CHAPTER 2For my first day of school, I took a long, steamy shower. For some weird reason I always had trouble tolerating a hot bath. I’d break out in hives and my heart would speed up like crazy. Sometimes I couldn’t catch my breath. After a sleepless night of tossing and turning and listening to the roar of jets as they took off and landed (that’s another thing: our new house was close to freaking Cleveland Hopkins Airport), I got up at the crack of dawn, scrubbed myself in the shower, put on a light blue dress shirt, gray trousers, and a brown sports coat. The final touch was a pair of black patent leather shoes with toes that came to a needle-point.
I rubbed some of my mother’s VO5 hair cream into my scalp and slicked my hair back. At the kitchen table, I fished out a Camel from a fres
