Winter Games #12

by Melissa J Morgan

  “She so did, but I probably deserved it,” Sarah said, standing up. What if Abby went the whole weekend without speaking to her? Talk about awkward. No, but that wouldn’t happen. It couldn’t. Sarah would make sure of that. “I need to talk to her—now. Wish me luck. I’m gonna need it.”

  But she didn’t need luck. She needed a miracle. So she waited for Abby in the quiet hallway outside the restrooms. When Abby saw her, she just frowned and tried to step around her, but Sarah blocked her way.

  “Can we please talk for a minute?” Sarah pleaded. “It’s going to be hard to avoid me for the whole weekend.”

  Abby just stood there, silently. The tension grew until it was so thick, Sarah almost caved. “You have two minutes,” Abby finally said, just in the nick of time.

  “Abs,” Sarah started, “I’m so, so, so sorry. Did you get all the messages I left for you?”

  Abby shrugged. “Maybe, but they don’t change the fact that you lied.”

  “I was completely wrong,” Sarah said. “A real jerk. I should’ve told you the truth from the beginning, but I was scared that you’d be mad at me and hurt that you weren’t invited to Tahoe and I was.”

  Abby glared at her. “But don’t you get it? I don’t care whether you got invited and I didn’t.”

  “You don’t?” Sarah blinked in surprise.

  “No,” Abby said. “I’m not even that close to Tori, so it makes sense that she wouldn’t ask me to come if she could only invite five girls. But I never expected you to lie to me—ever. That’s what hurt more than anything.”

  “I’m sorry,” Sarah whispered. “That’s why I decided not to go to Tahoe. Because your friendship is way more important to me than a few days of skiing. I wouldn’t have had nearly as much fun without you, anyway.” She felt like her heart was spilling out into her words, that’s how much she meant what she was saying.

  Abby gave her a long look, like she was trying to figure out whether Sarah was telling the truth or not. Then, after what seemed like an eternity to Sarah, Abby smiled. A small, hesitant smile—but still, a smile nonetheless.

  “From now on,” Abby said in a tone that was teasing and serious all at the same time, “no more secrets. Got it?”

  “Got it,” Sarah said, hugging Abby as she let out a sigh of relief. “Never again. So . . . do you want to bunk with me and Alex and Brynn?”

  Abby smiled. “Sure. I’ll ask Priya and Val if they want to join us. We can just bring in our pillows and blankets and sleep on the floor.”

  As the girls left the restaurant for the theater, relief washed over Sarah. And when Abby sat next to her during Stomp!, Sarah felt like she had a perma-smile glued to her face. Afterward, she was in such a great mood that not even the fact that the Tahoe girls were MIA could dampen her spirits.

  “What an incredible show!” Sarah said as the girls streamed out of the theater doors.

  “I can’t believe they made real music with trash can lids and brooms,” Abby said, flipping through her playbill one more time.

  “I could have lived without the trash can lids,” Chelsea grumbled. “My ears are still ringing.”

  “Oh come on, Chelsea,” Alex said. “You loved the show, too. Admit it. I looked over at you once in the last half and you were smiling and tapping your feet, just like the rest of us.”

  “Humph,” was all Chelsea could say to that, making Sarah giggle.

  The girls were in good spirits as they headed back to the hotel, but once they got there, it seemed to hit them all over again that Jenna wouldn’t be playing any midnight pranks, and Nat wouldn’t be giving out any spa treatments or sharing in the latest Hollywood gossip. Sarah and Abby stayed up late talking with Brynn and Alex, but the other girls quietly shuffled off to bed. And even though Sarah was so glad that she and Abby had made up, she felt a little frustrated with everyone else. She’d given up Tahoe to come to the reunion, and now she wanted to have a great time while she was here. As she drifted off to sleep, she made a silent wish that over the course of the weekend, everyone would forget who was missing from the group and remember who was there to have a great time.

  chapter EIGHT

  “Bombs away!” a gleeful voice yelled into the darkness, and before Nat had a clue what was happening, a shower of snowballs pummeled down on her.

  She brushed the bitter cold snow off her face and jacket and struggled to catch her breath through giggles. When she finally did, she shouted, “Jenna Bloom, you are so going to pay for that!”

  Alyssa gathered up some fresh ammunition. She handed a pile of firmly packed snowballs to Nat, then whispered, “You distract them while I sneak up behind them. They’ll never know what hit them.”

  Nat watched Alyssa slither on her belly over the snowbank they were using as a barricade, and then wound up her arm to launch an attack on the enemy. As soon as Nat, Jenna, and Alyssa had gotten to the condo, the girls had eaten and then headed outside for a moonlit snowball war. It had been Jenna’s idea, since everyone—even Tori—had been unusually quiet during dinner. Nat guessed they were all thinking the same thing—that they were three thousand miles away from the rest of their friends who, at this very moment, were all getting together for pre-reunion girl-bonding. Even though Tori’s condo was completely fab, and Tahoe was breathtaking with its soaring mountains and crisp, clean snow, the reality of the reunion was sinking in.

  Nat catapulted another snowball and then leaped over the snowbank with a warrior cry, firing the rest of the snowballs in rapid succession right at the fallen tree trunk that Grace, Tori, and Jenna were hiding behind. She ran full force toward the trunk, and in the bright moonlight she could see the looks of surprise on the girls’ faces. But they were about to get an even bigger surprise. Because just as Nat reached them from the front, Alyssa crept up on them from behind and dumped huge handfuls of snow right down the back of Jenna’s jacket.

  “Cold cold cold!” Jenna gasped, trying to scoop the snow off her neck. “Somebody help me!”

  But Tori and Grace were way too busy laughing to be of any help.

  “Justice has been served,” Alyssa said, high-fiving Nat.

  “Man, if Alex were here right now,” Jenna said, “we’d cream you guys. We’d—” Suddenly she stopped, glancing guiltily at Tori. “Sorry,” she said quietly.

  “Hey, no biggie. It’s not like we can’t talk about the other girls.” Tori shrugged, but as carefully as she was trying to hide it, Nat could tell she felt bad.

  “I don’t know about you guys,” Nat piped up, searching for a subject change, “but I think I’m starting to get brain freeze out here. Maybe we could hit the Jacuzzi for a while?”

  “Definitely!” Tori said, a little too enthusiastically. “Or I could have my mom go into town to rent us some DVDs. Or if that doesn’t sound good, I brought tons of games and CDs. We could burn some tunes for our iPods. We could go night skiing, too, but we’d have to rent our skis tonight, and it’d be really cold. But—”

  Alyssa held up her hands. “Whoa! Time out! You’re starting to sound like one of those radio announcers who talks a hundred miles a minute.” She smiled. “I vote with Nat on the Jacuzzi. That sounds toasty.”

  Everyone nodded, and they shook the remaining snow off their jackets and jeans before heading inside. The sweet smell of hot chocolate hit Nat’s nose as soon as she stepped over the threshold, and she saw a tray of steaming cups loaded with marshmallows set out on the living room coffee table next to a roaring fire.

  “I thought you girls might need a little warming up,” Tori’s mom said.

  “I wasn’t sure what you guys would like, so if you don’t want hot chocolate,” Tori said, “there’s OJ, soda, tea, apple juice, and some V-8s, too.”

  “What, no bug juice?” Jenna asked with a serious look.

  Nat could see she was teasing, but Tori immediately flushed with worry. “Um, you know, I didn’t see anything like it at the store. I don’t even know what it’s called in real life.”

&
nbsp; Jenna put a hand on Tori’s arm. “Hey, I was just kidding around. Bug juice outside of camp—ick.”

  Tori giggled nervously. “Oh, right. Ick.”

  “Hot chocolate sounds delish,” Nat said, and they each took a cup and then trooped upstairs to change into their bathing suits while Tori helped her mom clean up the dinner dishes.

  Once they were safely in the condo’s loft, Nat whispered, “Is it just me, or does Tori seem a little . . . nervous?”

  “Totally,” Jenna said, and Alyssa nodded, too. “She’s making me uptight just watching her. Major overkill on the whole hostess thing.”

  “She’s been like that since I got here this afternoon,” Grace said. “I forgot my camera, and she told her mom to go out and buy me a disposable one. We’d barely gotten in the front door and her mom had to turn around and go right back into town. I felt awful about it, but Tori wouldn’t take no for an answer. And it wasn’t even a big deal.”

  “I guess she just wants to make sure we’re having a good time,” Alyssa said.

  Jenna pulled out her cell phone, checked the screen, and then flopped back on her bunk with a sigh. “I haven’t heard a peep from Alex yet. I’m sure she’s with the other girls in New York by now.”

  Grace sunk down on her bed, looking gloomy. “I don’t think they want to talk to us. Brynn didn’t even tell me she got the part of Eliza in her school play. I’m dying to call her, but I feel funny doing it in front of Tori. I don’t want to make her feel like I’m not having a good time out here.”

  “Don’t you wonder what everyone’s doing in Manhattan, though?” Nat asked. She’d been thinking about it all day, and even though she was relieved that she didn’t have to see Simon just yet, she was missing the whole feeling of camp togetherness she felt last year at the reunion.

  Alyssa nodded. “I bet they’re doing something great tonight.”

  “I know this sounds awful,” Jenna said in a low voice, “because it’s so beautiful here, and I’m sure we’re going to have a fab time. But I sort of wish I’d gone to the reunion instead.”

  All the girls fell quiet, and Nat could tell they were all thinking the same thought—what a bummer it was to be missing the reunion and missing the rest of their friends. There was no way any of them could let Tori know that, though. For now, they’d just have to make the best of the weekend and try to forget about the reunion, which would be easier said than done.

  Brynn thought she understood what the word “posh” meant, but that was before she walked into Tiffany & Co. The crinkled, grease-dotted bag of Krispy Kreme doughnuts Andie was carrying looked completely out of place next to the glittering jewelry that filled the squeaky-clean showcases.

  “Okay,” Andie said, opening the bag, “who wants their Breakfast at Tiffany’s?”

  “I’m in,” Brynn said, grabbing a chocolate doughnut from the stack and blatantly ignoring the pompous scowl one of the salesclerks was giving her. “We must do as Audrey Hepburn did in the movie, every step of the way.”

  “I’ve never seen the movie, but I also never pass up a doughnut.” Abby grinned, digging her hand into the bag.

  “I can’t eat,” Karen said in a hushed tone. “I’m afraid I’ll get sugar all over the floor.”

  “This was such a dumb idea,” Chelsea added. “Audrey Hepburn ate outside Tiffany’s while she looked in the windows. She didn’t go inside. How embarrassing is this?”

  “It’s so much more realistic this way, though,” Brynn said between mouthfuls of yummy sweetness. It had been her idea to eat breakfast on Saturday at Tiffany & Co. in honor of Audrey Hepburn (one of her all-time favorite actresses), and she was going to make the most of it, even if everyone else was still in a foul mood because they missed the girls in Tahoe. She still hadn’t heard from Jordan, either, so she needed something to cheer herself up, and she thought this might do the trick. She’d even bought herself a pair of Jackie O’-style sunglasses to wear and put her hair up in a twist that morning, just like Holly Golightly wore it in the movie.

  As she finished up her last bite of doughnut, she slid her favorite mood ring off her finger. “Watch this,” she said to Sarah, Abby, and Alex, then sauntered over to a counter where a stuffy-looking clerk was carefully arranging some displays of diamond necklaces.

  “Can I help you, miss?” he said, keeping a watchful eye on how close Brynn came to the glass case.

  Brynn smiled and said, in her best imitation of Audrey Hepburn, “Yes, please, sir. I’m wondering if I could have this engraved?” She held out her mood ring, ignoring the muffled giggles from the girls behind her.

  The clerk, whose nametag read PERCY, rolled his eyes. “Let me guess. You’ve seen the movie a dozen times?”

  “Three dozen,” Brynn said proudly. “To be exact.”

  “Well, miss, to be exact, we don’t engrave merchandise from other stores. My apologies.”

  Brynn kept smiling, a new wave of determination sweeping through her. “Do you think you could make an exception, just this once? My friends and I are only in town for the weekend, and it would be the best souvenir I’ve ever gotten.”

  Percy looked over Brynn’s shoulder at the other girls, who were all watching expectantly, holding their breaths.

  “Oh, all right, if I must,” Percy said, taking the mood ring from Brynn. “You can pick it up later this afternoon.”

  “Yes!” Brynn cried. “Thank you so much. I’d like it to say Lakeview Reunion. And . . . will you put it in the little blue Tiffany’s box for me, too?”

  At that moment, she thought she saw Percy’s lips twitch upward ever so slightly into a quarter-smile, but he caught himself before it grew bigger.

  “Very well,” he said. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have an important client to attend to.” He nodded over his shoulder to an elderly woman in a mink coat wearing some serious bling bling and scrutinizing the merchandise for her next purchase.

  “Thanks so much, Perc,” Brynn said.

  “You’re welcome,” he muttered, then before turning away, added, “And please tell your little friends not to touch anything in the store.”

  Brynn thanked him again and then turned back to the girls, hoping that everyone would be laughing. But even her performance didn’t bring a smile to most of their faces. Only Alex, Sarah, Abby, and the counselors were quietly applauding.

  “You are crazy!” Abby said, high-fiving her.

  “That might have even topped your Eliza Doolittle,” Alex added. “It’s a close call.”

  Brynn shrugged. “What can I say? I’m a sucker for Audrey. So, where should we go while we’re waiting for my ring to be finished?”

  “We could go to Saks, or Barneys?” Mia suggested.

  “It doesn’t matter to me,” Priya said, and Valerie added, “Me neither.”

  But Brynn, Sarah, Abby, and Alex all voted for Barneys. “I don’t know if we can top Tiffany’s, but we can try,” Brynn said. And as it turned out, what Tiffany’s did for jewelry, Barneys did for fashion. Even Brynn was afraid to touch some of the gorgeous tops and skirts draped elegantly on hanger after hanger. But the other girls were less than enthused by the fab clothes. Priya, Valerie, Chelsea, and Karen found some plush couches outside one of the dressing rooms and sat down, glumly thumbing through magazines.

  At least Alex was brave enough to try on a few velvety pageboy caps that didn’t cost a fortune, but when it came to choosing between a heather gray color or cranberry, no one had any helpful advice for her.

  “You know who the fashion queens are,” Chelsea said, “and they’re busy skiing.”

  “But I can’t pick!” Alex cried. Just then, Alex’s phone rang and she gave up on the hats for a second to pick it up.

  “Saved by the cell,” Sarah said, heading for the shoe department with Abby and Brynn while Alex talked. “Should we try on some Manolo Blahniks just for fun?” she asked, picking up a strappy black stiletto.

  “Manolo Blankets? What are they?” Abby asked blankly, m
aking Brynn giggle.

  “They’re the crème de la crème of shoes,” Brynn said, grabbing a pair of satiny crimson kitten heels off the display rack. But within seconds, a saleswoman in a tailored suit descended on her, delicately plucking the shoes out of her hands.

  “Excuse me, ladies,” she said, “but I don’t believe we carry these in your size.”

  Brynn resisted the urge to glare at the woman. What was with the stuck-up customer service in these stores? “We don’t want them anyway,” Brynn said, raising her chin aloofly as she sashayed away in Alex’s direction. “They don’t make them like they used to.”

  She and Sarah and Abby broke into giggles, but when they saw Alex’s sober face, their laughter died away.

  “What’s wrong?” Brynn asked her.

  “That was Adam,” Alex said. “He was calling to see what we were up to. They just left Blake’s house in the Hamptons to come into the city. I guess they’re going to South Street Seaport for a while before the reunion.” She looked sheepishly at Brynn. “But . . . he told me that Jordan never showed up. And their counselor Kenny hasn’t heard from him, and neither have any of the other counselors.”

  “Oh,” was all Brynn could say. After trying so hard all morning to lift everyone else’s spirits, she suddenly felt drained of all ability to smile, laugh, or do anything remotely fun. She’d almost managed to stop thinking about Jordan in their morning shopping excursion, but now her funk was back in a big way.

  “Hey,” Sarah said. “It’s still early. He still has time to show for the reunion.”

  “And I bet he’ll have a great excuse for everything,” Abby said.

  Brynn nodded, but between Alex’s news and the depressing vibes radiating from the other girls, she’d had enough. Why should she make the effort to stay in a good mood when her boyfriend had ditched her and half her friends were three thousand miles away?

  When Mia and Andie said it was time to grab some lunch and then head back to the hotel to get ready for the reunion, Brynn quietly followed everyone out of the store. She barely even noticed when Mia slipped her arm around her.