分节阅读_4

  floor to the phohis ulation
  from my mother, so that we could stay ihe rog chair
  from my baby days was still in the er.
  there was only one small bathroom at the top of the stairs, which i would
  have to share with charlie. i was trying oo mu that
  fact.
  ohings about charlie is he doesn't hover. he left me
  aloo unpad get settled, a feat that would have beeher
  impossible for my mother. it was o be aloo have to smile
  and look pleased; a relief to stare dejectedly out the window at the
  sheeting rai a fee. i wasn't io go
  on a real g jag. i would save that for bedtime, when i would have to
  think about the .
  fh school had a frightening total of only three hundred and
  fifty-seven — now fifty-eight — students; there were more than seven
  hundred people in my junior e bae. all of the kids here
  had growheir gras had beeher.
  i would be the new girl from the big city, a curiosity, a freak.
  maybe, if i looked like a girl from phoenix should, i could work this to
  my adva physically, i'd in anywhere. i should be tan,
  sporty, blond — a volleyball player, or a cheerleader, perhaps — all the
  things that go with living in the valley of the sun.
  instead, i was ivory-skihout even the excuse of blue eyes or red
  hair, despite the t sunshine. i had always bee soft
  somehow, obviously not ae; i didn't have the necessary hand-eye
  ation to play sports without humiliating myself — and harming both
  myself and aood too close.
  when i fiing my the old piook my bag
  of bathroom ies ahe unal bathroom to myself
  up after the day of travel. i looked at my fa the mirror as i
  brushed through my tangled, damp hair. maybe it was the light, but
  already i looked sallower, uhy. my skiy — it was
  very clear, almost tra-looking — but it all depended on color. i
  had no color here.
  fag my pallid refle the mirror, i was forit that i
  was lyi wasn't just physically that i'd in. and
  if i 't find a ni a school with three thousa
  were my ces here?
  i dide well to people my age. maybe the truth was that i didn't
  relate well to people, period. even my mother, who i was closer to than
  ahe pla, was never in harmony with me, ly
  the same page. sometimes i wondered if i was seeihings
  through my eyes that the rest of the world was seeing through theirs.
  maybe there was a glit my brain. but the 't matter. all
  that mattered was the effeorrow would be just the beginning.
  i didn't sleep well that er i was d. the
  t whooshing of the rain and wind across the roof wouldn't fade
  into the bad. i pulled the faded old quilt over my head, and later
  added the pillow, too. but i 't fall asleep until after midnight,
  when the rain fio a quieter drizzle.
  thick fog was all i could see out my window in the m, and i could
  feel the claustr up on me. you ever see the sky
  here; it was like a cage.
  breakfast with charlie was a quiet event. he wished me good luck at
  school. i thanked him, knowing his hope was wasted. good luded to
  avoid me. charlie left first, off to the poli that was his wife
  and family. after he left, i sat at the old square oak table in one of
  the three unmatg d examined his small kit, with its dark
  paneled walls, bright yellow ets, and white linoleum fl
  was ged. my mother had pais eighteen years ago in an
  attempt t some suhe house. over the small fireplace
  in the adjoining handkerchief-sized family room ictures.
  first a wedding picture of d my mom ihen one of
  the three of us ial after i was born, taken by a helpful
  nurse, followed by the proy school pictures up to last
  year's. those were embarrassing to look at — i would have to see what i
  could do to get ch