After last period I made my way through the mob of students to the front door, and out into the bright sunshine. The day was hot, the sun blinding, but I welcomed it because I’d officially survived my first day. As I made my way down the steps to the sidewalk, I paused next to a streetlamp to fish around for my sunglasses and had just put them on when a car slid up to the curb.
The chatter around me went abruptly quiet, and I looked up to see a white Rolls-Royce idling next to me. “Oh, crap,” I muttered.
The window rolled down and an elderly man with silver hair, partially covered by a chauffer’s cap, winked at me. Arthur—my grandmother’s driver.
“Good day, Miss Bennett,” he said, touching the brim of his hat.
Arthur reached for the door handle. He was about to get out of the car and come around to open the door for me.
“Don’t!” I said as my heartbeat ticked up.
Glancing subtly to my right and left, I took in the dozens of kids standing nearby, and even some not so nearby, all of them speechless. There were lots of dropped jaws and wide eyes. And then my own gaze came to rest on a familiar figure twenty feet away. Cole stood next to a couple of other guys, all of them staring in shock at the car. Except for Cole, whose brow was furrowed, like he couldn’t quite figure out how a Rolls-Royce and I went together.
I wanted to dissolve. To turn into vapor and float away on the breeze. Except there was no breeze. Only the gleaming polish of the pearl-white Rolls to act like a spotlight on me. My mind raced with options. Walk away and pretend the Rolls was there for someone else? Open the door and get in as fast as possible? Point down the street and yell, “Ohmigod! Look at that!” before making a run for it in the opposite direction?
I was about to go with option three when Arthur said, “Miss Bennett?”
I bit my lip and saw movement out of the corner of my eye. Cole was laughing at something one of his friends said, and I could just imagine that he and his buddies thought my situation hilarious. Awesome. Just awesome.
Yanking the door open, I hustled inside as fast as possible. “Go! Please, Arthur, just go!”
“As you wish, miss,” he said, without a hint of irritation. Arthur was a sweet old guy; at least, that was my impression from the little I’d been around him.
My early-morning encounter with Cole aside, the rest of the day had been a crapfest of repeatedly getting lost; sensing that with each new classroom, all eyes were locked on me; enduring whispers of, “Who’s the new girl?”; and struggling at lunch to find anywhere to eat that didn’t make it conspicuously obvious that I didn’t have any friends. It’d been miserable.
And, as if all that wasn’t bad enough, Sophie had texted me ten minutes earlier, putting a capper on an awful eight hours. Once we’d driven past the school, I sat up and pulled out my cell to look at her message again:
Lil I know you don’t want to talk to me but you’re not anywhere in school today and there’s a rumor going around that you’ve moved out of Richmond! Is it true? I can’t believe you’d do that without telling me!
I hadn’t told a soul that Mom and I were moving to Fredericksburg because I was still too hurt over everything that’d gone down, and it wasn’t like anyone had tried to reach out to me over the summer. Michelle and Quinn had taken Sophie’s side in the dissolution of our friendship, and those guys and Tanner had been my whole inner circle—my four closest friends.
Over the summer, I’d kept myself busy by volunteering at Clover Hill—a rescue ranch for sixteen horses and about a dozen dogs and cats. I’d felt as lost and abandoned as many of the animals that had come to live there, and in helping to take care of them, I’d discovered a kinship and an affinity for them that surprised me. By the end of the summer, I’d come to prefer the company of the animals over any of the humans I knew. In fact, one of the perks of moving in with Grandmother was that she owned four Thoroughbreds, and I’d already spent more time down at her stable than anywhere else. I liked horses especially because they never wanted you to be something that you weren’t.
I pocketed my phone and let out a sigh, content with the decision not to reply to Sophie. Let her sweat both that I’d moved, and that I wasn’t replying. My smug satisfaction was a little short-lived when I realized I might’ve been rude to poor Arthur.
“Sorry about yelling at you back there,” I said.
“Think nothing of it, Miss Bennett,” Arthur said kindly, his British accent delicately affecting his diction. “Are we to journey straight home?”
“Yes, please,” I told him. I couldn’t wait to get to the guesthouse and shed this car. It fit me like a diamond tiara fits a duck.
“Oh,” Arthur said next, as if just remembering something. “Your grandmother wishes an audience with you at three thirty. She says to save room for tea and cookies.”
I frowned. Grandmother was big on tea and cookies. The tea was usually bitter, and the cookies were very hard vanilla wafers coated with grainy sugar she had imported from somewhere. I worried that someday I’d break a tooth on one.
“Do you know why she wants to see me?” I asked. Grandmother never sent a summons unless she had an ulterior motive.
“No, miss,” Arthur said.
I leaned my head back against the soft leather and tried to relax, but I was wound pretty tight. We arrived at the very edge of my grandmother’s vast estate, and I looked out over the rolling green hills that made up Maureen Bennett’s property with little interest and barely veiled disdain.
Grandmother had written to me when I was about eleven, telling me that she’d decided that I was going to be the one to inherit her entire fortune and all of her properties, and then she’d asked me to come for a visit. I’d shown the letter to my parents, and when my dad had read that part, he’d become angrier than I’d ever seen him in my eleven years. He’d forbidden me to visit his mother. But one Sunday, Mom had told Dad that we were going shopping, and, instead of the mall, we’d gone to see Grandmother.
The visit had been forced, awkward, and uncomfortable, but thereafter, about four or five times a year, Mom sneaked me off to spend an afternoon with my grandmother because, as she said to me, it was important to get to know the only living grandparent I had left.
Still, I never looked forward to those visits, even though Grandmother seemed to be trying her best to entertain me. Most of the time together involved eating out and shopping, and what should have been fun wasn’t. It was the way that Grandmother treated people, as if everyone were beneath her. She seemed to enjoy making them feel small, or like she were doing them a big giant favor by being in their presence. No one who waited on her ever looked her or me in the eye, and that really bothered me. Even Mom struggled to maintain eye contact with Maureen, which was why I made sure to always look directly at her whenever I was with her.
She’d made a comment about it once, staring at me with a flinty glare after I’d refused to back down on some minor point about my attire and her disapproval of it. I was tall and on the thin side, and I wore a lot of skinny jeans and spaghetti-strap tanks. After I refused to change, Grandmother had said, “You’re much like your father, Lily. I don’t know that I especially like it.” At the time, I’d been kind of proud of that, but after everything Dad had pulled lately, I wasn’t so sure I’d ever want to be compared to him again.
“Beautiful day,” Arthur said, rousing me from my thoughts.
“It is,” I agreed, looking out the window at the passing fence posts that marked the borders of Grandmother’s estate. I wondered again what she wanted with me.
Even though I didn’t have any homework for tomorrow, there was a small research project that I wanted to look into, and I wouldn’t have time to get into it before tea. Also, I needed to call Mom to tell her about my first day, but no way was I going to call while Arthur was around. Mom had warned me that Grandmother regularly grilled the staff about our overheard conversations. We’d learned very quickly to keep any talk between us to the guesthouse or her car.
>
Arthur drove up to the gates, which took their time parting enough for us to slide through, and we headed down the long drive to the main house, which was enormous. I’d seen photos on the Internet of European estates, and they had nothing on my grandmother’s home.
The place was nearly as big as my high school, and even more like a prison. Lucky for Mom and me that the guesthouse was at the back of the property not far from the stables, and much more modest in size. Arthur was taking us to the left to steer clear of the main house when I saw someone coming out of the front door. Recognizing who it was, I reached forward to grip the back of Arthur’s seat.
“Wait!”
Arthur applied the brake. Turning in his seat to offer me a startled look he said, “Miss?”
“What the hell is she doing here?” I nearly yelled. My blood boiled as I pointed to the woman making her way carefully down the steps. She wore stilettos, despite being six months pregnant.
Arthur blinked. “I’ve no idea, Miss Bennett.”
We watched my dad’s girlfriend get into a shiny black Lexus that he’d probably bought her, and in short order, begin to drive toward us. I wanted to scream as she came closer. And then she happened to glance at us, her eyes widening like a hungry lynx. Belatedly, I realized she was more interested in the Rolls than she was in who was in it. A cool smile spread across her lips, and I saw her hand drop from the steering wheel to the top of her belly. And then, she was gone.
“May I continue on?” Arthur asked me gently.
“Sure. Sorry, Arthur,” I muttered.
“No need to apologize, miss,” he said, offering me a kind and understanding smile.
We stopped in front of the guesthouse and I opened the door of the car before he could get out to help me. He was sweet and old, and I felt uncomfortable having him wait on me like that.
With a wave to Arthur, I headed inside to the kitchen, grabbed a bag of carrots and some sugar cubes, and hurried over to the stables. On the way, I stopped to pat Gus, the stable hand’s dog. He was a grizzled old coonhound who now preferred the shade of a tree to hunting. He offered me a dozy tail wag and I set a small dog treat at his feet, then moved on inside the stables, which smelled sweetly of hay and horse musk.
As I approached one of the stalls, I heard a nicker, and Apollo, a fifteen-hand, chestnut-colored gelding, stuck his considerable muzzle out of the stall.
“Hey, boy,” I said softly. He nickered again and kicked the door of the stall to let me know he was happy to see me.
I opened the bag of carrots and angled my shoulder underneath his muzzle to feed him, but he pushed at my pocket, more inclined toward the sugar. I dug it out for him, and he settled contentedly against me.
Stroking the white star on his forehead, I said, “Sophie texted me today.”
Apollo snorted, and I glanced sideways at him. Sometimes, he had great timing.
“I didn’t text her back,” I said. He rubbed the side of his head against my shoulder, and I fed him a carrot. “And I don’t think I’m going to.” Apollo nodded, as if he completely agreed with that decision.
That’s the thing about horses: they have an almost eerie ability to make you feel understood. I’d been pouring my heart out to Apollo ever since setting foot inside the stables, and I know it sounds weird, but he always made me feel heard and validated, and I knew that every time he saw me, he’d greet me with the same eager enthusiasm.
Horses are loyal to the core. They’ll never throw away your friendship for another human. Show them kindness and they’ll be yours. Forever.
Unlike Sophie, who’d promised that we’d always be best friends until she betrayed me in the worst possible way.
“She can stare at that phone until the end of the school year,” I told him. “No way am I answering her back!”
Apollo rubbed my shoulder again, and I figured that he understood how hard it would be on me to keep that promise. The truth was, I missed Sophie more than I could say, and I knew myself well enough to understand that I wanted to forgive her…I just didn’t know how.
With a sigh, I fed Apollo several more carrots before I looked at the time on my phone.
“Gotta go,” I told him. He nickered again and set his lips around my forearm, as if he didn’t want me to leave. I leaned in for a last hug and said, “Thanks, buddy. I needed that.”
After dropping some carrots into the buckets of Easy Ed, Lady Finger, and Roger Boy—Grandmother’s other horses—I dashed back to the house and up the stairs to my room. Taking a seat at my desk, I propped up the mirror that I used in the mornings to do my hair and makeup. For a minute, I peered at my reflection with a bit of alarm. I didn’t look so good. Dark circles underlined my eyes, and there was a pale weariness to my skin that made me look like someone on the verge of getting sick. My hair could have used some attention, too. How long had it been since I’d seen a stylist? Three months?
“Yikes,” I said, and my thoughts drifted to the encounter I’d had that morning with Cole.
A flush touched my cheeks when I took in my simple white shirt and skinny jeans. That morning I’d been focused on not calling a lot of attention to myself on the first day, so I’d muted my look considerably. But now I could see how that plain-Jane plan had backfired, because this had been Cole’s first impression of me. And then my mind recalled how I’d ducked into Grandmother’s pearly Rolls-Royce to get away from all the stares. I had no idea what Cole’s overall impression of me might be, but I was betting it wasn’t, “Hey, that new chick is awesome!”
I started to reach for my makeup, but stopped to take note of the time and grimaced. If I took a few extra minutes to work on my appearance, I risked being late for tea. But then, if I didn’t and went to her looking like this, Grandmother would probably be displeased anyway. Making up my mind, I took up a bottle of foundation and got quickly to work.
MOMMA WASN’T AT ALL PLEASED that I walked into work at her salon fifteen minutes late. I could hear it in her tone.
“Amber?” she called as I tried to duck behind the reception desk. Pulling up the neck of my shirt so it didn’t hang off my shoulder so much, I approached her chair, and nearly stopped in my tracks when I noticed who was sitting there.
Clearing my throat, I said, “Hey, Momma. Hello, Mrs. Bennett. Nice to see you.”
Fredericksburg’s wealthiest woman narrowed her eyes and looked at me in the mirror as if she couldn’t quite place me. She’d been a regular of Momma’s for a while now, coming in once a month to get her hair dyed jet-black, and done up like Alexis from Dynasty. She did look a bit like Joan Collins—the actress who played Alexis—with her thin, angular features, dyed hair, and green eyes, but she lacked the classic beauty of the Hollywood star. Still, that didn’t stop her from throwing out the occasional crisp line laced with a slight British lilt.
“Who’s this?” she said, looking down her nose at me. Never mind that I’d greeted her at the reception desk for the past year and a half every time she came in.
“This is my daughter, Mrs. Bennett. Amber,” Momma said.
“Sorry I’m late,” I told her.
“Late?” Mrs. Bennett repeated, eyeing me a little more crossly now. “Why were you late, young lady?”
I cleared my throat again, nervous around such a sharp-tongued and powerful woman. “I got held up,” I said. “I’m sorry, Momma. It won’t happen again.”
“It’s fine,” Momma said, but she was frowning at me. I suspected she knew that I’d been late because I was trying to decide what outfit to wear for my date with Spence that night. He’d be picking me up at six, right from the salon. I’d gone with a short jean skirt, torn black stockings, lots of bangles, a thin off-the-shoulder heather-gray cutoff sweatshirt cinched at the waist with a red belt, and my new Reebok high-tops with thick bright-white socks. It’d taken me two hours to come up with the combo, do my hair, and apply my makeup, and even though I’d thought I’d left plenty of time, I’d still been fifteen minutes late to work.
Saturdays were the busiest days at the salon, but things didn’t really get going until around eleven, so I’d figured it’d be okay to come in a tiny bit late. But if I’d known that Mrs. Bennett was going to be there, I’d have made sure to arrive on time. She always demanded Momma’s sole attention and often had some harsh criticism for her that left Momma a wreck the rest of the day. Mrs. Bennett was a mean woman, and her husband, Dr. Bennett, wasn’t any nicer. They both came to Momma to get their hair done, and why she put up with them, I couldn’t say.
“You’re not going to teach your daughter anything by allowing her to break the rules, Gina,” Mrs. Bennett said tartly. “You should ground her.”
I sucked in a breath, but Momma laughed lightly. “Oh, now, Mrs. Bennett. I don’t think that being a little late warrants a grounding. Amber’s a good girl. I’m sure she won’t make a habit of it.”
I watched Mrs. Bennett’s expression in the mirror go from merely displeased to something closer to anger. She didn’t seem to like that Momma was letting me off the hook. And, seriously, what business was it of hers anyway? Not that I’d ever say something like that to her, but I could sure think it.
The long red fingernail of her right index finger tapped on the arm of the salon chair as she glared first at Momma, and then settled her gaze on me, as if I were an evil young lady who’d gotten away with something.
The air around us gathered tension and Momma said, “Well, then, Amber, you’d best get over there and help Darcy cover the phone.”
“Yes, ma’am,” I said.
As I turned to leave, Mrs. Bennett said, “Wait,” and I stopped in my tracks. That red fingernail continued to tap, tap, tap on the arm of the chair. “I would like a glass of Tab,” she said, her words clipped and crisp. “With a fresh squeeze of lemon. Not lime. Lemon.”
My eyes widened. The Tab was no problem—I’d just get it out of the vending machine—but where was I supposed to get a lemon? I looked at Momma, who shifted her shoulders uncomfortably.
Forever, Again Page 3
