Winter White

by Jen Calonita

  “Are you going to come in or hang out with the coatrack?” Brayden leaned against a wall and watched her.

  Izzie felt like an invisible force field was keeping her from going any farther than the foyer. She looked up at the biggest chandelier she had ever seen, which Brayden had just told her was made from crystals from Tiffany’s.

  You don’t belong here.

  The voice was back. She was beginning to wonder if Savannah had planted a chip in her brain that said that phrase whenever she felt out of place, which was often.

  “No one’s home, if that’s what you’re worried about,” Brayden said, leaning against a doorway that had thick decorative white molding around it. “My parents are at a charity event and won’t be back till after eight.”

  “Why would I be worried?” Izzie lied, even as her stomach relaxed. No Mrs. Townsend pursing her thin, pale lips. Yes! She stepped forward.

  Suddenly, there was high-pitched yapping and the sound of tiny paws scurrying across the floor. A tiny tan fluff appeared at her feet, growling and barking.

  “I take back the no one being home part,” Brayden said, scooping up the tiny Chihuahua. “Blackbeard is here to protect us, right, buddy?”

  “I still can’t believe you named a Chihuahua something ferocious like Blackbeard.” Izzie put her palm out for the dog to sniff. He jumped at first, then started to lick her hand. At least she’d won him over.

  “What can I say?” Brayden held the long-haired dog out in front of him. “I wanted a big bulldog named Blackbeard, my mom wanted something small and dignified that wouldn’t poop all over the house. She won, as usual.” Blackbeard licked Brayden’s nose, and he laughed. “Not that I would trade this guy in. No, I wouldn’t,” he said, slipping into baby talk. Izzie smirked as Brayden’s cheeks turned pink. “Enough embarrassing myself for one day.” He put Blackbeard down, and he scurried off. “Why don’t I give you the grand tour?”

  Izzie stepped forward. Remarkably, the force field didn’t throw her back.

  “It should only take an hour,” he added. She stopped short and Brayden laughed. “I’m kidding. I can show you the tennis courts and the stables another day.”

  The last part didn’t sound like a joke.

  The tour did not take an hour, but it felt like it did at times. One expansive room blurred into the next, as did Brayden’s chatting. She was too busy taking everything in to hear half of what he said. Mira had told her that the Townsends were practically a founding family of Emerald Cove and the history displayed proudly throughout the house made that point loud and clear. Original, fraying, yellowed maps of the town were framed in the study. A hunk of unpolished emerald was in a display case. The sitting room had several pictures of Brayden’s great-great-grandparents standing in front of this same house over a hundred and fifty years ago. The home had been expanded and updated and barely looked like the old one, but some of the original floorboards had been salvaged to use in the kitchen, which was practically the size of Corky’s. By the time they made it to the dining room, Izzie wasn’t sure she could look at another piece of Waterford or sterling.

  “Iz? You okay there?”

  She hadn’t realized how hard she was gripping one of Brayden’s great-grandmother’s antique dining room chairs. She let go, her palms pink. “Yep. All good!”

  “Well, then come right in, madam. You’ll find I’m a much better teacher than Ms. Norberry.” He pulled out the chair in front of her and motioned for her to sit. “Give me fifteen minutes and you’ll know the placement of every piece of silver on this table.”

  “Wait, what?” She sat down and felt him push her closer to the table. She realized the table was set for dinner. Candlesticks burned brightly next to a roast turkey, mashed potatoes, honey-glazed carrots, and cornbread. Brayden noticed the confused look on her face. “I really wanted to make things up to you after I behaved like such a jerk at the welcome tea,” he said. “Mira mentioned you were having a tough time with table settings in etiquette class, so I thought I’d give you a one-on-one lesson.”

  Her cheeks felt hot. “She shouldn’t have said that. I’m doing fine.” She wasn’t. Ms. Norberry even looked frustrated when Izzie put her red wineglass where her white wineglass should be (why did they have to know about wineglasses when Ms. Norberry kept stressing they shouldn’t drink?). But those problems were for Izzie to know. Not the boy she liked who grew up in a world far different from the one she was raised in. Dinners with Grams were served on disposable plates or cheap Corelle, not hundred-year-old china.

  Brayden sat next to her instead of at the other head of the table, which was fourteen seats away. Izzie didn’t know dining tables this long existed. “Get ready to know the difference between your shrimp fork and your dessert fork.” He smiled and pointed to his head. “I’ve got all the tricks you need to know up here.”

  Izzie tried to push her chair back, but those stupid old chairs were heavy! “This is really nice,” she said, struggling to get up. “But I told you. I don’t need any help. I’m going to go. I have a paper due in the morning.”

  “Hey.” Brayden grabbed her hand. “Did I do something wrong?” He looked upset, which made her feel worse. “I’m really doing all this for me,” he said. “I need to brush up. Last night at dinner I poured soup into my teacup.”

  She smiled. “Teacups and saucers aren’t placed on the table till dessert. Even I know that.” Thanks, Ms. Norberry.

  “See? You know more than I do,” Brayden said. “You can teach me.”

  Izzie looked down at the gold rim on the bone-white china plate in front of her. Why did she have such a hard time accepting help? Kylie teased her about that all the time. She was used to doing things for herself. What Brayden was doing touched her, but something was still bothering her. “We can do this under one condition.” She stared into his blue-green eyes. “I want you to promise me you won’t feel sorry for me. Ever.”

  “I don’t,” Brayden said simply, and she knew he meant it. “So let me do this without getting a huge lecture from Ms. Independent, Isabelle Scott. Okay?”

  She started to smile. “Okay.”

  Satisfied, Brayden removed the pale green dinner napkin that was shaped like a swan from his plate. “First trick is something Ms. Norberry probably hasn’t taught you.” He unwrapped the napkin and placed it in his lap.

  Izzie gave him a tart look. “I know that. I wasn’t raised in a barn.”

  “Okay, but do you know when to put your napkin on your lap?” he asked, and she bit her lip. “Aha! Something the mighty Iz doesn’t know. Here’s the rule: Never put your napkin on your lap till your host does so first. Once they do, you do, and the meal begins. That napkin sticks like glue till the host removes his or hers at the end of the meal. Then you do this.” He placed it on the left side of his plate, but didn’t fold it. “Not this.” He wadded the napkin into a small ball and threw it across the room.

  She laughed. “I bet it would be fun to see the look of surprise on the host’s face.”

  Brayden raised his eyebrow. “I’ve done that once or twice with my mother. It doesn’t go over well.” He took another napkin and placed it on his lap. She copied him. “Next: how to figure out which glass is yours and which is your dinner companion’s.”

  “Please explain that one to me because I keep messing up.” Izzie placed her elbows on the table, knowing it was a big no-no.

  Brayden held out both his hands and made circles with his thumbs and index fingers. The rest of his fingers stayed straight. He held his hands up. “Do you see the D and the B? That stands for ‘drink’ and ‘bread.’ ”

  Izzie did the same and stared at her hands in awe. “How did you know that?”

  “Our housekeeper taught me when I was five,” Brayden admitted sheepishly. “I still use this trick all the time.”

  Izzie shook her head. “Why can’t Ms. Norberry break it down this way?”

  Brayden winked. “I told you. She’s not as good a teacher. You can u
se this one every time. Just do it under the table. Otherwise, the other guests might look at you strangely.”

  She grinned. “What else you got?”

  They went through the whole course that way, going through every piece of silver, every heirloom dish, every glass. Then they broke with protocol and cleared the table themselves.

  “One last question: Did you cook this turkey?” Izzie scraped the rest of the food from her plate into the garbage disposal in the copper sink.

  Brayden looked guilty. “It’s takeout.”

  “Good.” She placed the china carefully in the dishwasher, wondering if it should go in there. “It’s nice to know you don’t know how to do everything.”

  “I can do almost everything,” he bragged, and then took her soapy hands from the sink and matched them up with his. “Including how to dance.”

  Izzie laughed as they started to sway back and forth, soapsuds from her hands dripping onto the wooden floor. “Don’t tell me we’re having a dance lesson, too.” Even as she said it, she knew she didn’t mind. The early dinner, the dinner-etiquette tutorial—it was all incredibly sweet.

  “Hey, I’m an escort, and if you’re going to dance with me, I can’t have you stepping on my toes.” He looked at her seriously, and she stopped swaying.

  “I thought you were Savannah’s escort.”

  “At the tea because my mom made me, but when it comes to cotillion, the escorts are the ones who pick their date.” He looked at her expectantly.

  Was this his way of asking her? Izzie’s heart started to beat wildly, but she didn’t want to give herself away. After what he had put her through at the welcome tea, she wanted to make Brayden work for it. Even if she was totally going to say yes in the end. “I don’t know.” She scratched her chin. “What if another guy wants to ask me, and I say yes to you?” She thought for a moment. “The one I danced with the other day was hot.”

  “That guy with the greasy hair and the fluorescent-green plaid shirt?” Brayden looked insulted.

  “I’ll have you know he was really romantic. He said my eyes reminded him of the color of the Thing in Fantastic Four,” she said solemnly. Brayden started to tickle her.

  “So will you go with me?” he asked, hugging her from behind when he was done with the tickling. His chin nuzzled her neck. “There’s no one else I’d rather go with.”

  She could feel the goose bumps on her arms. Yes, she wanted to scream, but she hesitated. “But your mom—”

  “Don’t worry about my mom,” he said. “I can handle her.”

  “Okay,” she agreed, and turned around. It was almost as if she knew what was coming next. Maybe that’s why she closed her eyes and focused on the sound of her own breathing as his lips connected with hers. Even though his soapy hands were getting her shirt wet, she leaned into the kiss. Blackbeard barked, but they both ignored him.

  Afterward, Brayden led her into the living room. He pushed aside the cherry coffee table, then walked over to a built-in bookcase with an iPod dock. He scrolled through the songs till he found what he was looking for. Sinatra soon filled the room.

  “First dance lesson of the evening is the fox-trot—pretty much because that’s the easiest to master,” Brayden said, motioning the steps.

  He walked over and placed her right hand in his left and his right hand on her left shoulder. Her left hand went on his right arm. She was already confused. “This is easy?”

  “It is. You’ll see,” he said. “It’s pretty slow. Just follow my lead and look down. Do like I do but in reverse—if I go forward, you go back. Got it?”

  “No.”

  “Just try it.”

  Brayden stepped forward with one foot, then the next, while she stepped back with her left, then her right. Next, he stepped sideways, and she did the same—tripping slightly over her own foot.

  “You didn’t say it sped up!”

  “It barely sped up. Keep going!”

  It was more of the same. Back, forward, side, box step. Some steps were slow, some fast. It got more confusing when they did the promenade, and then the promenade with a spin. But three Sinatra songs later, she felt like she was getting the hang of it.

  “I could be on Dancing with the Stars!” she joked, staring at their feet moving in time to the beat.

  “See? Ready to learn the waltz?” Izzie dropped her arms. Brayden picked them back up. “You only have less than a month till cotillion,” he said, pushing a hair away from her eyes. “We’re on a Dancing with the Stars–type schedule here.”

  “Hey, that was my line.”

  “I’m stealing it.” He put on an instrumental tune, then took her hands again. He cleared his throat, and his voice rose several octaves. “Pay attention, Ms. Scott.” He sounded like Ms. Norberry. “Ready? One, two, three, one, two, three.”

  She repeated the pattern of the steps in her head. One, two, three, one, two three… She felt like a klutz when she stepped on Brayden’s foot, but at least he didn’t step on hers. He had dress shoes on, which were much heavier than her flip-flops.

  After trying the dance several times, she felt like she was getting the hang of it. That’s when Brayden stopped. “Enough work for one day,” he told her. “Let’s see how you really move.” He put Rihanna on the iPod and turned the volume up so high, she could barely hear him. He pulled her toward him and spun her around. Then they separated and danced on their own. Somehow it turned into a mini dance-off.

  “When we’re at cotillion, I’m going to wow the crowd with this one,” Brayden yelled over the music, then proceeded to move like he was an automatic sprinkler.

  Izzie cracked up. “Oh, yeah? Well, I’m going to do this. I call it the flyswatter.” She started bouncing back and forth, her hands swatting the dead air. “And Ms. Norberry can’t rock moves like my bus driver, either!” She put her hands on a pretend steering wheel and drove around the room. Brayden laughed so hard, he sounded like a hyena. She started cracking up, too. She hadn’t let go like this in a long time.

  “I’ve got one better,” Brayden told her. “This is the Wii remote.”

  Izzie watched as Brayden danced around like he was holding the Wii remote for a game of bowling or tennis. She giggled so hard, she sounded like Mira. But she didn’t care. They were having so much fun that neither of them noticed anyone had come home till the iPod abruptly shut off.

  Brayden instantly froze. “What are you guys doing home?”

  Mrs. Townsend and Mr. Townsend, Izzie presumed from how much he looked like Brayden, stood in the living room watching them, and they looked less than thrilled. Dylan hovered somewhere in the background.

  Mrs. Townsend pursed her lips into what was her version of a smile. A creepy one at that. “We left early. Hello, Isabelle. It’s lovely to see you again.”

  “Hi.” Izzie retrieved her flip-flops from the corner of the room. She had kicked them off earlier and now was acutely aware that she was barefoot. It didn’t look like anyone went barefoot in that house. She imagined all the Townsends walking around in fuzzy monogrammed slippers.

  “Brayden, you didn’t tell me you were having company.” She stared at Izzie as she slipped on her shoes. “You told me you had a study group.”

  “I did.” Brayden’s voice was more strained and serious than it had been all afternoon. “It was with Isabelle. When it ended early, we came here.”

  Since when did he call her Isabelle? And they weren’t at a study group. Why was he lying? Izzie could feel Dylan staring at her.

  “Lovely.” Mrs. Townsend’s pursed lips looked even thinner. “I didn’t know you were in the same accelerated classes.” That was a dig if she ever heard one. “If you had told me Isabelle was coming, I could have prepared a snack.”

  “We had takeout,” Izzie said, and instantly regretted it. Mrs. Townsend stared at her, and Izzie couldn’t help thinking about what she had on. While the rest of them were dressed for a party, she was in jeans and had glue and feathers stuck to her shirt.


  “I’m tired, and I still have calls to make.” Mr. Townsend left the room without even acknowledging Izzie in the first place.

  “Okay, dear!” Mrs. Townsend turned back to Brayden. “I hope you didn’t eat too much. We’re going to the Ingrams’ for dinner in an hour. I told them you were coming, so I’m afraid you’ll have to cut your… study group with Isabelle short.”

  “I said study group was earlier.” Izzie noticed Brayden’s shoulders tense. “Iz and I are hanging out. Do I really have to—”

  “I see that, but unfortunately we have to go. I told them you’d be there, and it wouldn’t be polite for you not to show up.” Mrs. Townsend looked at Izzie apologetically, but she wasn’t buying it.

  Izzie waited for Brayden to stick up for himself—and for her—but instead he just stood there and said nothing. He had turned into a robot that followed his mother’s every command. She couldn’t believe it. Was he really going to leave her to hang out at Savannah’s?

  Mrs. Townsend clearly knew she had won. “I’ll give you time to say good-bye to your friend and freshen up before we leave.” She walked over to Brayden and adjusted his collar. “Nice seeing you again, Isabelle. I’ll see you at our next function.”

  “Yeah, bye,” Izzie said, even though Mrs. Townsend barely gave her a second glance. She wasn’t sure whom she was more mad at. She looked at Brayden. “Thanks.”

  “Did it look like I had a choice?” Brayden’s face was flushed with anger.

  “You always have a choice! You just chose not to make one.” Izzie seethed quietly, afraid Mrs. Townsend would overhear. “I can’t believe you agreed to go there.”

  “You don’t understand how my family works,” Brayden said, his hands motioning wildly. It almost looked like he was doing the sprinkler again, but she wasn’t laughing now. “There is no saying no to my mother.”

  “So if that’s true, then how did you get your mom to agree to let you escort me to cotillion?” Izzie asked, and Brayden didn’t answer. Izzie felt her chest tighten. “You haven’t told her you want to go with me yet,” Izzie realized, and he looked away. Her voice was soft. “You know she’s going to say no! Look what just happened. She’s going to make you go with Savannah, and you’re not going to do anything to stop her.”