Home for the Holidays

by Heather Vogel Frederick

  “Would you like another blanket?”

  “Really, I’m fine,” I assure him.

  “Come on, Emma, let’s go skate,” says Felicia.

  I shoot Emma the best Winona eyes I can muster, hoping she’ll pick up the mental message I’m telegraphing—Don’t ditch me for your new best friend! But she doesn’t even glance in my direction.

  “Sure!” she tells Felicia, and the two of them dart off.

  “Mrs. Delaney?” says a voice, and I turn to see my father coming down the path, skates in hand. “May I have the pleasure of your company?”

  My mother smiles at him, and I feel a pang of regret for all the things I thought and said earlier. Of course I want everyone to have fun—especially my parents! They both look so happy out here in the cold air and the sunshine.

  My mother looks over at me. “Do you want me to stick around for a while, sweetie?” she asks gently, and I know she’s thinking of our earlier conversation.

  I shake my head. “No, Mom—go have fun. I’m fine.”

  My parents lace up their skates, then step onto the ice and glide away, holding hands.

  “Your folks sure are nice,” says Jonas. “My brother thinks so too.”

  “Yeah,” I reply. “They really are.”

  We’re quiet for a bit, watching everybody swoop and twirl on the lake in front of us. I feel more than a bit awkward sitting here with him. I’m not as shy as I used to be, but sometimes it still kicks in. Then a horse-drawn sleigh approaches the bridge, and I pull out my cell phone and snap a picture. “I didn’t know they use Belgians here!” I exclaim. “That’s so cool—we have two at home.”

  “I know,” says Jonas. “Led and Zep, right? Man, I love those names.”

  I grin. My father named our horses after Led Zeppelin, his favorite rock band. “You should hear what my mother calls our chickens,” I tell him. My mother named our flock after her favorite country music stars.

  “My brother already told me,” Jonas replies, smiling back at me. “A little bit country, a little bit rock and roll is the way it plays at Half Moon Farm, right?” He holds out his hand. “Give me your cell phone and I’ll take a picture of you with the bridge in the background.”

  I give him an even bigger smile, and he snaps a shot and gives me a thumbs-up. “That turned out great,” he says, handing my cell phone back. “You should send it to your boyfriend.”

  I look at him, surprised. “Let me guess, your brother again?”

  He nods. “Yeah. He’s told me a lot about you guys. He really likes your family.”

  “We really like him, too. He’s a big help on the farm.” And I find myself telling him all about winning the scholarship to Colonial Academy, and how it meant I couldn’t help out as much at home, and how guilty I felt about it and everything. Jonas is a good listener, and a good talker, too. It turns out we have a ton of stuff in common, like the fact that we both hate horror movies, plus we both love music and animals. He’s in the veterinary premed program at UNH, and when I tell him about my wildlife rehabilitation apprenticeship, his eyes light up.

  “I would love to learn more about that,” he says.

  “You totally should. Come down and visit your brother, and I’ll take you over to meet Mr. Mueller.”

  I ask him about college, and find out that he’s on the UNH swim team and that like me, he sings in an a cappella group too.

  “What piece did you choose?” he asks, when I tell him about MadriGals, and my upcoming solo audition.

  “This song called ‘Dreaming.’”

  He shakes his head and says he’s never heard about it, so I explain about the Betsy-Tacy connection.

  “Were those the books you three were arguing about back in the van?”

  I lift a shoulder, embarrassed that he overheard us. We must have sounded like a bunch of five-year-olds. “Yeah, sort of. I shouldn’t have snapped at Felicia like that. It’s just that she’s so, well, you know.” My voice trails off.

  He laughs. “She’s a good kid. But I know what you mean. She’s a little, uh, O.D.D., as we say in our family.”

  I frown. I’ve heard of A.D.D. before, but this must be some new condition. “O.D.D.?”

  He shoots me a mischievous glance. “Odd.”

  I burst out laughing.

  “Glad to see you two are getting along,” says my mother, swooping to a stop on the ice in front of us. My father is with her, and they’re still holding hands. Sometimes parental PDA can be embarrassing, but not today. Today it’s perfect. “Have you seen the boys?”

  I point to the island.

  “Ah,” she says. “The gazebo. I should have guessed. Wherever there’s food.”

  “Or hot chocolate,” adds my father. “Speaking of which, I could use some myself. Shall we?”

  They skate off again.

  “Can I get you some?” Jonas asks. “Or maybe a pillow to sit on? I think I saw one back in the van.”

  “No thanks, I’m fine. Really.” The corners of my mouth tug upward in a smile. “I’m not ninety, you know.”

  He smiles back. “I noticed.”

  Uh-oh, I think, feeling a little flutter. Jonas is flirting with me. And maybe I’m flirting with him a little too. There’s definitely a spark between us.

  I gaze back out at the skaters on the ice, trying to shake it off. Jonas would be easy to like, but I already have someone. A fabulous someone named Darcy Hawthorne. Betsy Ray and her sister Julia may be able to juggle more than one boy at a time, but it’s way too complicated for me. Besides, I’m crazy about Darcy. Darcy is my Joe.

  But what happens when a Tony shows up on your doorstep?

  Directly across from us, on the other side of the lake, Emma is showing off for Felicia. I watch her do a little jump and then spiral to a stop, her curly brown hair flying out from beneath her bright pink wool hat. For all the complaining she’s been doing about not getting enough exercise, she hasn’t lost her touch on the ice.

  She sees us watching and slips her arm through my cousin’s, and the two of them skate over to us.

  “This is the most amazing place I’ve ever been to in my life!” Emma says.

  “It’s pretty great, isn’t it?” Jonas agrees. “I’ve been skating here since I was a kid.”

  “Lucky you,” Emma tells him. She’s glowing from the exercise, and she looks really pretty with her snapping brown eyes and her cheeks all pink from the wind and cold. “Do you know they have their own Zamboni here?”

  Jonas laughs. “Do I know it? I drive it!”

  “No way!”

  He nods. “Oh yeah. I help out on the weekends whenever I’m home, and over winter break. Maybe I can give you all rides later.”

  “Sounds like fun,” I say.

  “C’mon, Emma, let’s go get some hot chocolate,” says Felicia, and once again they skate off without a backward glance.

  Does Emma have to look like she’s having such a good time? I think, aware that I’m being petty but not caring. I’ve barely had time to talk to her since breakfast, and I was so looking forward to sharing Nestlenook with her. I knew it was exactly the kind of place that she’d love, and I was hoping we’d get to hang out together, and maybe take a sleigh ride or something.

  Out of the corner of my eye I notice Jonas watching me, and quickly rearrange my face into a more pleasant expression.

  “Executive decision,” he says, leaning over and reaching for his backpack, which is underneath the bench with my crutches. “We need hot chocolate too. I’ll go get us some, okay?”

  “Okay,” I tell him, and he pulls his skates on and laces them up.

  “Mit Schlag?” he asks.

  I nod. I could use a whole lot of Schlag right now.

  Later, after a spin in the sleigh with my parents—Emma chooses to keep skating—Jonas does what he promises and gives us rides on the Zamboni. My little brothers nearly wet their pants with excitement, and even my father gets a kick out of it when it’s his turn. Getting me across
the ice and up into the seat is a bit of a project, but it’s worth it in the end, because it’s really fun. I take lots of pictures for Darcy. He’s on the hockey team at Alcott High, but even he’s never ridden on a Zamboni. For some reason, the best part for me is looking out behind us at the stretch of smooth, clean ice the machine leaves in its wake.

  “It’s kind of mesmerizing, isn’t it?” says Jonas, hollering to be heard above the roar of the engine.

  I nod, laughing. Catching sight of Emma and Felicia standing together on the island, I wave. Emma waves back. Felicia leans over and whispers something in her ear. Emma’s wave falters.

  Jonas was supposed to be finished babysitting me after the skating party, but when we get back to the Edelweiss, Aunt Bridget invites him to stay to dinner, and he accepts. Afterward Uncle Hans gets a game of charades going. Felicia picks Emma and Jonas for her team, and I get stuck playing with my parents and the twins and some family from Pennsylvania. We lose, of course. Emma and Felicia think so much alike they can practically finish each other’s sentences, and together they’re unstoppable.

  “Cheer up,” Jonas tells me, after my team goes down in flames. “Let’s go see if they have any good music.”

  He steers me over to the piano, where we find some holiday sheet music on the rack. Jonas plays pretty well—better than me, that’s for sure—and we start singing “Here We Come A-Caroling” and before long everybody in the room wanders over to join us, including Emma and Felicia. We follow up with a medley for the little kids—“Santa Claus Is Coming to Town,”

  “Frosty the Snowman,” and “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer,” which sends my brothers scurrying for their recorders to accompany us.

  “Here’s a good one,” says Jonas, pulling out the music to “Baby It’s Cold Outside.”

  “Sing it with me, will you? It’s a duet.”

  I shrug. “Sure.”

  “Uh, just the first verse, okay?” says my mother, with a significant nod in my brothers’ direction. “Little pitchers. Some of those lyrics are a little sophisticated.”

  “Gotcha, Mrs. Delaney,” says Jonas.

  We really ham it up for the audience, with me playing the part of the reluctant date (“I really can’t stay . . . I’ve got to go away”)—the one the directions on the sheet music calls “the mouse” and Jonas the part of “the wolf,” the guy who’s trying to coax her to stay (“Baby it’s cold outside”). Halfway through I notice Felicia whispering to Emma again, but I ignore them and concentrate on the song. We get a big round of applause when we finish.

  Felicia, who can’t stand it when I’m in the spotlight, offers to recite something “suitable for the occasion,” as she grandly puts it. “It’s from 1513—”

  The Middle Ages, I think sourly. Of course. Her specialty.

  “—and it’s by Fra Giovanni.” She clears her throat and strikes a pose, one hand extended toward the ceiling like she’s onstage in a Shakespeare festival. “A Christmas Prayer,” she announces. I don’t dare look over at Jonas. Emma, on the other hand, is rapt.

  I salute you! There is nothing I can give you which

  you have not;

  but there is much that, while I cannot give, you can

  take.

  No heaven can come to us unless our hearts find rest

  in it today. Take Heaven.

  No peace lies in the future which is not hidden in

  this present instant. Take Peace.

  The gloom of the world is but a shadow; behind it,

  yet within our reach, is joy. Take Joy.

  And so, at this Christmas time, I greet you, with the

  prayer that for you, now and forever, the day breaks

  and the shadows flee away.

  Felicia finishes with a flourishing curtsy, and there’s a polite round of applause.

  “I think some hot chocolate is in order after that,” says Uncle Hans, ever the genial host.

  “Mit Schlag?” says my mother hopefully.

  “Aber natürlich. But of course.”

  “I’d better get going,” says Jonas, putting on his coat. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  Uncle Hans has another outing for us all up his sleeve, and he’s arranged for Jonas to keep me company once again. This time, though, I don’t mind at all.

  “See you!” I call back.

  He says good-bye to my parents, and to Uncle Hans and Aunt Bridget, and waves to Emma and Felicia. Pausing in the doorway of the sprawling living room, he turns back toward me and mouths the letters O-D-D, pointing surreptitiously at my cousin. I double over in silent laughter.

  Back up in our room I notice that Emma’s really quiet.

  “Did you have fun today?” I ask her, determined to be friendly. It is Christmas, after all.

  “Yep,” she says. The word comes out short and clipped.

  “Nestlenook is awesome, isn’t it?”

  She nods and climbs into bed, then punches her pillow.

  “Just like what you’d imagine Deep Valley to look like, don’t you think?”

  No answer.

  I sigh. “Emma, what is it? What’s bugging you?”

  “You know exactly what’s bugging me,” she says coldly, reaching over and snapping off the light.

  “I do not!” I protest. “I’m completely in the dark here—well, so to speak.” I pause, waiting for her to giggle. That’s exactly the kind of dumb pun that usually makes Emma laugh. But she doesn’t, and I sigh again. “Look, all I know is that you’ve spent the entire day ignoring me and bonding with stupid ‘watch me recite medieval poetry’ Felicia.”

  “Like you’d even notice if that was the case.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Never mind,” she says. “I don’t want to talk about it. Felicia said you’d deny everything anyway.”

  “But—”

  “Can we just go to sleep? I’m exhausted. I haven’t skated that much in ages.”

  I lie there, listening to her breathing. I don’t know whether to laugh or cry. This is turning into a horrible vacation. I have a crummy Secret Santa, a broken leg, and on top of everything else my best friend has been snaffled away by my repulsive cousin.

  Things can’t possibly get any worse.

  CASSIDY

  “She tried to imagine not living in Deep Valley.”

  —Betsy in Spite of Herself

  There’s one thing California has that Concord doesn’t: waves.

  I look back over my shoulder, spot a gnarly one heading my way, and throw myself onto my board, paddling furiously as the water surges toward me. The wave lifts me up and shoots me forward and I ride it in toward the beach, whooping at the top of my lungs all the way. A few yards over, my friend Hannah Blum watches from her own board, grinning. Boogie boarding is baby stuff to her—she competes in longboard events all over Southern California and even Hawaii—so today is just about having fun.

  On our final ride we let the wave carry us all the way to shore. Hannah slips nimbly off her board as we surge into the shallows, but I miscalculate and stay on a few seconds too long. As I hop off, the swirling water knocks me off balance and I stumble, ending up on my hands and knees in the sand. Hannah laughs as she grabs my hand and pulls me to my feet.

  “Serves you right, you sponger!”

  Real surfers make fun of boogie boarders, and “sponger” is the nicest of their names for them.

  My friend looks at her watch. “We’d better head back. It’ll be dark in another couple of hours, and I promised Mom I’d help with dinner.”

  We slip off our fins and splash onto the beach, then up the stairs to where we parked. Wriggling out of our surfing wetsuits, we towel off and pull on dry sweatpants and sweatshirts, then hop into her VW Beetle for the short drive back up the Pacific Coast Highway.

  It’s been really fun staying with the Blums. Hannah’s older sister, Danita, is one of Courtney’s best friends, and Mrs. Blum and my mom were good friends when we lived here too. I’m havi
ng a great time with Hannah. She’s two years older than me, and although we were never close friends at elementary school—for one thing, two years is a huge gap when you’re little, and for another, most of my friends were hockey players—we were always friendly, and I have good memories of the times our families spent together.

  It’s weird seeing someone you haven’t seen for five years, though. We’ve both changed a lot since then. Hannah’s taller, though not as tall as me, of course. Hardly any other girl I know is as tall as me. She used to wear her dark hair long back when we were at Canyon Elementary, but now it’s short, in kind of a pixie style. Hannah says she cut it ages ago when she got serious about surfing. She was tired of it always flopping in her eyes. My hair, on the other hand, has bounced back and forth between long and short over the years, and now I’m wearing it sort of in the middle, just long enough to pull back in a ponytail when I’m playing sports.

  We stash our boards and gear in the garage, and I follow her into the house. “Smells good!” I call out to whoever’s in the kitchen. “I’m starving.”

  “Me too!” echoes Hannah, who’s one of the few girls I’ve met—well, besides hockey players—who has an appetite like mine and isn’t afraid to show it. I hate it when girls pretend like they never eat a thing, and just have, like, a piece of lettuce for lunch. What’s the point of that? Is it supposed to impress boys or something?

  “Latkes again, just for you,” Mrs. Blum calls back.

  I groan. “Oh man, I never want to leave!”

  Tonight is the fourth night of Hanukkah, and the Blums have been really nice about including us in their celebrations. We got here a couple of days ago and had dinner with the Blums on the second night of Hanukkah, but last night we went out for Mexican with other friends here in town. I’m looking forward to watching the whole candlelighting ritual again tonight.

  Hannah and I shower and change and then head for the kitchen to join my mother and Mrs. Blum.

  “Where’s Chloe?” I ask.

  “Dani’s playing with her downstairs in the family room,” says Mrs. Blum, who is grating potatoes.