by J C Wing
“So,” Edie said as she sat down next to Willow in the cafeteria. “Sounds like something’s going on this Friday.”
“Game?”
“That’s Saturday.”
Willow bit into a soggy fry. “You’re like the social coordinator of Redwood High School. How does anything go on around here that you don’t know about?”
Edie looked up from her macaroni and cheese and gave her best friend a cynical look. “I can hardly be expected to keep track of every single movie night, impromptu sleepover or gathering over at the Gas ‘n Stash now, can I? Besides, some of us still have to cram for a geometry test.”
Willow chuckled. Her eyes scanned the room. It was unusual for she and Edie to have their own table. There were usually other girls from the cheerleading squad that sat with them, and Marcus, Josh, Dylan and Tyler often came and made lunch a fend for yourself event between the oftentimes questionable adolescent male banter and the burping contests that often followed the guzzling of soda they bought from the vending machines that took residence along one side of the cafeteria. Zac was also a frequent addition to the lunch time crowd. Willow’s stomach tightened when she thought about him, and she realized that not many of her friends had spoken to her that morning.
“Do you think anyone knows …”
Edie looked up as Willow continued to watch the activity in the room.
“I haven’t heard anything about it.” Edie reached up and put her hand on Willow’s arm. “My guess is that he cleaned things up and kept his mouth shut about it. I suppose he could brag, make it sound like something happened that didn’t.” Her voice hardened. “I mean, he could do that, but he won’t if he knows what’s good for him.”
“I feel like everyone’s avoiding me.”
Edie bounced her fork in her fingers as she took a look around. “I wouldn’t worry about it,” she said in a way that made Willow know that Edie thought things were a little off, too. Edie turned and gave her friend a wide grin and the freckles bunched up on the rounded tops of her cheeks. “It’s Monday. You can’t expect anyone to act normal on a Monday.”
Willow tried to relax. She gave the room another cursory glance, then shrugged. “Yeah, I guess you’re right,” she finally conceded. “Mondays suck.”
The soft sound of silverware on plates filled the dining room, and Willow lifted her eyes to the small, ornate clock that rested on a high shelf of the china cabinet. Jason would be calling in fifteen—the big hand moved—fourteen minutes.
“…next weekend.”
Willow took a drink of milk as she stared at the clock.
“Willow?”
She blinked and looked at her mom, who was watching her expectantly. It was obvious she’d missed something important if the look on Corinne’s face was any indication.
“Sorry,” she said, reaching up to wipe the milk mustache off her top lip with her fingers. “What did you say?”
“So distracted,” Corinne said handing her a napkin. “You’ve been in another world since you sat down at the table.”
“She must be thinking about her birthday,” Alex said, taking another bite of the blackberry cobbler sitting in front of him.
Willow returned his smile. He’d been right, after all, although it was the spending time with Jason part she was most excited about. It just so happened that the next time she’d see him would be on her birthday.
“That’s this weekend,” Corinne said, bringing Willow’s thoughts back to the present. “I was talking about next weekend.” Willow looked at her blankly. “You’ve forgotten. Well,” Corinne said moving mashed potatoes around her plate. “I figured as much. The three of us will be going to your father’s conference at the Biltmore.”
“Oh, yeah,” Willow said, remembering now the conversation that had taken place a while back. “Are you sure I need to be there?” She looked over at her dad with hope in her eyes. “I mean, I don’t really do anything to be helpful.”
“Your presence is important,” Corinne said, ignoring the fact Willow had addressed her father. “It’s two nights. Certainly, two nights won’t kill you.”
“I’ve booked a suite at The Inn. You’ll have your own bedroom with a television.” Alex took the last bite of his cobbler and the spoon made a quiet clink against the bowl.
“The Biltmore’s like twenty minutes away from here. We really need to spend two nights in a hotel?”
“Yes,” Corinne put quite simply. “There will be cardiologists from all over the United States flying in. Lots of kids your age will be there, and even though they’re all coming for the conference, there are many other activities planned.”
Willow turned and looked at her mom. “Activities? Like what kind of activities?”
“We’ll take a tour of the estate, of course, and then there’s the winery.”
“Oh, yeah,” Willow said, a heavy dose of sarcasm in her tone. “The winery. Just what every sixteen-year-old wants to see.”
“There will be bonfires and s’mores,” Alex told her. “And I think I read something about carriage rides.” He pulled his napkin from his lap and put it on the table. “Even better than that, you can go horseback riding or spend some time fly-fishing.”
“When you aren’t fulfilling your familial obligation that is.”
Willow studied the gravy congealing on the tines of her fork. Only her mom could ruin the prospect of fly-fishing. “Is Elias going?”
“He’s been strongly encouraged,” Corinne answered.
Alex shook his blond head. “He’s been invited,” he corrected. “He’s an adult now.”
“No familial obligations for that boy anymore,” Willow groused.
“He’s been to many luncheons and conferences and all sorts of other events,” Corinne reminded her.
“And he survived.” Alex caught Willow’s matching blue gaze. “I guess you could do what he’ll be doing next weekend,” he added. “I’m sure it’ll have something to do with Parker Holt.”
A smile crept across Willow’s face. “Yeah, okay,” she gave in. “I’d much rather spend time with an actual horse than a horse’s ass.”
“You two are impossible,” Corinne complained, but Alex threw his daughter a wink and Willow pretended not to hear her.
SWEET SIXTEEN
“I’ll take the bus to Asheville Mall on Saturday.” Willow held the phone to her ear while lying on her stomach, her English textbook open in front of her. She’d been working on an essay about Shakespeare’s Othello, which most of her classmates seemed to think was both overdone and boring, but Willow found it fascinating. She particularly liked the character Desdemona. The poor woman came to a disastrous end, but Willow found her interesting, and she had a pretty kick ass name.
“Meet me outside the food court?”
Willow tapped her pencil against the book. She wished that the two of them could go into the mall together. She’d gone into the photo booth with Edie about a million times and gotten at least twenty strips of black and white images, each one goofier than the next with their tongues hanging out, their eyes wide, giggling and throwing faces. She’d love to sit in the booth with Jason, have pictures taken with him after getting an Orange Julius and a couple of those big, soft pretzels from Twister’s before catching a movie at the multiplex.
“What time?” she asked, keeping those thoughts to herself.
“Can you be there at two?”
Willow contemplated a cover story and figured if she was taking a bus to the mall, she might as well go with that. It wasn’t outlandish for her mom to think she could spend a full day shopping, eating dinner and going to a movie. She couldn’t imagine spending that much time with a group of girls from school and enjoying it in real life, but Corinne didn’t need to know that.
“Two sounds good. I’ll check the bus schedule to make sure.”
“My mom is out of town again,” Jason informed her. “She’s dating someone new. I don’t even know what this guy’s name is or where he’s taking he
r. All I know is that she says she isn’t coming home until Sunday night.”
Willow knew that what Nicole might have told him didn’t mean much in the grand scheme of things. Jason had been taking care of himself for a very long time, and he’d learned years ago to take everything his mom said with a grain of salt.
“We gonna watch another fight?” She said this with a smile on her face and waited for Jason’s response.
“I wish,” he replied, a spark of excitement lighting his words.
Jason loved boxing. There hadn’t been much stability in Jason’s life. His mom had a tendency to follow her heart—and other less reliable body parts—wherever whichever man she happened to be with at the time guided her. She’d waited tables in so many different restaurants and in so many different states she’d lost count of them all. Jason had been in and out of more than a dozen schools growing up and had dealt with some bullying in a few of them. He’d been a scrawny kid; tall but without much to pad his lean frame. He hadn’t had a male role model to speak of, and he grew up feeling ill-equipped to handle the rigors of manhood in any manner other than frustration and anger. A counselor at one of the middle schools he attended took notice and told the kid about a gym he frequented. That’s when Jason was introduced to boxing.
The sport helped him in many ways. It strengthened his confidence as it strengthened his body. It gave him an outlet for his ire, and he found that no matter what city or town he wound up going to with his mother, there was always a gym nearby. It was the one constant he could take with him from place to place.
Before he graduated, another counselor, who was aware of Jason’s affinity for boxing and the dire financial situation he and his mom were in, had suggested Jason apply for the United States Naval Academy. There, he would become an active duty midshipman and have all of his tuition, room and board, medical and dental costs paid. He’d get a degree and could take part in the long ago established USNA Boxing Club.
Jason had talked to Willow about it. He even told her he could still apply if he did it before his twenty-third birthday. She almost expected him to. She wondered why he hadn’t done it right out of high school. The day he graduated, he’d had everything ready, but that following week something happened. He met a girl at a pool party.
“I still can’t get over that Mayweather/Hernandez fight,” Jason said with enthusiasm. “Watching Mayweather win his first world title … I’ve got it recorded. I had other plans for your birthday, but if you really want to, we could skip the movie rental and re-watch the fight.”
Willow laughed. “How many times have you seen it now?”
“A few.”
“You know what? I’m good. Let’s go with your first plan.”
“That’s what I thought you’d say.”
Edie and Dylan survived the geometry test, and Willow spent the rest of the week avoiding Zac. She turned in her essay on Othello and skipped Economics class on Thursday because taking a Coke and a candy bar with her well-worn copy of Christine out to the deserted dugout was a hell of a lot more fun that listening to Mr. Denney lecture about centralized banking and personal finance. She continued to wish that she had her own set of wheels, ate undercooked fries at lunch and talked to Jason at night before she went to bed. On Friday, while she and Edie were walking toward the parking lot after school, Tyler came up and threw his arm around her shoulders.
“See you later tonight.”
“What?” she asked. “What’s going on tonight?”
Tyler kept his arm around her, squishing the side of her face against his own. “You didn’t hear? A whole bunch of us are getting together. It’ll be fun,” he said as Josh, Marcus and Austin ran up from behind, bumping into them as they laughed. Josh turned, running backwards as he tossed a baseball into the air. Tyler broke away from Willow, jumping up to catch the ball as it sunk downward. “The two of you ought to come and hang out.” The four of them ran off, rambunctious and eager to kick off their weekend.
“What do you think?” Willow asked Edie.
“I say we go to your house, see if your mom will let me hang out for dinner, then eat a shit ton of ice cream and watch Sabrina.”
Willow wasn’t all that enthused about the dinner part, but the rest of the plan sounded good. Besides, Zac would be at whatever party was going on, and she’d rather not deal with that for a while.
“Sounds like a solid Friday night.”
“Amen, sister.”
When they got to the Larsen house, the first thing they saw were the fleet of white trucks that filled the driveway. Blue Ridge Catering, Celebrations Party Supply and Bubbles Bartending blocked a substantial part of the drive. Edie maneuvered her old truck to the side of the house and threw it in park.
“Well, I guess we know where everyone’s getting together tonight.”
Willow watched as people milled about the trucks, carrying bouquets of multi-colored balloons, trays of food and boxes into the house.
“Shit.”
“Happy sweet sixteen, Will.”
Will turned in her seat and sent a heated glare in her best friend’s direction. “Did you know about this?”
“Not even a little,” Edie told her with a shake of her head. “My guess is your mom didn’t think I’d be able to keep the secret.”
“You gotta give her credit for that.”
“Low blow,” Edie huffed, “but all right.”
Willow heaved a sigh. “So much for watching Sabrina.”
Edie shrugged as she watched two men pull an oversized baker’s box out of the back of the catering truck. “Not all our plans are lost,” she said pointing through the window. “That looks like a big cake right there, and no one eats cake without ice cream.”
Corinne Larsen, party planner extraordinaire, really outdid herself that evening. All of Willow’s friends were at the party, along with a bunch of other kids from the school Willow had seen but didn’t know. A lot of them were accompanied by their parents, and many of Alex’s co-workers and other hospital staff were in attendance. The Larsen household had been turned into a grand ballroom filled with balloons and streamers, and the grounds were covered in flowing white tents strung with a billion tiny twinkle lights.
She’d planned every last detail. When the girls had gone up to Willow’s bedroom, they found new clothes lying on the bed. There was a fitted halter dress in a deep plum color with a matching sweater and a pair of black ballet flats. There was also a sweater laid on the comforter. It was mostly black with fine lines of red and white in the weave.
“She wants you to wear the dress.”
Willow nodded. “I’m not wearing the dress.”
“That what she figured.”
“What’s wrong with what I’ve got on?”
Edie eyed her up and down, then gave her a skeptical look. “She dropped a whole lot of money on this here shindig. Least you could do is take a shower, then put that sweater on.”
Willow dumped her coat on the stack of pillows at the head of her bed.
“I’m wearing jeans.”
“Fine. But put the flats on.”
“E …”
“She’ll be much easier to live with if you do.” Willow kicked her sneakers off and stomped off into the bathroom. “And make sure to wear mascara and lip gloss.”
Willow groaned loudly as she turned the water on, and Edie lifted the dress from the bed. “This is nice,” she said, fingering the soft fabric. “I’m gonna have to borrow this some time.”
There was fancy food and fizzy punch, double chocolate cake and a disco ball that spun from the ceiling while a live DJ took requests and kept a steady stream of music playing.
“You worn out yet?” Elias asked as he cut in on Marcus who was doing his best to push Willow along the dance floor. “That kid might be great on a ball field, but he can’t dance for shit.”
Willow laughed and fell in step with her brother. “It has been quite a night,” she admitted. “How long has she been planning this?”
/>
“Probably since you were born.” He grinned and spun her around. “You’re a pain in the ass, but she loves you, and even though you ain’t all about bein’ her princess and wearin’ fancy dresses and make up, she likes showin’ you off.”
“Wow,” Willow said, looking up into Elias’s face. “That’s about the sweetest thing you’ve ever said to me.”
“Eh,” Elias chuckled. “You made Mom happy tonight. It’s the least I could do.”
“Speaking of Mom …” Willow caught a flurry of movement out of the corner of her eye and turned her head to see that Corinne waving at her.
“It’s about that time,” Elias said. “You gotta make the rounds and thank your guests.”
Willow sighed and gave her mom a nod to let her know she’d been seen.
“Okay,” she told her brother. “One more spin?”
Elias wrapped his arm around her lower back, spun her in a graceful circle, then lowered her in a dip that made the other dancers stop and give them a round of applause. Elias looked around, grinning at the guests before bringing Willow back up again. “Thank you, sir.”
“I only look like a hick. I gotta remind these folks every now and again that I was born a Larsen.”
Willow laughed and gave Elias a brief hug.
“Come find me when all this dies down.”
Willow pulled away and looked up at him, her head tilted. “Why?”
“Don’t ask me a bunch of questions,” he told her. “I’ll be out back when this is over.”
“All right.” She turned and excused herself as she moved through her guests in search of her mother.
As soon as Edie stepped onto the landing, she saw movement out of the corner of her eye. She turned and saw someone slip into Willow’s room. She’d been on her way to the bathroom and wondered if another guest had the same idea.
As she approached, she realized the light wasn’t on and slapped her hand against the wall to find the switch. The room was bathed in light, and Edie found herself face to face with Zac.