Dear Mel and Dove—
By the time you read this I will be way tan and way relaxed—at least, that’s the hope!
So far, life away from the chalet leaves me little to complain about: private plane here (thanks to my brilliant host family), free drinks (and a hostess who turns a blind eye), and my only responsibilities are taking care of the teen queens.…
We’ll see what happens next!
Tropical love and kisses (from what I’ve seen, I want some of those!)—
HARLEY
3
CHILLS RUN THEIR COURSE from Dove’s neck down her back all the way to her toes when she’s finally close enough to Max to tell him. How do I say it? Stay with me. Or no, that sounds like a command. How about I made my decision. Or You’re right, Max, there is something between us.
“Max.” Dove says his name and breathes deeply. He leans one hand on the wall, towering over small Dove, and staring at her intently.
“Lily.” He corrects himself right away. “Dove.”
Tension fills the few feet of space that separate them. Dove wonders if she should leave words behind and just reach for him, but then figures he needs to know. “I made my decision.”
Max takes a step closer to her. Close enough that she thinks she can smell wine on his breath. Close enough that she can see the spot on his face that he missed shaving. Close enough that if he wanted to, he could kiss her without much effort. “And?” His tongue traces the outline of his mouth and Dove wishes she weren’t so nervous saying all this.
If only I didn’t feel as though asking him to stay meant losing William forever. But that’s what a choice is, I suppose, letting one thing go so you can reach for the next. She decides to just say it, simply and easily. “Max, I feel that you and I had …” She starts to say that they had something back in London but that what they could have now is even better. But before she can get it out, before Dove can reconnect with Max, someone beats her to the punch.
“You did have something—past tense being the crucial part of that statement.” Claire smirks as she says this. Shaking her long, dark hair so that it swishes onto her back, she walks past Dove and stands right next to Max. “See? I told you, Max. She’s just using you. Just like before.”
“Claire—what right do you have to even …” Dove gets out only a few words before Claire tramples her.
“I’m a paying guest. Not like you these days.” She raises one dark eyebrow at Dove, her lips perfectly gleaming with gloss, her cheeks pink. “Same as Max.”
Max sticks his hands in his pockets and looks first at Claire, then at Dove. “Look, Dove, just so you know …”
Dove looks at Claire’s hand, how close it is to Max’s, and wonders just how long Claire’s been at Les Trois. How long she’s planning on staying. If Max had invited her all along. “You don’t have to explain. I understand completely.” She points to Max, feeling her plans crushed. “I don’t care what you two do—just leave me out of it.” Tears sting her eyes, but Dove refuses to show the emotion. Instead, her voice is steady, reasonable, the same voice she used to tell her parents she didn’t want their money, didn’t need their support. “Stay, go, do whatever you want, Max.” She starts to walk away.
“Don’t you have anything to say to me?” Claire asks after Dove. “After all this time?”
“Claire, don’t.” Max’s voice houses concern.
All three of them immediately flash back to Max’s eighteenth birthday, the black-tie party, the night everything changed. Dove whips around. “No, Claire, I have nothing to say to you. In my mind, you don’t exist.” Except she does, Dove thinks. She does and yet again she’s ruined everything.
The morning light brings a refreshed sense of power to Melissa.
“Just because I’m not supersuave doesn’t mean I can’t handle being a host, right?” She pulls her hair into a ponytail, slides into her black pants and red shirt, and does a last look in the mirror before heading upstairs to wait for the guests.
From her top bunk, Charlie groans. “It’s too early for all this. I want a vacation. When Matron said I’d be replacing someone in The Tops, I thought for sure I’d be the host. Not your old maid position.”
I’m not an old maid, Melissa thinks, wrinkling her brow. “Look at it this way,” Melissa says. “Last week you dealt with crap from toddlers as the nanny; this week you’ll only have to deal with real crap….”
“That’s disgusting.” Charlie sits up and rubs her eyes. “While you guys were out having fun last night, I was here polishing the brass by the fireplace.”
Melissa wrinkles her nose. “I wouldn’t say we were having fun, exactly….”
Charlie jumps out of bed, landing with a thud on the cold floor. “I thought everything was supposed to be festive this time of year. Stockings, menorahs, trees, lights.”
“Festive, yes. Fun, no.” Melissa recalls Gabe and his mouth-to-mouth, and the way James gave her nothing but silence. “It’s not like we get to have a holiday of our own, you know.”
“Holidays are what you make them.” Charlie smiles, making her freckled cheeks wide. “Did I hear rumors of you and a certain ski guy?” Charlie runs her fingers through her tousled strawberry-blond hair and instantly looks put together. Melissa wishes she had those kinds of looks. Not movie-star gorgeous, just honestly lovely.
“What rumors were those?” Melissa blushes. “I’m not usually the kind of person who has rumors spread about them.”
Charlie shrugs and slithers into straight-legged pants and a turtleneck. “Maybe you’re not the kind of girl you think you are.” She pulls her socks on. “I’d love to stand here and gossip all day but I have two mudrooms to clean and you—Miss Host—have to go entertain the masses. After all, people want their Christmas days jam-packed with fun and food.”
Melissa nods. “Hey, I was so crazed last night I didn’t even think to check the guest log. Who do we have the pleasure of hosting?”
Charlie’s face shows a massive grin as she gestures with her broom. “Correction—you have the pleasure of hosting. Apparently, some didn’t like their luxury hotel rooms and wanted to check out life in the chalets.” Charlie bows as though the guests are entering the room.
Melissa starts out and then turns back. “But who are they? Aside from disgruntled ex-hotel guests?”
Charlie taps Melissa on the shoulders like she’s a fairy godmother and her broom is the wand. “That dubious honor goes to the ski team. That’s why I was asking about any unsubstantiated rumors.” She pauses and grabs the dustpan. “All those guys are staying here.”
I won’t freak out, I won’t freak out, I won’t trip over the bearskin rug and fall on my ass. I will not offer the guests champagne and spill it on myself. I will not humiliate myself like I usually do. Melissa surveys the large living room, knowing that though it’s empty right now, in two minutes it will be filled with this week’s guests. Her guests. Including one guy she kissed, Gabe, and the guy she wishes she did, James. I won’t mess up, even if I have to pretend I know what I’m doing. She puts her face to the window, looking out at the path that leads to the chalet.
“Anyone there?” Dove calls from the kitchen.
“Not yet.” Melissa checks that the doorbell works, and then goes to find Dove. “Could I be more nervous?”
“Yes, in that you could actively be fainting or vomiting.” Dove slides a sheet of croissants into the oven and checks her watch. “Five minutes and the breakfast buffet will be served. I’m making a traditional Christmas pudding for later—it’s de rigueur for Les Trois.” She pauses, remembering holiday meals at the resort as a child. “They always serve it warm with brandy butter.”
“Sounds incredible.” Melissa shakes her head in awe. “How’d you get all this done so fast?” She opens and closes the pantry doors, taking in all of the newly purchased goods, the organized way that Dove has prepared a gourmet spread. It took me ages to find my way around the kitchen. Let’s hope hosting comes more easi
ly. “Was that the doorbell?”
Dove rolls her eyes. “No, that’s your imagination playing tricks on you.”
“Well, it wasn’t my imagination last night when Gabe and some girl were going at it under the mistletoe.” Melissa reaches for a cranberry scone but then stops herself, knowing if she eats it now she’ll just get crumbs everywhere and look less presentable.
“Are you jealous?” Dove spreads out layers of crumble cake onto sterling silver trays, readying the food for the guests, wishing that her own night had gone differently.
“I’m not jealous. It’s not like I want Gabe….” She shrugs and doesn’t mention whom she does want. “Except we did have fun. There was this whole other side to him, like when he and I were on the mountaintop…. He was sweet, romantic.”
Dove shakes her head and wipes her floury hands on her apron. “I’m beginning to think that guys just don’t change. No matter what.” She considers something. “Girls, too. Look at Claire. Evil then; same thing now. Only better hair.”
Melissa winces. Bad enough to have unresolved feelings for someone—worse when they clearly like someone else. “I can’t believe they’re all going to be here.” Melissa shows her hands to Dove so she can view their shaking.
Dove hands Melissa a double-sized bottle of champagne. “By them I’m guessing you mean him, right?” Dove gestures with her chin to the living room.
Melissa turns, gripping the champagne bottle as James unzips his coat, drops a heavy duffel on the ground, and looks right at her.
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About the Author
Emily Franklin is the author of Liner Notes and a story collection, The Girls’ Almanac. She is also the author or coauthor of over a dozen young adult books including The Half-Life of Planets (nominated for YALSA’s Best Book of the Year) and Tessa Masterson Will Go to Prom (named to the 2013 Rainbow List). A former chef, she wrote the cookbook-memoir Too Many Cooks: Kitchen Adventures with 1 Mom, 4 Kids, and 102 Recipes to chronicle a year in the life of new foods, family meals, and heartache around the table. Her fiction and essays have appeared in the Boston Globe, Monkeybicycle, the Mississippi Review, Post Road Magazine, Carve Magazine, and Word Riot, as well as on National Public Radio, among others. Her recipes have been featured in numerous magazines and newspapers, and on many food websites. She lives with her husband, four kids, and one-hundred-sixty-pound dog outside of Boston.
All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2007 by Emily Franklin
Cover design by Mimi Bark
978-1-4804-5228-2
This edition published in 2013 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.
345 Hudson Street
New York, NY 10014
www.openroadmedia.com
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