“It’s your celebration,” Frederica said. “Spend the time as you wish. Alain and I can tend to the picnic leavings and the horses. I’ll call you in an hour.”
Lisa was glad they had a full hour, but it was clear that it wasn’t nearly enough time to explore all the wonderful things there were to see on this beach. In the time left to them, they played hide-and-seek around the rock outcrops, including Aqueduct Rock; followed a land crab to his nest; watched the birds as they dove for lunch, emerging from the water proudly bearing fish in their breaks; and built a sand stable, complete with horses. Frederica’s signal whistle came much too soon for Lisa. She was having a wonderful time with Jill, a time that could have been made better, she thought, only if Stevie and Carole had been there with her.
It had been a terrific day, and the ride back to the resort was almost as good as the ride to the beach. Lisa couldn’t believe that because of some careless riding mistakes on her part, she had been willing to give it all up and never ride again. What a dreadful mistake that would have been!
STEVIE STOOD IN front of the full-length mirror in the bathroom admiring her reflection. It helped her ignore the fact that all three of her brothers were standing outside the bathroom door making kissing sounds.
The blue of her skirt went nicely with the dusty rose turtleneck and the white pullover. She sprayed on some sweet cologne and sniffed the air appreciatively. The final touch was the silver necklace Phil had given her for Hanukkah: a delicate horseshoe hanging on a her-ringbone chain. When she stepped back from the mirror, she could see the shoes her mother had bought her the day before. They were low-heeled navy blue pumps with silver buckles. She ran her comb through her hair a final time, blinked sweetly at her image in the mirror, and smiled. She liked what she saw. Full of confidence, she opened the bathroom door.
“Oh, Phil!” her older brother Chad teased, mimicking her. “You’re so handsome!”
“Drop dead,” Stevie suggested calmly, wafting past him and down the stairs to wait for Phil’s arrival. “After all, who’s going out on New Year’s Eve? You or me?”
“THERE’S A BOGEY festival on tonight, Carole,” Colonel Hanson said over dinner that night. “Want to watch some of it?”
Carole smiled to herself. She’d known for weeks about the marathon showing of Humphrey Bogart’s movies. She’d also known that that would be how she and her dad would spend New Year’s Eve. “Are you kidding?” she teased her father. “I already laid in a supply of microwave popcorn that will hold us through Casablanca, Key Largo, and The African Queen.”
“The Maltese Falcon, too?”
“Why not?” she answered.
As she and her father cleared the table, Carole thought about her friends. New Year’s Eve was a special time and you should do special things on it. Stevie, for instance, was off to her dream dance with Phil. Lisa was doing whatever wonderful thing you did in the Caribbean on New Year’s Eve. Carole thought that maybe she was luckiest of all. She loved to spend an evening just being with her father, even if it meant watching old movies with him, or maybe especially if it meant watching old movies with him.
“WE JUST HAVE fifteen minutes until the fireworks start,” Jill said, looking at her waterproof watch.
“I still have to perfect my cannonball!” Lisa said, running down the diving board at the swimming pool. She paused at the end of it, jumped once to build up steam, and then a second time for effect. She bounded into the air, wrapped her arms around her legs, and made a loud splash as she landed. She rose to the top of the pool, looking up through the clear, fresh water with her goggles. It amazed her to realize she could actually see the stars from underwater. “Swimming at night is wonderful!” Lisa said.
“As long as there are some lights and it’s a safe pool and there’s a lifeguard,” an adult voice said from above.
“Exactly,” Lisa agreed. Then, as she swam toward the edge of the pool, she thought about other New Year’s Eves she had spent. All of them, as long as she could remember, had taken place in Willow Creek and usually involved a small party her parents were giving. They had seemed exciting and grown-up to her when she was a little girl. Now that she was having a different kind of New Year’s Eve, they seemed very boring.
“I think I want to do cannonballs and watch fireworks on San Marco for every New Year’s Eve of my life,” she said wistfully, pulling herself out of the pool.
“We could make a pact,” Jill said. “I mean, as long as our parents will let us, we could always come back here for New Year’s Eve …”
“Maybe,” Lisa said, realizing that there was one thing missing—two really—Stevie and Carole.
*
“OH, DON’T YOU think he should have gotten on the plane, too?” Carole asked her father. She wiped a tear from her eye as she spoke. The end of Casablanca always made her cry.
“You’re such a romantic!” Colonel Hanson said, teasing his daughter gently.
“Do you wish I weren’t?” she asked.
“Nope. I think you’re perfect the way you are. Besides, your mother always used to cry at the end of this movie, too. I think it must be something in the genes.”
“And for that, it’s your turn to make popcorn. I think you’ve got five minutes until the start of The African Queen.”
Colonel Hanson took the empty bowl and soda cans to the kitchen. Carole thought she heard him humming “As Time Goes By” while the popcorn popped. It made her cry all over again. She loved it!
“DANCE?” PHIL ASKED, holding out his hand for Stevie to take.
“Of course,” she said, accepting his invitation. “After all, if you were able to talk the committee into hiring a rock band, the least we can do is to dance to it.”
The music started and they began dancing. Stevie liked dancing to rock music, but the trouble was, there was a lot of noise and she and Phil couldn’t talk at all. She was pretty sure that eventually they’d play something soft and slow. Then, of course, she might not want to say anything! She smiled to herself.
“What’s so funny?” Phil shouted, leaning toward her.
“Nothing in particular. I’m just having a good time,” she yelled back.
“Me, too.”
Then the music abruptly changed to a dreamy slow tune. Phil took Stevie’s right hand in his left and pulled her toward him with his own right hand. She put her left hand on his shoulder, and they danced.
“I like rock, but this is nice, too,” Stevie said.
“Hmmmm,” Phil answered.
“How did you convince the committee to hire a rock band instead of the polka and square-dance groups they were considering?” Stevie wanted to know.
“It’s a secret, see,” Phil said. “We got this local rock band to offer their services for free. The parents’ committee couldn’t resist.”
“The band is doing this for nothing?” Stevie asked.
“Oh, no, not at all,” Phil said. “We passed a hat around to all the classes and paid the band ourselves. Our parents don’t know it. They think they got a bargain. Considering the alternatives, we think we did, too.”
“Very clever,” Stevie said. “This sounds like A.J.’s work.”
A.J. was Phil’s best friend and he was almost as much of a schemer as Stevie was.
“It was his idea,” Phil said. “And when he suggested it, I thought it sounded just like something you would have thought up.”
Stevie laughed a little. Phil held her firmly, warmly. It was nice.
When the song was over, he suggested that they step out in front of the gym where, though it would be cold, it would be quieter. Stevie agreed. He took her hand and led the way.
“You look wonderful tonight,” he told her when they stood in the light by the door.
“Thanks,” she said. “You’re looking pretty terrific yourself.”
“Your new outfit looks great. I know you spent so much time looking for it. I hope you had some fun doing it. I can tell you it was definitely worth it. Th
e color is wonderful—and it goes so well—”
Stevie glanced down at her clothes to make sure they hadn’t been transformed since the last time she’d stood in front of a mirror. Nope, there it was, the same old plaid skirt, dusty rose turtleneck, and white pullover. The light overhead was white. It hadn’t even transformed the colors. She looked at Phil. He had an earnest and kind look on his face. He meant every word of what he’d said. Stevie did the only possible thing then. She said, “Thank you.”
“OOOOH!”
“Aaaaaah!”
The fireworks burst into spectacular arcs of sparkling light and drifted down through the night sky. The crackling report of the rockets’ gunpowder pierced the quiet tropical evening.
Lisa loved it. “Oh, look, red and blue and … gold! Can you believe the colors?”
Pfffstt. Another rocket left its launcher. This one broke into long silver fingers that seemed to reach toward eternity and then began banging loudly like a string of firecrackers.
“Ohhhhhh!”
Lisa and Jill were stretched out on deck chairs by the poolside, a safe distance from where the fireworks were being shot off. They were wrapped warmly with towels over their bathing suits.
“This is the life,” Lisa said, reaching for the tall glass of tropical fruit punch on the table beside her.
“I CAN NEVER decide which of these two characters I dis-like more at the beginning or like better at the end,” Carole remarked during a commercial break in The African Queen.
“Hmmm,” her father said. “I never thought of it that way. I’ve just always liked to watch the transformation and the way they grow together. They’re such an unlikely pair, aren’t they?”
“Definitely an odd couple,” Carole agreed. She stood up and stretched.
“You’re not quitting, are you?” her father asked, a little concerned.
“No way,” she said. “I’m here until Bogey’s bitter end—or at least until midnight. I was just getting a little exercise.”
“We can do aerobics between this and The Maltese Falcon if you’d like.”
“No thank you, Colonel. This is a night off from things like that. Ready for another round of junk food?”
“Your turn,” he said. Carole headed for the kitchen.
“WHAT TIME IS it?” Stevie asked, trying to look at Phil’s watch.
He turned it around so she could see it. Eleven fifty-seven.
“It’s almost midnight,” he said, hugging her warmly.
“Yes, it is,” she agreed, returning his hug.
They were back on the dance floor, pretending the band was playing slow music when it was actually playing rock music. Soon it wasn’t playing anything at all.
The band leader turned to his microphone and announced that it was just two minutes to midnight—two minutes to a whole new year.
“I’ve kind of liked the last year,” Stevie said. “There are parts of it that have been a lot of fun.”
“Then I bet you’ll like the new year even more,” Phil said. She suspected he was right.
When there were only thirty seconds to go, the band-leader started counting backward. By the time he reached twenty, everybody had joined in. Stevie held Phil’s hand and the two of them counted together.
“HAPPY NEW YEAR!” Lisa was with her parents when the social director of the resort informed them all of the passing of the old year and the arrival of the new. Both her mother and father gave her big hugs. She hugged them back. Jill came bounding over to them, squealing with excitement.
“Happy New Year!” she yelled. Lisa hugged her, too.
But what she was thinking about was Stevie and Carole.
HAPPY NEW YEAR
The words flashed across the bottom of the television screen, almost disappearing in the white water of the wild African river upon which Humphrey Bogart and Katharine Hepburn were being tossed.
“Happy New Year, Carole,” Colonel Hanson said, standing up from his lounge chair to give Carole a New Year’s hug and kiss.
“And to you, too, Daddy,” she said, squeezing him hard. She loved her father and she couldn’t think of anyplace in the world she’d rather be right then, but her mind was suddenly filled with two thoughts: Lisa and Stevie.
“SHOULD AULD ACQUAINTANCE be forgot
And never brought to mind …”
Stevie was barely aware of the music and the singing around her. It was the first moment of the New Year and she was standing in the middle of the dance floor with Phil Marston, who had his arms around her and who was, at that moment, kissing her.
Her mind was too full of other thoughts to hear the song. All she could think of was Lisa and Carole.
“LIIIISSSAAAA!” STEVIE SHRIEKED as she dashed up the stairs at Lisa’s house to her friend’s room. “Was it fabulous?” She flung the door open. There, holding a pile of recently unpacked clothes, was a tan and happy Lisa.
“It was fabulous,” Lisa informed her, dropping the clothes and hugging Stevie.
“I know it was. I got your postcard today!” Stevie produced it from her pocket. It seemed odd and distant to Lisa. It had been so long since she’d written that postcard. So much had happened.
“Hello? Hello?” Carole called from the Atwoods’ front door and then followed Stevie’s path upstairs, breathlessly calling out to Stevie and Lisa. “Don’t tell anything until I get there!” She didn’t want to miss a word.
Within a few minutes, Lisa’s laundry was in the hamper, her suitcase was put away, and the girls had a chance to talk—the first chance they had had in a week to have a Saddle Club meeting.
“You wouldn’t believe this place, it’s so gorgeous,” Lisa began.
“The horses, were they okay?” Carole asked eagerly.
“One especially. His name was Jasper. At first, I thought he was sort of an old plug, you know, the reliable fleabag they put the beginners on, but then, when he had to get someplace fast—”
“What were you doing riding the horse they have to put the beginners on?” Carole wanted to know. It didn’t surprise Lisa that Carole picked up on that.
“It’s a long story,” she began. And she told her friends everything that had happened. “In the end, it worked out all right, actually a lot better than all right because you wouldn’t believe this place where we picnicked and what a wonderful feeling it is to canter along the seashore, but, oh, boy, I missed you guys! The whole thing would have been a lot easier if you’d been there to help me.”
“I had exactly the same feeling,” Carole said. “I was having a pretty hard time with Starlight. He’s wonderful and all that, but the work was just better and more fun once Stevie had some time to help me.”
Lisa looked at Stevie. “What were you so busy with that you—” Then she remembered. “Oh, your dress! What did you get? Tell me all about it! You must have had a blast at the mall.”
“I’d almost forgotten,” Stevie joked. “But it’s a long story, too.”
“Don’t worry, I’ve got time,” Lisa said. “Lots of it. I want to hear everything.”
“Well …” Stevie began. She didn’t leave out the slightest detail, from her first minute at the mall onward. By the time she got to the part about Phil’s blue sweater, all three of the girls were laughing. Only Stevie could make such an embarrassing mistake seem so funny.
“Oh, I wish I’d been here to help you!” Lisa gasped between giggles.
“Thinking back on it, I’m not sure I needed help so much,” Stevie replied. “After all, if you’d been there, you would have helped me find exactly the right dress, I would have fought with my mother like crazy to buy it, and then I would have been horribly out of place at the dance.”
“Okay, so you didn’t need help,” Lisa said. “You did it all by yourself. If I’d been here to help I would have just made matters worse.”
“No, the whole thing would have been a lot more fun,” Stevie said.
“So, now, the dance?” Carole asked. She hadn’t talked to St
evie since the dance and wanted all the details of the glamorous evening. Stevie supplied them.
“So what happened at midnight?” Lisa asked. “Did he kiss you? You’re supposed to kiss at midnight, aren’t you?” Lisa could have sworn Stevie blushed when she asked the question. When Lisa saw that, she knew. “Okay, so he did kiss you. It must have been a really good kiss, don’t you think, Carole?”
Carole just laughed. Stevie did, too. “Sure it was,” Stevie admitted. “But the funny thing about it was that I wasn’t even paying much attention to him at the time.”
“You weren’t?” Carole asked. “Isn’t that a little bit like not watching where you want your horse to go?”
Stevie looked at Lisa. “Only Carole would think of comparing kissing to riding!” she teased. Then she continued. “The funny thing about the kiss was that at midnight, I found myself thinking about you two. Remember when we promised we would? Well, I’d forgotten the promise, but I did it anyway.”
“You know what?” Lisa said excitedly. Carole and Stevie looked at her. “There I was, more than a thousand miles away from you guys, in a world like you’ve never seen, under tropical starlight with the Caribbean lapping at the nearby beach, and at midnight, all I could think of was you two! How about you, Carole? Did it work for you, too?”
Carole nodded. “This isn’t funny, this is weird. I was watching a movie with my father and all of a sudden, as the words Happy New Year crawled across the television screen, you two popped into my head. I think we can declare our ESP experiment a total success.”
“I don’t know that it was really ESP,” Lisa said thoughtfully after a while. She was prone to thoughtful considerations. “Maybe it was just logic.”
“How’s that?” Stevie challenged her.
“Well, although you two spent some time together, the three of us have basically been separated for a whole week. We each had something difficult we had to do and we did it, but, for me at least, the whole time, all I kept thinking was how much I wanted you two to be there with me. See, thinking of you at midnight on New Year’s Eve is really just an extension of that reality.”
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