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

“No, she didn’t know I was there. I felt like…like I wassending her love from afar. Like my presence was felt even when I wasn’t in theroom.”

“Which was never,” Kat whispers.

“Be nice,” I answer.

“My sarcasm is worst in times of distress,” she shrugs. We’rein for some morning, then, I think.

Jodi disconnects and looks at us, eyes tired. “I have tokeep lying about this! Concocting new webs! It’s going to drive me insane, Itell you.” She takes a deep breath. “I mean, it’s one thing to lie forpleasure. It’s another thing entirely to lie out of necessity.”

“So tell the truth,” I venture.

“Ha,” she responds, not even hesitating to consider thepossibility. “The truth, meaning that I’m here with you? Lauren, even if Iwanted to talk truth, I don’t see how that’s even possible without dragging youinto a boatload of shit.”

Except that Doug already knows. Maybe. Some of it. All ofit?

Then she stands and stretches, reaching for her bag.“Well, I guess I better get going.”

“By yourself?” I say. “No way. We’re all for one and onefor all.”

Kat nods. “The Three Musketeers take Miami’s Golden Girls.”

“Where are Lenny and Tim?” Jodi asks. We do our best toexplain the conversation we had with Tim and how it led to a guy-only talk.

“You were inquisitioning him?” Jodi asks, horrified.

“That’s one way to put it,” I counter.

“Hey, guys?” Kat calls down to the beach from our spotalong the path, catching Lenny and Tim’s attention. “We’re off!”

“Where are we going?” Tim calls back.

“The hotel?” Lenny guesses, their voices coming closer.

“We?” Kat and I ask in unison.

“Nope. Hebrew Home for the Aged!” Jodi yells.

The guys have jogged up from the beach and are pantingslightly when they reach us. “At least, Kat and Jodi and I are going there. Youdon’t have to come with us.” I look at Tim, in particular, while saying thislast part. It’s one thing to take Tim slumming at the Clevelander. It’s anothermonster entirely to drag him to the bedside of a dead nonagenarian.

Tim seems to agree. He hesitates, then looks sideways atLenny.

Lenny puts an arm around Tim and pulls him close in whatlooks like an act of either aggression or camaraderie. It’s hard to tell which.

“Of course we’re coming! Right, Tim?” Lenny says.

Tim struggles a bit under Lenny’s grip and produces atight smile. “Sure! Love it! Sounds like a blast.”

“Such a good guy, that Tim Cubix,” Kat sighs, watching himshake some sand of his pants and disappear inside the now-deserted club. Lennyand I sigh right along with her.

“Yeah,” Lenny agrees, a hint of chill in his tone.“Unique, that one.”

Chapter 23

“Hey, I’ve always wanted to solve the Rubix Cube!” thecabdriver says, cracking himself up. Tim winks theatrically at us as Jodi givesthe address.

“I’m just warning you: it’s not that nice a place,” Jodioffers, probably as an advanced apology to Tim. “I mean, it wasn’t my grandma’shome or anything. She just had to move there last year, after her mind startedto really crumble.” Tears well up in her eyes again. “Before that, she lived inthis sweet little apartment overlooking the bay. I used to love spendingChristmas vacations there with her.”

I put one arm around Jodi and try to comfort her. “Jo,” Isay, “you have to know that none of this is your fault. Don’t feel guilty.”

Kat hands Jodi a mini packet of Kleenex from the depths ofher man-pockets. She never carries a purse but still manages to have on her asurprisingly stocked bar of requisite womanly paraphernalia, producing lipstick,breath mints, or Visine like a magician doing sleight of hand.

“Yeah,” Kat says. “There’s no shame to be had, justbecause you said you’d visit your grandmother but you didn’t and instead hungout all night drinking with It magazine’s Sexiest Man Alive of both 1997and 2002, then she died the next morning with no family there beside her.”

“Not helping,” Lenny stage whispers across the cab as Jodistarts wailing.

“Sorry, Jo. I’m terrible at sympathy. This is why I wasn’ta good kindergarten teacher!”

“As your next career, I wouldn’t consider undertaking,then.” Tim smiles.

“Maybe tax collector?” Lenny asks. “Dentist?”

“Maybe everyone should just shut up,” Kat barks back.

“Good times, people. Good times,” I joke. “Let’s keep itlight. We’re in Miami, after all.”

“With my grandmother!” Jodi adds. “Who is actually reallydead!” She stops crying and looks out the window. Turning back after a moment,she stares at me, wide-eyed. “Lauren. I am never going to tell another lie foras long as I live.”

I bite my tongue so as not to say something rude, like, Ithink you just told one right now, and instead take her hand in mine.“Okay, Jo. That’s a big statement to make. But I know what you mean.” Among allthe other lies floating around the Moncrieff home, I think of Jodi’s cash-backhabit and wonder if she can really live in complete fiscal honesty with Lee,working within the true budget of their finances.

It’s possible. I mean, in the past twenty-four hours, I’velearned a thing or two about myself that I don’t particularly like either.There are definitely some things I’m going to try and change when I get back toNew York. So, if I can do that, maybe Jodi can, too.

I smile at her sort of crookedly. “I’ll help you do yourbest if you help me do mine.”

“No lying,” she states.

“No cheating,” I add.

“No flirting on the side,” Lenny adds.

“No more psychic hotlines!” Kat hoots.

“No more alter egos!” Tim declares.

“Whatever, Lex Sheridan,” Jodi jokes, smiling for thefirst time all morning.

The cab pulls up a circular driveway and stops in front ofan institutional-looking, white concrete façade. A few sad palm trees frame thepeeling columns out front. Jodi sighs.

We all pile out into the now-bright, humid sunshine. Lennygoes around to the driver’s window with some cash.

“Hey, MC Lenny!” he says. “Love your YouTube videos.” Hetakes the cash before they shake hands. “It’s a real honor!”

The driver honks and waves at us as he pulls around thecircle and out onto the street.

Lenny turns to Tim. “That was weird, right? Beingrecognized, first by you and now that guy?”

Tim shakes