Icing on the Lake

by Catherine Clark

  “You didn’t tell me that Sean had a brother. And that his brother works at the bakery,” I said.

  “Oh. I didn’t?” Gretchen asked.

  “No. You definitely didn’t.”

  “I thought I did.” Gretchen stirred a spoonful of diet drink mix into a glass of water. “Well, I guess I thought you knew.”

  “Um. No,” I said. “How would I know that? And you know what else? I just basically hugged—no, attacked—Conor, because I thought he was Sean.”

  She burst out laughing. “I know. I saw that!”

  “Well, why didn’t you stop me?” I looked out the window at Brett and Conor, who were building a snowman together.

  “Actually, I didn’t realize that was Conor instead of Sean until you went out there. Honestly.”

  “Uh huh.” For some reason I didn’t believe her. Now that I was looking at Conor, I could see he was a little shorter than Sean. “So what’s the deal with the brothers?”

  “Well. It’s kind of interesting. See, Sean’s like the star hockey player, star everything, in their school. But Conor isn’t. I guess he was a good player, but he didn’t make the team or something. Anyway, Conor is so totally jealous of Sean—you can see it. He picks fights with him all the time.”

  “He does?” I took that with a grain of salt. My sister always seemed to go for the super-popular star types. It didn’t surprise me that she’d like the star brother more than the other one.

  Gretchen insisted on being the prom queen when she was my age. And on dating the prom king. Her ex-husband had been the senior class president at his school, etc. You could say she was a little obsessed with status. I shouldn’t really take her advice when it came to this, in one sense. But even though her marriage had ended in divorce, she still knew a whole lot more about guys, and dating, than I did.

  Of course that wasn’t saying much.

  “Oh, yeah. In fact they argue and fight a lot. It’s hard for us to imagine, because we’re so far apart in age.”

  “Right,” I said. But I was surprised she said that it was hard to imagine. We had actually had our own share of sibling rivalry at times. I distinctly remember her pushing me aside at some extended family wedding to grab the bouquet, when she was eighteen and I was eleven. As if I wanted the bouquet when I was eleven!

  “But the Benson boys are only one year different—”

  I burst out laughing.

  “What?” She stopped. “What are you laughing so hard for?”

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t know their last name was Benson.”

  “What’s so funny about that?”

  “The Benson boys? That’s not funny to you?” I laughed again. “For one thing, you sound like Mom when you say that, and for another, the Benson boys—like they’re in a band. They’re not quite the Beastie Boys, but appearing tonight…the Benson Boys!”

  “I’m done out there.”

  Suddenly, standing at the front door guiding Brett into the house, was Conor. There was a blast of cold air coming through the door, which was about the same feeling I got from Conor. He wasn’t looking at me. He hated me. And I’d hugged him. Closely. Very closely.

  I sank down in my chair a little, wishing I could disappear inside my mug as fast as the marshmallows had.

  “Thanks, Conor,” Gretchen said. “I was going to introduce you to Kirsten, but I guess you already met.” She laughed a little. I thought about dousing her with the hot chocolate.

  “Oh, yeah. We go way back,” Conor said. “So, Sean will come by later if it snows any more. See ya, kid.” He patted Brett on the top of his head, then he gave me a final glance, and yanked the door closed with a slam.

  Okay, so we’d gotten off on the wrong foot.

  I thought of the way I’d shoved him into the bushes. No, the wrong feet.

  I was just getting back to the house from walking with Bear that afternoon when a small, older red pickup pulled up beside the curb. I cautiously turned to see who was stopping beside me.

  Conor lowered the window on the driver’s side. “Hey. I’m driving him to school hockey practice.”

  I peered into the cab as I walked closer.

  “Coach called an extra practice because we really sucked last night,” Sean said. “We lost the game and it was like the easiest team we played all year.”

  I walked around and leaned on the window on Sean’s side. “So you can’t come this afternoon?”

  “No. Sorry.” He sighed. “Anyway, this is my brother, Conor.” He gestured with his thumb at Conor.

  “Yeah. We, ah, met this morning,” I said. Not to mention a couple of other times, before I knew who he really was.

  “Oh, yeah?” Sean asked. “So what’d you think?”

  “She thinks I’m great,” Conor said. “I think she said that, actually.”

  Sean looked at Conor, and then at me, his eyebrows sort of semi-raised.

  “I don’t actually remember saying that,” I said to Conor. I smiled and felt my face turn a little red.

  Bear jumped up and put his paws on the window. He started panting right in Conor’s face.

  Conor reached down to rub Bear behind the ears. Bear pushed against him, begging for more attention.

  “So which one of you is older?” I asked.

  “I am,” Conor said.

  “Which one is taller?” I asked. “I’ve always been a little shorter than my sister, and it bugs me.”

  “I’m taller,” Sean said.

  “By like an inch,” Conor said.

  “What? I’m six-two. You’re not even six feet.”

  “Yes I am.”

  “No, you’re not. You’re five-eleven.”

  “And a half,” Conor added.

  “It’s still not six feet. So, you want to come watch practice?” Sean asked, finally turning back to me. Boy, could those two argue about nothing. Definitely siblings.

  “Do you think she’s stupid?” Conor asked. “Who wants to watch someone else practice?”

  “We’re good,” Sean said.

  “Not that good, if you need extra practice,” Conor muttered.

  “Shut up. You just wish you were still on the team.”

  “Well, maybe I do,” Conor admitted. “But I’m sure she can think of something else to do with her time.”

  “Yeah. I’ll probably do some reading,” I said.

  “Write some emails?” Conor teased.

  “Maybe.” I smiled.

  “What’s that all about?” Sean asked.

  “Her project, stupid,” Conor said.

  “What project?”

  “I told you—my Independent Study,” I reminded him.

  “Oh, yeah, right.” Sean nodded, but I didn’t think that he actually knew what I was talking about. It was okay—we hadn’t discussed it much. “Okay, we should go.”

  “Yes, sir.” Conor released the emergency brake and I laughed. He looked over at me. “What?”

  “Oh. You just…you sort of sound like me when I talk to Gretchen.”

  He stared at me, as if this was highly doubtful.

  “Well…have a good practice, Sean,” I said. “Come on, Bear—let’s go. See you guys later!”

  When I went inside the house, Gretchen practically pounced on me. “What was that all about?”

  I explained how Sean had to cancel our trip to the mall. Why I said that, I’ll never know. Naturally her response was, “Well, then, why don’t we go to the mall?”

  “Seriously? I’m not really in the mood,” I said. “I have some stuff I could do here—”

  “Come on,” Gretchen urged. “It’ll be fun!”

  Somehow, with Gretchen doing all the shopping, and me entertaining Brett, I doubted that.

  Maybe it wasn’t too late to catch Conor and Sean.

  Chapter 8

  My glasses fogged over completely as I walked into the bakery the next day. I couldn’t see a thing. I hated wearing my glasses when it was cold, but I’d lost a contact the day before and I
didn’t have a choice. I held one hand out in front of me, à la Frankenstein, so I didn’t knock anyone or anything down as I slipped the glasses down my nose with my other hand.

  I didn’t understand how if they could come up with all these technologies for eyeglasses, like anti-glare lenses and tri-focals, and heck, laser refractive surgery, that they couldn’t have anti-fog lenses.

  At least I liked my new glasses. I’d picked them out before the school year and they were very cool tiny brown ovals that I personally thought looked fantastic if I wore my hair in long blond pigtails. (“Again with the Heidi look,” Jones would always tease me when I did this combination, and then she’d sing, “The hills are alive…with the sound of music,” even though that’s neither Heidi nor Switzerland.)

  Mom was sending replacement contact lenses from home, via overnight mail. Gretchen was home to wait for the FedEx delivery. If Mom included any baked goods by mistake, they’d be history by the time I got home. So I was here in search of sweets. I’d decided that I must have S.A.D. Not Seasonal Affective Disorder, but Sean Affective Disorder.

  Not enough Sean every day.

  They say one of the symptoms of S.A.D. is craving carbohydrates. Well, I definitely had that problem, and then some. I was dying for a donut. I was dying to see the sun. And I was dying to see Sean.

  But since I didn’t want to bowl him over any more than I already had, I’d headed to the bakery. If he happened to walk out of his house when I went past, well, great.

  But he didn’t.

  This time, I didn’t plan on staying very long, and I tied Bear to an iron bench outside the bakery so I could keep a better eye on him.

  “Hey,” I greeted Conor as I wiped off my glasses and waited for them to adjust to the warmer temperature indoors. “How are you?”

  “Double latte,” he replied, sliding a cup across the counter to me.

  I turned around, expecting another customer to come up behind me. But there was no one to claim the drink.

  “It’s for you,” Conor said.

  “For me? Thanks. How did you know I was coming?” I asked.

  “I saw you tying up Bear,” he said.

  “That’s so nice of you. Thanks,” I said as I slid my glasses back on, and reached for my wallet. When I looked down at the coffee, I could have sworn that the foam on top of the latte had a heart pattern. “Look! A heart,” I said.

  Conor was in the middle of making another espresso drink for the next customer, and he didn’t look up at me. “A heart?” he said, sounding very skeptical.

  “Look—in the foam,” I said.

  “Show me,” Conor said.

  “There.”

  “Where?”

  “Hold on.” I stared into the cup, turning it toward me and then back the other way. Where had it disappeared to? “It was here a second ago,” I told Conor. “Shoot.”

  “I don’t make patterns in the foam. Maybe you need new glasses?” he said.

  “These are my new glasses,” I said. “I lost a contact sledding with Brett yesterday.”

  “Oh. Well then, I don’t know what to tell you.” He finished making the next coffee drink and rang up the other customer’s order.

  I grabbed a packet of sugar and stirred it into my latte, then snapped a lid on top so that it would stay warm. I didn’t care what he said. There was a heart there. Once.

  “Can I get you anything else?” Conor asked.

  I looked into the case, at all the pastries on trays. “How are the raspberry turnovers?”

  “Not as good as the cheery cheese Danish.” He pointed to a large, square pastry with cherries on top, drizzled with white icing.

  “Cheery cheese? Does it smile at you?” I asked.

  “I didn’t say cheery. I said cherry,” he insisted. “You’re strange. Do you see things everywhere? Hearts, smiles—”

  “You said cheery!”

  “I did not. It’s cherry, and you’re having one.” He plucked the Danish with a pair of tongs and dropped it onto a plastic, flowered plate. “On the house. How’s the novel coming along?”

  “Novel?”

  “Whatever you call it.”

  “That’s the thing. I need a title,” I said. “So then I’ll know what to call it, instead of constantly trying to explain it and failing. Like if I could think of a title that just captured the essence of it.”

  He didn’t look impressed. I didn’t expect him to be. Nothing I did seemed to make him think any more of me.

  “Did that come out sounding as pretentious to you as it did to me?” I joked.

  “You know, I write, too. I’m planning to major in English or Creative Writing,” Conor announced. “Unless I completely change my mind and decide to go into the forest program, which I’m also interested in. You could say I’m a little undecided, I guess.”

  We both laughed. “Yeah, I’ve got it narrowed down to English, Teaching, and ah…” I paused.

  “Teaching English,” Conor said.

  “Exactly,” I said. “I’m all about the teaching English. Actually, I’m thinking about law school, too.”

  “Really.” Conor looked very surprised. “You think you could get in somewhere good?”

  I wondered if he said offensive things like this to everyone, or whether it was just me. “Do you think I’m stupid or something?” I asked.

  “What?”

  “That’s like the fourth time you’ve made fun of me and implied I’m not intelligent,” I said. “You realize I don’t have to be in school this semester because I’m basically done, too.”

  “Well, sure, who wouldn’t be done at a school that accepts instant messages as term papers,” he replied.

  Ooh. He was really going for the jugular now. “Hey. It’s not just IMs,” I said.

  “Of course not. You probably have photos and some movie ticket stubs in there, too.”

  I glared at him. “Could I just have my Danish now?”

  “Sorry. Anyway, I thought you were here to help your sister,” he said.

  “I am. Does that mean I can’t be working on an independent school project?” I asked Conor. “You know, you’re really assuming a lot. Like, you don’t even know what else I’m writing, or what I’ve done, or the fact I have a 4.0 average and the fact I’ve already been accepted to college and I have all the credits I need, so this is just for extra credit and for me personally, something I want to do.”

  When I took a breath, I noticed him staring at me with raised eyebrows—that look again. The one I kept getting from him when I went on one of my little tirades. “Okay. Sorry,” he said. “The thing about getting in somewhere good—that was out of line.”

  “No, I’m sorry,” I said. “It’s just—it gets old when people look at me and assume I’m dumb. I’ve kind of had it with that.”

  “Yeah. Okay.” He nodded. “Consider me enlightened.”

  “I will.” I set my cup on the counter. “Consider this a free coffee, then.”

  He smiled. “I will.”

  That night, I’d just finished tucking Brett into bed and Gretchen was about to read him a bedtime story when the doorbell rang. “That’s odd,” Gretchen said. “Look out the glass before you open the door, okay?”

  “I always do,” I assured her, trying not to get aggravated by the fact she still treated me as if I couldn’t take care of myself.

  “Who is it, who is it?” Brett chanted as I hurried down the stairs. Bear was barking like crazy, and racing back and forth in front of the door.

  I peered through the windows and saw Sean standing on the doorstep. He waved at me, and I opened the door slowly. “Hey, what are you—”

  Bear leaped at him, nearly knocking him over, then ran past him to Conor, who was standing behind Sean and holding a sled.

  “Come on! Let’s go sledding!” Sean cried.

  Conor gave me a look, like: I don’t really want to be doing this. I was talked into it.

  I wasn’t so sure I wanted to do anything with the t
wo of them, either, considering the way they bickered. But, then again: sledding with the Benson boys? I hadn’t had a better offer all year. Or all last year, either.

  “Hold on—let me get my boots and coat, okay?” I pulled the door open wider. “Come on in and have a seat.”

  “It’s okay, we’ll hang out here,” Sean said. “Just hurry!”

  I ran to Brett’s room to let Gretchen know where I was going. “Have fun. Be careful though,” she said. “Don’t break—”

  “Anything. Anything at all,” I said. I grabbed my boots, slid into them, and picked up my new, striped scarf, mittens and jacket.

  “This is so great!” I said as I stepped out the door and zipped up my coat.

  “You like sledding?” Sean asked.

  “Oh yeah. I’m all about the sledding,” I said as we started walking down the street.

  “You keep saying that. How can you be ‘all about’ everything?” Conor asked.

  I cast him an irritated glance. “I’m multi-faceted,” I said. “Is that so wrong?”

  “Oh, no. I’m all about being multi-faceted,” Conor teased.

  I ignored him and turned my attention back to Sean. “So, where are we going?”

  “Minnehaha Falls,” Conor announced. “They’re frozen this time of year. It’ll be an adventure—we’ll just go sliding straight down the creek and then—”

  “No, I don’t think so,” Sean said.

  “Come on. Live a little,” Conor urged him.

  “No way! We’d kill ourselves,” he said.

  “Yeah. No kidding, genius. I was just joking,” Conor said. “Just trying to liven things up. Don’t worry, this hill is a little tamer than that,” he said to me as he shifted the sled from his left arm to his right.

  “It’s a place where tons of people go, so we’ll probably run into some friends,” Sean said.

  “Oh. Well, cool,” I said.

  We trekked through a couple of crusty snow drifts, then crossed Minnehaha Creek, where a small kids’ bike was frozen into the ice.

  “Is anyone else thinking of that Shackleton movie?” I asked.

  “What Shackleton movie?” Sean asked, taking my hand and helping me up the steep bank. “Who’s Shackleton?”