Skinnybones and the Wrinkle Queen Read Online Free Page B

aside the fatigue that had been settling over me like a blanket. I grab the little stand-up calendar on my bureau.
    It’s the second week in May. Only a couple of months until the great Ring Cycle of operas will be beginning in Seattle.
    In my mind, I can hear that astounding beginning, the first bars of
Das Rheingold
, like the world being born anew. Music at first as slender and thin as light through water and then building, leaping, enfolding, cascading. That incredible beginning playing through my mind, and I can only think it is from the splashing of the Rhine maidens that there are trails of dampness along my cheeks.

5
    When I get back to the common room, my class is grouping at the front door for the walk back to school. It has begun to rain. I can see the hour and a half I spent on my hair — all the anti-frizz serum and mousse and hair glue and sculpting gel — gone to waste.
    What will the Universal Style people think of someone coming in looking like a half-drowned rat?
    â€œTamara,” Miss Whipple calls, “walk fast or run if you want so you won’t get too wet. Just be careful at the intersection. Be sure and push the pedestrian crossing button.”
    A lot of the kids are running and even Miss Whipple jiggles along in front of me. I can’t run in the shoes I have on so I’m the last. Me and the blob of a kid who gave his senior buddy a squirrel teapot. Timmy. I don’t think Timmy has ever run anywhere in his life. He’s beside me, matching his stride to mine.
    â€œYou want my rain cape?” he says. It’s kind of a clear plastic baggy thing. “I don’t really need it with this old jacket...”
    â€œHey. Sure. Thanks.” I give him my best smile. There might be hope for my hair yet.
    â€œNo problem.”
    During Social, the last class in the afternoon, I take the flyer out and look at it again. Since I picked it up at the community center where Shirl’s daycare is, I’ve come close to wearing out the sheet. But even now, this thousandth time I’ve looked at it, I feel a tingle along my spine.
    UNIVERSAL STYLE
    Dream of becoming a model?
    Dream no longer. Universal Style’s proven program of model training offers you a ticket to major work in the field. Study the arts of personal enhancement, make-up, movement, photographic posing, and runway protocols with a team of outstanding fashion professionals.
    â€œI thank Universal Style for helping to make my dreams come true,” states Kelly Kidd, recently awarded the Modeling Association of North America’s Outstanding Newcomer Award. “They gave me my start and I’ve been soaring ever since.”
    Just below the phone number and a Whyte Avenue address, there’s a picture of Kelly Kidd. Light seems to shine off her cheeks and hair. She has a perfect smile.
    The only appointment I could get was for 4:30, so I had to make up a story for Shirl who gets home at around 5:15 and expects me to be there.
    â€œI’ll be late,” I told her. “Grad committee. You’re always wanting me to join stuff so I joined the grad committee.”
    â€œOh, honey, I’m so pleased.” She patted my knee with one of her pudgy hands. “See, I told you you’d be fitting in before long. Herb said so, too.”
    There’s an hour between the end of class and my appointment. I don’t have to wait for the bus to Whyte Avenue and, in fifteen minutes, I’m at the place where the interviews are being held.
    It’s a three-story office building with To Let signs in half its windows. Inside, there’s a central court with a couple of tables, coffee and soft drink dispensers. I have enough change with me for a Diet Sprite. While I’m sipping on it and reading an
Elle
magazine I scoffed from the Stanley Merkin library, a man and three children, all girls, grab the other table.
    â€œI wanna Coke,” the youngest kid whines.
    â€œOkay,”