Snow in Love (5 page)

Will cocked his head. “No way are you weaseling out of this. The town deserves to see me in a tux.” Then he looked over his shoulder and stepped closer to me. “Jessie—”

“Yeah?”

“Take my coat, okay?”

“Huh? I don’t need it.”

“Jessie.” He gave me a “let’s be real” look. “You’re shivering. And it’s a long way to those cabins. Just take it.” He removed his coat, the white puffy parka with the large
X
over the right side, and put it around my shoulders. Then he walked back to the truck.

I was so pleased at the mortified look on Sabrina’s face that it took me a few seconds to realize that Will had known where I was heading.

By the time I reached the cabins, it was well after ten thirty and I was a Popsicle, even in Will’s heavy coat. I walked to the Reids’ front door, but it was late and Jake’s mom was kind of strict. So instead of ringing the doorbell, I clambered across the porch that wrapped around the entire house, and stood on the railing. Jake’s window loomed up above me. There was a light on and music coming from his room, so I knew that he was there. Also, it seemed to be hard rock, so that gave me confidence that Evie wasn’t with him. Not that Mrs. Reid would let him have a girl in his room. Although, maybe that was just me. Maybe she let girls from Boise do whatever they wanted.

Clinging to the side of the house with one hand, I stood on my tiptoes and reached for his window. No good. I’m short like my mom, and didn’t even come close.

I flattened my feet and remained on the railing, thinking about my next move. Finally, I cupped my hands around my mouth and whisper-yelled, “Jake! Jake!” But it was windy and the falling snow had picked up, which caused a howling sound, so there was no way he could hear me.

I took a deep breath and looked around his backyard. The swing set sat silently, stilly in the yard, lit up by a slice of moonlight that was half covered by clouds. There was a stand of trees that divided this cabin from the one next door. I leaped off the railing and landed awkwardly, slipping back and forth before I could get any balance. These boots weren’t made for these kinds of covert ops. I gritted my teeth against the pain, and limped over to the trees. The ground was mostly covered with snow, but a decent-sized branch poked up from the white, and I grabbed it and pulled it with both hands until it came loose.

Armed with my weapon, I re-climbed the railing and raised the branch. Yes! It reached the window. I tapped with all my might, only to worry that I’d broken the window.

And suddenly he was there. Jake was at the window looking down into the yard. He looked toasty warm, in a long-sleeved red shirt. His hair was floppy in an extra-cute way. I waved wildly so that he’d see me, and almost lost my balance. He did a double take, then put a finger up to the window to signal that I should wait before disappearing back into his room.

After a minute, he reappeared in the window, wearing a thick sweater. He opened the window wide, and then removed the winter screen. “Jessie! You’re gonna get me in trouble.”

I didn’t say anything. I didn’t have to, he was already climbing out of the window. I felt a little thrill that he was breaking the rules just to see me.

“Is anybody in there?” He pointed downward, and I peered into the first floor windows, which were dark.

“No, no, you’re clear.”

“Well, move!” He needed the railing to stop himself from dropping two stories onto the porch. I climbed down as fast as I could, but my ankle felt a little gimpy from my earlier fall.

Jake’s feet landed squarely on the railing, as if he’d climbed out of his window every night. It struck me that we could’ve been meeting secretly like this the whole time we knew each other, but I didn’t think it was the time or place to mention that.

Once he was standing in front of me on the porch, I could see that he was really annoyed, and the excitement I felt turned to dread. I suddenly was overwhelmed with the same kind of feelings as when I first met him, that he was far too cute a guy to be talking to me.

“You’re going to get me in so much trouble.” He grabbed my arm and led me from the porch to the swings. He sat on one and stared at me. “What are you doing here?”

“Won’t your parents see?” I pointed to the kitchen windows—they were wall-sized. I could see plainly into the house. Mr. and Mrs. Reid were drinking glasses of wine and reading to each other from the paper.

“Jessie, just tell me why you’re here.”

I swallowed hard. There was something about Jake that had always been different than all the other boys I knew. He was more
mature
, I guess. He had more in his head than snow. Erin could call him wishy-washy all she wanted, but in moments like these, he was very straightforward.

“Well?”

I pulled Will’s coat closer around me to keep out the chill and to buy time. I’d come all the way out here, and now that I’d gotten him face-to-face, I didn’t know what I wanted to say.

“Jessie!”

“How come you didn’t call me?” I spat out.

This seemed to disarm him. He looked to the ground and began pushing himself back and forth on the swing. “I’m sorry,” he muttered to the ground.

“If you wanted to break up,” I had a hard time getting that phrase out, “you should’ve just told me.”

“I know.” He kept looking at the ground.

“It’s not nice to stop talking to somebody!”

“Keep your voice down, geez!”

I was good and sad now. It had been a matter of time before he realized that I was just a girl from a tourist town, really. “So…what, you just don’t like me anymore?”

“No! No, I like you. I just, I don’t know.”

“You don’t know?” His no-answer answers were causing me serious pain. I wasn’t sure what his problem was. “I’m giving you the chance to just tell me what I did wrong. So could you please just get on with it?”

He looked at me then and took a deep breath. “Jessie, you didn’t do anything wrong.”

“No?” I was shivering by this point. My teeth were chattering and I could only imagine how red my nose was.

“No.” He stood up from the swing then and said, “I can’t just hang out here, my parents are going to see me.” Then he reached for me and pulled my coat tight around me. “And you’re going to catch a cold.”

He didn’t let go of my coat. In fact, he started tracing the big embroidered
X
with his fingers. And he was standing kind of close to me. I was getting confused. He raised his eyes and smiled a sad smile at me. Then we both heard his mother call, “Jake? Jake?” from inside the house.

“Oh man. I gotta go. I’ll talk to you later, okay?” Then, looking quickly into the house to make sure nobody was looking, he kissed me lightly on the lips before scampering back to the railing and pulling himself into his window.

“
S

“It means he’s wishy-washy. Like I always said,” Erin replied, barely looking at me. She was trying unsuccessfully to cram a stack of papers into a drawer that was already overflowing. “God, I hate that woman!” she shouted in frustration. Erin was spending her Friday morning filing Agnes’s various papers and cleaning her office, her punishment for stealing the reservation book.

“How did she find out about the book anyway?” I asked idly.

“You could help me, you know,” Erin said with narrowed black-rimmed eyes. “If you’re hanging out here, you should file.” She tapped a pile of papers by her, which caused them to tumble onto the floor in disarray. “Argh!”

“Relax, relax, I’ll help.” I bent down and began sorting through the pile that had just fallen. “So, can we get back to Jake and the fact that he kissed me?”

Erin stopped what she was doing. “You know what I think? I think it meant nothing. I think Jake will kiss whoever’s in front of him.”

“I’m not helping anymore.” I kicked the pile that I had just straightened so the papers fell into Erin’s lap.

“Mature,” she said.

I was pouting, I knew it. But Erin had a way of summing up a situation in ways that you didn’t always want to hear, and this wasn’t one of the times I was looking for bracing reality. “How about a little optimism?” I muttered.

“Fine, you want optimism? Maybe Jake realized, while looking at you late at night, hair askew, nose running, desperately having stalked him, that he’d made a big mistake. Better?”

“My hair wasn’t askew.” There was nothing else to say, so I began helping her organize all the junk.

Erin stopped what she was doing. “Why don’t you just ask him what it meant?”

“I will, I will. I just, I don’t know. Maybe I don’t want the answer.”

Erin looked at me and shook her head. “This is why I refuse to fall in love.”

“Are you sure you want to do this?” Abby was pulling at the collar of her ski jacket. “God, this thing is choking me!” Abby wasn’t what you’d call a skier. In fact, she wasn’t altogether coordinated, so she didn’t go in much for outdoor sports. She wore the clothes, though, although this jacket seemed to be giving her trouble.

“You can go if you want to. I’m staying right here until he shows up.” We were in one of the lodges. This one was a square-shaped room near the bottom of the two black-diamond hills. It was early in the afternoon, and the room was packed with people who were taking a lunch break from the slopes. There was a counter along the far back wall where you could order waters or hot chocolates or snacks, like pretzels and hot dogs. But even with all that food, the lodge smelled like cinnamon and vanilla and burning birch logs. There was always a fire burning right in the center of the room. It was a cozy spot, actually, with the centerpiece fireplace and the warm couches and benches that were situated around it.

This is where Abby and I were camped out. I had a cup of hot chocolate that I was hardly touching, and Abby was finishing off a bottle of cranberry iced tea. We were waiting.

After Erin finished cleaning the papers out of Agnes’s office, she pulled the lists of purchased ski passes. It turned out that Evie hadn’t bought a ski pass, but Jake and his family definitely had. Erin then pulled the spa logs and we saw that Evie would be spending much of her time at Mount Crow getting manicures and massages.

I devised a plan: I would lie in wait for the Reids to arrive at the lodge, and then I could “run into” Jake. I had purposely not called him today, because I didn’t want him to think that I was freaking out about one little kiss, even though I clearly
was
freaking out about it. But if we “ran into” each other, then he’d have to acknowledge me, and then I could maybe figure out whether that kiss had meant that our love was rekindled or if that was his new standard way of saying good-bye to people. I was hoping for the former.

Because one thing I knew: I was never going to do better than Jake Reid. Just seeing him for that brief moment in his yard, I was surer than ever. We both loved to ski. We both wanted to travel. I was the only one who knew about the birthmark on his back, the one shaped like a seagull. Surely he wouldn’t show Evie that. And he was the only one I could tell my dreams to, about going to UAA and then moving to the Lower States and never having to wear a pair of thermal underwear under my jeans again.

“Oh! We’re on!” I exclaimed suddenly as Mrs. Reid walked through the entrance to the lodge, followed by Jake and an energetic firecracker named Madison, his little sister. Before I even had a chance to tell Abby what the plan was (which I hadn’t done before because, as usual, I hadn’t come up with a plan yet) Madison screamed at the top of her lungs, “Jessie!”

Madison’s and Jake’s mother turned to look at what her daughter was screeching at, and I waved wildly.

As Madison flew toward me in a whirlwind of brown braids, I caught Jake’s expression. He looked grumpy and annoyed, just as he had when he saw me at his window. This was check one in the “that kiss didn’t mean anything” column.

“Jessie! I’m so glad to see you!” Madison leaped into the air, and I stood up and caught her, swinging her around.

“You’re so big!” I screamed, and hugged her close.

“I know! I’m the biggest girl in the second grade,” she said very proudly. Her face looked like a rounder, frecklier version of Jake’s, but with a girl’s smile, a turned-up nose, and long eyelashes that your average supermodel would kill for.

“You’re doing the black-diamond hills this year, Mad?” I asked, setting her down.

“That’s right, we promised, as long as one of us is with her at all times. How are you, Jessie?” Mrs. Reid was standing there, trying to smooth down Madison’s hair, which was sticking out in all directions.

“I’m good, Mrs. Reid.”

She smiled at me and I stole a quick glance at Jake, to show him that his family still loved me.

“Madison, let’s go!” Jake snapped at her from across the lodge.

“Shut up, Jake, I’m allowed to talk to her. Just because you broke up with her, doesn’t mean we’re not friends anymore, right, Jessie?”

I felt like I’d been slapped in the face.
You broke up with her.
For a moment I thought I was going to cry, but I ground my teeth and answered the little girl as sure-voiced as I could, “That’s right, Mad.”

Mrs. Reid looked at me sadly, which made me feel even more terrible, and pulled Madison away from me. “Let’s go, sweetheart, we want to get as many runs in as we can.”

“Okay, Mom,” and Madison ran out the door. She had a lot of energy.

“It’s nice to see you, Jessie,” Mrs. Reid said to me. “You look good.” She smiled quickly, then followed her daughter out to the slopes.

I watched them go, and then Abby rose from her spot on the couch and nudged my arm. When she got my attention, she pointed at the hot-dog counter so that I could see that Jake hadn’t followed them outside. “Why don’t I go find Erin and see if Mean Agnes will let her take a break?”

I still felt like breaking into sobs from what Madison had said. “I don’t think—” Abby touched my arm again. “But what should I say?” I asked, trying to gather my courage.

Abby blew out a breath. “I don’t know, Jessie. Obviously I know nothing about getting the guy you want.” And then she was gone. She barely nodded to Jake on the way out of the lodge.

Jake saw that I was standing in the middle of the room. He stayed where he was. He was in his bright red coat and goggles and had a pair of shiny new ski boots dangling in his hand.

Well, I couldn’t very well just stand there and gawk at him, my patheticness on display for the whole lodge to see. And really, I had designed this whole run-in, so what was my problem? I swallowed hard, trying to forget the phrase “You broke up with her.”

I walked up to him and said with all the coolness I could muster, “Hey.”

“Hey,” he responded. He kept about a foot and a half distance between us and I couldn’t decide what that meant.

“First run of the season?” I asked, trying very hard to sound casual even though I could still feel the blood rushing to my feet.

“Yeah. You going today?”

“Nah,” I responded truthfully. “I think I kind of hurt my ankle, jumping off your porch.”

He clasped his hands behind his back, and this I took as a really bad sign. He was uncomfortable in my presence. Maybe because he thought we were broken up. But maybe it was because he really wanted to kiss me again. “Were you waiting here for me, then?”

This threw me for a loop. It was one thing to be caught stalking. It was quite another to admit it. “No!”

He snorted. “Then what are you doing here?”

“I believe that I’m allowed to be anywhere I want. It’s my town, actually.”

His eyes narrowed, and part of my brain, the Abby part, I guess, whispered to me that this wasn’t like us. We’d never been snotty to each other before.

“Whatever.”

At that moment, Will burst through the slope entryway in a burst of cold air and windy breeze. He stood in the doorway and peeled off his goggles and hat and then shook his hair out with all his might, like a shaggy, ski-loving dog. The blond girl behind the snack counter called out to him sweetly and tossed him a bottle of water. He grinned at her and drank the whole bottle in one gulp before making a basketball shot with it into the nearby trash can. The girl behind the counter looked like she was going to explode, her smile was so big.

“Whitman!” Will shouted when he saw me. “You gotta get out there!” He pointed gleefully. “There’s six feet of powder! Let’s you and me go.” Then he bounded up to us, nodded at Jake, and tugged on the hem of the green parka that I was wearing. “Where’s my coat, lady? It looks way better on you than this green thing.”

I was initially embarrassed by Will’s putting my coat down, but then I saw that Jake was looking from Will to me to Will again with a confused, shocked look on his face. And I realized in that second that Jake thought that I’d been waiting in the lodge for
Will
, not for him.

I didn’t say anything right away, then my nerve found me and I turned to Will and grabbed his hand. “I just wanted to tell you that, um, Abby needs to get your measurements for the dance.” This was technically not a lie. In fact, the best part was that this was absolutely true! And at any rate it served Jake right for telling his family that he had broken up with me.

There was a devilish expression on Will’s face and I
knew
that he knew what I was doing. He squeezed my hand and pulled me into him a little bit, and suddenly my heart sped up. “Sure thing. I’ll be over later, okay, babe?” Will had a tendency to call all girls “babe” but Jake didn’t know that.

The only thing that could have made me happier about this was if Sabrina had been there. I couldn’t keep from smiling a little too broadly at Will. “’Kay. See you later, then.” He squeezed my hand again and then headed back out to the slopes, but gave me a wink when he was out of Jake’s line of sight.

Once he was gone, I turned back to Jake and that’s when the thrill of our little game left me and I was suddenly unsure of what I had hoped to accomplish by being in the lodge in the first place. Everything was getting away from me. Now not only did I
not
know whether Jake had meant anything by kissing me, but now I’d probably gone and planted a seed of doubt in his mind about whether or not I’d even wanted to be kissed in the first place.

“Jake—”

But I couldn’t finish whatever it was that I was going to say, because Jake spun on his heel and followed Will’s path out to the slopes, without so much as a backward look at me.