by Lee Matthews
“You’re the one who was just watching YouTube!” I shot back.
“I was relaxing for five minutes, not hermit-ing myself away for days.” Lauren got up and pulled off her sweater, which she tossed onto the floor in a heap. “I’m going to get out of here as soon as possible. But if Loretta thinks it’s going to be so I can…‘build gingerbread houses,’ ” she read off the list, making a disgusted face, “she’s out of her mind.”
Actually, building gingerbread houses sounded kind of fun. My dad and I used to make them every Christmas when I was little—from a kit, but still. I loved planning out the decorations for our house and using the squeeze bag of icing to attach the candies (the ones I didn’t eat). Suddenly I missed my dad so much my chest hurt.
Why was Mom making him leave? Why couldn’t she just try harder?
“I don’t know what your problem is,” Lauren said, looking over the calendar again. “Don’t you just love to have every moment of your life scheduled?”
Okay. She had a point. If I were in any mood for festive holiday fun, I would be all about this calendar of events, especially the mandatory parts. Honestly, even as I stood there, the idea was beginning to grow on me. If my grandmother wanted us at these things, we should go. I was sure she had her reasons.
“Mom says hi and have fun, by the way,” Lauren said, handing the paper back to me and holding up her phone to show me her messages. “She said answer your texts, too.”
I had turned my phone off as soon as we’d left our house in Philly that morning and hadn’t turned it on since. I didn’t want to talk to my mom. I didn’t really feel like talking to anyone. Except my dad, suddenly. I rummaged through my backpack for my phone and powered it up. There were a bunch of texts from my friends, wishing me a good trip or asking what I’d gotten for Christmas. Then there were five texts from my mother—all checking-in kinds of things—and one from my dad. He’d sent me a picture of a heart someone had drawn in the snow on a mailbox. My own heart panged.
I texted him back.
Good one. Twenty points.
He immediately sent me a thumbs-up and a kissy emoji. Me and my dad had been sending each other random hearts we found in the world ever since I first got my phone in middle school. My father traveled a lot for work—he was legal counsel for a midsized boutique hotel chain called Galileo Properties that had locations all over the world—and it was a fun way for us to stay connected even if he was in Bali or Belgium or Canada somewhere. We’d only instituted the point system when we’d had a mock fight over whose find on a particular fall day had been cooler—the yellow heart-shaped leaf I had found in the backyard or the heart someone had drawn in the dust on a Jeep parked outside a hotel in Australia along with the words Love is messy. The highest a heart could score was twenty-five points. I was being a little generous with my score for the snow heart, but I was in a generous mood. When it came to my dad, anyway.
I put my phone away without texting Mom and looked at the schedule. “Well, our mandatory International Buffet Dinner is in fifteen minutes.”
“Yeah, there’s no way I’m going to that,” Lauren said, back on her phone. “I wonder if there’s any place around here that has good tapas.” She opened Yelp and started typing.
There was a peppy knock on the door. Lauren and I exchanged a questioning look, and then she shoved herself off the bed and opened the door without even checking the peephole. The girl was going to get us killed one of these days, for sure.
“Hello. I’m Tarek. You must be Tess.”
The guy standing in the hallway didn’t look like a serial killer. He looked like the lead in a Hallmark Christmas movie. Except younger. He had broad shoulders, a thick head of brown hair, and eyes so blue I could tell they were blue even from across the room. He wore a forest-green Evergreen Lodge polo and black jeans that looked really good on him.
Lauren laughed. “Um, no. That’s Tess. I’m Lauren. The pretty one.”
Seriously? But Tarek just smiled. And it was a killer smile. Ugh. Lauren was a goner for sure. She fell in love at least once a day.
“I like your confidence,” he said. “Well, it’s nice to meet you, Lauren.” He glanced over at me. “I guess that makes you Tess.”
“Got it in one,” I said.
“Nice to meet you both,” he said politely. “Mrs. Sachs sent me to escort you down to our famous annual International Buffet Dinner.”
“Great,” I said. “I’m ready. Have fun with your tapas, Lauren!”
I made a move for the door, but Lauren stepped between me and Tarek. “Actually, I changed my mind. I had no idea this buffet thing was famous. How could I miss that?”
Shocker. Obviously, now that there was a hot guy involved, Lauren was in.
“Just give me five minutes to get ready,” she told Tarek. Then she placed one hand on his chest and literally shoved him into the hallway. Tarek laughed.
“All right, then. I guess I’ll just be waiting out here.”
“Yeah, you will!” Lauren gave him a finger wave and closed the door. Then she turned to look at me, her mouth open. “Oh my God,” she whispered. “Did you see that guy?”
“I was standing right here,” I said.
But Lauren was already in the bathroom, running the water, scrubbing her face, as if I didn’t even exist.
“You’re kidding me, right?” Lauren said as I slid into the chair next to hers at the long table we were sharing with Tarek and a bunch of random strangers. The Antelope Room was the buffet-style casual restaurant set at the back of the lodge, overlooking the award-winning gardens. Gardens that were bare right now, except for the dozens of intricate ice sculptures that dotted the empty flower beds, each lit with a spotlight that made it seem to glow from the inside out. The carvers had decorated the courtyard with everything from skiing snowmen to frolicking deer to—yes—a giant antelope, and a couple dozen kids were gathered at the windows, staring outside.
“That’s all you’re eating?” Lauren asked me. Accused me, really.
“Yeah, Tess, you should try something else,” Tarek offered, mouth half full. “They’ve been working on this menu for months.”
That was not a surprise. Each of the buffet stations—set up as always at one end of the large room—had been designated for a different country and was decorated with flags and posters and random paraphernalia to represent the culture. It was all very impressive, but it wasn’t going to turn me suddenly into an adventurous eater. Apparently Tarek was no longer on the clock, because he was busy digging into a plate piled high with a random selection of food. The girl sitting across from us glanced up, looked at my plate—hers was already picked clean—then looked down into her lap again. She was about my age with light brown skin and curly black hair, and was wearing a colorfully striped ski hat. Inside.
“What?” I replied under my breath to Lauren. “You know I don’t like spicy food.”
“Okay, but not everything up there is spicy. There are, like, a hundred dishes representing dozens of countries and you got the lamest thing you could find.” The whole concept of the international buffet had really grown on Lauren in the ten minutes since she’d decided to attend. She used chopsticks to pick up some kind of orangey-brown meat, like using chopsticks was something she’d been born knowing how to do. “You could at least try something new every once in a while.”
“I am trying something new. I’ve never had pineapple on chicken before.”
“Oooh. What’re you going to do next? Order non-plain pizza?” Lauren rolled her eyes, popped the piece of meat into her mouth, then turned her attention to Tarek, who was on her other side, and commenced her flirting ritual, which involved a ton of hair tossing and loud laughing. I looked down at the pineapple grilled chicken and white rice on my plate and suddenly felt very, very dull. I speared one of the pineapple pieces with my fork and ate it grumpi
ly. Where the hell was Loretta, anyway? Was she going to show up to eat this “mandatory” dinner with us or what? And if not, how was I supposed to get credit for being here?
I cut into the chicken and looked around the table. The Antelope Room was roughly half the size of my high school cafeteria back home, with long, picnic-style tables running down its center to encourage conversation and friend-making among the guests. There were also smaller tables and booths set up around the perimeter in case families preferred their privacy. Like the lobby, the room was decked out for Christmas, with red and green felt runners down the centers of the tables and bowls full of pine cones and ornaments used as decoration. There was a family with three little kids at one end of our table, a group of friends passing around videos on their phones, the girl with the hat across from me—who appeared to be reading a book in her lap—and a few empty chairs on Tarek’s far side. I wished I’d thought to bring my book. I was supposed to be reading Sense and Sensibility over break for extra credit in English class, but I hadn’t gotten very far before Christmas, so I’d set a goal of seventy-five pages per day for the next week. I’d read today’s seventy-five on the two planes, but if I’d brought it down with me, I could have gotten a jump start on tomorrow’s chunk, which would have been good because (A) who knew how much stuff Loretta was going to make us do tomorrow, and (B) clearly Lauren was bent on ignoring me in favor of Mr. Shoulders over there.
What was weird was, the girl with the book didn’t seem to be related to the family, and she hadn’t so much as glanced at Tarek. What was she doing at our table? Who was she here with?
A normal person would have simply asked, but I was not a normal person. I had a serious problem when it came to talking to strangers, in that I was completely incapable of doing it. My throat closed every time I tried. What if the person didn’t want to be interrupted? Or what if they found me completely uninteresting or annoying? This girl, for example, seemed utterly engrossed in whatever she was reading. If I tried to talk to her, she’d probably give me a curt answer and then turn away, and then I’d have to spend the rest of the meal feeling awkward and avoiding eye contact.
Yes, this was how my mind worked. I didn’t like it, but there didn’t seem to be anything I could do to change it.
Then the girl shifted in her seat and lifted the book to rest it on the table. I almost gasped. It was The Seven Siren Stars. One of my all-time favorites. I’d just read the sequel with my book club back home.
This was a sign. I had to say something. With Loretta MIA and Lauren otherwise occupied, it wasn’t like I had anyone else to talk to. I was just about to give it a go, when my sister got up from the table.
“See you later, loser,” Lauren said under her breath.
Then she followed Tarek toward the door.
“What? Where’re you going?” I demanded, dropping my fork with a clatter.
Lauren didn’t answer. She simply took Tarek’s hand as they started speed-walking, giggling their way free of the dinner buffet.
Something inside me snapped. White-hot heat enveloped me. Lauren couldn’t just abandon me. We were supposed to be having family time. This thing was mandatory! Did Lauren not understand the definition of the word? Considering how many classes she skipped, probably not. But still. I shoved away from the table and followed my sister, adrenaline fueling my every step.
“Hey!” I shouted the second we were free of the room. “Lauren, stop!”
Finally, Lauren did stop, tipping her face toward the lofty ceiling of the lobby in frustration. She let go of Tarek, who kept walking, and turned on me with a sour expression that I knew very well. It was her don’t mess with me, little sister face. “What?” she snapped.
“Where’re you going?” I said through my teeth, glancing around to check that no one was watching us. All I saw were families, groups, and couples laughing and traipsing from event to event, enjoying this last vacation of the year. Oh, how I wished I could be one of them.
“Tarek’s friends are meeting up in town,” Lauren informed me, gesturing toward the door where Tarek stood typing on his phone. “He’s calling an Uber now so we can go.”
“You can’t just go. Loretta will freak.”
Lauren turned up her palms. “Do you even see Loretta? She didn’t bother to show up, so why should I stick around?”
I couldn’t argue with that. It was sort of amazing how much Lauren and I thought alike, considering how different we were. It was like we had the same thoughts but processed them in exactly the opposite ways.
“Also, have you met me?” Lauren added. “I don’t give a crap if she freaks.”
“Car’ll be here in five minutes,” Tarek interjected, pocketing his phone as he walked over.
Lauren turned to go, but I was still angry. The very thought of my sister getting to do whatever she wanted while I toed the line, as always, pissed me right off. I lunged for Lauren’s hand just as we passed by a big circle of cushy chairs set around the roaring stone fireplace near the center of the lobby.
Now Lauren was pissed off, too. “Will you stop? You’re embarrassing me. And yourself. Not that that’s anything new.”
My face stung. Why did Lauren always have to be so mean to me? We were only two years apart, but sometimes Lauren treated me like I was ten years old and wanted to play Barbies or something.
“We’re supposed to stay together,” I reminded her.
Lauren crossed her arms over her chest and smiled a slow, sly smile. “Fine,” she said, then paused. “So come with me.”
My insides froze. Go with her? To meet up with strangers and do who knew what? In the middle of nowhere? I felt my face go pale. Lauren laughed. “See? You’re such a goody-goody. You never say yes to anything. And I already told you I’m not spending this whole vacation holed up in our room.”
Tarek, who was by the door a few yards away, called, “Lauren, you coming?”
“I’ll tell Mom and Dad,” I heard myself threaten. Okay. So maybe I was ten years old.
Lauren frowned. “There is no Mom and Dad anymore. And me going to some random party is the last thing they care about right now anyway. So stop being a baby and go do what you do best. Go be a loner.” My eyes burned with tears as my sister turned away, and then my heart leapt pathetically when she turned back again. “And if you tell Loretta I left, you’re dead.”
And then she was gone. My hands balled into fists as tears threatened to overwhelm me. Lauren was so awful. How could she just leave me here by myself? With everything else going on? I thought big sisters were supposed to, like, take care of their younger siblings. Not walk out on them like everyone else seemed to be doing. Maybe I should just go back to my room, pack up my stuff, and disappear, I thought. It wasn’t as if anyone would have noticed.
“Wow.” A low male voice interrupted my downward spiral. “That was unnecessarily harsh.”
* * *
• • •
The boy was cute. No, cute didn’t cover it. He was YouTube–star worthy. And not just I made this video in my backyard and almost broke my neck so I got a million likes cute, but I have my own channel and product and entourage cute. All these things considered, I kind of couldn’t believe he was talking to me, and suddenly I was blushing again. Big-time. And then I uttered a brilliant and witty comeback that I was sure I would remember for the rest of my days: “Um…yeah.”
I ducked my head, tucking my hair behind one ear, and turned to go. I didn’t want this hot stranger seeing me burst into tears on top of everything else I’d endured today.
“Was that your sister?”
My back to him now, I took a deep breath. I could pretend I didn’t hear him, walk away, and put an end to the misery that was this night, or I could do the opposite of that. I could turn around and answer him. For some reason, maybe because the adrenaline from my fight with Lauren was still coursing throu
gh my veins, I chose option B.
“Yes, that was my sister.”
“You’re not gonna, like, do what she told you to do, are you?” he asked, swinging his long blond bangs away from his brow to reveal green eyes that were unlike any I’d ever seen. “Because that doesn’t seem like the best way to get your revenge.”
I smirked. Couldn’t help it. “Who says I want revenge?”
“Your face does. It’s written all over it.”
“And you know my face so well,” I joked.
Wait, was I being witty? With a guy?
“I like to think I do,” he shot back. “I mean, we have all this history.”
Now I smiled for real. I approached the couch where he was sitting, and only then did I notice that his right leg was in a cast from the knee down, stretched the length of the Christmas-red cushions. He had an iPad, a phone, and a stack of books on the table next to him.
“Whoa. What happened?” I asked.
He lifted one shoulder and knocked on his cast. “Didn’t you hear? It was all over the news this morning.”
“What?” I asked, intrigued, sitting in the armchair closest to him. Maybe he was internet famous.
“Yesterday on the slopes there was this kid, maybe seven years old, and he just slipped out of the chair lift,” he said, pushing himself up slightly to sit straighter against the arm of the couch. “His dad was right next to him, and he said it was like one second his kid was there, and the next second nothing but air.”
“Oh my God!” I covered my mouth with both hands. “He fell?”
“No. That’s the crazy thing. He managed to grab the foot bar as he went down. So there he is, dangling like twenty-five feet above the snow, and me and my friends were on a snowboard run, and we saw him. So we got a bunch of people to take off their jackets, and we tied them together to make a big blanket, and then we held it underneath the ski lift just as the kid fell.”
“No way!”
“Yes way.”