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

oak, always dodging spiderwebs whether they were there or not. The only pants she owned had an elastic waist and were made of velour. Yet Imogen didn’t despair of her. She remained cheerfully deaf to worries and complaints. Unflappably, she coached Mari over boulders and under fallen branches and through soggy patches. She didn’t sigh when Mari lost her balance or needed to stop and catch her breath. Despite Mari’s hopelessness, Imogen kept inviting her over to play, week after week—months passing, and then years.

Mari would not forget it: the feel of Imogen’s bony grip on her wrist as she pulled her up through the rough opening in the tree-house floor.

The summer before high school began, the girls barely ventured out to the backyard. Maybe once or twice to hose off their feet, or to find mint to put into a pitcher of lemonade. Mari’s second attempt at smoking occurred early one morning, alone, beneath the crabapple tree. Sometimes they would drape their bathing suits on the Adirondack chairs to make them dry faster, but usually they just hung them up in the bathroom. Bree always seemed to forget where she’d left her clothes and so had to run through the house in her damp bikini searching for them, squealing with cold.

Since it was summer and they were going into high school, they could sleep over not only on Fridays but on other days of the week as well. On one such night Mari stumbled upon Bree pushing open the French doors from the outside, stepping into the living room from the garden. She scared Mari nearly half to death. What on earth had she been doing out there? It was late—the middle of the night—Mari didn’t know what time it was. She had awoken with a terrible thirst that only not-from-concentrate orange juice could quench and was making her silent way to the kitchen.

For a moment Bree didn’t seem to see her. Her face was blank, and she was barefoot, wearing the oversized T-shirt she had put on before bed.

“You gave me a heart attack!” Mari whispered, and Bree jumped, sucked in her breath. “What are you doing up?” Mari asked, but before Bree could answer, a large shape appeared behind her in the doorway. It was Nicholas, dressed in his regular clothes, the same khaki shorts and wrinkled white Oxford he’d worn during the day. He wasn’t wearing any shoes.

“Hi Nicholas,” Mari said automatically. And then, stupidly: “I was just getting some orange juice. I think I might be coming down with something.”

The words issued forth without her thinking. As if she were apologizing, as if she were the one who had interrupted or disturbed.

And this would be the moment when she knew. Without needing it spelled out for her, without questions and answers. She would take it all in—the late hour, the naked feet, the two bodies standing in the darkness, one right behind the other—and she would understand. She would see them, and she would know, and Bree would know that she knew. The two of them knowing it together.

Which wasn’t how it happened, to be clear. This was solely the strange fantasy that Mari had concocted—her unwitting discovery, her reservoir of intuition. A look shared between her and Bree in the shadowy living room, followed by an understanding beyond her years.

So first it was engine that needed to be replaced. No big surprise there. Otherwise bus would still be in use right? But who knew diesel engines cost A LOT. Like down payment on a small house a lot. Then brakes failed inspection. FYI bus has air brakes not hydraulic brakes and air brakes are of course way more! Imogen literally saved our lives by paying for complete overhaul new compressor new lines new valves the WORKS. Plus labor. She wanted everything all new. Our third day a deer jumps out right in front of us and was I ever glad for brand new brake system! Whole process one miracle after another. Stunning moments of kindness from unforeseen sources. Largely reaffirmed my faith in humanity which was at low ebb for multiple reasons as I’m sure you can relate. It was Jon who after much arguing and defensiveness overcame my reluctance re fundraising page. He said people want to help and website just makes it easier to do so and though I hate to admit when he’s right he was right.

Mari didn’t stumble upon Nicholas and Bree in the middle of the night. And at no point that summer did Bree confide in her. She had to be told—by Melanie, of all people—while flipping through the new-imports bin at a record store near one of the unavoidable universities. They were music shopping before the start of school. Melanie didn’t break down but seemed instead to expand under the weight of her conscience. Her eyes welled up as she told Mari, but Mari remained stony. It was only when her mother picked her up at the end of the afternoon that she slammed the passenger door shut and wept.

Her mother, who was a tentative driver to begin with, drove home extra slowly, as if steering a small craft through a squall. Mari had resolved not to say anything, but that resolve was hard to maintain once she was inside the warm hull of her mother’s Toyota. She couldn’t identify what hurt more: the fact that Bree had had sex; or that she had had sex with their best friend’s brother; or that somehow with all her dumb vamping she’d actually won the attention of golden, unattainable Nicholas; or that she, Mari, had to hear about it secondhand from a random person like Melanie. It was like probing for the fracture in a limb that was entirely alight with pain. As she sobbed, her mother kept asking mundane questions: “Is Bree fifteen now?” (No, fourteen, her birthday isn’t until the end of October), and “Does she still live in Revere?” (Yes, obviously), and “Remind me: