s mother went to the movies, and could do imitations of all the stars, but her best was her Bette Davis, and Bette Davis had said “What a dump” in some movie or another, so Bitsy’s mother said it, and Bitsy said it, and Meg said it too, when no one was listening. It wasn’t as though she could do a Bette Davis imitation, so she didn’t try. She just said it, mostly to herself, but sometimes under her breath. “What a dump.” It kept her going, that phrase. She frequently felt grateful to Bette Davis for ever having said it.
    There was a knock on the door. Meg flushed with guilt. Had someone heard her saying it, and did they think she was complaining about her room? “I will not tolerate whining and complaints,” Aunt Grace had said to her shortly after she’d moved in. “You are a most fortunate child, and you should appreciate all the kindness you’ve been shown.”
    â€œCome in,” Meg said, hoping her voice hadn’t cracked with terror. Aunt Grace didn’t like that either.
    Aunt Grace walked in. “Your dress has arrived,” she declared. “I thought I would bring it to you myself. Happy birthday, Margaret.”
    â€œThank you,” Meg said. She’d risen from her chair as soon as Aunt Grace had walked in, and now, she knew, she was expected to walk over to her aunt and give her a kiss, as well as take the box from her. She willed herself into action. Aunt Grace’s skin was as soft as her face was hawklike. Meg brushed her lips against her aunt’s cheek in what passed as a gesture of