Pies & Prejudice

by Heather Vogel Frederick

  Some music comes on—a waltz, I think. Cassidy moves into position beside Tristan, and he reaches around and puts his hand on her waist and the two of them skate away from where we’re sitting, their feet moving in unison as they step from one foot to the other in a series of graceful turns. Then Tristan swings her around so that she’s facing him, and she puts one hand on his shoulder and reaches out to clasp his free hand, and suddenly they’re waltzing around the rink.

  “Oh, my,” says Mrs. Sloane-Kinkaid. Her hand wanders up to her throat, and her eyes are bright as she watches the two of them. “Oh, my.”

  “She’s really growing up, isn’t she?” says Gigi softly, patting her knee.

  “I thought you’d like to see this,” says Mrs. Bergson, who has come over to join us. She leans against the railing, her eyes following the pair. “Her height gives her beautiful lines. She’s like a thoroughbred.”

  “She’s good,” says Jess.

  “She’s starting to get the hang of it,” says Mrs. Bergson diplomatically. “The waltz is the easy part.”

  We watch for a while longer, and then Mrs. Sloane-Kinkaid reluctantly tells us she needs to get back to Chloe. After she drops Gigi and me at home, I head to my room for a nap. It’s been a long day, and I want to be rested up for tonight. Afterward, I spend some time coming up with a suitably snarky post about Tristan Berkeley (Fashionista Jane titles it: “Spandex Fannies? Just say ’Non’!). Then it’s time to take a shower.

  I picked out my outfit earlier—a powder blue V-neck sweater over skinny leg jeans tucked into black boots—and as I’m getting dressed, there’s a knock at my door.

  “Come in!”

  My grandmother pokes her head in, her dark eyes sparkling. “Ready for your big date?”

  “Gigi! I told you, it’s just a movie, not a date!” I protest.

  “Mmm,” she murmurs, arching an eyebrow. “Then I don’t suppose you need these.” Extending her hand, she opens her fingers. Her enormous diamond earrings are sitting on her outstretched palm.

  I draw in my breath sharply. “Really?”

  She nods. “Diamonds go with everything. Especially my beautiful granddaughter.”

  “Thank you so much!” I give her a hug, and kiss her soft cheek. She smiles at me. What would I do without Gigi?

  Stewart and Becca show up promptly at seven.

  “The others are going to meet us at the theater,” Stewart tells me, after promising my parents that he’ll drive carefully, make sure everyone’s seat belts are buckled, obey the speed limits, and do everything else he’s supposed to short of making us wear safety helmets.

  “Sounds good,” I reply.

  Zach is already there when we arrive, and Becca trots over to him and starts talking his ear off. He doesn’t look too annoyed, for once, though he does seem a little disappointed when he learns that Cassidy isn’t coming. I think he still kind of likes her.

  Stewart’s hockey friends trickle in as we buy our tickets, but there’s no sign of Simon and Tristan yet, and I start to worry that maybe they’re not going to show.

  They do, though, just as we’re lining up for popcorn.

  “Hi, Megan,” says Simon, coming right over to stand by me.

  “Hi.”

  “Pretty earrings.”

  “Thanks,” I reply shyly. “They’re my grandmother’s.”

  His eyebrows shoot up. “You mean they’re real?”

  I nod.

  “Wow, nice grandmother.”

  “She’s the best.”

  “Hey, what’s up with your brother?” asks Zach.

  We all turn around to look at Tristan, who’s standing by himself at the end of the line. His face is like a thundercloud.

  Simon shrugs. “He’s got his knickers in a twist.”

  Zach looks puzzled, and Simon grins. “Let’s just say that he’s ‘wicked’ unhappy, as you all put it. That idiot blogger—you know the one I’m talking about, Jane somebody-or-other—put an unflattering picture of him on the Internet. He’s been brooding about it since dinner.”

  Idiot blogger? I turn away to hide my flaming face, his words ringing in my ears. What if Simon finds out it was me? And how on earth did Tristan discover the picture so quickly? I only posted it a couple of hours ago.

  My gaze slides over to Becca. She’s wearing what my mother calls a cat-who-ate-the-canary smile.

  “Did you tell him?” I whisper furiously.

  “Stewart asked me to e-mail them the movie time, and I figured I’d tip Tristan off while I was at it,” she whispers back. “He was going to find out eventually anyway. What’s the big deal? Besides, it serves him right. Look at him standing there, like he’s not even part of our group. Talk about Mr. Stuck-Up.”

  Honestly, sometimes Becca is so clueless.

  I feel a tug on my arm and turn back around to see Simon smiling at me. “Do you mind if I sit with you?”

  Do I mind? Is he kidding? Sitting with him is all I’ve been thinking for hours.

  Except now the evening is ruined, and I have nobody to blame but myself.

  “Obstinate, headstrong girl!”

  —Pride and Prejudice

  CASSIDY

  “There is a stubbornness in about me that never can bear to be frightened at the will of others. My courage always rises with every attempt to intimidate me.”

  —Pride and Prejudice

  “Time out!”

  I blow my coach’s whistle and a dozen little girls skate over to me, huffing and puffing. The chicks in my Chicks with Sticks club range in age from seven to eleven, and I tower over all of them. I squat down so they don’t have to tilt their heads back to look at me.

  “Way to go!” I tell them. “That was much better.”

  This is a lie.

  We’ve been working on speed drills this afternoon, and they’re moving like slugs out there. I don’t care, though. They’re trying really hard, and they’ll get better. I did. Plus, I remember how patient my father and my coaches were with me when I was first learning to play. I blow my whistle and tell them to go line up again.

  I really like working with kids, which surprises me. I’ve never spent much time with younger kids before, aside from occasionally teaching skating lessons. I never even babysat before my sister Chloe came along. I never had time, and I wasn’t interested. But coaching Chicks with Sticks is just about the most fun thing I’ve ever done. It’s almost as much fun as playing hockey. I love to play hockey—I mean really love to play hockey—but getting these little girls excited about chasing after a puck even rivals that.

  “Stop at the blue line!” I call to them as they dash off—well, if you can call what they’re doing a dash—across the rink. “Keep your heads up!” Responding to my whistle, they sprint and stop, sprint and stop from one line to the next all the way down the ice.

  Which is where I just about live these days. There and in the car. Monday through Thursday nights I practice with the Lady Shawmuts out at the rink in Acton. Saturdays and most Sundays we have games—some of them as far away as Rhode Island and Connecticut. The only ice time Mrs. Bergson could wangle for Chicks with Sticks was on Tuesdays and Thursdays right after school, so I book on over here from Alcott High, then stay afterward to practice with Tristan until dinnertime. The two of us also practice on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday mornings before school, and we usually squeeze in at least one session on the weekends, too, depending on when and where my hockey games are scheduled.

  Oddly enough, I’m not the only one who practically lives at the rink. Tristan puts in just as much time on the ice as I do, and some of the girls on my U16 team are working this hard too. A lot of them go to schools that have hockey programs for girls, and they’re doubling up, playing for their high school teams and for our Division 1 team. I guess when you love to skate, you love to skate, it’s as simple as that.

  My mother was really worried at first about me overextending myself, as she calls it, but, for the most part I’m the happiest
I’ve been since my father died. I’m in better shape than I’ve ever been too. I’m even working harder to keep my grades up, since Mom told me if I don’t she’s pulling the plug on the whole shebang. I worked out a deal with Stewart Chadwick, who tutors me when I need help in exchange for free hockey coaching. So far, it’s going really well. I doubt I’ll ever be the kind of student that Jess and Emma are, but there are a lot more B’s than C’s on my report card this year, and I even managed an A in Spanish.

  The only thing I’m not so happy about is Tristan.

  I would have quit after that first practice except for Mrs. Bergson. She’s been so great about helping me out with the hockey club and everything—assisting me with drills, and taking the girls who need extra work on the basics aside for extra coaching, not to mention getting the rink for us for free—I didn’t want to let her down. And actually, even though I hate to admit it and I’m not all that good at it yet, I kind of like ice dancing. It’s completely different from hockey, that’s for sure. But it gives me that same feeling that nothing else on earth does—that sense of complete freedom when I’m soaring across the ice. Only this time, I’m soaring to music.

  The other reason I’m sticking with it is that I have a stubborn streak, and I don’t want to give His Majesty the satisfaction of seeing me fail.

  Out of the corner of my eye I catch a glimpse of Mr. Fancypants himself stepping onto the ice. He’s early. This annoys me for some reason, and I pretend I don’t see him. At least he ditched the blue Spandex. He was mad for a solid week after Megan’s blog post, but it did some good because he went out and got himself some plain black workout pants.

  “Cassidy!” Mrs. Bergson calls to me from the side of the rink, pointing to her watch. “Time to wrap it up out there. Your girls are looking good!”

  My girls. I like the sound of that. I smile to myself as I motion them over. They’re adorable, all bundled up in their giant hockey pads with their faces barely showing under their helmets. Did I look that cute when I was their age?

  As she passes Tristan, tiny Katie Angelino slips and falls. She’s my youngest “chick”—only seven—and the weakest skater. She lies there for a minute, then bangs her glove on the ice in frustration. Poor kid. I remember that feeling only too well. Heck, I still struggle with it when I’m ice dancing.

  Before I can skate over to her, though, Tristan scoops her back onto her feet. He pulls a tissue out of his pocket and hands it to her, then squats down and talks to her softly while she blows her nose.

  He glances up at me and our eyes meet. I want to mouth the words thank you, but something won’t let me. Pride, I suppose. I press my lips together instead and look away.

  Tristan Berkeley is a puzzle. He’s one of the rudest, most stuck-up people I’ve ever met, but I know he’s close to his brother, who’s the nicest guy in the world. Simon obviously worships him, so there must be something good there. Darned if I can figure out what, though. Tristan barely says two words to me, and when he does, they’re usually critical. Not once has he thanked me for stepping in to be his practice partner. Practice doormat is more like it. He doesn’t bother trying to be friendly, and at school he mostly ignores me, even though we spend hours and hours together every week.

  Tristan gives Katie a gentle push and she slip-slides over in my direction, but when she tries to stop she can’t. She bursts into tears again as she barrels into me.

  “I can’t do anything right!” she wails.

  “That’s not true,” I tell her, handing her another tissue. I’ve learned to come armed with a bunch of them. “A month ago you couldn’t even stand on those skates, and now look at you! You’re getting stronger all the time, and I’m really proud of how hard you’re trying.”

  Sniffling, she swipes angrily at her tears. I put my arm around her shoulders. I want to laugh, because she looks so much like Chloe does when she’s dressed in her snowsuit, like a puffy little marshmallow. But I don’t, of course. I keep my coach face on. “Listen, Katie, when I was first starting out, I was way worse than you are.”

  She looks up at me suspiciously. “Really?”

  I nod. “Uh-huh. But I didn’t give up, and you’re not going to give up either, okay?”

  Her forehead puckers as she thinks about it. She nods. “Okay.”

  I slap her a high five. “That’s the spirit. Now go tell your mom that your coach thinks you’re awesome.”

  As she toddles away toward the side of the rink, I notice Tristan watching me. For some reason, I feel my face flush.

  “Cassidy! Tristan!” calls Mrs. Bergson. “Time to start warming up! Cassidy—take a five-minute break, then change your skates and join us.”

  I head for the bleachers and my sports bag, where I down some water and check my cell phone. There’s a message from Dr. Weisman. He wants me to call him.

  “Cassidy Sloane!” he says when I do. “Purveyor of world-famous pies.”

  I laugh. “Dr. Weisman, world-famous shrink!”

  He laughs too.

  Amazingly, I’ve made it through almost three quarters of a school year without being dragged into Dr. Weisman’s office. He’s a family therapist really, not a shrink, and my mother made me go to him a lot when we first moved here and I was having a tough time dealing with that, and with missing my father. She marched me down there last year too, after the incident with the goat cheese in Savannah Sinclair’s suitcase. And he was a big help when I found out Mom was expecting Chloe, which kind of knocked me for a loop. This year, I still see Dr. Weisman, only not in his office. He and his wife are big hockey fans, and they often turn up at my games. Plus, they’re regular customers of Pies & Prejudice.

  “What can I get for you this week?” I ask him.

  “We have friends coming to lunch on Sunday, and we need something that says sunshine, warmth, and everything that Mud Season is not.”

  Mud season in New England is a total pain. It happens when winter’s not quite over and spring’s not quite here, and it’s cold and wet and drizzly and the snow is melting and slushy and the ground turns to sludge. We never had anything like it back in Laguna Beach, where I used to live. This is the time of year I miss California the most.

  Thinking about California reminds me of Courtney. I make a mental note to text her as soon as I finish with Dr. Weisman’s order.

  “What you need is lemon meringue pie,” I tell him. “My mother calls it summer in a piecrust.”

  “We’ll take two.”

  After we hang up, I call in the order to Jess, who keeps track of everything, then send a text to my sister: AT RINK WITH DUKE OF PUKE.

  She texts me right back: POOR YOU!

  MUD SEASON. YUCK, I tell her.

  HA HA, she texts back. HOT AND SUNNY, HEADING TO THE BEACH. COME VISIT.

  I was hoping to go see her over Spring Break, but that was before our big plan to surprise Emma with a plane ticket home. Now I’m thinking maybe some weekend in May instead. Hockey will be well over by then, and I can probably talk Mom into letting me take an extra day or two off school, especially if I continue to keep my grades up.

  “Cassidy!” calls Mrs. Bergson.

  “Coming!” I call back, lacing up my skates.

  Tristan’s coach in England sent over a DVD of the programs he’s supposed to be practicing for the competition this summer, and we watched it last night at Mrs. Bergson’s. It was my first glimpse of his cousin Annabelle. Emma told us that she’s pretty, and she’s right. I guess I’d been kind of hoping she was exaggerating. But Annabelle looks like a ballerina, with really good posture and sleek dark hair and dark blue eyes just like Tristan’s.

  The compulsory dance looked simple enough—it’s a waltz—but the free dance was a lot more complicated, with a ton of fancy footwork. There were some pretty tricky-looking rotational lifts too, including one where Annabelle did a handstand on the coach’s bent leg while he spun around.

  Unlike pairs skating, there aren’t any throws in ice dancing, but there are a
few lifts. We’ve attempted only the easiest ones so far, like the one where I face Tristan and put my arms around his neck, and he locks his forearms underneath my shoulder blades. The momentum of the spin does most of the work, leaving me to concentrate on bending my knees back in a graceful arc, which sounds a lot easier than it is. The other lift we’ve mastered is the one where Tristan puts his arm around my waist and swings me off my feet. That’s simple enough.

  That handstand lift, though? Good luck with that. Tristan is strong, but lifting me is going to be like lifting Led or Zep, one of the Delaney’s Belgian draft horses. I’m nearly six feet of solid muscle.

  “So,” says Mrs. Bergson as I skate over to where she and Tristan are standing. “I’ve broken the programs into bite-size pieces for you, Cassidy—”

  Tristan snorts at this, and I glare at him.

  “—which I think will help make them easier to learn.”

  “Let’s hope so,” says Tristan under his breath, and I squelch the urge to kick him.

  The next two hours fly by in a confusing flurry of chasses and twizzles, slip steps and rocker turns, Mohawks, Choctaws, jumps, hops, and spins. I push myself to the limit, grimly wondering how on earth I’m ever going to memorize all this stuff.

  “What’s the matter with you?” says Tristan as I manage to get out of sync yet again during a side-by-side spin. He frowns at me in exasperation. “Weren’t you watching the way Annabelle did it?”

  I cut my blades sharply to the side, sending up a shower of ice shavings as I come to an abrupt stop. “Will you shut up already about your stupid girlfriend!”

  “Distant cousin,” says Tristan stiffly.

  “Whatever! I don’t care! Look, I get the fact that I’m not as good at ice dancing as your precious cousin, but I’m trying my best here, okay?”