“You were awesome!” Kelsey beamed. Brenden was first-chair saxophone—a big deal, since six kids who played the same instrument had vied for the same spot.
“Bravo!” their English teacher, Mrs. Townsend, interjected as she passed by, smiling warmly at Brenden. The Christmas recital was a town favorite—even the mayor never missed a performance.
“Yeah, cool solo,” Gigi drawled, although from her tone of voice it was obvious that she thought playing the interlude to “White Christmas” for the school orchestra was far from “cool.”
“Thanks,” Brenden mumbled, looking down at his boots.
Kelsey glanced from her boyfriend to her friend with a rising feeling of panic, wishing that they would miraculously find some way to get along. She should have known it had been a mistake to invite Gigi to the concert.
Gigi McClusky was the head of the Wade Hill crowd, a group of rich, snobby kids who all lived in the same ritzy part of town and had all attended the same small, private elementary school within the gated community. They were traditionally sent to boarding schools back east to prep for college, but recently a large, and growing, contingent were sent to Parker High. Until they’d arrived, Kelsey had never known there was anything wrong with her Target wardrobe, her dad’s ten-year-old Chrysler, or her trusty backpack. But the Wade Hill kids were dropped off in their parents’ BMW SUVs, shopped at Saks Fifth Avenue in the mall, and toted bags made of calfskin instead of canvas.
They had welcomed Kelsey into their ranks even though Kelsey wasn’t rich, snobby, or from Wade Hill. (Her fur-trimmed coat was a knockoff.) But she was prettier than the whole lot of them put together, and after all, they couldn’t call themselves the Beautiful People if they didn’t count the most beautiful girl in school among them.
Kelsey laced her arm through Brenden’s and gave it a squeeze. She would rather have kissed him but knew he was slightly embarrassed by PDA. He rarely even held her hand when they were out together. She wished he would be more demonstrative in public, although he more than made up for it when they were alone.
“Seriously, Bren, you guys rocked,” she said, a little too enthusiastically, hoping to smooth over Gigi’s passive-aggressive burn.
“Yep, we turned it all the way up to eleven,” Brenden deadpanned, making a reference to their favorite movie, This Is Spinal Tap. The image of the Parker High orchestra populated by aging British metalheads made Kelsey giggle, and soon she and Brenden were laughing at the shared joke while Gigi stood uncomfortably to the side.
“Well, I should go!” Gigi announced abruptly. “I told my dad I’d be home early tonight. There’s so much work we still need to do for the party!” She tossed her long, shiny, ebony-black hair over her shoulder. “Bye-yee,” she said, leaning over and affectedly kissing the air two inches away from each of Kelsey’s cheeks while Kelsey did the same to her. “Mwah! Mwah!”
Brenden tried not to roll his eyes. “Tell me again how you can stand her?” he grumbled, as they walked out of the auditorium through the revolving glass doors to the parking lot.
“She’s my friend,” Kelsey said tightly. “She’s nice to me.”
He shrugged, dropping the subject for once, and Kelsey was relieved. Brenden thought Gigi was a shallow airhead and typically didn’t hold back from telling Kelsey so, but it was too beautiful an evening for quarreling. Outside, a pristine blanket of snow covered everything from the old slate shingles on the building rooftops to the surrounding meadows and towering fir trees. The air smelled fresh and brisk, scented by the earthy, rich fragrance of pine.
“I love it here.” Kelsey sighed.
There was nothing special about Parker, Ohio—it was such a small town that its main drag consisted of a lone bank, beauty salon, and pizza parlor, as well as the three squat buildings that made up the entire public school system. An hour and a half away from Cleveland and forty-five minutes from the nearest mall, its most famous resident was a girl who’d tried out for a singing contest on TV last season but got cut on the first round. But every year during Christmas, Kelsey thought it was the best place in the world.
Across the street from the high school, the little wooden gazebo in the middle of the town square was decorated with evergreen garlands heavy with red holly berries and white mistletoe sprays. An enormous wreath festooned with silver pinecones hung over the entrance to the City Hall, and twinkling white lights wrapped around the candy-cane-colored barbershop poles added to the festive sight.
“It looks like a Hallmark card,” Kelsey said. “In a good way.”
“You say that every year.” Brenden smiled.
“I know, but it’s true.”
Brenden nodded at the wisdom of that statement. “Hey, what’s over there?” he asked, putting his saxophone case on the ground and motioning toward the distance. Kelsey swiveled to look to where he was pointing, only to feel a shock of something cold and wet on the back of her neck.
“Oh, no, you didn’t!” she squealed, shaking the snowball off. She immediately scooped a handful of snow with her gloved hands and plastered him in the face with it. Brenden hopped away, but Kelsey had a good arm and had soon pelted him with a half-dozen snowballs.
“Truce! Truce!” Brenden yelled, laughing hysterically as a volley of snowballs struck his torso. “I know you love to win.”
“Remember in third grade when I put that walkie-talkie in your closet?” Kelsey said. “You thought your GI Joes were talking to you!”
“Remember in fifth grade when I hid that frog in your lunchbox?” he taunted, packing a snowball and aiming for her pitching arm. “You screamed for a week!”
“Did not!” she howled, momentarily rendered off-balance by his offensive strike. She scrambled onto the snowbanks to collect more ammunition.
They reached the far side of the school parking lot, still throwing snowballs at each other. Once they were alone, Brenden grabbed Kelsey by the waist and they fell down into the snow, the two of them tumbling on the ground and laughing.
“There,” he said, brushing the snow off her hair.
She laughed breathlessly as Brenden put his arms and legs on top of hers, and began to wave them up and down to make a snow angel.
“That tickles!” Kelsey said, feeling the cold start to seep through her coat and sweater. But for once she wasn’t worried about how her hair or her clothes looked. Brenden was the only guy she’d ever known who could make her laugh so hard her belly ached. “It’s cold out here!” she gasped as a light snow began to fall, and the glow from the streetlights turned each snowflake into a flickering beacon.
In answer, Brenden leaned over her so that their faces were so close to each other that she could feel his breath on her cheek. “Still cold?” he whispered, his eyelashes fluttering on her forehead, his fingers intertwining with hers.
“No …” She lifted her lips up to him for a kiss, and their mouths met, and she could taste snowflakes on his tongue.
“You love me, Kelseygirl?” he asked, looking deep into her eyes.
“I love you, Brenden James Molloy,” she whispered, pulling him closer so he could hear.
“Good, because I love you, too.” He grinned, getting up and lifting her to her feet.
The very first time they’d kissed was one afternoon last summer when they were shooting hoops in Brenden’s backyard. After he’d made several over-the-shoulder shots to flatten her 16–4, he’d turned to her and said, ultracasually, as if he were perusing a menu and ordering a hamburger, “I really like you.” She’d blushed and said she didn’t know what he was talking about; of course they liked each other—they were friends. They’d spent their childhoods bickering and teasing each other. Brenden had seen her sick with the chicken pox when they were five, and a few years later she was the only one who knew Brenden had cried when his parents split. So she didn’t know what he was getting at until he put the basketball down and looked at her straight in the eye.
“No, I mean, I like you like you,” he’d explained. Then
he’d kissed her while the sun set behind the ravine, and he smelled like gum and coffee and tasted like something infinitely more delicious—like chocolate and boy-sweat, salty and sweet. It was the first and best kiss of her life. They were like Jennifer Garner and Mark Ruffalo in 13 Going on 30, except they hadn’t needed any magic wishing dust or a New York City idyll complete with Michael Jackson “Thriller” dance moves to find each other.
Now Brenden tenderly brushed the snow off her back, and they walked over to where he’d parked his motorcycle. Kelsey watched patiently as he secured his saxophone case in the rear rack with two bungee cords before climbing on herself.
“It’s looking good. Did you get it detailed?” she asked, admiring his ride.
“Uh-huh, did it myself this afternoon.” He smiled, handing over her helmet.
Brenden’s bike was a vintage 1965 Hog, the one thing his dad had left him. It was his pride and joy—he kept it well oiled and in prime condition, the chrome polished to a reflective shine. Many people in town had offered him good money to take it off his hands but he always refused. Kelsey knew he would never trade that bike for anything. It was part of him; it made him who he was. Without the bike, he was just some poor kid in ripped jeans riding the yellow school bus. But with the bike he was Marlon Brando in The Wild One, Dennis Hopper in Easy Rider, an artist, a rebel, a hero.
He swung over to the front seat and rubbed his hands together for warmth as he shivered under his thin, tattered denim jacket. Kelsey felt a pang as she wrapped her arms around his waist.
She knew how much Brenden wished he could afford a proper leather motorcycle jacket, like the matte black one with the silver zippers they’d spied in the Harley-Davidson store in downtown Cleveland one afternoon. But the jacket cost more than four hundred dollars brand-new, and there was no way Brenden would ever have that kind of money. He worked part-time at a garage but all his paychecks went straight to the Stop & Shop to help his mom put food on the table. His father’s alimony and child support checks never arrived on time, if at all.
But none of that mattered as Brenden kicked the Harley into gear and it revved up with a satisfying roar. As they drove off in the dusting snowfall, Kelsey pressed tightly against the strong back of the boy she loved, glad she was there to keep him warm.
School was out for winter break, so Kelsey dragged Brenden to the Parker Mall the next day, ostensibly because she had a coupon for Bed Bath & Beyond that she wanted to use to buy her mom a little something. Christmas was just a handful of days away. Sadly, with her meager allowance and the pittance she made babysitting, “a little something” was all she could afford for everyone on her Christmas list that year. But Kelsey was really at the mall to shop for him—she had saved up the most for Brenden’s gift. Although she had no idea how she would be able to buy him a present that would show how much she loved him with only forty-five dollars—all she’d managed to scrape together and save.
Forty-five dollars! What could anyone buy for someone you loved with all your heart for only forty-five dollars? Kelsey wanted to buy him something truly wonderful, something that would show him how much he meant to her.
They walked past the roped-off Santa’s House section, where crying kids were being escorted to sit on the bearded guy’s lap. The mall was bursting with eager, last-minute shoppers who swarmed the stores, ignoring the Salvation Army bell-ringers and their red buckets. After a quick kiss good-bye, Brenden and Kelsey went their separate ways with the tacit knowledge that each was shopping for the other.
Kelsey walked desperately from store to store, feeling more and more discouraged at the dismal offerings her budget would allow. At the Sharper Image, she contemplated a battery-powered razor; at the Apple store, a pair of fancy earbuds; and at Banana Republic, wool sweaters were marked down to thirty bucks. But nothing seemed right. Too cheap, too generic, too lame—and certainly not worthy of someone as special as Brenden.
The lack of money in her pocket made Kelsey feel pensive, and not quite in the Christmas spirit. After a fruitless hour, she met up with Brenden at their designated meeting place in front of the Starbucks and found he was similarly empty-handed.
“Get anything?” he asked.
She shook her head grimly. Her mood didn’t brighten when they walked by the food court and she noticed a bunch of Wade Hill girls—minus Gigi—holding court at a primo table. Brenden immediately began to study the fast-food menu overhead with focused concentration.
“Hey,” Kelsey greeted them, trying not to feel self-conscious in front of Gigi’s circle. She couldn’t help but wonder if they ever noticed that her jeans didn’t have the telltale wavy line stitched on the back pockets like theirs did.
“Hiiii, Kelsey,” they cooed. “Hey, Brenden.” The group of popular girls all looked alike, from their shiny straightened hair and whitened teeth, to their cozy cashmere sweaters, and their matching football-playing, clean-cut boyfriends in their varsity letter jackets and faded button-downs.
“Where’s Gigi?” Kelsey asked, glancing around.
“I think she’s out with her mom, getting her dress fitted,” a girl named Sarah answered excitedly. “Did you know? She’s getting her hair and makeup done for the party by some guy from Chicago! He has a salon in Paris, too! Her parents are flying him in! She’s so lucky!” Sarah sighed, her eyes wide with envy.
Gigi’s upcoming Christmas Eve Party/Sweet Sixteen Bash at the sprawling McClusky mansion was all anyone ever wanted to talk about ever since the invitations—embossed on creamy card stock as thick as cardboard—had landed in their mailboxes. The party was to be the biggest event the town had ever seen. The McCluskys had even hired a catering company and booked a DJ from Cleveland. To Kelsey, it sounded nothing short of magical, like one of those parties where the celebrant arrived at the event in a Cinderella carriage or hidden among a group of undulating belly dancers like she’d seen on MTV.
“Ehmagad, it’ll be so pimped out!” another girl enthused. “She told me they’re tenting the backyard!”
“They’ve invited everyone in town,” said a third.
“Well, everyone who matters!” a fourth corrected.
They all looked at Kelsey with anticipation. “You are coming, right?”
“I—I guess so, I mean, of course,” she replied, looking at Brenden meaningfully. But her boyfriend was acting as if memorizing all the ingredients of a giant burrito was the most important thing in the world just then.
“Why don’t you guys sit down?” a girl named Daphne asked, although her tone indicated she wasn’t too enthusiastic about the prospect. Kelsey always noticed that the girls weren’t as friendly to her when Gigi wasn’t around.
“Yeah, sit down,” Daphne’s boyfriend agreed, a little too readily, and Kelsey noticed Daphne’s mouth twitch in annoyance.
“Thanks, but we’ve still got a lot of shopping to do,” Kelsey said, trying not to feel too insulted when she noticed the palpable relief on the girls’ faces.
Brenden coughed and pulled on Kelsey’s sleeve.
“Well, uh, good seeing you guys …” She smiled apologetically as they inched their way past the clique’s brazen up-and-down stares.
When they were out of earshot and seated in a quiet corner with their food trays (a Diet Coke and a grilled cheese sandwich for her, a milkshake and gravy fries for him), Kelsey reached for Brenden’s hands underneath the table. “Sorry about that, but if I didn’t say hi they’d think I was rude.”
Brenden released his hands from hers. “I just don’t know why you care so much about what they think of you,” he said.
Kelsey’s father worked in a machine shop and her family was closer to the poorer side of things than the richer. They lived in a tidy little house off the main road with a front porch and a backyard that faced the woods. It was a decent neighborhood, a little run-down maybe, a little more lower-middle class than middle-middle class. And Brenden lived next door. Their block was certainly nothing like Wade Hill, which was a mile away, up
near the mountains, where large, stone, colonial-style manors boasted views of the lake and looked imperiously over the town.
Gigi’s father was a successful oncologist at the Cleveland Clinic. It was rumored Gigi had enrolled at Parker only to have a greater chance at getting into Yale because of the geographical quota and the fact that she had no rivals for valedictorian. Her friends who’d prepped at Andover, Exeter, and St. Paul’s would face stiff competition.
“They’re just a bunch of dumb rich people,” Brenden complained, punctuating his sentence by pointing his straw in the air.
“You’re wrong, I don’t care what they think!” Kelsey protested, stealing a fry from his plate and dipping it in the pool of ketchup. “But I do want to be there for Gigi’s birthday.”
Gigi could be a bratty pain in the ass sometimes, but she was basically kindhearted. Their freshman year, she had even started a community outreach group to help the town’s “less fortunate.” Kelsey had joined the after-school club only to die of embarrassment when she found out Gigi had organized a charity food drive to help families in Kelsey’s own neighborhood. Kelsey never explained to her parents why there was a basket of canned goods on their porch one afternoon. They ended up donating it to a homeless shelter.
To her credit, Gigi never brought it up, for which Kelsey was glad, and the two girls had forged a real friendship. Kelsey was the only one who knew Gigi’s mom had battled alcoholism, and Gigi was always someone fun for Kelsey to gossip with. Most of the time, Gigi bit her tongue about Brenden, who certainly didn’t fit into her version of what an “ideal” boyfriend for Kelsey would look like—i.e., preferably one who didn’t have grease-stained fingers all the time. Gigi had even innocently inquired once why his parents had spelled his name incorrectly—the proper Irish way was “Brendan.” Kelsey had briskly pointed out that their town was full of phonetically spelled first names, like “Kitelynn” (Caitlin) and “Antwone” (Antoine)—not that it had helped her point much.
“The party will be fun, c’mon,” Kelsey cajoled in the food court. “I really want to go.”
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