Out of the Easy

by Ruta Sepetys

One day when I was fourteen, I told Charlie that I hated Mother. “Don’t hate her, Jo,” he told me. “Feel sorry for her. She’s not near as smart as you. She wasn’t born with your compass, so she wanders around, bumping into all sorts of walls. That’s sad.”

“They got everything that money can buy, their bank accounts are fat, but they ain’t happy. They ain’t ever gone be happy. You know why? They soul broke. And money can’t fix that, no sir.

Each lie I told required another to thicken the paste over the previous.

He wasn’t ugly, but if he picked a flower, I was fairly certain it would die in his hand.

I wasn’t certain of anything anymore, except that New Orleans was a faithless friend and I wanted to leave her.

Willie appeared completely calm about the news of Mother. She always said she could make tea in a tornado.

I love you the more in that I believe you have liked me for my own sake and for nothing else.

“There is no excellent beauty that hath not some strangeness in the proportion.” —Sir Francis Bacon