“Can I at least do something with it?” Lydia pleaded. “Come on.”
It was the last time, Halli thought. The last time she’d ever see Lydia. So why not let her have her fun? Halli would be gone from her life soon enough.
“All right,” Halli said. “Sure. Go ahead.”
Lydia grinned with delight. Then practiced her artistry, drying and styling Halli’s hair, fluffing it, putting fancy combs in it, spraying it with some combination of holding spray and glitter.
“Isn’t that nice?” Lydia asked, surveying her work. “Now don’t you want at least some blush and some lip gloss?”
“The hair looks nice,” Halli conceded. “Thank you. Keep your hands off my face.”
Lydia touched up her own makeup, refluffed her own hair, until finally Halli called an end to all of it.
“Ready?” she said, motioning toward the door.
Lydia checked herself in the mirror one more time, then scanned Halli one more time from head to toe. “Are you sure?”
“Lydia, it’s just a dance. Let’s go.”
Funny way to talk about an event that was about to change both our lives.
57
Gemma’s mother had rented the largest ballroom in the fanciest hotel in town. It was up in the foothills where all the rich people build multi-million dollar houses on big desert lots, and then end up complaining about how many coyotes and javelina and rattlesnakes they have on their property. You see stories in the paper all the time about people’s little toy poodles disappearing, or the fire department having to come out to “relocate” a diamondback rattler, or gangs of javelina that chase innocent people out walking their dogs in the early mornings. Nature is great, except when you think you’re living in a city.
The hotel parking lot was already packed when they arrived, so Lydia had to take one of the far away spots at the bottom of a hill. The two of them got out to walk.
Lydia had bought a pair of ridiculously high platform shoes to go with her dress, and Halli couldn’t help laughing to herself about how silly and impractical they looked. She’d hiked over enough boulder fields and river beds to appreciate the benefits of solid footwear. She couldn’t imagine intentionally strapping on a pair of shoes like Lydia’s that would make her wobble over uneven ground, in danger at any moment of twisting an ankle and going down.
They passed through the heavy wooden doors of the hotel lobby, where a uniformed worker greeted them. Lydia asked about the ball, and he directed them toward a room far down the hall.
Halli could hear music drifting out of the room. Violins, she thought, and a few cellos. Maybe even a soft horn.
Lydia took a breath. She seemed nervous as she stood before the closed door. Then she opened it and they went inside.
There were already fifty people, maybe more, scattered around the room. Most of them looked old, the age of Gemma’s parents and even older, which made the few younger guests stand out.
Gemma and Will stood in a corner talking. Or at least Gemma was talking. She kept flipping her hair and clinging to Will’s arm, and Halli could see her mouth moving without a rest.
Then Will looked up and caught Halli’s eye. And for a moment he just stared.
Maybe it was the dress. It had a V neckline that showed more skin than I normally do. It wasn’t crazy immodest—it’s not like it showed any cleavage or anything—but it was definitely something more feminine than I usually wear.
As Lydia and Halli walked toward the two of them, Will continued staring. If it had been me, I would have been embarrassed by now, looking down at my feet, probably hunching over to make myself disappear.
But Halli didn’t care at all. She walked with my body like she’d walk with her own, with that same athletic grace I was used to seeing from her, head up, shoulders back, feet confidently carrying her forward. Her eyes surveyed the room the way they might take in the view at the top of a mountain. Will meant nothing to her. He could look at her any way he wanted, for all she cared.
Gemma glanced sideways at her boyfriend. She pulled him in even closer and pressed her chest against his arm. Then she gave her long blonde hair an extra flick. Will seemed oblivious to all of it.
As soon as she was standing beside her brother, Lydia blew out a breath. Then she gazed around the room. Every man wore a tuxedo, some of them basic like the one Will had rented, some of them the more elaborate kind that had “tails,” those long V-shaped flaps that extended further down the backs of their legs.
“You look nice,” Will told the two of them.
“You, too,” Halli said to both Will and Gemma, then she went back to staring at the one person she came there to see.
Gemma’s brother Colin stood at the other side of the ballroom, engrossed in conversation with an older looking gentleman. Halli smiled at the familiar face. Colin wore his hair a little longer than Daniel’s, but it looked good that way, not scruffy. He had Daniel’s same athletic physique, and Halli noticed the tuxedo set it off nicely.
Lydia bumped Halli with her arm and stared in the same direction. “Yum,” Lydia whispered. Then she asked Gemma, “Are you going to introduce us to your brother?”
“Persona non grata, you mean?” Gemma answered, giving her hair another dramatic flip.
“What do you mean?” Lydia asked.
“Well, if you must know, Colin and my parents had a terrible row last night.”
“About what?” Lydia asked.
Gemma scoffed. “Well, apparently Colin has been sneaking around the past year while we’ve been living here, engaging in some very seedy activities, indeed.”
“Like what?” Halli asked.
Gemma didn’t even look at her, but continued speaking to Will and Lydia only. “Last night he informed my parents he won’t be going to Oxford—won’t be attending university at all.” Gemma folded her arms across her chest, and pursed her lips in a way that was both disapproving and smug. Like she’d caught someone in the middle of graffiti-ing the Mona Lisa, and couldn’t wait to be the one to tell on him.
“What does he want to do instead?” Lydia asked, stealing another glance at Colin the way she’d been doing ever since she and Halli walked in.
“He wants to travel,” Gemma sneered. “As if that’s any substitute for education, or a profession. Daddy is livid, I assure you.”
The story was getting better and better, as far as Halli was concerned. “Travel where?” she asked.
“What does it matter?” Gemma snapped, waving her arm in a circle. “The world. He seems to think he can make a living at it, well good luck to him. He’ll end up on the streets like a beggar, and Mummy and Daddy will not rescue him, I assure you, and I for one am glad of it, the audacity of him using a plane ticket here, paid for by our parents, to pursue his own agenda, exploring ‘the wild west,’” she said, doing air quotes with her fingers, “rather than spending time with his family, whom he hasn’t seen in a year, not that we would matter to someone so selfish as my brother—”
“Where’s he going?” Halli asked.
“The Grand Canyon, among other places,” Gemma answered impatiently, still not looking directly at Halli. It must have been hard for her to want so badly to tell on her brother, but at the same time want to ignore Halli. “He rented a car behind my parents’ back and he says he’s spending the rest of the week ‘on tour’.”
“When is he leaving?” Halli asked.
“Tomorrow, apparently,” Gemma said, “and the sooner, the better, after the way he spoke to all of us last night—”
Halli had heard enough. Without a word, she left the group behind and strode purposefully across the ballroom toward Gemma’s brother.
The private orchestra Gemma’s parents had hired was playing the kind of old people’s music that only old people know how to dance to. And even though there were plenty of them scattered all around the ballroom, no one was dancing yet. People just stood around in clusters, eating and drinking and murmuring like no one was quite sure what to
do with themselves.
Halli was sure. She interrupted the conversation Colin was having with a stately-looking British man in a dusty-looking tuxedo, and reached for Colin’s hand.
Instead of shaking it, she simply pulled him away, out toward the dance floor.
Colin looked surprised at first, but then his eyes traveled up and down the blue-gowned figure of the girl pulling him away, and he smiled.
“Do I know you?” he asked.
“You will in a moment,” Halli said. “Audie Masters. I’m not a friend of your sister’s. I hear you’re a disappointment to your parents.”
Colin frowned at that, but Halli still smiled.
“Good,” she said. “Just the kind of thing I like.”
Then she positioned him smack in the center of the dance floor, reached her arms up, and waited for him to take them.
Colin’s mouth tilted into a smile. “Audie, you say?”
“Something like that,” Halli answered. “Are you going to dance with me or not?”
58
“So,” Colin said after they’d made a few turns around the dance floor, Halli easily managing whatever formal kind of dance step Colin was leading her through. It might have been a waltz, I’m not sure.
“So,” Halli said back. “Here’s what I know so far: you’re a traveler, you’re going to the Grand Canyon tomorrow, your parents think you’re horrible, your sister agrees—what am I missing?”
“That I’m forbidden from writing any of my blogs anymore—”
“What blogs?” Halli asked. She knew the word by now, she’d seen it enough.
“I have three websites,” Colin answered. “One on traveling in London—a local’s perspective on cool places to go, cheap food, where to take someone you really want to impress.”
“Good. Second one?” she asked.
“Second one on travel around Europe—same thing, find the cool places, how to get there cheaply—and now the third, beginning with my visit out here: traveling to America. Or at least to the Wild West.”
“Gemma said that,” Halli answered. “What exactly is the Wild West?”
“Cowboys,” Colin said. “Tombstone—the shoot out at the OK Corral—that sort of thing.”
Halli didn’t know anything about that, but she kept her expression neutral.
“Europeans are mad about cowboy legends,” Colin said. “You should see all the advertisements for Tombstone in the back of magazines. So when I found out my parents would be flying me out here for my father’s party...”
Halli smiled appreciatively. “Traveling cheaply.”
“Exactly. I’m here for a week, and I have it all planned out: first Bisbee, an old mining town, then Tombstone, a few other sites, then on to the Grand Canyon, then race back to the airport.”
“Not spending much time with your family,” Halli observed.
“The less the better, as far as I’m concerned,” Colin said. “And they’d see it that way, too, if they were the ones who’d thought of it first.”
The music stopped, and Halli and Colin reduced their waltz to a simple shuffle on the floor. Colin still held her by the hand and waist.
“You don’t like your family?” Halli asked.
“I like them well enough,” he said, “but I’ve known for some time—an entire year, in fact—that once I told them what I’ve been doing, they wouldn’t be very friendly anymore.”
“So you’re really not going to...wherever you were supposed to go? Oxford?”
“Total waste,” Colin answered. “I’m already making a good living as a travel writer. I’d leave school now, but I know my parents would be deeply disappointed if I didn’t at least stay through my A-levels. But as soon as I’m finished next spring, I intend to pursue travel writing full time.”
“And you can make money at that?” Halli asked. “Enough to pay for everything you need?”
“If you do it right,” Colin said with a smile. “And I do it right.”
The orchestra had started up again, some kind of jaunty old-fashioned song no one under the age of 100 would know how to dance to, and Colin and Halli weren’t really trying. A few couples had now joined them on the dance floor, but Halli barely noticed. At that moment she only had eyes for Colin, and from the way he was looking at her, the feeling was obviously mutual.
“Can you teach me?” Halli asked him.
“Teach you what?”
“How to do what you do?”
Colin pulled her in a little closer and brought his mouth to her ear. “How long do I have you?”
“You’re the only person I’m talking to all night,” she answered, stepping back a little. He was still Daniel, after all, no matter what name he went by in my world, and he was still, in her mind, my boyfriend.
“May I be honest with you, Audie?” Colin said.
“Always.”
He swept her toward him again, and for the briefest moment laid his cheek against hers so he could murmur in her ear. “From the moment you crossed the room, my evening improved a thousand percent.”
“Mine, too,” Halli said, creating space between them again. “Now, start talking.”
59
They were on their fourth dance when Halli felt a tap on her shoulder.
“Maybe other people would like to meet Gemma’s brother,” Lydia said. She smiled, but her lips were tight, like she had to force herself to seem polite to Halli.
Halli wasn’t giving up easily. “We’re right in the middle of something—how about in another ten minutes.”
“Audie,” Lydia tried again, but that was as far as she got before deciding to go another way. She reached her hand over Halli’s dancing arm and said, “Hi, I’m Lydia. I’m Will’s sister—you know, Gemma’s boyfriend.”
Colin briefly released Halli’s hand to shake Lydia’s. Then he held on to Halli again. “I’m sorry, I know it’s very rude of me—”
“Rude of somebody,” Lydia said, still smiling, but casting a pointed look at Halli.
“So I’ll just finish this dance,” Colin said. “Then I’d be honored to dance with you, if you’ll have me.”
Lydia looked very pleased. “Okay, I’ll wait over there.”
As soon as she was gone, Halli said, “Lydia’s nice—you’ll like her. It probably is wrong of me to monopolize you all night.”
“I don’t mind,” Colin said, sweeping her closer again. “In the least.”
Halli patted his arm. “You’ll like her,” she repeated. “We’re not done—don’t worry. Dance with her for a while and come find me later.”
The song ended, and Halli immediately let go of Colin and started to leave. He held lightly to her wrist.
“Audie...” Then he lifted her hand to his lips and kissed it. Halli gave him a pointed look in return.
“We’re just friends,” she told Colin. “Remember that.”
“Of course,” he said, bowing slightly and appearing very proper and formal. Except for the sly smile that went along with it.
By then Lydia was already standing between them, ready to claim her prize.
“Don’t go far,” Colin called as Halli threaded her way through the people on the dance floor. She waved a hand behind her without looking back.
Gemma and Will stood at the outer edge of the dance floor doing small, shuffling circles, which was Will’s version of a slow dance. Halli glanced over just in time to see Will watching her. He didn’t look happy.
Neither did Gemma. “What do you think you’re doing?” she asked as Halli passed by them.
“I’m going to the restroom,” she answered, pausing. “What do you think you’re doing?”
“With my brother,” Gemma clarified.
Halli gazed back at her, expressionless and silent.
“Answer me!” Gemma said.
“You seem to think that just because you want something from me,” Halli said, “I’m required to give it to you. I don’t agree with that.”
“What has he been s
aying to you?” Gemma persisted.
Halli turned and walked on.
“Answer me!” Gemma shouted after her.
Halli exited the ballroom in search of the bathrooms.
Five minutes later, when she emerged into the lobby again, she found Will waiting for her.
“Audie? Can I talk to you?” He seemed serious. Maybe even angry.
Halli sighed. “Is this about Colin? Because really, you and your girlfriend need to mind your own—”
Will cut her off. “Would you come talk to me, please?”
Halli wasn’t in the mood to talk to Will or Gemma or anyone else except Colin. But since she wanted to give Lydia a chance with Colin for a while, she couldn’t think of a good reason to deny Will a few minutes of her time.
She followed him outside.
The night was cool, bordering on cold, but Halli didn’t mind. She liked the crispness after having been inside the ballroom for so long.
“What did you want to—”
“Not here,” Will said. He continued to lead her away from the hotel entrance, down the sidewalk toward the parking lot. The lighting was dimmer there, just lamps on the ground to light people’s way to their cars.
Finally, Will must have felt they were secluded enough for him to round on Halli and say, “What are you doing with him?”
“What do you mean, what am I doing?” Halli asked calmly, even though Will didn’t seem calm at all.
“You don’t even know him!”
“Yes...and that’s what happens when you meet people,” Halli said patiently. “You talk to them and get to know them.”
“Well, it seemed like you two got friendly pretty fast,” Will said. “That guy was practically drooling all over you.”
Halli laughed. “Will, are your eyes all right? Because you’re seeing things that aren’t there.” She rubbed her hands against her bare arms. The night was colder than she thought.
“Here,” Will said. He took off his tuxedo jacket and handed it to her. Halli thanked him and draped it over her shoulders.
Then the two of them just stood there looking at each other.
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