Home for the Holidays

by Heather Vogel Frederick

  “Agreed?”

  “Agreed,” we chorus.

  A few minutes later the steward comes by to tell us our cabins are ready. Becca and I are staying with Gigi; Stewart will be with his parents; and my parents and Becca’s grandparents have cabins to themselves. Our staterooms are all in the same corridor, though.

  Becca and I can’t stop giggling as we make our way up two flights of stairs and then down a long corridor toward the rear or “aft” of the ship, as her dad calls it.

  “This is so exciting!” she whispers.

  “I know! I know!” I whisper back.

  Gigi swipes her card key and goes in first. “Very nice,” she says, looking around. “We’ll be comfortable here.”

  The room is bigger than the last teeny cruise ship cabin I stayed in, thanks to my dad. He wanted to make sure Gigi was comfortable, so he upgraded us. There are two beds, plus a foldout sofa where Becca will sleep. The sofa’s in a separate sitting area that also has two armchairs and a small coffee table, plus a desk that doubles as a vanity, with one of those lighted mirrors. On the wall above the built-in dresser is a flat-screen TV with a DVD player. There aren’t enough closets for three of us, but that’s to be expected. The bathroom makes up for it, though—it’s a good size, with a walk-in shower.

  “Look at the view,” says Becca with a sigh, opening the balcony doors.

  I step outside to join her. The marina is spread out below us, and beyond it, Miami. Skyscrapers and palm trees sway in the warm breeze, stretching up toward an impossibly blue sky.

  “Pinch me,” says Becca. “It was twenty-seven degrees when we left Concord this morning!”

  I smile at her. “I know. Awesome, huh?”

  The loudspeaker in our room crackles, then announces the lifeboat drill. We grab our bright orange life jackets and head for the aft dining room a few decks down.

  “Nice look, Megan,” says Stewart, as my dad makes us line up for a group picture.

  “Shut up.”

  “We would have made Fashionista Jane’s Fashion Faux Pas list for sure,” Becca whispers, referring to the disastrous blog I started last year.

  “I miss Fashionista Jane!” I whisper back. I promised my mother I wouldn’t try blogging again, though, at least not for now.

  Back in our stateroom, we stow our life vests away and unpack, putting our clothes into the drawers and closets and leaving what doesn’t fit in our suitcases, which we shove under the bed.

  “You haven’t even opened that one,” I tell Gigi, pointing to her last suitcase.

  “Never you mind that one,” she says airily. “I want you two to shoo for a while. Go for a swim or something and don’t come back for at least an hour.”

  Becca and I do as we’re told, changing into bathing suits and cover-ups and flip-flops. Finding the pool isn’t as easy as it sounds. The ship is just as big on the inside as it is on the outside, and we take a few wrong turns. Fortunately, we run into Stewart, who is on his way to the library—Becca rolls her eyes at this—and he points us in the right direction.

  We emerge on deck finally, where we stake out two lounge chairs with our towels and magazines, then hit the water slide to cool off. Afterward, we grab sodas, slather on sunscreen, and settle in, turning our faces up to the sky.

  “Heaven,” says Becca with a contented sigh.

  “Bliss,” I agree.

  “Wait until our friends back at Alcott High see our tans. They’re going to be so jealous.”

  “Mmm-hmm.”

  A calypso band is playing Christmas carols, and the steel drums give the familiar music an exotic lilt. I hum along, feeling slightly giddy. This is already so much fun!

  “May I join you two bathing beauties?”

  Becca and I open our eyes to see her grandmother standing beside us.

  “Sure, Gram, grab a chair,” says Becca.

  “Nice suit,” I tell her. It’s one of those kind that older ladies like, with the little skirt attached, but it’s nicely cut in a retro Hollywood style with a sweetheart neckline, a halter tie, and ruching across the front. I love the fabric, too—gold swirls on a black background. I reach for my sketchbook, then remember I left it back in our stateroom.

  “Thanks,” says Mrs. Gilman. “Gigi helped me pick it out that day we all went shopping in Concord.” She pulls a book out of her tote bag, waving it at Becca. “Perfect reading for a cruise, now that I’ve staked out my deck chair, right?”

  Becca looks at the title and laughs.

  “What’s so funny?” I ask.

  Mrs. Gilman peers at me over her sunglasses. “Haven’t you read Betsy and the Great World yet?”

  “Um, not yet.”

  “You have to! It’s my favorite!”

  “I thought Downtown was your favorite,” says Becca.

  “They’re all my favorite. But yes, if I absolutely had to choose, it would be Downtown first, and then this one. Betsy goes on a transatlantic cruise to explore Europe—what could be better than that?” She takes a seat and opens to the first page. “I’m going to pretend the Calypso Star is Betsy’s ship Columbic, and that we’re heading for the Azores instead of Antigua and Martinique.”

  While Becca’s grandmother settles in with Betsy and Becca settles in to read the latest issue of Flashlite, I lie back in my chair and people-watch from behind my sunglasses. There are a lot of families on this cruise, many of them with little kids, but I spot a fair number of teenagers, too, including some cute guys. Becca spots them too. I can tell by the way she’s checking them out from behind her magazine

  After a while, I close my eyes. It’s been a really long day—my mother woke me up at four a.m.—and the music is soothing, and before long I fall asleep. Next thing I know, the ship’s whistle is blowing.

  “What?” shouts Becca, startled. She must have fallen asleep too. “Are we sinking?”

  “Shut up, you idiot,” I tell her. “We haven’t even left yet. That’s the signal for sail-away.”

  Sure enough, the ship is starting to move. People drift toward the railings to watch, and Becca and her grandmother and I slip on our cover-ups and flip-flops and gather our things to join them. Daylight is beginning to fade, and the city lights are twinkling in the distance. As we clear the shelter of the harbor, the breeze picks up. I fish my towel out of my tote bag to drape around my shoulders. The three of us stand there for a few minutes, watching Miami retreat on the horizon.

  “I could stay here all night looking at that view, but I suppose we should get dressed for the captain’s reception,” says Becca’s grandmother finally.

  We manage to find our way back to the corridor where our staterooms are, only getting turned around once.

  “Uh-oh, Gigi’s been busy,” I say, spotting our door.

  The entire thing is wrapped in shiny green paper, and there’s a big red velvet bow on it too, along with a fake gift card that says HAPPY HOLIDAYS!

  “Surprise!” says Gigi, flinging open the door.

  “No fair! You girls are in the fun cabin!” says Mrs. Gilman, following us inside.

  Our stateroom has been transformed. I can’t believe my grandmother managed to fit all this stuff in her suitcase. There’s an artificial tree perched on the dresser, complete with tiny ornaments and lights, and a strand of multicolored twinkle lights have been strung up around the top of the walls. Battery-powered candles line the coffee table, there’s a wreath on the bathroom door, and she even hung our Christmas stockings on a clothesline stretched across the mirror.

  “Just like home,” she says happily.

  “Better than home,” I tell her, giving her a hug. “Home stays put. We get to go to the Caribbean.”

  Becca’s grandmother shakes her head. “You make the rest of us look like slackers,” she complains, and Gigi laughs.

  “I have plenty to go around,” she replies, rummaging in her suitcase. She pulls out an extra strand of twinkle lights and a huge cardboard candy cane and hands them to her.

  �
��Good heavens,” says Mrs. Gilman. “What else do you have in there, a sleigh?”

  My walkie-talkie crackles. “Dad to Megan.”

  I look over at Becca and make a face. This is going to get old quick. “Megan here,” I reply.

  “We’re picking you girls up for the reception in twenty minutes.”

  Mrs. Gilman scurries off to change, and Becca calls dibs on the shower. Fortunately, she makes it quick, and somehow we both manage to be dressed by the time my parents knock on the door.

  “Wow, it looks like Santa made a house call,” says my dad, glancing around the cabin.

  “Mother, for heaven’s sake!” my mother protests. “Part of the reason for this trip was to get away from all the excess of the holidays.”

  Gigi raises her eyebrows. “Excess? What excess? It’s just a few lights and a wreath.” She turns to my father. “Nice tie, Jerry.”

  I look over at him and nod in agreement, then almost keel over when I notice that my mother is wearing actual high heels.

  “Mom!” I exclaim, pointing to them.

  “I know, I know,” she says with a sigh. “Mother made me buy them.”

  My mother is morally opposed to high heels. She says they’re a symbol of the objectification of women, and that nobody but a fool would go around with something that uncomfortable on their feet.

  “They’re perfect.” My mother is wearing the red silk qipao that I made her for her birthday last year. It’s become her go-to dress for everything fancy. I used this fabulous vintage fabric that Gigi brought me from Hong Kong when she first came to live with us. The dress is designed in the classic, formfitting Chinese style, with a high mandarin collar and a mid-thigh slit up the side. It looks great on my mother.

  “See, Lily?” says my grandmother. “Didn’t I tell you those shoes were just the thing? Our resident fashion expert just awarded you her seal of approval.”

  “You get an award too, Gigi,” I tell her. My grandmother always looks fabulous. Tonight she’s wearing cropped black velvet pants with black high-heeled sandals and a black V-neck silk top. I particularly like the wide band of sequin-spangled white satin around the neckline, and make a mental note to sketch it later.

  Becca and I picked out our outfits for tonight weeks ago. She’s wearing a minidress that she found at Sweet Repeats in Boston. It’s hot pink, which is a great color on her, and it’s covered in this cool retro pattern of swirls.

  “Groovy,” says her grandmother, slipping in behind my mom and dad.

  “Very retro,” Gigi agrees. “Good choice. You look like Twiggy.”

  “Who?”

  “A famous model way back when,” Becca’s grandmother tells her.

  I made my own dress, “a Wong original,” as my mother calls it. It’s a mini too, but black and strapless. My dad looks at Becca and me and places his hand on his heart.

  “I don’t know if I can handle all this beauty,” he says.

  “Better get used to it,” says Gigi, slipping her arm through his.

  My father offers his other arm to my mother, and we follow them out into the hall where the rest of the Chadwicks are waiting.

  “Hand me my sunglasses, would you?” whispers Becca when she spots her mother.

  Mrs. Chadwick has on a full-length dress with a gold chain-link belt and gold sandals. If it weren’t for the color, which is somewhere between apple and kill-me-now-before-my-eyes-explode lime green, the dress wouldn’t be all that bad, because it’s nicely cut, and artfully disguises her, uh, curves. The dress may be flamboyant, but she certainly isn’t. At least not tonight. There’s no sign of the bubbly Mrs. Chadwick who got on the plane with us this morning.

  Mr. Chadwick is quiet too, which makes me wonder if they’ve been arguing or something. I hesitate before asking Becca, though. She practically bit my nose off this morning.

  “Is everything okay with your parents?” I whisper finally, curiosity getting the better of me.

  She flicks me a glance. “Yeah. No. I can’t talk now. Maybe later.”

  We follow my dad up a few decks and then all the way to the rear of the ship. The big, expensive suites are back here, including the penthouse where the reception is being held. We go through the receiving line and are greeted by the ship’s officers, all in full uniform.

  “Bonsoir, mademoiselle,” says Captain Dupont, bending low over my hand. “Welcome to the Calypso Star.”

  “Bonsoir,” I reply, feeling at least twenty-five. I wonder if I look it. I hope so.

  The penthouse suite has its own open-air courtyard, with a small pool and a not-so-small Christmas tree. Overhead, the stars are out, along with a full moon. The soft strains of holiday music drift over to us from a jazz combo in the far corner.

  An older gentleman in a tuxedo makes a beeline for Gigi and asks her to dance, and our parents and Mr. and Mrs. Gilman quickly follow, leaving Becca and Stewart and me standing by the tree. Stewart pulls a notepad and pen from his suit-coat pocket.

  “What are you doing?” asks Becca sharply.

  “I thought I’d see if I could interview the captain, or some of the officers,” he replies. “For my newspaper column.”

  “Stewart! Not here—you’ll embarrass us!”

  “Calm down, I will not.” He saunters off, leaving us to sip sparkling cider and nibble hors d’oeuvres and hope that someone besides our dads asks us to dance.

  All of a sudden I see Becca stand up straight and suck in her stomach. “Don’t look now, but I think I’m about to meet the love of my life.”

  I turn around and spot a guy about our age in a white dinner jacket talking to some of the ship’s officers. He has the same dark hair and chiseled features as the captain, and when the captain says something and they both start to laugh, their dark eyes crinkle in exactly the same way.

  Captain Dupont sees us watching them. He smiles at us, then puts his hand on the younger guy’s shoulder and murmurs something in his ear. His son—it’s got to be his son, unless the captain has a brother who’s way younger than him—nods and heads across the courtyard in our direction.

  “Here he comes, here he comes, here he comes!” squeals Becca under her breath.

  “Bonsoir,” says the boy, inclining his head in a brief, courtly bow just as his father did in the reception line. “I am Philippe Dupont, son of Captain Dupont.” If his voice were a color, it would be midnight blue—and that accent!

  Becca cocks her head and gives him her most alluring smile, the one I’ve seen her practice a hundred times in her mirror at home. “I’m Becca Chadwick,” she murmurs.

  “Enchanté, mademoiselle,” says the captain’s son, then turns politely to me.

  “Bonsoir, Philippe. Je m’appelle Megan Wong,” I tell him, overwhelmingly grateful that I listened to Gigi and switched from Spanish to French this year.

  There’s a moment of hesitation as we all realize there’s only one of him, and two of us. And then Philippe extends his hand. To me.

  “Voulez-vous danser avec moi, Mademoiselle Wong?” He smiles, and something stirs inside me as we step out onto the dance floor.

  Maybe there’s life after Simon Berkeley after all.

  Jess

  “Whenever I see whipped cream, all my life, I’ll think of Milwaukee.”

  —Betsy in Spite of Herself

  “On the count of three, okay?” says Emma, and I nod. “One, two, three!”

  We both rip open the Secret Santa gifts we found on the end of our beds this morning. My mother must have put them there while we were sleeping. We’ve been finding one a day ever since we arrived here at the Edelweiss Inn.

  I stare down at my latest gift, frowning. It’s a set of Downhill Buddies hand and foot warmers, the kind you tuck into your ski boots and ski gloves. This strikes me as a little mean—didn’t my Secret Santa remember that I had to cancel my trip to Switzerland?

  I toss them onto the floor beside the growing pile of other strange gifts I’ve gotten so far, including the word-a-da
y calendar, the purple nail polish that I’ll never use because I hate nail polish and because purple is my least favorite color, and the dog dish—sort of cute, but Sugar and Spice don’t like to share their food.

  This whole Secret Santa thing is turning out to be kind of a bust.

  “What did you get?” I ask Emma. She looks unhappy too.

  “Is someone trying to tell me something?” she replies, tossing over a DVD. The cover shows a sinewy girl with a blond ponytail and a blindingly white smile pretending to do a crunch. The title screams Rockin’ Rudy’s Rockin’ Hard Abs! Emma looks down and pats her tummy. “Am I that out of shape?”

  “You’re fine,” I assure her. “Your Secret Santa is lame. Mine is too—check this out.” I hold up the Downhill Buddies package.

  Her mouth drops open. “Are you kidding me? That’s really mean!”

  “I know.”

  “Just for the record, I’m not your Secret Santa,” Emma tells me.

  “I’m not yours, either.”

  “So who picked these gifts for us?”

  I shrug. “Becca, maybe? She’s the only one of us who can sometimes be a little, you know—”

  “Chadwickius frenemus?”

  “Exactly. She can’t have picked both of our names, though,” I muse, looking from her present to mine and back again.

  We’re still puzzling about this when my mother taps on the door. “Glad to see you’re rising and shining, girls!” she says, poking her head in. “It’s almost time for breakfast, and then—”

  “Nestlenook!” I cry.

  Nestlenook is a resort near here that turns its small lake into what they call a “Victorian Skating Park” every winter. It’s really cool.

  My face falls as I remember my leg. No skating for me today. My mother notices my expression and gives me a sympathetic look. “You’ll have fun anyway, sweetheart, I promise. I think you and I need to try out one of those heated Austrian sleighs of theirs.”