A Girl Like You by vinnie Kinsella (good books to read for 12 year olds .TXT) 📕

ex-wife to meet me, because he values her opinion!”

“OK, so you’re getting some of the frogs out of the way. Keep your chin up.”

“I’ll try. Gotta go now. I have an important date with my vibrator.”

“Have you set a personal record yet?”

“Still working on that,” I texted. “Night.”

59

It was time for the late winter continuing ed classes at the high school, and Eddie signed us up for a doozie: “Cascade of Color: Aura Drawing.”

“Geez, Eddie, I was never good at art—you know that. You always got straight A’s,” I protested. “I couldn’t even make a square paperweight in ceramics, remember? The teacher thought it was supposed to be a donut?”

“Yeah,” Eddie said thoughtfully. “It did look a lot like a chocolate glazed.”

I threw a dish towel at him. Penny looked up, then settled her chin on her front paws to snooze again.

Tuesday night’s aura class was in the same high school art room where I met Eddie and he took an artistically challenged freshman under his wing. I’d been worried we were expected to draw auras with crayons, but the room’s largest table was covered with sticks of pastel chalk, from subtle pink to shocking chartreuse.

One of the smallest women I’d ever seen was standing with her back to us, humming and swaying her hips, when we walked in.

“Hello?” I said.

“Oh sweet Jesus, you scared me,” the tiny woman said, fanning herself with a sheet of construction paper. “It’s not nice to sneak up on people like that.”

“Sorry,” I said, trying to judge the woman’s height compared to mine. She was easily under five feet tall. “We’re here for the aura class?”

“Of course you are! I’m Giovanna—call me Gigi.” She held out a hand covered in turquoise rings and bracelets, some of them silver, some beaded, all of them making her wrist look fragile. But her grip was like steel when she shook my hand. I tried not to wince. When she let go, my fingers felt numb.

“Brenda!” Gigi called. “Come over and meet two new friendly faces!”

A sullen teenager looked up blankly from her cell phone, made no eye contact whatsoever, and went back to texting.

“Yours?” Eddie asked.

Gigi sighed. “My youngest. Your aura’s looking mighty dark,” she yelled to her daughter. “We’re expecting another student, but it’s almost 7:00, so let’s dig in,” Gigi said, unwinding an orange gauze scarf from her neck to reveal a third-eye pendant.

Eddie and I sat down on stools next to each other.

“No, no—don’t sit so close; you must give your auras room to breathe!” Gigi was scolding us now.

Obediently, because we were, after all, in school, we sat a few seats apart. My stool was tippy, but I was afraid complaining would make my aura darken.

“When you go deep into yourself and face who you truly are, colors will reveal themselves,” Gigi whispered.

Eddie and I leaned in to hear better.

“What colors do you think you see?” We waited, thinking the question was rhetorical. “What do you see??” Gigi sounded impatient.

“Ah…rainbows?” I guessed.

“No,” she said sternly. “That’s what amateurs see. Try harder.”

Across the room, Gigi’s daughter was making circling motions around her head and pointing to her mom.

“Let’s try something else to break this glacier that’s getting in the way,” Gigi said. “Close your eyes and pick up a pastel stick. Pick the one that calls to you.”

I reached as far as I could, and when I opened my eyes, I was holding dark gray chalk. Eddie had a bright, sunny yellow.

“And so, we begin,” Gigi whispered. “We see the light, and we see the dark.”

I wished I saw an easy exit so I could make a run for the parking lot.

Gigi swept aside the chalk and rolled out an enormous swath of butcher paper, covering the art table from end to end. “See where your color takes you,” she instructed.

Eddie immediately began drawing stark geometrics, shading with his one chalk stick as if he had the whole box. I drew a smiley face.

“Sorry I’m late.” A woman with a blonde ponytail and a fringed leather purse rushed in. “Traffic.”

“Yes, well, how do you think we got here?” Gigi asked in a voice so loud it echoed around the art room. “There’s always traffic, but your classmates made it here on time. You must be Nadine. Take a seat.”

All three of us sat up straight on our art stools. Gigi clearly meant business.

“Pick up a mirror and gaze into it,” Gigi whispered. “Look beyond your own face and watch for rolling hills of color.”

There were small hand mirrors on the table. When I gazed into mine, all I saw was a zit cropping up on my chin, and that my waterproof mascara hadn’t lived up to its claim to last 24 hours.

Across the table from me, Nadine was using her mirror to touch up her burgundy matte lipstick. Luckily, Gigi was focusing on Eddie.

“You have gorgeous light around you, Edward,” she whispered. “Can you see it?”

Eddie’s face turned pink, but he nodded gravely into his mirror. “Well, the lighting in here must be kind; no fluorescents.”

“OK,” Gigi said, using her outside voice. “Edward is getting it, but you two—” She looked sternly over the tops of her leopard cat-eye glasses. “You two need to open yourselves up to the nuances of color.”

Nadine and I looked at each other. I tapped my front tooth to let her know her lipstick was smeared. She smiled, and I hoped I had cleared my own dark aura by being nice.

“Let’s pair up,” Gigi said briskly. “You ladies work together.”

I always hated when teachers told us to choose partners in gym class, because I was frequently the odd person out and had to do the drill with the teacher as a partner. Aside from a brief burst of potential in gymnastics, I’d never been a high achiever in anything athletic.

Ignoring us completely, Gigi turned Eddie’s stool to face her and began scribbling furiously on the white butcher paper with deep gold chalk.

“I guess it’s up to us to