American Babe Read Online Free Page A

change that sound,” I whispered softly.
    The door swung open, and I was greeted by a male child.
    â€œCome on in!” he said as if I were the camera crew for his Cribs episode. I stepped back, trying to process the excessive and, mind you, blind hospitality, and noticed something . . .
    â€œI’m sorry, male child, but are you wearing the Dior Fusion sneaker in navy with black sequin appliqués right now?”
    â€œI’m not clear, is that a rhetorical question? You’re looking at them,” he stated, truly confused, as if to ask if I was partially blind and needed help identifying the shoe.
    â€œWait,” I uttered.
    â€œWait what?”
    â€œWait, like, who are you?”
    â€œWhat do you mean, who am I? I live here.”
    â€œAre you me?”
    â€œNo . . .” he said with a tilt of his head. He lookedconcerned now. “Who are you?” he asked. “You’re not the babysitter tonight? Danielle or whatever?”
    â€œWhat? Does it look like that word could be my name? And why would I be your babysitter? That’s a LOLZ.”
    We looked at each other.
    â€œAre we fighting?” I asked His Highness.
    â€œShe’s obviously not the babysitter. She has a suitcase,” said a girl walking up behind him, wiping her hands with a dishrag. Oh, there’s no help here. She was cute in the face for a teenage girl, but her entire outfit was a size small for her build, which was not bad, in a SoulCycle way. “How can we help you?”
    â€œI’m Babe Walker.”
    The boy’s eyes lit up. He knew that name.
    â€œNo fucking way,” the girl said.
    â€œYes fucking way. Do you guys know who I am?”
    â€œYou’re Donna’s daughter,” said the boy, whose freckly face was now wrapped in a huge smile. “Babe Walker.”
    â€œRight. That’s my, um, name.”
    I felt a little weird because I didn’t know if he was just cheesing to meet his first cousin for the first time and also realize that she’s an image of freshness and glows with a bright aura of grue (green/blue), OR . . . was he a superfan of my books? That could be cute, I guess. I was shocked ten-year-olds could even read. My memory of that age is shot.
    â€œYou’re Knox, right? So that must mean you’re Cara,” I said to them, proud of myself for remembering their names.
    â€œYep, exactly. And you’re the Babe Walker. Wow,” Knox said kind of loudly. “This is cool.”
    â€œHe reads your books or whatever,” Cara said, uninterested. She clearly did not read my books because if she had she’d know not to wear a teal spaghetti-strap tank top. Knox, on the other hand, was giving me a complete fashion look. An almost minimal/Japanese approach to a classic ten-year-old laissez-faire aesthetic. And the Dior sneaker just slayed me. There was an undeniable and immediate connection between the two of us. I guess we did have some of the same blood.
    Cara finally asked me if I wanted to come in, and they showed me the house. It was basic, but I wasn’t there to judge. I told them about Donna’s email and how I need family in my life for it to be complete and they told me blah blah blah where they went to school and what their favorite colors were, and it was a perfectly cute getting-to-know-you sesh. Soon it became clear that their babysitter was not showing up. Who does that? The kids could’ve literally starved if I hadn’t dropped from the sky. And their mom, my aunt Veronica, whom I’d still never met at this point, was on a night shift at a hotel nearby where she worked the front desk. The kids told me she had two jobsor something insane like that and their dad wasn’t really in the picture.
    â€œDo you know where he lives or if he’s alive, et cetera?” I asked them, sitting at the kitchen island having a glass of water. I was parched and needed a liquid