They looked
14, but might have been as old as 16 or 17 and just heartbreakingly
naive. Link looked over his shoulder and had the decency to look
slightly embarrassed as they smiled at him.
"Okay, thanks, then," he said, and one of the girls looked past him to
get a glimpse inside the house. Andy instinctively stepped aside to give
her a better view of his showroom and he was about to offer her a soda
before he caught himself.
"You've got a nice place," she said. "Look at all those books!"
Her friend said, "Have you read all those books?" She was wearing thick
concealer over her acne, but she had a round face and heart-shaped lips
that he wouldn't have been surprised to see on the cover of a
magazine. She said it with a kind of sneer.
Link said, "Are you kidding? What's the point of a houseful of books
you've already read?"
They both laughed adoringly -- if Adam was feeling uncharitable, he'd
say it was simpering, not laughing, and took off for the exciting
throngs in the Market.
Alan watched them go, with Link's empty glass in one hand and his full
glass in the other. It was hot out in the Market, sunny, and it felt
like the spring had rushed up on him and taken him by surprise when he
wasn't looking. He had owned the house for more than a year now, and the
story only had three or four paragraphs to it (and none of them were
written down yet!).
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