Tidings of Great Boys

by Shelley Adina

  “One can hope,” I said coolly. “I thought you might want some privacy, that’s all.”

  “What he says to me, he can say to all of us.”

  “I thought he was your boyfriend.”

  “He is. But he’s a musician.”

  “And that precludes romantic videos?”

  “If he’s got something private to say, he does it in a letter or he writes me a poem. Two weeks ago he even wrote a song for me—and sent me the MP3.”

  I stifled a pang of jealousy. What did Shani have that I didn’t have? She turned down a prince for a surfer boy who wrote her poems. And what did I get? Propositions from disgusting Rory Stapleton and mind-numbing boredom from Tate DeLeon.

  She pressed Play and Danyel’s face unfroze. “It’s Friday and I bet you never had a better reason to say TGIF, huh? All the exams done? Ours were done yesterday and Kaz and I are going to celebrate by having a Halo smackdown at his place. Can you dig it—we’re talking solid hours here, babe. His dad’s at some meeting in L.A. and won’t be back till late, and my mom is cool with it ’cuz she knows what a grind it’s been this term.

  “Ahhhh, I love Christmas break. High-pressure front coming in, which means lots of sun, which means—yep, you got it—surfing. What’s this about heading off to Scotland? I can’t believe you and Lissa would pick haggis and frostbite over me and Kaz. What is up with that?

  “We going to see each other before you go? Let me know. I can be there before you know it.” He blew her an air kiss. “Later, ma. Your present’s in the mail.”

  The video ended and I glanced at Shani, who had a goofy smile and soft eyes. “Another song?” I asked.

  “I hope so.” She closed the laptop slowly. “You know, Rashid would have made me a real princess. But that boy there makes me feel like one.”

  “Then I guess you made the right decision.” I spoke hesitantly. What did I know? I’ve had boyfriends since I was twelve, but none of them ever put that soft look in my eyes. None of them ever wrote me songs, either. How come no one thought enough of me to write a song?

  I hauled myself back from a slippery slope that had a big puddle of self-pity at the bottom.

  “Sounds as though he wants you to stay and spend Christmas in Santa Barbara,” I said. “You aren’t going to change your mind, are you?”

  “Not me. I want to be well out of reach before my parents realize the term’s over and make the standard familial gesture of inviting me to Chicago.”

  “Have they found a place to live?”

  “Mathilda—she was our housekeeper—stays in touch with them more than I do. She sent me a note saying they’d found a little house in her neighborhood and scraped up enough for a down payment.”

  “At least they have someplace.”

  She nodded. “They’re adjusting.”

  I couldn’t imagine what I would do if Mummy’s money suddenly disappeared and we lost both the house on Eaton Square and Strathcairn. I couldn’t see my parents making do in a semi-detached in Clapham. I mean, where would they put four hundred years’ worth of furniture and art?

  But this was essentially what had happened to Shani’s family. Shani had refused to marry Prince Rashid of Yasir, the heir to the Lion Throne, and consequently her parents, who had brokered the deal when she was a baby, had lost the financial backing of Rashid’s dad, the Sheikh. All of it was gone—the company, the seven-million-dollar house, the trips to Paris to buy couture, everything.

  No wonder she wanted to escape to Scotland with me. I could just imagine the first Christmas in the new house. “Silent Night” would take on a whole new meaning.

  “When is Carly due back?” Not a very graceful change of subject, but it would do.

  Shani glanced at her watch. “Another half hour. They moved the language exams to this afternoon.”

  I nodded. “I had French right after lunch. I saw her outside the Spanish classroom when I came out.”

  “There was something I wanted to ask you. About Carly.”

  That got my full attention. “What?”

  “Are you going with her tonight?”

  With a nod, I said, “She okayed it with her dad. I’m to spend tonight there, and Saturday, too, if we don’t convince him right away to let her come to Strathcairn.”

  “So you’re going to talk to him?”

  “Who better? Even if it takes two solid days.”

  “You’re a braver woman than I. Her dad is all about family and budgets and grades. A very serious guy. I don’t think trips to Europe figure into his worldview.”

  “Doesn’t he spend half his time in Asia for work?”

  “Sure, but Carly doesn’t. She’s never been anywhere except Texas and Mexico, and she’s got family in both places. I don’t think she’s ever spent a holiday anywhere there wasn’t family.”

  “As far as I’m concerned, she’s the closest thing I’ve got to a sister,” I said firmly. “So I’m going to play that card for all it’s worth.”

  “Even if you convince her dad, you’ll have to convince your future brother-in-law, too,” she said dryly. “Good luck on that one.”

  “Aha, but there’s where my plan comes in.”

  “You have a plan?”

  “Of course. If her dad gives the go-ahead for Scotland, Brett won’t have a thing to say. Because then I’ll have Papa on my side. You heard Carly. There’s no way a holiday with the Loyolas will ever happen.”

  “Brett’s not going to like that.” A warning lit her dark eyes. “I wouldn’t want my BFF’s boyfriend as my enemy.”

  I snorted. “Brett Loyola is no match for me.”

  I wasn’t bragging. It was simply the truth.

  I’D MET CARLY’S FATHER a couple of times at various school events, but this was the first time I’d ever spent the weekend at their house in San Jose.

  Their condo, I mean. Their very small condo.

  I squeezed myself and my rolling leather weekender past the end of her bed, aiming for the chair next to the window. “If you balance it on the arms, it’ll be out of the way and you can still walk past it.” Carly hefted it up there. “I’m sorry it’s so tight around here.”

  “Hey.” I put both my hands on her shoulders and gave her a little shake. “I don’t want to hear a single apology out of you.”

  “But you live in a castle.” Her shoulders slumped and my hands slid away. “This whole place is probably the size of your closet.”

  “The kitchen, I think.” I pretended to measure the condo’s width from window to hallway and beyond. “But so what? This is your home. It comes equipped with a family that loves you, and that’s all it needs to make it perfect.”

  Like a neon lamp on the fritz, her smile flickered back on as she sat on the bed. The bed had a frilly pink-and-white coverlet that had probably been there since she was seven, and no one, including Carly, had thought to change it up to match the almost-seventeen-year-old she was now.

  Her phone erupted into a salsa number. “That’s probably Brett.” But it wasn’t. “Oh, hi, Papa. Yes, we’re here. Just settling in. I was just going to start—ooh, pizza? From Nonno’s? Perfect. I’ll make a salad. See you in a bit.”

  She flipped it shut and grinned. “He’s getting pizza on the way home, so I don’t have to cook.”

  I felt a flash of disappointment. “That’s a shame. I was looking forward to trying those little—what do you call them?” I mimed making a little packet in the air.

  “Tamales.” She grinned. “That’s the best part of Christmas. I don’t dare make more, though. My Tía Margarita and my Tía Donna have inundated us, along with tomatillo salsa and salsa de arbol and… ’tis the season, after all. You can have them for breakfast, if you want.”

  “When you come to Strathcairn, you can make as many as you like,” I promised her. “Or we’ll make a great big care packet and send them to ourselves. If we do it now, it should get there in time.”

  She laughed and slid off the bed to help me unpack my thi
ngs. Twenty minutes later a car pulled into the garage under the bedroom and Carly ran downstairs to open the door. A huge pizza box and a stocky boy preceded Mr. Aragon into the kitchen.

  “Mac, this is my brother, Antony.”

  I nodded at him. “We met each other at the Design Your Dreams show last spring.”

  He bowed, stuck his tongue out at me, and scampered off up the stairs. “I apologize for my son, Lindsay,” Mr. Aragon said with a sigh as he took the unbaked pizza out and Carly turned on the oven. “He usually has better manners than this.”

  “Don’t worry about it. I don’t think he’s forgiven me for teasing him about wearing a tux at DYD.”

  He gave me a quick hug. “I’m going to clean up and then we must eat.”

  No one has ever accused me of being a shrinking violet. I let Mr. Aragon eat one piece of pizza before I launched my assault. And he was the one who unwittingly gave me the opening to breach his defenses.

  “I bet you’ll be glad term is over, Lindsay.” He offered both Carly and me another slice and then took one for himself. “Do you have plans for winter break?”

  I did not look at Carly. Instead, I sprinkled grated Parmesan and smiled. “I’ll be flying home on Tuesday—a long day, but my father will be waiting for me in Edinburgh. Strathcairn is about two hours outside Edinburgh, at one end of a long valley. We have a thousand acres of forest and moor and shore, and I already looked at the weather.”

  “And what is that like?”

  “Snow,” I said with satisfaction. “An inch last night, and more expected next week. So we’ll have a white Christmas.”

  “Does that make it difficult to get in and out?”

  “Oh, no. The plows do their job, and people come and go on the estate, keeping the tracks clear. That’s what Range Rovers are good at.”

  “So how do you celebrate Christmas in Scotland?”

  “With carols and presents and a tree. You do the same, don’t you?” He nodded, picking at his salad. “All the neighbors come on Christmas Eve, and then on Christmas Day we have a family dinner. Then on Hogmanay—sorry, New Year’s Eve—there’s a big traditional ball.” Well, there hadn’t been in ten years, but this year I was determined to make my own tale come true. “I’m going to try to convince my dad to have music a little more recent than 1890, though. The neighbors come first-footing and sometimes the visits go on all night.”

  “It sounds wonderful,” Carly said wistfully. Antony made a rude noise. “Almost as wonderful as it’ll be at the Loyolas’ house.”

  “And what do they do there?” Mr. Aragon asked.

  “I’m not sure, but I’m looking forward to finding out. Mrs. Loyola says they’re pretty traditional on their street, with carolers and a big house party and midnight Mass and—”

  “Wait a moment. How will you be finding this out?”

  “Well, Mrs. Loyola has invited me for the holidays, Papa, remember? She called you, didn’t she?”

  He laid down his knife. “She did. And we have already discussed this. Lovely though the lady is on the phone, the answer was and continues to be no.”

  Carly deserved an Oscar for the way she allowed the animation to fade from her face and disappointment to flow in—first eyes, then mouth, then cheeks. Even her curls seemed to droop.

  “Why can’t I go?”

  “You know the answer to that, Carolina. Much as I like Brett, you know you cannot spend the holidays with him.”

  “But it’s with his family. Nothing is going to happen to me.”

  “So you say. But I was a young man once. I know the temptations young people face. I would not put you through that.”

  “How am I going to learn to handle temptation if I never get the chance to face it?”

  He actually chuckled, as if this was funny. I mean, yes, we were playacting, but he didn’t know that. And I wasn’t even sure Carly was acting anymore.

  “That is part of my job, mi’ja. To protect you from these things until you are old enough to handle them.”

  “Papa, I’m nearly seventeen. I don’t need to be protected from Brett. We’ve already talked about it and he isn’t going to pressure me for sex.”

  “Ewww!” Antony pushed back from the table. “I’m outa here if you’re going to talk about that stuff.”

  Mr. Aragon actually flinched as the boy ran from the room. “I do not wish to discuss this. We are talking about Christmas, which you will spend here, with your family, where you belong.”

  “So we’re not going to discuss that, either. Then what can we talk about?”

  “Do not take that tone with me, young lady.”

  “I’m just asking. Since the two subjects that are most important to me are taboo.”

  “You are being a very poor hostess.”

  I didn’t have Carly’s gift for turning invisible, so I just smiled. A weak smile, but it was there. “Don’t mind me.”

  “I do mind. I mind it very much. I am very sorry we are such a rude family this evening.” Mr. Aragon got up and stalked down the hall, leaving the two of us sitting there.

  So much for Christmas spirit.

  chapter 4

  THAT WENT WELL.” Carly got up and began to clear the plates. When I was home, I always did that for my dad too, so I got up to help her. Contrary to what you might think, my family doesn’t have servants. Just Mrs. Gillie, who cooks for Dad and keeps the house habitable, and her husband, who looks after the grounds and the cars. In London, Mummy employs a steady stream of students from the School of Culinary Arts to make our meals, and I’ve learned to wield a pretty mean Hoover. It’s either that or live in a perpetual sty of my own making, which gets old after a while.

  When I knew that father and son were both behind closed doors, I spoke quietly. “Part One is a success.”

  “I’m glad you think so.” Carly’s face held no light as she loaded our plates into the dishwasher. “Now Papa’s mad at me not just for wanting to shack up with my boyfriend, but for being rude to you on top of it.”

  “I never pegged you as a drama queen, but you’re really good at it.”

  “Don’t be mean, Mac.”

  “I’m not.” I looked at her in surprise. “I only meant you’re a really good actress.” I took the wet forks and knives out of her hand and tucked them into their basket. Then I gave her a hug. “He doesn’t think you want to shack up. His feelings are a little sensitive, that’s all. We’ll pull this off,” I said, dropping my voice to a whisper. “I’ve had lots of experience at it. You’ll see.”

  But by the next morning, I wasn’t so sure either of us was going to see anything but Mr. Aragon’s stiff back. That man is the nicest guy in the world, but he can really lay on the silent treatment. Finally Carly made a dignified show of apologizing to me where he could hear us, and he offered to take us to the Tech Museum that afternoon.

  I would rather have gone to the mall, but part of a good offensive strategy is knowing when to fall back and regroup. So we went.

  It turned out to be kind of interesting, and even Antony acted like a human being instead of a droid with a Nintendo attachment. While he and Carly operated a robot together on each side of a control box, Mr. Aragon and I stood off to the side watching them. Well, he was watching them. I was watching for my next opportunity.

  “One of the best things about going to school here is having Carly for a friend,” I offered. Sometimes you can’t wait for opportunity to knock. You have to open the door and drag it in off the sidewalk.

  “I’m glad to hear it. Though sometimes she can be a better friend than others.”

  “It’s just that Brett means a lot to her. And so does his family. It’s easy to understand.”

  “I try to.” He cleared his throat. “So tell me more about your family at Christmas.”

  She shoots, she scores!

  “We do long hikes along the river and take the dogs with us. We have two golden retrievers. If the lake freezes, we go skating or curling, though I’m afraid w
hen we have guests, some of them have to wear skates that are fifty years old. Carly would love it there. I could turn her loose in the attic and see what costumes she could come up with. Then, my grandmother comes in from Edinburgh and she loves charades. It’s a bit old-fashioned, but it can be fun. Sometimes we play for hours.”

  “Vintage clothes in attics? Heaven.” Carly joined us in time to hear me. Antony now had complete control of the robot, making it zoom from one side of the room to the other.

  Mr. Aragon smiled affectionately. “No matter where you are in the world, chiquita, you would manage to find an old dress.”

  “She’d find years’ worth at Strathcairn,” I said, and took the plunge. “My father has invited all the girls to come for Christmas, Mr. Aragon. We would love it if Carly could join us.”

  He turned to stare at me, his face outlined in the blue and green lights from the robots. “In Scotland? The other girls are going?”

  Carly opened her mouth and I shot her a glance. This was the most sensitive part of the whole operation. It called for the utmost in discretion and care.

  “Lissa’s parents are going to the premiere of The Middle Window in London tomorrow, and my father has invited them to Strathcairn afterward, so she’s coming. Gillian is, too, and so is Shani.” I gave him my most winsome smile. “That’s why we’re hoping Carly can come. It won’t be the same without all of us together.”

  “I might say the same about our Christmas here.” His tone was mild, but his face… I knew that face. That was the “No, you’re not going to Glasgow with your pals for the Kills concert, and that’s that” face.

  “Papa, we’re together every year.” Carly took a calculated risk and spoke up. “This is the first time I’ve ever been invited to do something different. To travel.”

  “Traveling costs money, mi’ja. And that’s in short supply, as you know.”

  Carly glanced at me. “She’d be coming as my guest, Mr. Aragon,” I said. “My allowance will cover—”

  “Absolutely not.”

  “But it’s no trouble to—”

  “I’m sorry, Lindsay. It’s very kind of you to offer. But the money situation aside, Christmas is a family time, and Carly should be here at home. Her aunts and uncles and cousins would be very disappointed if she were not.”