Free As Simple as It Seems by Sarah Weeks Page A

that your mom doesn’t like the house very much. Or Clydesdale. Or three-legged dogs either.”
    Pooch’s cheeks turned pink again.
    â€œShe’s not usually mean. She was just in a bad mood because her face was hurting.”
    â€œWhat’s the matter with her face?”
    â€œNothing. But she decided she didn’t like it anymore, so she got it fixed,” he said.
    â€œWhat do you mean, fixed?”
    Pooch put his hands on his cheeks and pulled the skin taut. “Plastic surgery,” he told me through his stretched lips. “She’d kill me if she knew I was talking about it. We came up here so nobody would know. It takes a couple of weeks for the swelling to go down.”
    I thought about the floppy hat, the jewelry, and the big dark glasses.
    â€œIs your mom a movie star or something?” I asked.
    Pooch laughed. “No. She works in a bank. But she wants to get married again, and she says men don’t like women who look their age.”
    â€œHow old is she?” I asked.
    â€œThirty-eight.”
    I thought about my mother’s smooth, wide face. She didn’t have any wrinkles and she would be fifty on her next birthday.
    â€œWhere’s your dad?” I asked.
    â€œEast Eighty-first Street. I see him on Wednesdays. We have dinner. His girlfriend is a Pilates instructor. The first time I met her, she told me that exercise is her life.”
    Now I had to try to imagine what it would feel like to have a father who had a girlfriend.
    â€œDo you mind?” Pooch asked.
    â€œMind what?” I said.
    â€œThat we’re staying in your house. I mean, it must be kind of weird knowing some kid you don’t even know is sleeping in your room.”
    I’d never been inside the Allen house, but I’d always wondered what it was like. I imagined that the air was cold and damp and that it was filled with a sad, musty kind of smell. Houses have a way of soaking up the lives of the people who live inside them.
    â€œHow do you know it’s my room?” I asked.
    â€œYou scratched your initials on the windowsill, remember?” said Pooch. “T.A.” He drew the letters in the air.
    A shiver ran up my spine. I didn’t even know what Tracy Allen looked like, but she suddenly seemed more real to me than ever before.
    â€œI don’t mind that you’re staying at my house,” I told Pooch. “It’s not like I live there anymore.”
    â€œWhere do you live?” he asked.
    â€œThat subject is off limits too. No personal questions allowed.”
    Jack waded out of the water and shook himself so hard he fell over. Then he rolled onto his back and lay in the dirt, belly up, to dry. My stomach grumbled again, this time in earnest.
    â€œI’m kind of hungry,” I said.
    Pooch’s face lit up.
    â€œWhy don’t you come over for dinner?” he suggested. “I don’t think we have any marshmallows in the house, but we definitely have milk. And maybe my mom could make you some mashed potatoes.”
    He was all excited about the idea of my coming over, but as hungry as I happened to be and as curious as I was to see the inside of the Allen house, there was no way I was going to go over there in a ripped-up nightgown, pretending to be a ghost in front of Pooch’s mother.
    â€œMaybe some other time,” I said.
    But Pooch persisted.
    â€œWe don’t have to tell my mom who you are if that’s the problem. We could just say you’re a neighbor girl or something.”
    I couldn’t tell him why that was funny, or that what I really wanted for dinner was pork chops with apple cider gravy, since clearly that wasn’t on the white-food list.
    â€œThanks,” I said. “But I need to get going.”
    Pooch started scratching the back of his neck.
    â€œWhat’s the matter now?” I said.
    â€œAre you going to come back tomorrow?” he asked me.
    â€œOf course I am.