Likes by Sarah Bynum (e novels to read online .TXT) 📗

somehow it felt easier to be flexible and magnanimous when more than one other party was involved in the negotiations. As they were eating cereal and watching music videos, Bree’s mother appeared, holding her younger sister by the hand, and while Bree’s mother looked about the right age for Bevin, who was four, she didn’t look like she belonged to Bree, despite having a lot of the same soft, unformed features. With her ponytail and scuffed-up sneakers, she looked more like a big sister, like the eldest in a family of sisters fending for themselves after their parents had died in a tragic car accident. Or maybe Mari’s and Imogen’s parents were simply old. Mari couldn’t recall seeing any of them wearing tennis shoes while not playing tennis. “Make yourself at home, girls,” Bree’s mother said to them with strange formality, and ushered Bevin upstairs for a bath.

Darkness fell, and Bree suggested baking a cake. She made it sound like the idea had only just occurred to her, but in the kitchen she pulled out the bowl and the hand mixer and the measuring cups and the cake mix from a single cabinet, all ready to go, and Mari filled suddenly with so much tenderness that her eyes watered. The mix was Duncan Hines and the flavor was, mysteriously, “yellow.” At Mari’s house, what passed for cake was a nearly flavorless sponge that her mother bought at the Japanese bakery and then urged guests to try, assuring them that it was “very light” and “not too sweet.” When Bree dumped the yellow mix into the bowl, it sent up a mushroom cloud of synthetic sugariness that caused Mari to choke. Imogen was perched on the counter and slicing a plastic spatula through the air, as if felling enemies. She didn’t try to contribute anything. She looked on good-naturedly as Mari and Bree followed the box’s directions, and once the cake pans, trembling with batter, were slid into the oven, she held out her arms to receive the empty mixing bowl.

“Oh nice,” she said. “You left a lot on the sides.” Without hesitating she sank her spatula into the bowl, circled it around, lifted it back up, and inserted its entire drippy width into her mouth. It came out clean. “Share,” Bree said. Imogen scraped the bowl again and Mari watched the slathered spatula head disappear inside Bree’s open mouth.

The third time Imogen dipped into the bowl, she presented the mouthful of batter to Mari.

“No thanks,” Mari said lightly, and drew back from the spatula. She deliberately did not say what she wanted to say, what was foremost in her mind, what was exactly the thing her mother had spoken ominously of: salmonella. Because her mother was usually wrong. Her mother, for instance, had assumed that just because Bree was eight years older than her sister there had to be “different fathers,” as she put it. Something about the tactful tone she used made Mari want to strangle her. “It’s the same dad,” Mari had announced in a clipped voice, “and don’t worry, him and her mom are married. And yes, she will be at home the whole time we’re there.”

“He and her mom,” her own mother had answered, at which point Mari had covered her ears and let out a moan.

Yet three large eggs had plopped glisteningly into that batter, three large raw eggs probably teeming with bacteria, and just the sight of its yellowness slicking the spatula was making Mari feel queasy. That, and the sickly sweet smell. And the buzzy fluorescent lights in Bree’s kitchen. And all the saliva being passed around freely.

By now her friends were looking at each other and smiling. They’d seen right through her airy demurral. Panther-like, Imogen hopped down from the counter while Bree closed in on Mari from the other side.

“Just try some,” Imogen murmured. “You’ll like it.”

She handed the spatula off to Bree but held on to the bowl, dragging the length of her finger along its interior and then extracting it, coated. She slid the finger into her mouth.

“It’s the best part.” Bree swam the spatula closer to Mari’s face. “Trust us. It’s delicious.”

“I don’t want to,” Mari said from under the collar of her T-shirt, which she’d pulled up over her nose.

“Just a little,” Imogen said. “Just a little tiny taste.” Bree stuck out her tongue and delicately pressed the spatula to its tip. “See?” Imogen continued. “It’ll be that tiny. You’ll barely taste it.”

Mouth ajar, Bree darted her tongue in and out, in and out, in and out, very fast. Where did she learn to do that? It looked disturbing, like in a Prince kind of way. The yellow droplet sat at the end of her flickering tongue. Mari twisted her head aside.

“You’re pressuring me.” Her voice was muffled beneath the T-shirt. “I don’t like eating batter or being pressured or throwing up all night and getting hospitalized.”

“Who said anything about throwing up?”

She yanked her shirt back down and glared at them. “Hello—salmonella?”

Somehow it sounded less insane when her mother said it. Imogen and Bree stared at her, speechless. Then they both cackled. “Salmonella?” they repeated. “Salmonella?” Their eyes glittered. A look of silent understanding passed among the three of them. There was no averting what was coming next.

With a gasp, Mari shoved past Imogen and dove toward the TV room. They flew after her, unleashed, made swift by their socks on the linoleum. Over and around the leather sectional they chased her, careful to avoid the glowing fish tank, no one shrieking or laughing because upstairs Bevin was already asleep. Just their heavy breathing filled the room, and when the two of them finally pinned her to the floor, she could feel how all of their chests were heaving rapidly, in unison, like they had run a mile together with matching strides.

Chariots of Fire was one of her top-five favorite films. Though she didn’t like to run herself, the sight of British men running was very moving.