Family Law by Gin Phillips (phonics reading books .txt) 📕

picked up baked potatoes and chocolate chip milk shakes at Rax, and the wrappers were strewn across the sofa. We’d gotten into a routine lately, where we brought home fast food most nights and ate on the couch. Or really, I ate, and she used her French fries to draw designs in her ketchup.

I could smell melted cheese and nail polish. I tried to ignore it, but I couldn’t.

“I still don’t know why you can’t just go in the bathroom to paint them,” I said for the second time.

“I didn’t want to miss the show,” she said, forking a bite of cold potato and then setting it down. The bottle of pink polish was balanced on the arm of the sofa.

“You had plenty of time,” I said.

“Shhh,” she said as the commercial ended, and we watched Jennifer Hart walk into her living room, smiling at the sound of jazz.

I moved my milk shake from between my knees and made myself more comfortable. Jonathan Hart was in a band, and it looked to me like Robert Wagner was actually playing the trumpet. Between songs, Jonathan was chatting with a friend who was a piano player, and since I’d never seen that particular friend before, he was destined to either get murdered or be accused of murder.

“I don’t trust him,” Mom said.

“You should trust him,” I said. “He’s Jonathan’s friend. He’ll be innocent.”

The phone rang, and Mom waved a hand at me. It seemed easier to answer the phone than to argue with her. Most likely it was my grandmother or aunt or one of Mom’s friends. My own friends knew not to call me during Hart to Hart.

“Hello?” I said.

“May I speak to Rachel?”

It was a boy’s voice, unfamiliar.

“This is she,” I said, winding the coils of the phone cord through my fingers.

“This is John. I asked Tina for your number.”

I let the phone cord spring free. I hadn’t talked to John since the party, which had been weeks ago. For a couple of nights I’d thought he might call, but I’d stopped waiting.

“Hey,” I said.

“Hey.”

“What’s going on?” I said.

“Do you think that when people say caterpillars are poisonous—”

“Caterpillars can be poisonous?”

“Yeah,” he said. “Nobody ever told you that? Everybody keeps telling me. We found this white fuzzy one in our window box, and so we put him in a jar—did you know my mom used to be a biology teacher?—but now guys keep telling me that the white ones are poisonous.”

I appreciated that, so far, there had not been any awkward pauses. I wondered if he’d brainstormed before he called.

“What does your mom say?” I asked.

“She says as long as I don’t eat him, I should be fine.”

I kept an eye on the television. The beautiful heiress had a thin-lipped secretary, and there was something disturbing about her eyes.

“But you still seem worried,” I told John. “Exactly what are your plans for this caterpillar?”

He laughed. I wondered why he hadn’t called me earlier. Had he wanted to wait so I wouldn’t think he was too interested? Had he been unsure whether or not he wanted to call? Did he ask his friends first?

“Do you think if I had, say, licked the caterpillar—just a little—the poison would still kick in?” he asked. It took me a second to be sure he was joking.

Mom had collected our wrappers and balled them up on the coffee table. She tucked her nightgown over her knees. I wished I could tell what the creepy secretary was saying—it was her hair, I realized, that was the warning signal. Usually ladies with long gray hair were psychopaths.

“So is it cocooned yet?” I asked John.

“Yeah. It’ll probably be some boring kind of moth, but it’s kind of exciting to wait for him to come out. I hope it’ll be tomorrow.”

I wondered if this was going to be an invitation.

“You’d like it,” he said. “It’s pretty cool.”

“It sounds cool.”

I still wondered if this was going to be an invitation.

“Yeah,” he said.

All right. Did he want me to invite myself over? Was I supposed to act more enthusiastic about the moth? I hated the phone. It was all words and silence and wondering, and was it any clearer, really, when we were off the phone? This wasn’t talking—this was mind reading. It wasn’t John’s fault. It was the same with everyone. There was no telling what another person was really thinking, and that was one reason I’d taken a break from parties. The wondering sucked up too much energy.

“So what are you doing?” he asked.

“Watching Hart to Hart,” I said, as Jennifer discovered a dead body in the closet. She called for Jonathan just like she always did when she found a dead body in a closet.

“I’ve never seen it,” he said.

“Really?”

Mom was finally peering at me, her face asking a question. I put my hand over the mouthpiece.

“Homework,” I whispered to her.

“You’re missing it,” she whispered back.

I switched directions, twirling the cord. I pulled my foot loose from a sticky spot on the kitchen floor.

“So next weekend,” John said, “I think we’re going out to my cousin’s farm just for, like, a bonfire with some hotdogs and stuff. They’ve got four-wheelers. Have you ever ridden one?”

“Once,” I said. “I wasn’t that good at it. What about you?”

“Yeah. It’s pretty fun when I don’t nearly kill myself. There are these trails through the woods—”

He kept talking.

It’s too dark to tell which way he went, said Jonathan.

What are you going to tell Lieutenant Claire? asked Jennifer.

“My hair actually skimmed the grass,” said John. “And it’s not like my hair is long.”

“Right,” I said.

I liked him. I could almost conjure up the giddiness I felt when his knee first landed against mine. I could imagine this bonfire he was talking about, and—assuming he was actually going to invite me—I could see myself being excited about it. I’d tell Tina and Nancy and whoever else, and I’d probably wear my purple boatneck top and my black jeans, and he’d pick me up and