The Corner of Bitter and Sweet Read Online Free

with my depressed mother, but if baking was going to help kick Mom out of her funk, I was up for it.
    She stood up. “We’ll go to Whole Foods and get the stuff. Give me two minutes to get dressed.”
    A half hour later, I was still waiting for her. I plopped down on the couch and picked up a copy of People with the actor Billy Barrett’s smile beaming out at me. “He’s Rad and Righteous , But Will the King of Hollywood Ever Find True Love?” the headline read. You couldn’t say that Billy Barrett was the flavor of the month. He was more the flavor of the last two years.
    According to the article, Billy was a “combination of the Ryans (Reynolds and Gosling) and the Brads (Pitt and Cooper).” He did both comedy and action, and his new movie Rad and Righteous (an action comedy) had been number one at the box office for the last three weeks in a row. He wasn’t my type—for the most part I liked guys who were a bit nerdier in both looks and personality—but I could see the appeal. Every girl I knew thought he was super-hot. Including Maya (“Just because I’m into girls doesn’t mean I can’t appreciate the gorgeousness that is Billy Barrett.”). If you took a poll at my school and asked which Hollywood actor most girls would like to lose their virginity to, he’d win by a landslide
    “Mom, we’re going to the supermarket—not a premiere!” I yelled.
    “Yes, but it’s Whole Foods, Bug,” she yelled back. “You never know who you’re going to run into there.”
    She was right. You never knew.
    Half an hour later, right there in the produce aisle, we saw Billy Barrett himself, staring at a pair of big boobs on a very thin, very flirty brunette who was helping him pick out artichokes.
    “Eww. Gross,” I said out loud. Mom was busy being fawned over by an old couple who were telling her how no one in their retirement community missed a rerun of Plus Zero .
    Suddenly, Mom stopped talking. “Is that . . . oh, my God . . . it is. It’s Billy Barrett.” She fluffed her hair. “I have to go say hello.”
    I held her back. “Mom, you don’t even know him!”
    “I know. But we’re both actors.” The only thing worse than one celebrity in a non-movie/TV-set public place was two of them. It was like there was this weird law-of-physics thing that kicked in: whenever two famous people were in the same room, they had to say hello to each other. She grabbed my hand. “Come with me.”
    Before I could stop her, she had dragged me over with her. “Excuse me, Billy?” Mom said as the brunette stuck out her boobs a little more and did a hair flip. While her flip wasn’t as smooth as Mom’s, it was pretty good.
    Please let him recognize her , I thought as he turned around. Billy Barrett didn’t look like the type of guy who watched a mainstream 9:00 p.m. sitcom. He looked like the type of guy who was just getting up from an early- evening nap after a wild night of partying and preparing to go do it all again.
    As he focused on her, a big smile appeared on his face. It wasn’t just his mouth that smiled—it was his eyes as well. In fact, if it was possible for a person’s nose and chin to smile, they were, too. He was cute. Like I-don’t-know-if-I’d-give-it-up-for-him-but-I’d-definitely-start-thinking-about-what-kind-of-birth-control-I’d-use-in-addition-to-condoms-if-I-did kind of cute.
    “ Wow . I can’t believe I’m standing in front of Janie Jackson ,” he marveled. “That’s just . . . wow. ” He turned to the brunette. “Isn’t it?” The action-hero deep voice that he used in interviews and on red carpets wasn’t there. He sounded . . . normal. Like some sort of Midwestern-churchgoing-star-quarterback guy. Which made sense, because according to the article I’d read, that’s exactly who he was.
    The brunette looked less impressed than Billy. “I guess,” she said as she stuck her chest out even farther.
    Mom did her patented smile-as-she-ran-a-hand-through-her-hair