The Tribes of Palos Verdes Read Online Free Page B

gone.
    *   *   *
    The other girls have small purses or backpacks, but I carry a silver plastic shopping bag, big enough to hold my wet suit, so I can change in the bushes on the way to the cliffs.
    The girls laugh, they point, they titter. As we all wait for the bus after school they cup their hands in perfect unison, together in tribes, planning pranks to play.
    â€œCan I sit here?” Cami Miller is gesturing to a place beside me at the bus stop. A place that is always empty. I ignore her grandly, picking at my nails, humming.
    â€œWell, can I sit here?” Cami repeats, looking at the other girls, smiling, winking.
    â€œSure,” I finally say, “do whatever you want.”
    â€œBut I don’t want to sit here,” Cami says, giggling, then laughing tiny silvery bells. “I don’t want to catch anything.”
    The other girls laugh, in a gaggle. I think of them washing away. I throw my hands out in a wave.
    â€œDie,” I tell them. “Whatever.”
    Cami is five times as pretty as me now, but she wasn’t always. She only got beautiful when she went to Dr. Rosen for a nose job. All the towel girls go to Dr. Rosen. They tape their chins and ears, sometimes they even get their eyelids ripped open and reshaped into half moons. Tara Pugh had her lips enlarged with fat from her own butt.
    There are horror stories of plastic surgery gone wrong, like Mrs. Ambrose, whose face caved in from too many reductions, or poor Steph Stone who chose a nose too small for her face and ended up looking like a devious elf.
    â€œBut that’s because Dr. Rosen didn’t do the surgery.” The towel girls agree, “You get what you pay for.”
    â€œI mean, he was like a doctor from Afghanistan or something—from, like, a Third World country or something.”
    *   *   *
    My father says if I want to make friends I have to start wearing nice clothes. He surprises me with pleated skirts, floral dresses, and little pink socks.
    â€œYou don’t want to wear those old things; you’ll look much better in this,” he says, handing me a dress with clumpy purple flowers all over the front.
    He has clothes for my mother too, a few sizes too small.
    â€œI’m not an eight anymore,” she says, “I’m a sixteen.”
    â€œYou looked good as an eight.” He holds a chic, slinky dress against her frame. Then he pats her hand.
    â€œI want you to see these clothes as a symbol of encouragement. You can lose weight again, Sandy. I know it.”
    â€œWhy don’t you give it to one of your secret friends, Phil,” she hisses, flinging it aside.
    â€œMom looks fine,” Jim says.
    â€œThank you, lamb.” She lifts an eyebrow at my father.
    *   *   *
    â€œWhy don’t you wear your new dress to your French lesson?” my father asks me later.
    â€œYeah, why don’t you?” Jim says, trying not to laugh.
    â€œYou’ll look like a princess in it,” my father says, grinning.
    â€œShe’s not filled out enough for that dress,” my mother cuts in. “It’ll make her look like a scarecrow.”
    â€œI’ll wear it,” I say quickly. “I like it, Dad.”
    My mother says, “She’s a good liar, like someone else I know.” She looks directly at my father.
    â€œI’ll wear it,” I say, again.
    I wear the dress out of the house, but I sneak into the garage to change into shorts. Even though I feel guilty, I hide the dress inside the teeth of the lawnmower, next to the Goodwill pile.
    I look best in my new wet suit, anyway. Jim tells me I look like a pro.
    If I couldn’t surf, I’d just die.
    Surf or Die. I have a sticker on my notebook that says this.
    *   *   *
    Today Jim gets the first wave. We’re at the bay, the surf is three feet, no one is out but us. He stands, leaning too far forward, then