Snow in Love (8 page)

And then the moment was broken before it could start, because we suddenly heard someone shouting, “Jake? Jake?”

Jake dropped my hand and quickly put distance between us. Evie stood in the doorway. Her hair was shiny and styled, and her eyes were bright as she scanned the room. When she finally saw us, she smiled broadly and marched over to the couch.

“Hey! Were you skiing?” she asked, and I thought that it was the dumbest question ever. I also thought that she looked a little too brown.

“Were you tanning?” I asked, topping her dumb question with one of my own.

“Oh! Yes! I was supposed to get a massage, but I ditched it for this fun little tanning booth in town. The old woman at the front desk suggested it.” Evie plopped herself down in between us, and reached for Jake’s hot chocolate. “Is this yours?” she asked him with no time for him to answer before she took a long drink from it.

Mean Agnes struck again! She sent Evie to her sister’s tanning salon and robbed me of an hour of kissing Jake in front of the fire!

Evie began to babble about the town and how quaint it was (God, I hated that description) while I cursed Mean Agnes mentally, even though I should’ve been cursing Evie. Actually, scratch that. I should have been cursing Jake. How dare he be holding my hand when he had this other girl wandering around the town, thinking they were boyfriend and girlfriend? Erin’s voice echoed in my head,
I think Jake will kiss whoever’s in front of him.
I drowned it out by gritting my teeth.

My head started to pound. I reached for my hot chocolate and felt Jake’s eyes on me. I caught them and he didn’t look away. His face was so earnest, he couldn’t possibly have been thinking about Evie and what she was talking about. Who knew there was this much to say about tanning beds?

Then Evie said, “So, I found this cute little diner. Why don’t we go there for our double date?”

Jake choked on his hot chocolate. “Double date?”

“Yes, silly, didn’t I tell you? We’re going on a double date. I thought it’d be fun.”

Jake looked at me, panicked. And this for some reason made me happy. He deserved to be a little panicky.

“Yup. Tons of fun, right,
Jakey
?” I asked.

He squinted his eyes at me. I smiled brighter.

“So, Jessie, can you and Will do it tomorrow night? At that diner place?”

“You and Will?” Jake asked.

“Oh, of course!” I exclaimed brightly. “You mean the Mountain Diner. Will and I love that place.”

“Yes! The Mountain Diner! Sooo
cute
!” I had to stop myself from rolling my eyes. Like there weren’t
diners
in Boise.

But one thing I had learned from my day, I couldn’t just give up. Jake was on the fence. He’d forgotten how much fun we could have together, but today had reminded him. Now, by my calculation, one good dose of jealousy, and I’d get him back.

I decided to quit while I was ahead. I told the two of them that I’d see them later, that I was meeting Will. (I flat-out lied. This whole situation was making me a bad person!)

I walked away and blew Jake a kiss when Evie wasn’t looking. Then I ran down the path, wondering how in the world I was going to talk Will Parker into going on another date with me.

“
H

Erin stood at the front desk in the Mount Crow hotel lobby, leaning forward and reading her book. She looked up and arched an eyebrow. “No. Why?”

I sighed and bit my lip. “Double date. I agreed to go.”

Erin flipped her book closed and smiled broadly. “That’s the spirit. Make him jealous.”

I took off my coat and hat and gloves and handed them to her.

“This coat weighs a hundred pounds.” I could hear her but couldn’t see her. Will’s coat was obstructing her from view. She waddled away and threw all my stuff on a chair behind her. She walked back to me and produced a book from beneath the desk. The words
INSTRUCTOR SCHEDULE
were written across the front in the scratchy hieroglyphics of Mean Agnes. She flipped a few pages and then dragged her finger down the page. “He’s teaching. He’ll be done in about an hour. So, tell me where we stand.”

“Where we stand, where we stand,” I said, taking a butterscotch candy from the dish on the table. “Well, we spent yesterday skiing.”

Erin’s eyebrows shot up to her hairline. “You did? That’s fantastic. Did Sabrina see you?”

“No,” I said, annoyed. “Me and
Jake.
”

“Oh,” she said flatly. “Let me guess. You had a great time and then the minute he saw Evie, it was like you didn’t exist.”

“No!” I said snottily, even though, really, um, yes.

“You’re a terrible liar.” Erin snorted, and reopened her novel.

“How do I ask Will to do this?”

“Just ask. He’ll go. He’s cool about that stuff.”

“Yeah, yeah. You’re right.” But I couldn’t figure out why I felt so nervous about asking him.

Mean Agnes chased me out of the lobby, or else I would have passed the hour happily with Erin, procrastinating. For some reason, the thought of approaching Will and basically asking him out on a date was making me nauseous. But Mean Agnes cared not for my teenage angst and so I found myself wandering through the grounds of the resort, trudging through the snow from one mountain to another.

With each footstep, my stomach rumbled. I’d never noticed that Will made me this uncomfortable before. I tried to remember whether my stomach flipped when I’d see him in the halls of Willow High, but I didn’t think so. Maybe it was because I’d never really had anything to say to him before, and now, the entirety of my happiness was held in his hands.

I finally found him. He was coaching two upper-middle-class couples how to snowboard on the far hill, the one that was out of the way and had the gentlest slopes of all the mountains. He caught my eye while I was leaning against the fence, and winked at me. My stomach began flopping around like a fish. I waved at him, then turned immediately and walked away. I didn’t want him to think I was waiting for him, even though I
was
waiting for him. I was so caught up in thinking how strange I was behaving that I barely noticed that I was now standing at the base of the sledding peak. Also, I failed to notice the two inner tubes careening around like bumper cars, the people on them steering so that they were ramming into each other. In fact, I didn’t notice them until they were closer to the bottom of the mountain. I wondered if I should get Will so he could tell them to knock it off. That’s when I saw that they were gunning for one of Evie’s little sisters, who was on a tube of her own and looked terrified to be going as fast as she was. Sure enough the little girl was hit from behind by one of the careening tubes, and as I heard the cackle of laughter, I also heard a sound coming from the other inner tube—the sound of my brother making blowup noises.

I stood there fuming, only to become a target in my own right.

Over the whining of the overturned sister, my brother shouted his orders to Tiffany. “Get Jessie! Get Jessie!”

I couldn’t get out of the way fast enough. Brian had set his sights on me and was moving like a bullet. “Yah! Yah!” Tiffany shouted. Soon enough I felt myself go down, cut off at the knees by my brother and his annoying girlfriend.

“Ow!” I shouted, and tried to punch Brian in the back. “You’re such a little—”

“You missed! You missed!” He jumped up, helped Tiffany to her feet, and then ran away with her, each of them laughing and running with their inner tubes for their dear lives.

“I’m going to kill you!” I shouted from where I lay on the ground. I breathed out in complete frustration.

Before I could help myself up, Will Parker was leaning down next to me, pulling me up by my hands. “Hey there, killer, you okay?”

“If Brian ever disappears, you know who to ask about it,” I spat out.

“Kids do that all day long here,” Will said. He was kneeling beside me and had his hands on my arms. “You okay? You get the breath knocked out of you?”

He was looking at me with the most emotion I’d ever seen on his face before. He was usually so cool and collected. I’d never imagined that he’d be good in a crisis.

“Anything broken?” Now he was smiling and poked me in the ribs. I smiled back at him.

“No, I’m okay. Just embarrassed to take a spill in front of everybody.”

“Ah, no one cares,” he said. Then he stood on his feet in a crouch and began to help me to my feet.

I felt light-headed for a minute and was rocking on my feet a bit. Will’s hands moved around to my back, and he held me up for a moment. I felt embarrassed all over again.

“Come on. Let’s get you some ice cream,” he said, and helped me walk across to Snow Cones, his arm around me the whole way.

When we got there, my mother was standing in the doorway waiting. “What happened?”

“Your son is a demon!” I choked out.

“Just some good clean fun, Mrs. Whitman,” Will said. Once we stepped into Snow Cones, I shrugged away from his arm, which was still around me. I felt funny with my mother there, and suddenly realized how silly I was being. I was fine. I could certainly walk. “She hit her head good, though.”

My mother narrowed her eyes at me and pursed her lips. “Okay. You two sit over there.”

Will and I slid into a booth and I took a breath.

“Okay?” he asked me.

“Yeah. He won’t live to see thirteen.”

Will laughed and started fiddling with the salt shaker. “At least my coat broke your fall.”

I smiled, feeling self-conscious. Also, my stomach was feeling unsettled again. “I don’t know why I keep wearing it. I’m sorry.”

I began to take it off, but Will reached across the table and stopped me. “No, you keep it. No worries.”

I zipped it back up and drummed my fingers on the table.

“So, what were you doing there anyway?” he asked, after my mother brought us some ice cream.

“Oh.” In the aftermath of being run over, I’d forgotten all about the double date. Now that I remembered, my stomach started doing somersaults all over again.

“You mind?” He reached for my dish, and after I nodded, took a spoonful of my Chocolate Fiesta. “Spicy.”

“Yeah,” I said, pushing it toward him. “Um, listen. I feel really horrible.”

“Yeah?”

“Um, yeah. Um. I think, well—”

“Dude. Are you proposing? ’Cuz I think we’re too young.” He looked at me seriously at first, then broke into a grin that was nothing short of dazzling.

I bit my lip because I’d never been so mortified in my life. My stomach was doing the rumba and I felt like I could hear the blood pumping in my veins. I took a deep breath, gathered my courage by staring briefly down into my lap, and looked him in the eye. “Okay. Listen. Evie and Jake think we’re, um—”

“Together?”

“Yes.” I held my breath waiting for his reaction but all he did was raise his shoulders.

“’Kay,” he said.

I stared at him. Nothing ever bothered him. “’Kay? That’s it? ’Kay?”

“What do you want me to say?”

I sighed. Now I was getting annoyed. “Nothing. They think we’re, you know, together, and they want to go on a double date with us tomorrow. Just say no, and I’ll get out of it.”

He pointed at me. “I’m saying yes.”

“Really?”

“Yup. We’ll call it a trial run, so I know what to expect out of you at the dance.”

I sat back in the booth’s bench and surveyed him. He was dipping his spoon into each of our dishes and eating his concoctions without looking at me. I had no idea what life would be like if you were somebody like him, somebody who really didn’t care about anything. Just then, he noticed that I was watching him and raised the spoon with the double flavors to me. “You wanna try?”

“I’m good.”

“Come on,” he taunted, pushing the spoon practically to my face.

I relented and took the bite.

“Good, right?”

I shook my head. “Yeah, but I think it’s just my concussion confusing my taste buds.”

“Nah,” he laughed. “Whitman, I’ll never steer you wrong.”

“
I

“What’s wrong with it?” Erin asked, waving the sequined, netted frock in the air. She had brought what she had referred to as the “perfect date outfit.”

“She’ll look like the angel of death, that’s what’s wrong with it,” Abby replied as she stepped into my closet to survey my clothes. “Gosh, you really do have nothing to wear.”

“I know, I know,” I said glumly. Who knew that I could be this discerning about my clothes? But every shirt, skirt, or pair of pants that Abby selected out of my closet seemed boring and unexciting. I mean, I was going out with
Will Parker.
Fake date or no, I couldn’t show up looking like, well, like myself.

“I told you that you have too many flannel shirts,” Erin chimed in from behind us.

“
You
didn’t say that!
I
said that!” Abby argued.

“Geesh. Whoever. She has too much flannel. It’s not good date material.” I
did
have lots of flannel. And lots of denim and boots and other clothes that would look great on construction workers.

“Well, I’m not wearing that black fish-netty thing. If my mother saw me in that I’d be grounded until I was twenty-five.”

Abby touched my arm. “When she’s not looking, let’s grab it and burn it.”

“I can hear you, you know!” Erin responded. Since her clothing offer was turned down, she situated herself on my rocking chair and pulled from her bag the same thick book she’d been reading at the lodge.

“How many pages is that?” I asked.

“A thousand,” she replied proudly.

Abby smiled as we left Erin to her reading and continued to survey the contents of my closet. Abby constantly reminded me that she’d give her right hand, her sewing hand, for a walk-in closet like this. Staring inside it, I felt completely unworthy of both this closet and of this fake date.

Abby blew air out of her mouth and said, “Okay. We’re going to have to raid my house. Erin, you coming with?”

We stepped out of the closet, and Erin looked up at us. She hadn’t been listening.

“Nah, I’ll stay here.”

What was weirder than Erin volunteering to stay at
my
house was the fact that Will Parker was sitting at my kitchen table, talking to my father. At the sight of him, I stopped dead in my tracks, which caused Abby to walk right into me. Will and my father looked up at us like we were a couple of clods.

“There’s my favorite girl,” my father bellowed.

“You okay there, Whitman?” Will asked.

I looked at him. His blond hair gleamed in the darkness of our kitchen. It was shorter than it had been the last time I’d seen him and I had a fleeting thought that he’d cut it just for our date. Then I realized I was staring and wished with all my might that the floor would open and swallow me up.

Abby giggled as she regained her footing. “Hiya, Mr. Whitman.”

Will sat up straighter in his chair. “Your dad and I were just talking about you.”

Abby turned to me with an expectant expression on her face, and I purposely ignored her, suddenly fearing that Will had woken up, realized he was doing me too many favors, and was here to break the news that he was bailing on me. “Everything still okay?” I asked cautiously.

“Of course,” he admonished, shooing my concerns away with his hand. As he looked at me, I could see his smile disappear. “Is that what you’re wearing tonight?”

I looked down at my outfit. Flannel and denim. Again, I prayed silently for the floor to give way so that I could disappear. “No, um, we’re going out now. I’ll be ready in time.”

I mumbled this last part, and I could feel my father looking from Will to me and back to Will again.

“Jessica, Will here was asking if I could fly him up to Grizzly Mountain in a couple of days.”

Abby grabbed an apple from the counter and headed to the table, where she sat next to Will. “What’s Grizzly Mountain?”

Will scoffed at her. “Only the best powder in the whole Northern Hemisphere. Right, Mr. Whitman?”

“He’s right.”

I looked at my dad in surprise. He wasn’t usually in the business of flying kids up to their favorite skiing spots.

“You don’t understand,” Will began, and as he continued to talk he got more and more animated. “There’s gonna be this huge storm there the next couple of days, but when it clears, there’s going to be, like, twelve feet of powder. It’ll be sick. We can’t miss it.”

Abby caught my eye then, and I realized why my dad was willing to do this favor for a friend of mine. He thought he was helping mend my broken heart.

“We can’t?” I squeaked.

“Nope. You and me.” He motioned back and forth between us. “It’ll be the best time ever. So, it’s cool, Mr. Whitman?”

My father walked to where I stood and rustled my hair. I tried to avoid it but he was too fast for me. “Just has to be before Thursday.” Thursdays were the days he flew up to the Arctic Circle on supply runs. Otherwise, my dad had a lot of free time.

“Awesome.” Will stretched until his chair tipped onto its two back legs. “Basically, you and I are going to have the best winter break week ever.”

Abby again looked at me with a mischievous and expectant face.

I could hear the blood rushing to my head again. I was so confused; I didn’t say anything right away. “Um, well, Abby and I gotta go. But you’ll be back in a couple of hours?”

Will smiled at me. “You got it.”

Abby’s closet was entirely different from mine, as I knew it would be. By the time we’d sorted through outfits and picked possible combinations, I was feeling like myself again. My stomach was normal and my pulse wasn’t loud enough for the neighbors to hear. And carrying all the skirts and soft-colored shirts and pretty earrings made me excited. Abby would make me look good, maybe good enough to get Jake to look at me once in a while. And good enough that Will wouldn’t crack jokes about me to Sabrina and Cam and Jay after our date.

When the two of us finally fell into my front foyer an hour after we’d left, laden down with bundles of borrowed items, the house was quiet and only one or two lights were on. “Hello?” I called out in the darkness.

Nobody answered, but after a moment, I could hear the screams and thuds of my brother, which meant he was in the throes of some major video-game-playing action. Throwing down the piles of clothes onto the table by the stairs, Abby and I wandered into the back room, where the television was.

In the room were Brian, his little friend Tiffany, who was in denim overalls and a pink frilly shirt, Erin, and Will, whose shoes were kicked off. All four of them were fully focused on the television.

“Hey, guys.” Erin tore her gaze away, but only very briefly. She was seated on the couch next to Will. “Successful mission?”

Abby plopped herself down on my father’s overstuffed lounge chair. “Mission accomplished.”

“What’s going on?” I finally asked suspiciously.

Will was half standing and half sitting on our couch, his body contorting in mimicry of the bending and twirling motions his on-screen flying fighting contraption was making. “Huh? What? Oh, hey, Whitman,” he said. “Take that, you little thug!” he shouted at Brian. Tiffany squealed in support of my brother.

“Just some high-octane competition,” Erin responded.

My brother didn’t seem to be offended by Will’s attack. In fact, he was screaming and jumping up and down halfway between the couch and the television. He and Will were operating two flying machines that were engaged in heated nose-to-nose combat, while Tiffany tried to coach Brian on how to maneuver.

“Hey! How do you do that flippie thing?” Will asked Brian while I stood there, trying to figure out why I was so irritated at this scene.

“Press this button,” Brian said. He didn’t even stop jumping. He just leaned over and pressed the proper button on Will’s controller.

Will shouted, “Aha! You’re dead!”

Erin cheered and high-fived him.

“Will!”

That broke the spell. He turned to me while Brian yelled, “Jessie, we’re playing a game. Go away!”

Will said at practically the same time, “Oh, yeah, hey. Just come down when you’re ready and we’ll go.”

I opened my mouth to respond but no words came out. I was so shocked by the sight of Will in my living room, and Erin playing video games, and Brian with a friend over who was a girl, I couldn’t process it all. So I did what Will suggested. I turned on my heel and stomped up the two sets of stairs to my room. I was trailing clothes behind me, and Abby had to keep stopping to pick them up.

“Jessie! What’s wrong with you?” she asked, throwing the piles of clothes onto the bed.

I began sorting through them all, organizing the clothes into proper piles: shirts, skirts, pullovers.

“Jess?” Abby asked again.

“Nothing’s wrong.” I sat on my bed. The truth was that something was niggling at me but I wasn’t sure what.

Abby pulled a pale pink button-down shirt and a brown tulip skirt from the piles. “I think you should go with these. This shirt will bring out your eyes.”

I looked at the outfit and nodded. “Okay.”

“Okay,” Abby agreed. When I didn’t make a move to get up, she tilted her head. “So?”

“So nothing.” I stood and took the clothes from her. “Would you tell me if Erin liked Will?”

My question shocked Abby. It shocked me! She shook her head in confusion. “Is that what this is about? You’re worried about Erin and Will? I thought you wanted them to go out.”

I could feel my face reddening. “I do. I mean, I thought I did.”

Abby smiled a small, suspicious smile. “Hmmm.”

I sat back down on the bed and propped myself up on my elbows. “Stop. I’m just nervous about tonight is all. I’m nervous that he’s not going to take it seriously.”

Abby sat next to me. “Of course he’s going to take it seriously. Didn’t you see how dressed up he was?”

I sat up again. “He was?”

“Don’t you notice anything?”

“I’m juggling a real ex-boyfriend with a fake new boyfriend! These kinds of machinations can distract a girl!”

Abby sighed. “I think he looks really nice. He has on new pants. And I’ve never seen that long-sleeved shirt before. And I’m pretty sure he washed his hair.”

“How could you possibly tell that?”

She shrugged. “I know these things. And, I mean, that whole Grizzly Mountain thing? That’s a second date he’s planning.”

My stomach did that flippy thing again. “You think?”

“What else could it be?”

A second date. That couldn’t be right. I took the outfit from Abby and walked into my closet to change, thinking about Grizzly Mountain the entire time. It was kind of a weird thing to plan for just me. Right? My stomach launched into its flipping sequence just thinking about being in a tiny airplane with only Will and my father.

It wasn’t until I was watching Abby style my hair in the mirror that I remembered the whole point of the night: Jake.