The Lingering Grace Read Online Free Page B

are girlfriends for?” she teased.
    “Well, I don’t know …” he said. “I just keep you around because you’re pretty.”
    She laughed and threw his hand into his lap.
    “I will not be your arm candy, mister.”
    “Now, now. You owe me one. The paper, remember? And why shouldn’t I get to show you off?” He grinned.
    “Ok, fine. I’ll come over this afternoon and you can proudly display me to your mom.”
    She said it expecting a laugh. She and Nora always got on well—Nora liked to joke that if Tony dumped Alice, she would disown him.
    But for some reason, Tony looked away and said a little hesitantly, “Yeah, sure. Text me.”
    Alice frowned but tried not to let on that she’d noticed anything. Tony could be sensitive sometimes, and if she tried to pressure him, he might get self-conscious and clam up completely. “Okay,” she said.
    She wasn’t the only one in the car with something to hide this morning.
    When they pulled up to the school, she pretended to be in a hurry to get to class. But as soon as Tony drove off, she stopped and watched until his car disappeared around the corner, wondering if she should be worried. Whatever had upset him probably had nothing to do with her … but that was hardly comforting.
    Maybe at this very moment he was sitting in the car worrying about what she wasn’t telling him. The thought made her shake her head. Secrets and relationships never did mix well—Romeo and Juliet could testify to that. But sometimes the truth could be just as destructive.

 
     
    English wasn’t her first class, which meant she could spend all of math and biology dreading it. Alice knew she was at least an average student, which meant she could slide by in most subjects without expending too much effort. But English was a different story. Mr. Segal was one of those teachers you half admired and half despised—a young, idealistic literature lover whom the public school system hadn’t yet beaten the spirit out of. He started every class by reading something “inspiring”—a famous poem, a few lines of a great novel. And he talked about words with a feverish enthusiasm that even the least interested students had a hard time tuning out.
    The downside of all this was that he not only expected a lot from his students, he was genuinely disappointed when they didn’t perform up to his standards. One time nearly the whole class had blown off a reading assignment, and he’d lectured them almost tearfully about the need for passion in life—about how sad and loveless their existences would be if they refused to make an effort to find the beauty and art all around them.
    It wasn’t that Alice particularly disliked Mr. Segal, but he did make her uncomfortable. In most of her classes, she could sit in the back of the room and hope to go unnoticed, but Mr. Segal intentionally called on the quieter students at random to “make sure everyone has a chance to participate.” Alice dreaded being called on; her stage fright always kicked in and there had been several long, painful moments during which she had stared at Mr. Segal blankly, feeling her cheeks go from pink to tomato red.
    It wasn’t that Alice didn’t pay attention. She followed along with the discussions well enough. But when taken unawares, panic scared away all the half-decent thoughts she had.
    As usual, she ran to the bathroom before English. It so happened that the English classroom was located near one of the less-used restrooms in the school—which meant that Alice had exactly two minutes to sit in privacy and steel herself for the coming ordeal. It was a plan that worked out most of the time.
    Most of the time. But not today.
    As she rushed into the bathroom, she nearly ran over Emily Walker—a tall, blond senior who reigned over varsity tennis. Alice tried to keep her eyes on the ground and pretend she hadn’t noticed the other girl, but Emily was already breaking into a wide smile.
    “Alice!” she said, as though Alice