Free The File on Angelyn Stark by Catherine Atkins

yeah, we get along.”
    “Any of her Net friends ever go for you?”
    “They get her, not me.” Jeni is calm. “We are real clear on that one.”
    I scuff along the sidewalk.
    We pass lawyers’ offices done up in cozy brick-red. Superior Court, its sparkling glass door stuck between yellow brick walls.
    I point. “They hear custody cases in there. My mom used to say I’d best watch myself, or that’s where we’d all wind up.”
    Jeni is looking at me. “You mean, like, your dad would try to get you?”
    Rage starts through me. It dies. “No. Like the state would try to get me.”
    “Oh.” Her voice is careful.
    “Nathan told you all about me, I bet.”
    “He said some things. Not in a bad way. He likes you, for sure.”
    “It’s all bad. And Nathan’s a punk.”
    We’re quiet, climbing. We stop at the intersection.
    “I think about what comes next,” Jeni says. “What
I
can do. I already know I won’t be like my mom, waiting on some guy. I’m going to make my own life.”
    She’s shiny-faced, breathless, her hair escaping from its knot.
    “I don’t see ahead,” I say. “For me it’s all about getting by.”
    “I
have
to see ahead. My life would suck too much if I didn’t.”
    “I can’t be more than what I am.” I test the words.
    Jeni asks, “Why not?”

CHAPTER FOURTEEN
    I look at her. At him. At dinner. It’s always the same. Mom talks and Danny says nothing. She hardly looks at him, and he only looks at his food. What keeps them together—I wonder—
still
.
    I hate how the kitchen shrinks when all of us are in it.
    “Someone pass the juice?” I say.
    The container is closest to Danny.
    He keeps his eyes down. I can
feel
him wanting to reach.
    “Lazy,” Mom says. “Get it yourself.”
    With a swipe of my arm, I grab the bottle. Danny flinches.
    “Sorry.” I watch his bowed head.
    Mom talks more. Something about her boss. Something about the job.
    I push my chair back. “Can I be excused?”
    “So rude,” Mom says.
    “What?” I say. “I’m done. I’ve got homework.”
    “I tell you my news and you ask to leave?”
    Her eyes have me pinned. Dark eyes, almost black. Like mine.
    I look back, lost.
    “Are you happy for me?” Mom asks.
    “Yeah.” No clue. “Congratulations.”
    “Thanks. What for?”
    I’m squirming. “I didn’t hear your news. Sorry.”
    Danny glugs water.
    “Angelyn, you didn’t
listen
. I hate liars.”
    My throat clutches like her hand’s around it.
    “I’ll listen now.”
    Mom picks up a breadstick. Swabs it in sauce.
    “Tell me, all right?”
    “You’ll have to wait until the weekend,” she says, chewing around the words.
    “The weekend?” It’s Thursday. “What’s happening then?”
    “We are going shopping,” Mom says. “And out to lunch.”
    It’s not my birthday. Not Christmas. “Shopping for what?”
    “I want to buy you a treat.”
    Now I’m staring. “Why? I mean, thanks—but why?”
    “You’ll find out.” Mom breaks out smiling. “I don’t mind telling it twice.”
    With shoulders and attitude, Mom clears a path through the packed aisles of Rowdy’s shoe department, grabbing boxes off shelves, passing them to me.
    “Choose one,” she says when we have three.
    In an empty corner I line the boxes on a bench.
    “How’d you know my size?” I ask, stepping out of my past-it summer sandals.
    “We both take nine.”
    I lift the lid off the first box. Running shoes. Pretty nice ones.
    They fit fine. Look good. I have a pair like them at home.
    The second box holds brown clogs with fake-fur yellow trim.
    I turn one over. “They look like bear paws.”
    “Winter’s coming,” Mom says. “Try them out.”
    I clump around, uglier with every step.
    “Those are really cute,” she says.
    “They kill my feet,” I say. A lie. I’d never wear them.
    Mom points to the last box.
    Ballet flats. I slip them on and slide along the floor. The fabric pinches the sides of my feet and feels like nothing underneath.
    I