Perfect Nightmare Read Online Free Page B

listening to ended abruptly, and now she could hear her parents’ voices drifting up the stairwell.
    Though the anger was clear, the words themselves were not. Not that it mattered; she knew perfectly well what they were arguing about.
    Her.
    In fact, it seemed that all they did anymore was argue. But until tonight, it had been mostly about her father’s new job, and the little apartment he had to rent in the city, and the fact that so many nights he couldn’t make it home at all.
    But their argument now was focused on her, and with every angry sound she heard, she felt worse. All she wanted was for everybody to be happy, and even without hearing what they were saying, she knew that nobody in the house was happy.
    She lay on her bed, listening to the muffled words as long as she could stand it. She heard her mother’s voice rising, but her father’s voice stayed steady. What’s happening? she wondered. What’s Mom yelling about? And even though part of her wanted to clamp the pillow against her ears, shutting out the sound of her parents’ argument, she knew she couldn’t.
    No matter how much it hurt, she had to know what they were saying. Putting the iPod on the nightstand, Lindsay got up from the bed, opened her bedroom door and listened.
     
    “Y ou’re asking too much of her,” Kara said for what she was certain must be at least the third time, if not the fourth or fifth. She was perched stiffly on the edge of the couch, and could see by Steve’s expression that she looked every bit as shrill as she knew she was starting to sound. But how many times did she have to go over all this before he would actually hear her? “She’s only seventeen years old, and you’re asking her to give up everything. I know being on the cheerleading squad doesn’t mean much to you, but so what? She’s your daughter, Steve! And it’s not just cheerleading! You’re asking her to move away from all her friends—friends she’s known since kindergarten—and start all over again in a new school where she doesn’t know anybody. And it’ll be her senior year. Believe me, I remember what it was like when I was her age. The cliques are formed, and they’re rock solid. There won’t be any room for Lindsay.”
    Steve spread his hands helplessly. “I don’t know what else to do,” he said, his own voice starting to rise, though not as much as hers. “There just doesn’t seem to be any other answer. We can’t afford—”
    “Another year,” Kara broke in. “Let’s stay here just until she graduates.” Seeing his expression harden, her voice rose another notch. “For heaven’s sake, Steve—the real estate market is down so badly, we’d only get about three-quarters what we would have gotten a year ago, and you know as well as I do that even though the market’s dropped out here, it hasn’t in Manhattan. We’ll be lucky if we can afford a tiny little two bedroom, and you better believe it won’t have more than one bath!”
    Steve shook his head and picked up the glass that sat on the table next to his chair, downing the last of the scotch in a single gulp. “We’ve been over the numbers, Kara,” he said, his voice taking on a steely edge. “We can’t afford to keep this house and pay for the apartment, too. We have to get a place in the city that’s big enough for all three of us.”
    “But we won’t get enough for this place,” Kara insisted. Hadn’t he heard anything she said?
    Steve set his empty glass on the end table and ran his hands through his hair. “I thought we’d already had this whole conversation.”
    “That was before I met with the agent,” Kara shot back. Seeing Steve’s eyes narrow angrily, she added, “And it was before I watched Lindsay’s heart break.”
    “She’s young,” Steve said, his voice taking on a tone she’d only heard him use in court when he was trying to make a point to a recalcitrant witness. “She’ll survive. In a year she’ll be off to college anyway.