A Long Way From You (30 page)

Authors: Gwendolyn Heasley

Tags: #Juvenile Fiction, #General, #Social Issues, #Adolescence, #New Experience

BOOK: A Long Way From You

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The cabbie pulls up to my building at Morton Street and the West Side Highway. I bound out of the cab, buzz to open the gate, and jog up to the marble front desk.

“Rudy, favor, please: Hold on to one of these for me,” I say, extending a Barneys bag.

Rudy, our hot 6'6" doorman who models on the side, takes the package out of my hands and puts it behind the desk. I always leave one bag downstairs with Rudy so my parents don’t know how much I am shopping. Then I retrieve it when I know my parents aren’t around. This way, they’re only mad at me once a month when the credit card bill arrives versus every time I make a big spree. My mom says my shopping is “O.O.C.,” which is an abrevs for out of control; my dad says that “maybe she’ll go into fashion, and it’s an investment.” They argue about it. Actually, they argue about me a lot. Yeah, I’ve gotten a few detentions and had sit-downs with the parents over learning to filter my comments, but compared to other teenagers I know, I am practically a wunderkind. No mug shot in the
Post
like the girl at school who got busted for smoking pot in a club. Good thing because mug shots, as a rule, find your most unflattering angle and make even celebrities look homeless.

I nudge Rudy with my elbow: “Thanks, Rudy. You totally help my publicity with the parents,” I say, and head to the elevators.

Rudy is awesome; he keeps all my secrets, like the fact that I come in right before curfew, make sure my parents know I am home, wait for them to fall back asleep, and then leave again. And then there was the time I drunkenly threw my keys down the trash chute with the late-night pizza box. Rudy even dug them out for me. If he weren’t a doorman, I’d totally marry him. Waverly’s doorman will rat her out to her parents for a good Christmas tip, so I know how fortunate I am.

Stepping out of the elevator onto the thirteenth floor, I smell chicken. I haven’t eaten all day because I am trying to go vegan to shed some poundage for back-to-school. But still, it smells divine, and I’d kill for a little piece. I am shocked to find the aroma’s coming from my own kitchen where my mother, J.J. Corcoran, stands over a stove. She’s wearing a seriously unglamorous apron that reads “Kiss the Cook” with a gigantic lipstick mark over her perfectly coiffed clothes, a black Diane Von Furstenberg dress with a full skirt, and a long string of pearls. The black-and-white color combo highlights her naturally honey blond locks. It makes me mad to see that dress because I had picked it out on a rare shopping excursion with my mom, but the store only had it in her size: a size
two.
She told me that she would order me one in my size, but I couldn’t bear the depressing notion that I would be Jumbo-J.J. Being fatter than your mom is a common issue for the kids at my school. And even worse yet, my mom told my hairdresser that I couldn’t get blond highlights until I am in college. “You have such beautiful brown hair, Corrinne; you’ll thank me someday,” she said. So I am fatter than my mom and a brunette. I imagine that I will spend a great portion of my adult years on a couch discussing these two injustices with my shrink.

“Corrinne, is something wrong with your phone again? Why didn’t you answer when I called twice? You know I don’t like texting,” my mom says as she stirs the chicken steeped in red wine. She stops churning to take a sip out of a very full glass of white wine.

“Why are you cooking, Mom? And where’d you get that apron? Is Maria okay?” I say, looking around for our fifty-something Mexican housekeeper, who’s always at the apartment until at least eight at night. She’s worked for our family for years and helps to keep our lives out of madness.

“Maria’s fine. She took the train back to Coney Island this afternoon. And I’ve cooked before, Corrinne. Just not in a while. Besides, I thought it would be nice to have some real food for our meeting.”

“Whatever; I have a dinner date at seven thirty, so let’s make it quick.”

“Corrinne, this is important. Your father’s home, um, he’s home early for it,” my mom says, and turns back to the stove.

This must be a big deal because my dad and I usually only exchange glances on Saturday mornings.

“Corrinne, one more thing: Set the table.”

About the Author

Gwendolyn Heasley
is a graduate of Davidson College and the University of Missouri–Columbia, where she earned her master’s degree in journalism. When she was a little girl, she desperately wanted to be the next Ann M. Martin, so she’s grateful that the recession rendered her unemployed and made her chase her nearly forgotten dream. Gwendolyn now lives in New York City, teaches in New Jersey, and eats too much mac and cheese for an adult. She is also the author of
WHERE I BELONG
. You can visit her online at www.gwendolynheasley.com.

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Credits

Cover design by Alison Klapthor
Cover photograph © 2012 by Gustavo Marx / MergeLeft Reps, Inc.

A Long Way from You

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Heasley, Gwendolyn.

A long way from you / Gwendolyn Heasley. — 1st ed.

p. cm.

Sequel to: Where I belong.

Summary: Seventeen-year-old Kitsy Kidd learns that there is a lot more to making original art—and relationships—than she thought when she leaves Texas behind for a prestigious summer art program in New York City.

ISBN 978-0-06-197885-2

[1. Interpersonal relations—Fiction. 2. Artists—Fiction. 3. Self-Actualization (Psychology)—Fiction. 4. Moving, Household—Fiction. 5. New York (N.Y.)— Fiction.] I. Title.

PZ7.H3467Lon 2012

[Fic]—dc23

2011044630

CIP

EPub Edition © MAY 2012 ISBN: 9780062190208

12 13 14 15 16 CG/RRDH 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

FIRST EDITION

About the Publisher

Australia

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Pymble, NSW 2073, Australia