Map to the Stars Read Online Free Page B

Graham’s whole group? I’m guessing maybe a private plane doesn’t have overhead compartment limitations.”
    Mom straightened up and swiped a piece of hair out of her eyes. She looked at me for a second and then burst into laughter. It was nice to see the shadows in her eyes receding.
    â€œOh, my sweet girl. How did this get to be our life?”
    I grinned in return and listened carefully to her instructions, then pushed her out the door with promises that I would call housekeeping for Windex and get everything else arranged into a lovely display for the one and only Graham Cabot.
    After forty minutes or so, I had all the tubes and jars sorted and the items I thought we’d need neatly stacked on the mirrored sidebar. I’d managed to track down glass cleaner, and the table and sidebartwinkled in the sunlight. I’d even walked the dirty paper towels to the trash bin outside of the elevator so they wouldn’t mar the cans in the room.
    When I returned, I ventured back into the bedroom to stare transfixed again at William Lamb’s masterpiece. Seriously. How does someone design a building as amazing as the Empire State Building? If I peered closely, I could make out ant-size people movements at the top, where the observation tower was. I remembered thinking the same about the size of the people below when I’d been up there myself the day before.
    After a few minutes, the sightseeing of the day before started to catch up with my legs. I parked my butt, somewhat guiltily, on the very edge of the bed. The room had the muffled hush of a funeral parlor. Which was weird, because our room eight floors below was full of the sounds of the city outside. Maybe Fortress of Silence was on the amenities list up here. Wouldn’t surprise me.
    It really was especially quiet, which gave me the courage I needed to scoot back a little farther onto the bed. And then convinced me that no harm could come from me lying down on the far edge of the bed. I placed my feet above the folded duvet at the base so as to not leave any evidence of my indiscretion and to give myself a fighting chance of springing up when I heard Mom’s key card. After a few minutes I stretched out a teensy bit more and nudged my head onto the pillow. How was it that even the pillows were so much better up here? Ours were deluxe, but these were goose-feathery amazing.
    I lay on the bed, squinting at indistinct movements on theobservation deck and trying to figure out how someone could pull such an elegant design out of their head. When I felt my eyes closing, I gave in, figuring Mom couldn’t really get that pissed. Everything in the living room looked perfect and with one quick snap of the duvet and a fluff of the pillows no one would even know I was ever here. . . .
    â€œYou have GOT to be kidding me! AGAIN?”
    I jerked upright and peered through sleep-heavy lids at five strangers standing over me. The voice was one I’d grown accustomed to hearing coming from Wynn’s television set at every one of our sleepovers.
    Graham Cabot.
    â€œLet me through. I’ll handle this.” A man roughly the size of a Transformer and missing any hint of a neck pushed past Graham with a speed that was alarming for such a beefy physique.
    He plucked me from the bed and deposited me on my feet, exerting as much effort as if I were one of the downy pillows and not actual-girl-sized. I was too disoriented to speak. I blinked a few times in utter confusion while my brain slowly computed that this was not a dream.
    It was, in fact, a nightmare.
    Graham squared his shoulders and looked at me—well, really more like through me—like I was a mosquito on his camping trip. I’d had the chance to study, really study, the golden flecks in his hazel eyes every time I’d sprawled across Wynn’s bed and stared up at her ceiling (back in the day, Wynn hadn’t been so shy about her crush, and a younger life-size Graham