New Year's Kiss

by Lee Matthews

  Damon hung his head, muttering something unintelligible under his breath. Though I swear I heard my name in there, and I was sure I heard the words “stupid idea.”

  “What part of your property was compromised?” the officer asked the old man.

  “That tree over there,” the old man said, gesturing at the small shrub Carina and I had attacked last. “That little tree is on my side of the property line.”

  Carina and I exchanged a rueful look. If only we hadn’t decided to decorate that last little shrub. But how were we supposed to know it wasn’t on Chase’s property?

  “What if they offer to fix your tree?” Lauren suggested.

  “No way! We didn’t touch that tree! That was the girls!” one of the other kids cried.

  Oh my God, I hated these people.

  “Well you’re the ones who supplied the toilet paper!” Carina countered.

  “But it was her idea,” Damon said, nudging me with his knee.

  “You said it was okay! That Chase said it was fine and that was enough!” I cried.

  Suddenly we were all yelling at once. I couldn’t believe this was happening. I’d just wanted to have a teeny bit of fun. Kids my age did stupid, dangerous, even life-threatening stuff every damn day and never got caught, but the one time I stepped my pinky toe out of line I had cops manhandling me and yelling at my friends.

  It was too bad I didn’t put Get arrested for doing something dumb on my bucket list.

  Suddenly, a whistle pealed. I winced, and everyone fell silent. “All right. All of you. Up! Let’s get you down to the station. We’ll sort it out there.”

  The boys began to protest, but Carina, who was clearly so over this, just got up, lifted her chin, and walked directly toward the line of police cars parked on the street. I looked back at Lauren, giving her my most pleading eyes.

  “Don’t worry. I’m on it,” she said. “I’ll be right behind you.”

  Feeling a heavy dread unlike anything I’d ever felt before, I joined Carina at the police car at the front of the line. “I’m so sorry about this,” I said. “Do you really think your dad is going to be that mad?”

  “Please. Do you know how many times me and his manager have had to bail him out of jail?” She scoffed. “It’s about time it was the other way around.”

  And I never would have thought I could have smiled right then, but I did.

  * * *

  • • •

  It took a ridiculously long time for the police to get our forms filled out with our names, ages, and addresses, and to take our statements. Throughout the whole thing, I alternated between being so nervous I could barf, and feeling straight up angry. This was all so unfair. There had been so many underage kids there who were drinking—actually breaking the law—and here we were getting booked for misuse of toilet paper. What a world.

  Parents began to trickle in, and everyone got a stern talking-to before being let off with a warning. When Adam Michel arrived, the clerk at the front desk asked for a selfie, and Adam immediately obliged, telling his assistant to post it and hashtag it #babysfirstarrest.

  “Dad!” Carina protested. “I wasn’t arrested!”

  “It’ll get so many likes, though,” her father replied, giving her a noogie.

  Carina lifted a hand in my direction as she ducked her head and was escorted by her dad’s security detail out the back door.

  “See you soon, Tess!” Adam called back to me.

  And I swear the looks on everyone else’s faces almost made this whole debacle worth it. Adam Michel knew my name. Ten-year-old me was doing cartwheels.

  Tarek showed up to pick up Damon. Which was weird, since everyone else had parents to pick them up. But maybe Damon’s parents were currently away. He looked so angry when he signed his cousin out, his jaw set and his eyes sharp.

  “Lauren told me what you did to Tess. Are you freaking kidding me?” he snapped.

  “What do you mean? I didn’t do anything to her! It’s her fault we all got dragged down here!” Damon replied.

  “This is the last straw, Damon. I swear,” Tarek said. “Let’s go. Mom and Dad are waiting.”

  Damon looked like he was about to argue, but Tarek stared him down until he walked out the door. I felt a lot more relaxed with Damon gone from the little holding cell they were keeping us all in. Having to sit next to him all that time until Tarek showed up had made me itch all over. I was so glad I hadn’t had the chance to kiss him. Who cared about the damn list? I didn’t want a guy like that anywhere near me. And now I didn’t even have to count our small kiss on the slopes, because I knew his last name. He’d given it to the cops when they were filling out the forms. Dumas. Pronounced Doo-mas, but easily revised into Dumb Ass, if you asked me.

  Loretta was the last to arrive. Which was fine, because I needed a little time to myself to chill.

  I stood up from the uncomfortable metal bench the second Loretta strode through the door. It was after midnight, and she wore actual jeans under her wool coat. That was a shock. I couldn’t believe the woman even owned jeans. But more surprising was the sight of her face without any makeup. It was like looking at a ghost version of my powerful grandmother. Her skin was pale and wrinkled, her eyes seemed to retreat into her head without her usual eye makeup, and her lips were very thin. I almost wouldn’t have known it was her, except she took the same businesslike, no-nonsense tone with the officer who greeted her, as she did with everyone who worked for her.

  “I don’t see why all this drama of coming down to the station was necessary, Officer Peele,” she said as she signed the paperwork to release me. “If you were going to let them off with a warning, you could have simply done so at the house.”

  “Well, ma’am, we wanted to make sure this was an experience they wouldn’t soon forget,” Officer Peele said, hooking his thumbs into his utility belt.

  “I think that the educating of children falls to the parents, Officer Peele, don’t you?” she said. “Please tell Chief Harrison to call me. I’d like to have a few words with her. And you’d better hope I’m in a better mood then, or I’ll be filing a formal complaint.” Officer Peele turned purple and nodded mutely. Then Loretta snapped her fingers at me and waved at the door. I scurried out ahead of her, joining Lauren, who was waiting in the small square lobby area.

  Loretta stepped up behind us, tugging on a pair of leather gloves and pulling her keys from her wrist bag. Her hands were shaking, and she dropped the keys on the floor with a clatter. I bent to retrieve them and held them out to her. My heart felt like lead.

  “I’m really sorry, Loretta,” I said sheepishly. My voice was like a squeak.

  “I don’t want to talk about this now.” She looked at the keys for a moment, then turned to my sister. “Lauren, you’ll drive home. I have a sudden splitting headache.”

  “Yes, Loretta,” Lauren said.

  Then Loretta slid between us and out the door into the frigid night air.

  “I think I broke our grandmother,” I said.

  Lauren took the keys and put her arm around me, giving me a quick squeeze. “Let’s just get her home.”

  * * *

  • • •

  The ride back to Evergreen Lodge felt miles longer than the Uber trip we had taken to get out to Chase’s house just a few short hours earlier. Loretta spent the entire drive with her eyes closed and the bridge of her nose pinched between her thumb and pointer finger. When Lauren attempted to turn on the radio, Loretta simply tsked, and Lauren turned it right off again.

  I sat in the back of the car, feeling like the worst piece of sludge ever to grace the planet. Not only had I not so much as seen Loretta all day long, but then we’d dragged her out of bed with a call from the police station. What must she have thought when she’d picked up the phone to hear it was the Evergreen PD calling? What must have gone thr
ough her head? It was no wonder she had a splitting headache.

  Lauren kept glancing at me in the rearview mirror, and I was sure my expression mirrored her own. We were both worried. Not just about what Loretta might do to us tomorrow, but about Loretta. She’d never been silent for this long. At least not that I had seen.

  My phone pinged and I flinched. Who the hell would be texting me now? Maybe Carina, letting me know whether or not she was going to be grounded?

  “Will you kindly turn that off?” Loretta bit out, eyes still closed from what I could see in the side mirror of the car.

  “Sorry, Loretta.”

  I fumbled with my phone, turning it over to hit the power button, and saw that the text wasn’t from Carina. It was from Christopher.

  My heart began to pound. Finally. He was finally responding! I opened the text, not daring to imagine what it might say.

  Wow! I can’t believe you met Adam Michel. That’s so cool Tess!

  Tears pricked at my eyes. It had been a long day. And I had been so worried I’d never hear from him again. After everything that had happened, this olive branch felt like exactly what I needed. Then, the three dots began to scroll again, and I quickly turned off the sound on my phone so Loretta wouldn’t hear when the next text came in. I watched and waited for what felt like hours. Finally, his next text appeared.

  Listen, I can’t do this anymore. I shouldn’t be talking to you. Good luck with the list

  Wait. What? He wasn’t serious. I started to text him back, but then the three dots popped up again.

  Sorry. Hope you have a good new year

  Wow. And I’d thought this night couldn’t get any worse.

  An insistent knocking at our hotel room door woke us up the next morning. I cracked one eye open and glanced at the digital clock on the table between our beds. It was 7:45 a.m. I couldn’t even believe I’d fallen asleep. For most of the night, I’d stared at the ceiling, going over and over the night and trying to figure out what I could have done differently. Not said yes to the party, for one thing. Not trusted Damon when he’d said TP’ing Chase’s house would be fine. Not putting the toilet paper prank on my list to begin with. If only I could go back in time.

  But no such luck.

  I put my pillow over my head and groaned, hoping the person at the door would just go away, but they kept knocking, and Lauren finally threw a pillow at me.

  “You’re closer to the door!” I griped.

  “You’re the reason we didn’t get to bed until three a.m.!” she replied.

  She had a point. I threw my covers off and stomped over to the door, checking through the peep hole. When I saw who was on the other side, I stood up straight, my heart skipping a terrified beat.

  “It’s Loretta,” I whispered urgently.

  Lauren sat up, her hair covering half her face. “What?”

  “And she looks like herself again!”

  “Girls!” Loretta barked, but still in a low enough voice that she wouldn’t disturb the other guests. “I can hear that you’re whispering in there. Open the door.”

  Lauren shrugged at me like, What else can you do? So I took a deep breath and opened the door. Loretta’s eyes flicked over my pajamas before she stepped into the room, flipping on the light and nearly blinding the both of us. Lauren threw a hand up and squeezed her eyes closed for a second before blinking them against the onslaught.

  “We are going to have breakfast in the Overlook. Just the three of us. I want the two of you to meet me there at eight-thirty sharp.” She glanced around the room where both of us had shucked off our clothes into piles before climbing into bed last night. No one had brushed their teeth, washed their face, or thought about being tidy. Didn’t Loretta realize we’d only gotten to bed less than five hours ago? Hadn’t she gone to bed less than five hours ago? “We are going to be spending the day together, so I suggest each of you showers quickly and makes yourself presentable. I will see you in forty-five minutes.”

  She strode out the door, closing it quietly behind her, and Lauren flopped back onto her bed with a sigh.

  “I guess I didn’t break her after all,” I said.

  * * *

  • • •

  The Overlook was a small, very expensive restaurant on the top floor of the lodge, with a wall of floor-to-ceiling windows looking out over the mountains. The view was absolutely breathtaking, and with the windows facing east, we were able to watch the sky change colors as the sun rose higher behind the hills. Of course, it was nearly impossible to enjoy nature’s light show, because I was so dang nervous that Loretta was going to tear me a new one right there in front of all her wealthiest guests.

  I shouldn’t have been worried about that, though, because Loretta’s main goal in life was to make sure her guests had a perfect vacation. They weren’t to experience a moment of unpleasantness while staying at Evergreen Lodge.

  The waiter placed our breakfasts in front of us. My silver dollar pancakes were presented in a perfect stack with a toothpick down the center that was topped by a Christmas tree. The tower was surrounded by strawberries cut to look like little Santa hats, with a dot of whipped cream at the tip of each to represent the white fluffy ball on top. Lauren’s scrambled eggs were more elegant, since I guess her meal was considered something adults would eat. Loretta had a yogurt parfait and coffee.

  “This is way different from the buffet,” Lauren said, placing her napkin in her lap.

  I did the same and removed the toothpick from the pancakes, causing them to topple over. Half fell on the plate, while the other half hit the white tablecloth. Loretta’s eyes narrowed. Hands shaking, I quickly tossed the pancakes back onto my plate.

  “Sorry, Loretta. Sorry.”

  I folded my hands in my lap, afraid of what I might do if I touched the ceramic pitcher of syrup.

  “Girls, there’s no reason to be nervous,” Loretta said. “I invited you here to apologize.”

  Lauren’s gaze darted to mine. “You…apologize to us?” she said. “What for?”

  Loretta rested her wrists against the edge of the table and looked down at her food for a moment, as if gathering her courage. My stomach clenched. For a second I thought she was going to apologize to me for dismissing my concerns about the lawsuit, but no. This felt bigger than that. It felt like some life-altering revelation was coming all of a sudden. What was she going to tell us?

  Then she lifted her eyes and looked at each of us in turn.

  “I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you more as you were growing up,” she said. “I wasn’t there much for your father, either, when he was young. If I had been…if I had done some things better, maybe everything would be different right now. For you. For your mother. I’m afraid I was selfish when your dad was young and he…he’s possibly living up to my example.”

  Her eyes filled with tears, which was even more disturbing than seeing her tired and makeup-free last night.

  “What?” I said. “Loretta, no.”

  “You can’t blame yourself for Mom and Dad getting divorced,” Lauren put in. “That’s on them.”

  “Seriously,” I added. “This stuff happens. I think Mom and Dad…I think they just sort of…grew apart.”

  Lauren looked at me, her expression sympathetic. I don’t think I realized I understood what had happened until I said it, but it was true.

  “They want different things now,” Lauren put in. “There’s no way your having a career when Dad was a kid made that happen.”

  Loretta reached for Lauren’s hand, which was in her lap, and squeezed it. Then she reached for mine across the table, and I gave it to her. Her fingers were bony and cool, but somehow comforting when they took mine.

  “You girls are very kind,” she said. “And I’m sorry that you have to go through all this.” She released our hands and folded hers in h
er lap again. “But whatever has happened in the past, there’s no reason we can’t get to know each other now,” she continued. “For example, I would very much like to know what possessed you to sneak out to a party and throw toilet paper all over some stranger’s front yard.”

  My heart thunked. But Loretta picked up her spoon and dug into her breakfast as if this was nothing more than a casual conversation. I looked at Lauren, who raised her eyebrows at me.

  “That’s all you,” she said, and cut into her eggs.

  “I…just…” I reached for the syrup pitcher and fiddled with it. “It was just something I always wanted to do. I mean, when you see people do it on TV shows or whatever, it looks like so much fun.”

  “And was it? Fun?” Loretta asked.

  “It actually was,” I said with a wan smile. “Until the police came.”

  “Oh, come on, Tess,” Lauren said. “If Loretta wants to get to know us, don’t you think you should tell her why you’re really doing all this stuff?”

  I shot her a death glare, but Loretta sat up a bit straighter, intrigued. “What stuff are we talking about?”

  “Singing karaoke, making paper airplanes, going off to meet Adam Michel—”

  “Well I could have introduced you to Adam Michel,” Loretta said. “He’s one of our VIPs this week.”

  “She has this list,” Lauren said, leaning in. I kicked her under the table, but she didn’t even flinch. All those years of playing soccer, I guess. “It’s a list of things she wants to accomplish before the new year.”

  One of Loretta’s perfectly plucked eyebrows arced, and she looked at me. “Really? How interesting.”

  I felt hot all over, suddenly. “It’s not. It’s stupid, really.” I picked up the syrup and poured it all over my pancakes. I didn’t want to talk about the list. Especially since it was now officially impossible for me to complete it. What random guy was I going to find to make out with before the end of the day?