Snow in Love

Snow in Love

“
S

I picked up the sketch pad and set my dish full of ice cream on the far corner of our table, where I hoped it would be less of a temptation. Not that I could keep away from it for too long. I mean, my family did own the ice-cream shop in town. There was only so much resisting I could do.

But for the moment my Chocolate Fiesta was forgotten. I was looking at the most exquisite, delicate dress Abby had yet to design. “Oh! It’s so pretty!”

She grinned at me. “Really?”

“Really!” I smiled. “Only…”

“What?” she asked nervously.

“Nothing. Nothing. I just don’t think my waist is that small.” I pointed at the tiny midsection of the dress.

She ignored my comment and leaned over the booth’s table, excited by her own vision. “It’s going to be so beautiful! Look, I’ll put two darts here, for a structured effect, and then the skirt is going to fall in white waves, so that it looks like a snowfall, see? I’m calling it my Princess Snowflake dress.” Abby had always been something of a visionary. Where I’d see a routine high school class, she’d see a chance to learn something new. Where I’d see a regular Willow Hill boy, she’d see a handsome prince trapped in the halls of Willow High. Where I saw a pretty sunset, she’d she flames of romance.

Despite her ability to see things where I didn’t, I trusted Abby more than anyone, and we were both determined that my dress at the Northern Lights Ball win the Annual Best Costume Contest, or as we called it, the ABC. The winners of the ABC won free ski passes for the Mount Crow Ski Resort. Which would mean that I could actually save the money I earned working at Snow Cones instead of spending it all on skiing. But the real reason that Abby and I were so desperate to win was so the Hated Sabrina Hartley would finally lose at something.

Our list of grievances against Sabrina Hartley was long. Sabrina had moved to our town of Willow Hill, Alaska, in the eighth grade. Right away she was annoying, because she was tall and smart and by far the prettiest girl in school. Her hair was unnaturally shiny—our friend Erin said she probably washed it in Crisco—and she was a
great
skier, the number one important thing to be in our town. (Her family had moved up here so her older brother could ski year-round at Mount Crow to train for the Olympics.) Sabrina was from
California
and let anyone within earshot know how much superior life in San Diego was to good ol’ Willow Hill. But we hated her for more than just her better-than-us attitude. Her straight A’s robbed Erin of her rightful title of eighth-grade valedictorian. And last summer she did something worse: She stole Abby’s about-to-be boyfriend, Cam Brock.

Cam and Abby were next-door neighbors, and Abby had loved him from afar for years. (Actually, I guess she had loved him from up close. I mean, they
were
neighbors!) At the end of the last school year, it had seemed like Cam was finally noticing Abby; he’d asked her to go with him to the Spring Thaw Chili-Cook in Denali, and he’d been spending time at her house “studying.” (Read: watching television and holding hands.) Then Sabrina set her sights on him, and bam! No Chili-Cook for Abby. Sabrina and Cam had been an item ever since. An annoying, nausea-inducing item.

Erin and I, to cheer Abby up, declared war on Sabrina, though really, we hadn’t done anything except sneer at her. Our mission to rob her of the ABC crown was the first all-out assault we’d planned on her perfect life—what could I say? There wasn’t a lot to do in Alaska. Revenge was a time filler. I was nominated for the role of prize-stealer because I was the only one of us with a boyfriend.

My eyes focused on the sketch Abby made of my date, Jake. I could hardly judge men’s clothes, but Jake would look so handsome in a tuxedo like she had drawn. Of course, Jake just happened to be the cutest boy I’d ever met, with brown hair that flopped irresistibly over his forehead, deep brown eyes, and one mole on his cheek that was
very
kissable.

“You’re frowning. Why are you frowning?” Abby asked suddenly. Abby was a sensitive girl. I didn’t even know I
had
been frowning and she’d picked up on it. “You’re not happy?”

“No! Gosh, they’re so beautiful. Totally crown-worthy.” I reached for the dish of Chocolate Fiesta ice cream, my favorite. My mother made it by melting chocolate together with crushed hot pepper. Sounded gross, but tasted heavenly. “It’s just, are you going to have enough time to make this? The ball is only two weeks away.”

Her face pulled itself into a slightly surprised pinch. “Of course! All I need are your measurements. And Jake’s so we can get his tux to fit perfectly.”

At this I crammed a large, chilly bite into my mouth and peered around the inside of Snow Cones, my family’s shop. The bright red booths and vinyl-covered stools were empty, save for two freshman girls poring over fashion magazines at the ice-cream bar. The black-and-white tiled floor gleamed from the hard-core mopping my mother and I had done this morning. Once the sun began to set, there would be so many customers in here I’d barely be able to breathe. But now, it was quiet enough for me to lollygag with Abby and eat a little midafternoon snack. I glanced quickly toward the door, hoping Jake would walk through it. As I turned back around to face Abby, I pulled my cell phone from the pocket of my brown, extra-insulated corduroys. No messages.

Abby’s face looked blatantly concerned, which made my insides do a little flip. “You’ll have plenty of time to get measurements,” I told her. Then I ate another bite of ice cream and looked down at the sketch. I just wasn’t sure Jake would be here to make it to the dance.

Jake Reid didn’t live in our town or go to our school but he’d been my boyfriend for three years, since I was a freshman and he was a sophomore. Jake’s family owned one of the twelve pine-log cabins on the edge of the Mount Crow Resort. (His family’s was the biggest, with a porch and a hot tub and a swing set.) Every year the Reid family arrived in Willow Hill the day after Christmas. They’d stay until the day after the Northern Lights Ball, and then they’d go back down to Juneau, and Jake and I would live on emails and texts until the next time we could see each other.

“Have you warned him about the dance yet? And the Make Sabrina Cry at the Ball campaign?”

“I’ll fill him in when he gets here. He won’t care about having to rent the tuxedo.”

Abby looked down at the sketch and bit her lip. “I know, Jess. I’m just worried about clothing. We need to make sure he gets a normal tux, not some hideous discounted powder blue monstrosity.”

Abby was lying. It wasn’t the tux she was worried about; it was Jake. Erin had gone and planted a seed of doubt in her mind, the same seed she’d been attempting to sow in mine for the past week.

The fact was that I kind of hadn’t heard from Jake in about three weeks. We were usually in constant contact by phone or texts or IMs. Erin had gotten wind of the fact that there’d been a Jake blackout and was convinced that he was too chicken to tell me that his family wasn’t going to be here for the break. Erin didn’t like Jake. Two years ago he had promised to drive her to some ungodly depressing film festival in Anchorage—“Foreign Films by Foreign Females”—but had to cancel when his little sister broke her leg in an unfortunate tobogganing incident involving me and my poor steering ability. Ever since then, Erin claimed that Jake was wishy-washy, which was completely ridiculous. I mean, what better reason to cancel than a sister with a broken leg? But once Erin decided something, she never changed her mind. Which wasn’t so bad except she always tried to prove her case to me. Her favorite examples were the time Jake bought two ski hats, one in blue and one in red, because he couldn’t choose which color he liked best, and the time at the Mountain Diner where it took him so long to decide whether to order mashed potatoes or French fries that the waitress brought him both.

Erin just didn’t get him, but I did. Despite his occasional bouts of indecisiveness Jake was one of the most caring people I’d ever met. He didn’t like to hurt people’s feelings, unlike Erin, who didn’t really care what people thought of the things she said.

But Abby, who is the sweetest, most impressionable girl you could ever meet and whose heart had been trampled by Cam Brock, was beginning to wonder if Erin was right.

I carried my empty dish behind the counter and filled it with a generous scoop of Chocolate Fiesta. As I covered it with a dollop of whipped cream, I kept a close eye on the back doorway, making sure my mother didn’t suddenly appear from her office and discover what I was doing. She hated when I “ate the profits,” which I tended to do when I was feeling unsettled. I knew I shouldn’t feel this way. Jake was a senior. He was probably busy with finals and college applications and things like that.

I licked some whipped cream off my pinkie finger, and pointed at Abby, who was still in the booth. “Abby! You and Erin have me thinking the worst!”

Abby’s soft features arranged themselves into a smile. “I’m sorry, Jess. I just want your costume to be the best.”

“It will be.” I sat back down with her and perused the sketches. Jake and I were going to look amazing; I decided then and there to stop worrying and to start imagining how great it would be when Sabrina actually came in second place! Not that that would fix Abby’s broken heart. The best I was hoping for was this: that Sabrina would be so upset she’d dump Cam, and he’d wake up and realize that it was Abby who should be his girlfriend. “I just wish you were going.”

Abby scrunched up her nose. “Nah, I don’t want to.” She didn’t want to have to spend the night watching Sabrina parade around on Cam’s arm. I couldn’t blame her. The sight of them together made me sick to my stomach and I didn’t even like Cam!

Fortunately for Abby, there was plenty to do to keep her mind off her boy troubles. These three weeks were hands down the best of the year. Sure, the sun came up at ten and was down again by four thirty, but in Alaska you looked for reasons to celebrate and the winter break was one of them. No school for nearly three weeks! And the best thing was that the Mount Crow Ski Resort, which pretty much made up our entire town, was at its busiest this time of year. Normally Willow Hill was what I would call sleepy. Erin called it bleak and depressing. But for these weeks in winter, it was a happening, crawling-with-energy place. There were activities, like the Welcome to Winter Day After Christmas Faire and the Northern Lights Ball, and Mr. Winter let you take sled rides with his Iditarod dogs, and the hockey rink wasn’t closed to all non-hockey-team skaters. It was what I imagined life to be like in the Lower 48 year-round.

Abby pushed her bangs away from her face. “I just wish Erin would let me make a costume for her, too.”

“That will never happen.” I giggled, and traced the edge of the dress Abby had drawn with my finger. In fact, Erin had refused to go to the dance unless Abby agreed to dress her up as a black snowflake.

The door to Snow Cones swung open just then, the clanging of the bells making me jump. I hated those bells. They were loud and meant I actually had to
work
. I slid the remains of my ice cream to Abby and pushed myself out of the booth. But as I was standing, I saw that it was only Will Parker and Erin.

I looked immediately at Abby, to point out the fact that Erin and Will were together. Her eyebrows shot up, and her mouth formed an
O
. I had decided that only love would shake Erin from her black-cloaked funk. Will was sunny enough to overcome Erin’s sarcastic nature, but he was the apple of almost every Willow Hill girl’s eye. It was a long shot that he’d ever settle for dating just one, but I still held out hope, for Erin’s sake. Not that she’d ever expressed interest, but still.

As Erin and Will walked through the door, I saw that they were both red-faced. They were sort of speed walking, not really running but moving fast while trying hard to
not
run. In fact, they looked like they were trying to avoid being noticed. And Erin looked funny. She had on a too-long, too old-lady-like bulky midnight-navy parka that I’d never seen before. It didn’t really fit her, and not only that, her left arm was draped in front of it, as if she were holding something underneath the coat.

“Oh no.” I didn’t know what it was all about, but the two of them were each mischievous in their own right. When they got together, the havoc they could cause was untold. Like the time last month when they tried to make an indoor ice rink in the basement of Willow High.

“Shut the door!” Erin exclaimed, catapulting herself through the Snow Cones entrance and snagging the sleeve of the ridiculously puffy coat on one of the bells. “Argh!” She made an odd sound as she tried and then successfully disentangled herself from the door.

“How do you lock this thing?” Will Parker fumbled around the door, looking for a lock.

“Hey, Will,” the freshman girls sitting at the bar cooed. Will straightened up, forgetting whatever had been so urgent just moments before, ran a tanned hand through his sun-streaked hair, and flashed the smile that melted hearts up and down the halls of Willow High. “Hello there, ladies.”

I rolled my eyes and Abby giggled.

“Will! Lock the door!” Erin half shouted through gritted teeth. Will looked at the door like he’d never encountered one before, so I casually walked over to where he stood and put my fingers on the lock, which was plainly above the doorknob.

“Oh,” he said, turning his grin on me. “I don’t know why I didn’t see that.”

Erin grunted her annoyance, teetered over to us, and pulled me by the sleeve of my shirt back toward the booth where Abby waited, puzzled.

“Will Parker, you unlock that door right now!” The booming voice of my mother came trumpeting in from the back room, and the four of us froze. My mother is a tiny woman, five one in sneakers. But she’s all-knowing and all-seeing and can be a little bit intimidating.