Tall Poppies Read Online Free Page A

in the deli. She told Dad he’d have to check the books himself; she told Mom she’d need to spend more time behind the counters. But they didn’t like it, and every day they let her know.
    ‘You’re workin’ for them when we need you here,’ her dad grunted. Nina looked behind her to see him slumped in his easy chair, eyes fixed on .Wheel of Fortune.
    ‘You don’t need me, Daddy, you could do the books,’ Nina said. ‘You’re just as smart as me.’
    ‘I know that, miss. Don’t you sass me,’ her father said. He fancied himself a great brain, always quoting from Shakespeare and Whitman. Nina despised him all the more because he was intelligent: an intellectual, real proud of his education and never doing anything with it. ‘I’m busy enough with deliveries …’
     
    9-0
     
    ‘They only deliver once a week,’ Nina tried. ‘And I gotta stack the shelves. That’s real work.’
    Nina waited for Mom to wade in shrieking, but there was only silence. They were united for once. Against her.
    ‘You spend way too much time with that fancy jock you’re seem’,’ her mother snapped.
    ‘He’s not a jock, he’s just athletic,’ Nina said, her buttermilk complexion lighting up. She couldn’t help it. Just the mention of Jeff was like the sun bursting through the thick clouds all round her. She’d be going round to the park to meet up with him tonight …
    Her stomach felt squirmy with excitement, hungry for his touch. Sometimes she was ashamed to find how hot he could get her. Lying in her cramped bedroom at night, Nina would stare at the damp cracks in the ceiling and think about Jeff, about his smooth strong chest and the flat of his stomach with its smattering of wiry hair, trailing down to his cock, and she’d feel weird, hot and edgy, and her hand would slip between her legs, rubbing herself frantically for some release. Somehow it was better when she was imagining it than when it happened. In her dreams, Jeff’s tongue was gentle over her aching nipples, his hands would stroke her butt and her back and tease her the way she teased herself … Nina’s hands would start to move of their own accord under the languorous heat of her. body, her mouth slightly open, panting softly as she thought about Jeff inside her, kissing her and saying soft things but somehow fucking her harder and harder all the time, until she’d lose control and her stomach would contract and expand in an exquisite, savage flash of white fire …
    Actual lovemaking with Jeff wasn’t quite that way and sometimes Nina thought about it guiltily when she began to pleasure herself. But it was thinking about Jeff that got her that way, after all, and she loved him so much, it just couldn’t be wrong.
     
    ‘He’s not interested in you, girl. He’s playin’ with you,’ her dad grumbled.
    ‘Jeff’s in love with me,’ Nina said fiercely.
    ‘Oh yeah?’ Her father’s pudgy face creased in scorn. ‘He take you back to meet his folks yet? White trash, that’s what we are. You reckon he thinks any different? Don’t kid yourself.’
    ‘You’re wrong!’ Nina shouted. She grabbed her coat from the back of the door.
    ‘Where d’you think you’re going, Nina Roth? You got work to do here!’ her mother yelled.
    ‘Sharper than a serpent’s tooth it is, to have a thankless child,’ Matthew pronounced. , ‘I’m going to meet Jeff,’ Nina told them. She nodded back at the ragged pile of papers stacked on the couch.
    ‘You should deal with those, Mom. I don’t have time.’ The door slammed on its hinges behind her.
    Ellen Roth stared at it. ‘Little bitch thinks she’s too good for us,’ she said bitterly.
    “You got that right,’ grunted her husband.
     
    A fresh fall wind whipped around Prospect Park, sending golden leaves dancing across the paths as Nina hurried towards the Long Meadow. She drew deep breaths, elated to be out of the claustrophobic apartment. Tantalised by the thought of seeing Jeff. A pair of