What A Girl Wants Read Online Free Page B

out of the bathroom into the living room. Diane’s studio apartment was that small—and very light-wood IKEA. Not that Hayley was judging, or anything, but although most of her apartment furniture was still black-metal IKEA, she’d at least managed to upgrade the bedding and such to Calvin Klein.
    Audra sat hunched in the corner of the couch with her legs crossed and her nose in the air. Suz and Diane stood facing her with their backs to the television set. Diane tugged nervously at thehem of her oversize yellow-and-navy rugby shirt, while Suz kicked one of her pink flip-flop sandals into the carpet, trying to look innocent in spite of the fact that she was obviously concealing something behind her back.
    Assuming her most morose expression, Hayley looked pointedly from one girl to the other, then sat down next to Audra. She plucked two crab puffs off the tray in quick succession and crammed them into her mouth.
    Suz cleared her throat. Everybody looked at her. “Before we begin, I just want to say something.” She cleared her throat again, which was unusual, because Suz generally leaped before looking. “Everyone should keep an open mind.”
    Audra and Hayley looked at each other in alarm, and Suz elbowed Diane.
    â€œAs you know,” Diane said in that authoritative voice she often used when explaining esoteric concepts to idiots, “I’ve been taking an elective in human sexuality.”
    Audra and Hayley looked at each other again, and Audra started to get out of her seat, but Suz came forward and shoved her back into the couch.
    â€œYou don’t need me. I’m delicate,” Audra whispered through gritted teeth. But Suz gave her some special look and Audra sat back quietly, if not exactly calmly.
    â€œRight. So. . .” Diane continued, speaking faster and faster, “we are going to test on Hayley the premise that adult films are useful for therapeutic purposes.”
    Suz whipped a DVD out from behind her back.
    Audra gasped. “Hayley has mental problems. I don’t see how that relates to adult films.”
    Hayley frowned. Sometime between Sunday brunch and Thursday she’d been downgraded from upset and confused to mental catastrophe. How nice. And these must be her three best friends from the asylum.
    And that was when Hayley was struck by the delicious absurdity of the situation. Audra with her money issues and her ironic insistence on spending it all discussing said issues with pricey therapists, Diane racking up degrees in a prolonged campaign to use education to avoid the real working world, and Suz with her inability to function on anything other than a short-term physical level with a guy (although apparently she functioned in that capacity extremely well); these well-intentioned pals were just as mentally flawed as she was.
    And these were the people who were going to help her through her crisis. Hayley gazed at her oblivious friends fondly, a bubble of hilarious laughter welling up in her throat.
    I love you guys!
    â€œ. . . and therein lies the question on which my thesis is based,” Diane was saying, “which is: Have the therapeutic possibilities of adult films been underestimated?”
    Suz knelt by the entertainment center, loading the disc into the DVD player. “This is some hard-core shit. I don’t want to mess with their expectations by saying ‘adult film.’ This isn’t E.M. Forster; it’s porn. Can’t we just say ‘porn’?”
    â€œI don’t think we should,” Diane said nervously.
    â€œThis is unbelievable.” Audra appeared as incensed as Audra ever got. She was compulsively smoothing her mauve suede skirt, kneading it, actually, from thigh to knee. “First you trump my crab puffs with popcorn, and now you expect me to watch groupporn. And this is supposed to result in some sort of personal epiphany for Hay?”
    â€œI want you to know that my thesis is