Free Kiss by Francine Pascal Page A

around the country. You have to see that.”
    â€œI see Mr. Universe.”
    â€œShut up!” Mary roared. Now she was mad. She held out her hand. “So give it back. Seriously. I mean it. If you can’t appreciate that it looks beautiful, you don’t deserve to borrow my goddamned dress.”
    Gaia cast her a pleading gaze. “Look, I’m trying. I really am.” She studied herself in the mirror for another minute, trying to see herself through other eyes.
    The dress really was extraordinary. Gaia loved the too long sleeves and the way they flared at the wrist. “Please let me borrow it?” Gaia asked, weirded out by hearing those words in her voice. “I’ll say anything, true or untrue. I am Kate Moss. I am a waif. I can’t do a single push-up.”
    Mary laughed. “Fine. It’s yours. In fact, you can have it for keeps. After seeing you in it, I won’t be able to stand the sight of me.”
    Now it was Gaia’s turn to glare. “Hang on. You’re allowed the exaggeratedly negative body image, but not me? Who made these rules?”
    Mary waved a hand in the air. “Point taken. Never mind. But keep the stupid dress.” She gestured at the snowstorm of clothes. “I have others, as you may have noticed.” She rooted around the bottom of her closet and threw Gaia a pair of black cotton tights.
    â€œThanks,” Gaia said.
    â€œOh, and here.”
    â€œOuch.” A dark red, forties-style pump flew out of the closet and hit Gaia on the shin. Thankfully, she dodged its mate.
    â€œSorry,” Mary murmured. Now she was gathering jewelry for Gaia.
    â€œWhat size are your feet?” Gaia asked, staring suspiciously at the shoe.
    â€œEight.”
    â€œI wear eight and a half,” Gaia said.
    Mary was busy untangling a clump of necklaces. “So? Close enough.”
    Apparently Mary didn’t get hung up on little matters like housing all five toes.
    Again, though, Mary was right. The shoe was close enough to fitting. Gaia put on the second one and stomped around the room, trying to get used to the heels.
    Mary spent the next twenty minutes coaxing Gaia into the makeup chair, and the twenty minutes after that brushing Gaia’s hair, spangling her with jewelry, and hunting down the exact right shade of lip gloss. At last she was done. “Oh my God, my brothers are going to be drooling,” she announced, nodding at her finished work.
    Gaia did feel prettier, but she also felt like someone else.
    â€œAre you ready to meet the clan?”
    If Gaia had the potential to feel nervous, now would have been an obvious time. “I guess so.” She looked at Mary. Mary was still wearing blue nylon warm-up pants and a wife-beater tank top. Light freckles stood out on her thin shoulders and arms. Her hair was possibly the craziest mess Gaia had ever seen.
    â€œOh, I’m fine,” Mary claimed. Her eyes darted around the room, and she picked up the first thing in her path, a blue chenille sweater, and stuck her head through. “All set,” she confirmed.
    Gaia was speechless as she followed Mary out of the room. She remembered what Mary had said about not holding on to love very well.

Potato Physics
    â€œHOW ARE THE POTATOES COMING, Sam?” Mrs. Gannis’s voice floated into the kitchen.
    Sam looked up from the huge aluminum pot. He felt like a wolf with its leg caught in a trap. He finally understood the wolf s perverse temptation to chew off its own leg.
    Why had he insisted, in that breezy, thoughtless way, that he would take care of the mashed potatoes? At the time, mashed potatoes seemed like the simplest thing on earth. You get potatoes; you mash them.
    Besides, he’d figured this important job in the kitchen would keep him out of the fray of tense Gannis-family relations. It would give him a little breathing room from Heather, too, which they both needed. It had gotten to the point where every