The Ten Best Days of My Life Read Online Free

off the heels. You could hear him coming down the hall.
    Anyway, I used to see this split-colonial farmhouse every day from the bus as we were going to school. I loved that house and I always wondered who lived in it. I grew up in an ultramodern home that my parents were nuts about keeping spotless and clean; it was never comfortable. There were no comfy pillows, and you always had to take off your shoes so you didn’t scuff the floors. Every time I saw this farmhouse with the creek going through the lawn and the rock bridge in the center of the walkway leading up to the house, it looked like a place where you’d want to kick off your shoes because the dress code was pajamas and slippers.
    Then one day in high school, I don’t remember why, I was in a car with Len Jacobs. Someone was driving us home after school, which was weird. I can’t remember who it was or why we were together, but that’s not the point. The point is that the farmhouse turned out to be Len Jacobs’s house. Imagine my surprise when I saw that the house I always wanted was punk-fanatic Len Jacobs’s house. Even years later, when I’d come home to visit my family in Philadelphia, whenever I drove by that house, I wondered if Len Jacobs’s family still lived there and if they appreciated the house. It was in need of a paint job, and I noticed that some of the rocks had fallen from the bridge. I remember being really sad about that and wished that I could buy it and fix it up to the way it was when I was a kid. I don’t think I ever mentioned to anyone that I always loved that house. Still, I never forgot it, and here it was and it was repainted and the creek was flowing and the rock bridge had been built back up.
    â€œThat’s Len Jacobs’s house!” I said again, looking at my family perplexed.
    â€œIt’s yours now,” they told me. “Boy, you had big dreams.”
    â€œWhat do you mean it’s mine?”
    â€œThis was what you dreamed of having. This is what you got,” my grandmother said matter-of-factly.
    How weird is that?
    My grandmother pulled the car into the driveway, and we all got out.
    â€œSo wait, this is really all mine?” I asked, taking a step back and looking at the house in full view.
    â€œIt is!” my grandmother said.
    All mine! Len Jacobs’s house was mine? How did they get it up here? How did they know? Do I just go in?
    â€œIt’s your house, sweetheart,” my uncle Morris repeated, clearly seeing the disbelief that was still plastered across my face.
    â€œDo I need keys?” I asked. “Is there an alarm system?”
    â€œDo you think anyone’s going to rob your house in heaven?” my grandmother asked, as if it was the dumbest question.
    So we went into my house.
    Who told them how much I love Shabby Chic? Everything is Shabby Chic! All French-country plush sofas and chairs and pictures of my family in frames and, oh, a picture of Penelope and me from summer camp in 1979! Three bedrooms, all with eastern king-size beds and white Frette sheets with tons of eyelet pillows; oh, I love that so much. The beds are so high and plush, I’m like the princess and the pea. Oh my God, plasma screens in every room, with every channel on earth (or heaven, I guess) and every movie you’d ever want to see!
    I have a Sub-Zero refrigerator and Wolf built-in ovens with All-Clad cookware and Le Creuset pots! I don’t even cook! I wonder if they’ve got cooking classes. I wonder if I have to clean.
    â€œYou never have to clean!” my grandmother said, reading my mind. “It’s a miracle, it all somehow cleans itself. There’s no soap to clean it! The beds, too. You get out of bed and the bed is made! There’s no washer/dryer because everything just cleans itself.”
    â€œWatch this!” my uncle Morris said, throwing a glass of red wine onto his charcoal gray suit. As it disappeared right before our