Lauren Takes Leave by Gerstenblatt, Julie (ebooks children's books free txt) 📕

“Ha,” I say. “I need a minute. Just be quiet for oneminute.”

She leans toward me. “You were the one whosuggested that we drink more to make the party more fun, if I may remind you.”

“That’s not being quiet.” I close my eyes. I need to soberup and think clearly here. I need to make a rational decision.

Noise from the street causes me to open my eyes. Kat hasher head sticking through an opening in the bushes and is talking to a smallgroup of partygoers heading to their cars.

“You didn’t hear?” one of the women asks us.

“Hear what?” Kat asks back.

“Shay Greene. Her husband called her just now to say thevotes are finally counted. Someone was contesting the decision, but nowit’s all sorted out and…Shay won!”

“Won what?” I ask, fearing that I already know the answer.My stomach sinks in apprehension.

“Shay’s the new president of the school board,” the womanannounces.

“Of course she is!” Kat says. Then she mutters to herself,“Jesus Fucking H. Christ.”

“Thanks for the news!” I call, waving the group awayalthough they can’t see me doing it.

“Hey, Lauren, is that you hiding in the bushes with Kat?”I hear my friend Susie ask.

“Yes, it sure is!”

She bends down and catches my eye through the pineneedles. “You know, Leslie’s on the phone with her dad. He’s a partner at West,Hunter, and Harrison. I think she’s planning to sue you. The whole incident wascaught on the nanny cam; Leslie had them installed everywhere after that lastbabysitter, remember?”

Kat gives me a look. “Nanny cam?” she mouths. She lookslike I feel: spooked.

Susie continues. “Just thought I’d give you the heads-up.Ciao, ladies!”

My pole dancing was caught on videotape.

I’m getting sued.

Everyone in town is going to be talking about me.

“Nanny cam?” Kat repeats, this time in anI-see-dead-people stage whisper.

“Do you think Leslie has cameras in the bathrooms?” Iwonder, worried about my lovefest with the toilet.

“Lauren, focus.” Kat lifts my chin and holds my gazesteady with hers. “Shay and I weren’t in a bathroom.”

Oh shit. I wasn’t thinking about them.

Kat just kissed the new school board president. Kat justkissed the new married, female school board president, and, in a bedroomsomewhere in Leslie’s house, there’s a teddy bear or a decorative ceramicobject that saw it all.

I think back to Tuesday and that nice French man in thepark with Googly the poodle, talking about his lovely little weekend getawaysto Florida.

I turn to Kat, my heart beating fast. “Miami, did yousay?”

She grabs my hands in hers, clearly freaking big time, hereyes glowing sort of crazy-like. “Two days, Lauren. That’s it. Till we canfigure out how to handle this. Just to, you know, get out of Dodge.”

“We need to get out of Dodge,” I say. What was an option amoment ago is now an imperative. There are just too many people to hide from inHadley. I think of trying to have a few days of local fun while steering clearof Martha, Leslie, Shay. Doug. Kat’s husband, Peter. It’s just not possible.

Running away is our only way.

“But, we have to be back by Saturday night for Jodi’sfundraising dance at the temple,” I rationalize.

“I know. I thought of that. We’re booked to come back onSaturday morning. We’ll have plenty of time to do both.”

My heart is in my throat, a sure sign that I’ve takenleave of my senses. Either I’ve had too much to drink or am making ascintillating, albeit potentially dangerous, decision.

Or both.

Kat and I lock eyes, making some sort of unwritten pact.It’s now or never. We deserve this, I imagine her saying. It will bea blast, I say back. Like skipping school when we were teenagers. Noone has to know, we agree. There’s no nanny cam in Miami.

“I’m in,” I say. Then, realizing what I’ve just committedto, I say it again, with excitement. “I’m in!”

“You’re welcome!” Kat exclaims. I look at her skeptically.She shrugs. “I’m just saying. You’re going to thank me for this later. You’llsee.”

“Thank you or kill you,” I say. “We’ll know by Saturday.”

Kat and I have sobered up a bit but are not what you’dactually call sober. We get a taxi, which pulls up at the same moment asan ambulance with its lights flashing.

“Oh brother,” Kat sighs. “You are so fucked.” About that,I would have to agree. We watch from the bushes as Leslie is rolled down herdriveway on a gurney, her black ponytail dragging behind her on the pavement.When she’s hoisted in the back—with handholding Pam by her side and everyoneelse from the party rubbernecking—we make a run for it and dash from the treeline out into the street, and into the back of the taxi.

“Where to?” the cabbie asks.

“Just get us around this ambulance and off this street!”Kat directs.

As we pull away, Shay waves to our cab and mouths, withher fist to her ear, “Call me.”

After the driver drops Kat off at her condo, I have anepiphany. I check the time, see that it’s just past 11:00, and dial Jodi athome while the cab makes its way to my house.

Her sultry voice fills my ear, and I can tell I’ve eitherinterrupted her sleep or her lovemaking. “Hi-yyy! Are you okay?” Sheyawns.

“I’m fine! I’m great!”

“You sound high. Are you stoned?”

“Jo, I don’t smoke pot. You do.”

“Oh, right.” She pauses and laughs. “I’m high.”

So now I know what I’ve interrupted. “Are you with Leeright now?” I ask. “Because I need to confide in you; I need to talk to you inprivate.”

“Well, I’m with Lee, technically, but he’s passed out onthe couch next to me, so I think we’re cool for the deep, dark secrets,” shewhispers. “Spill.”

“I’m…going away,” I say, taking a deep breath. “I’m…takinga very small, much-needed, well-deserved vacation tomorrow, and I’m not tellingDoug about it, and in case something horrible should happen to me—or God forbidto anyone I love—while I’m gone, I need to tell someone where I am going. Ineed to tell you where I’ll be.”

“Whoa,” she says. “That’s intense.”

“Sort of is, I guess.”

“You, like, totally trust me.”

“I do, Jo.”

“Aw, you’re such an awesome friend.” I can imagineher zoning out in her