Текст книги "Icing on the Lake"

Автор книги: Catherine Clark

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Текущая страница: 7 (всего у книги 12 страниц)

Chapter 11

“Sean called while you were gone,” Gretchen announced when I got home from lunch, and hanging out shopping with Emma and Jones. It was about five o’clock and they’d already left to go back home. “I told him you’d be home tonight, so he’s coming over around six.”

“He is?” I asked. The house seemed strangely empty without Brett around; he’d gone to his father’s for the weekend.

“Yes. Why do you sound so surprised?” Gretchen asked.

“Because…I don’t know,” I said. I wondered if it would be possible for me to hide in my room when he came over. Probably not. What if I ran to the bathroom and pretended to be violently ill?

I just couldn’t stand the thought of talking to him, after seeing him with that girl, in the warming—very warming—hut.

I’d completely made a move on him Friday night when we went sledding. Now it was Saturday night and I had no idea where we stood.

Did he want to be with me?

Or was he coming over to tell me he already had a girlfriend?

Maybe I wouldn’t have to fake being sick. I was getting nauseous just thinking about seeing him.

When I finally focused on Gretchen again, she was staring at me. “Are you okay? You look pale.”

“I’m fine,” I said. “Tired, that’s all.”

“Come on. Let me freshen your look before he gets here.” She took my arm and started to pull me toward the bathroom, where she kept a tower of beauty products. She was using one crutch to balance herself as she walked.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

“You look tired. I don’t know what’s going on with you guys, but you seem stressed about it. The last thing you want to do is actually let him know you’re upset.”

“I’m not upset,” I said.

“What are you, then?” she asked.

I didn’t want to tell her, but I had to tell someone. She knew Sean; maybe she could tell me something that made me feel better. Or maybe she knew something and wasn’t telling. Either way, I had to let her know what was bothering me.

“Confused,” I said.

She grabbed a compact of foundation powder and then some blush and gave me a mini-makeover while we talked. “Don’t make me look too made up,” I said.

“I won’t,” she said. “Don’t worry. Now spill.”

“I don’t know,” I said. “It’s not that big a deal, I guess.” I told her about the girl I’d seen with Sean, how she was all over him and how he could easily have been all over her, except that I closed the door and stopped looking.

“Oh, I wouldn’t worry,” Gretchen said as she leaned over to select a lipstick color for me. “That doesn’t sound like much.”

“It doesn’t?” I said. “What if he’s already seeing someone?”

“Well…are you seeing him? Technically?”

“Technically? I don’t know about that,” I said. “No. I guess not. I mean, we haven’t known each other that long. But I felt like…” I didn’t want to tell her about the kiss. “Like we were sort of moving that way.”

“So maybe you still are,” Gretchen said cheerfully. “That girl might be nothing to him. You could have interpreted the situation all wrong.”

How many ways were there to interpret someone crawling on someone else’s lap?

“Come on, Kirsten. Cheer up. Don’t be so negative. Whatever happened, you two will work it out.”

Why had I confided in her, anyway? Now she’d be giving me advice, and coordinating makeovers, on a daily basis.

“You know, you can really sound like Mom sometimes,” I told her.

“I do not! God, don’t ever say that again.”

“Why not? You said the same thing she always used to say to me when I got in fights with Tyler, or with my friends. You’ll work it out. Did we ever work it out? No. It didn’t work out then, and it’s not going to work out now—”

“I do not sound like Mom!”

“Fine. You don’t sound like Mom.”

“And you are being sickeningly pessimistic,” she said. “How do you know what’s going on with Sean and that bimbo? You don’t.”

“Bimbo?” I giggled.

“Whatever. Just ask him. Give him a chance to explain.”

Right. Just ask him. She made it sound so easy.

I thought about what I wanted to say to Sean about what I’d seen, or whether I’d say anything. For example, I could say: How could you do that to me, you pig? But he hadn’t really done anything, except let some other girl play Florence Nightingale, instead of me. Still, I didn’t like it.

The doorbell rang about half an hour later, as Gretchen and I were watching TV. I wished her leg wasn’t broken so that she could get the door. But no, it had to be me.

I took a deep breath and walked over to the door.

Everything I wanted to say, or even thought about uttering, vanished completely when I saw Sean, when he smiled at me as I opened the door.

His right eye was half purple, half black and entirely puffy. He looked terrible—well, as terrible as someone as good-looking as Sean could look.

“Hey!” he said. “Where’d you go after the game? I looked for you but—”

“Oh my gosh—your eye. Does it hurt? Did you get stitches?” I asked.

“No, it’s not that bad,” he said. “I mean, it’s not pretty. I’ll give you that.”

“But do you want to be pretty?” I asked. “Anyway, this will make everyone scared of you. They won’t mess with you because they know you’ll fight.”

“Actually, this was kinda weak as far as hockey fights go. A lot of the guys have some kind of cut or missing tooth—this is nothing.” Sean shrugged.

“Nothing, huh?” I stepped a little closer to him, wanting so much to kiss his cut and make it all better—or make me all better, anyway. But no. That couldn’t happen until I found out what was really going on.

“So where did you go?” Sean asked. “One minute you were there, with your friends at the game, and then like—you were gone.”

“Well, after the fight broke out…” Let’s see, what should I tell him. I had to escape because I saw you with someone else? And then your brother started acting strange, so…that was pretty much a full day?

“My friends and I went to lunch,” I explained instead. “They were kind of in a hurry, so we didn’t get a chance to talk to you.”

“You should have called me,” he said. “I could have met you guys for lunch.”

He had a point. “I would have, but…” I was afraid you’d be out with what’s-her-name hockey nurse. “We had some private stuff to talk about. Girl stuff.” Normally I hate that expression, but in this case I thought it would make the topic just go away, which it did.

Sean leaned closer to me and asked softly, “Look, do you want to go somewhere?”

Yes…and no, I thought. I so much wanted to be close to him like this…but not if I wasn’t the only one who got to be. “I don’t know,” I said.

“Just for a walk.” Sean gestured to Gretchen on the sofa, watching TV. “Just for a couple minutes, so we can talk.”

I nodded. “That sounds like a good idea.” I grabbed my jacket from the closet by the door, and turned to Gretchen with a wave. “Be back soon!”

She smiled and gave me a thumbs-up sign. I really, really hoped Sean hadn’t been able to see that.

He put his arm around my waist as we walked down the sidewalk. I could just picture us walking past his house, and Conor pelting us with snowballs.

“So. Is, um, Conor working tonight?” I asked, just to make conversation. I wasn’t ready to ask the Big Question yet. Why would he have his arm around me if he wasn’t into me, though?

“Probably. He’s always working somewhere,” Sean said.

“I noticed.”

“Ever since he got cut from hockey, it’s like all he does is work,” Sean added.

“He got cut? Really? I thought he was so good.”

“He is. But, you know. Dan is better. Trey is better. We only need two goalies.”

I thought about how much that would suck, not making the team your younger brother was the star of. I knew Conor and Sean were competitive with each other. “So he plays club hockey instead?”

“Like today? Yeah.” Sean nodded and gave me a little squeeze, pulling me closer. “That was some fight, huh?”

“Yeah. Does that happen a lot?” I asked.

“No. Not usually,” Sean said. “Conor kept getting in my face. I was sick of it.”

Conor kept getting in his face? Really? I didn’t see how it would be up to Conor, considering he had to stay in the goal most of the game.

I remembered one of Jones’s cardinal rules: Whenever you need to have an awkward conversation with a guy, have it outside. That way you won’t have a bad association with a particular place. I waited until we turned off Minnehaha Parkway, onto a smaller street, figuring I wouldn’t have to come back onto this block again.

We’d been walking in silence for a few minutes when I stopped and gently pulled myself out of Sean’s arm. “Do you have a girlfriend?”

“What?” He laughed. “A girlfriend?”

“Do you?” I repeated.

“No.” He shook his head. “What made you think that? Haven’t you and I been sort of, like, spending time together?”

“Yeah, that’s what I thought. But the thing is…I saw you,” I said. “After the game, the fight. I came to find you, inside? And that girl had her arms around your waist and—”

“No way. We were goofing around, that’s all. It didn’t mean anything.”

“Well, stuff usually means something. That’s the thing.”

“Huh?”

“I know, that sounds vague, but it’s true. Whenever you see someone kind of checking out someone else? It means they’re interested. Period.”

“Well, she might be interested, but I’m not,” Sean said.

I didn’t say anything. I wasn’t convinced.

“She came in to find me. She’s like—she comes to every game, she follows me around,” Sean explained.

“So what are you saying? She’s a groupie?”

“A what?”

“A groupie,” I repeated. Sean didn’t seem to know the term, though.

“She said she wanted to clean up the cut. I was wishing you’d come in and rescue me from her.”

“Really?”

“Really,” he said.

“Honestly.”

“Yes.” He held up his hand, as if he were getting sworn in. “The truth and nothing but the truth.”

“She was pretty, though,” I mused out loud.

“So what? You’re prettier,” Sean said. He put his arms around my waist and pulled me close, hugging me. “You know, I had a really good time the other night. Sledding. I wish you hadn’t left, just when things were getting good.”

Did he mean the kiss? Or the toboggan rides? Because when I left, he was hanging out with his friends, not me.

But how could I hold that against him? I was the one who’d answered my cell phone while we were kissing. If anyone had been rude, it was me.

“Me, too,” I said. “I’m sorry I took off. But Emma and Jones showed up, and I had to meet them.”

“It’s okay. I understand.”

“You do?”

“Yeah.”

“But…do you understand why it looked kind of bad, when I saw you with…what was her name?” I asked.

“Melissa. She…really, she’s not my girlfriend.”

I looked into his eyes. He seemed completely honest. Not to mention completely hot.

Sean pulled away and looked at me. “Hey, I’ve been thinking.”

“What?” I was filled with anticipation.

“You want to go to Buck Hill after all?” he said.

That wasn’t exactly the sweet romantic thing I’d been waiting for him to say, but it wasn’t bad.

“Sure! Anytime,” I said. But I got this picture of me with my skis crossed, butt up, face down, in the snow. Then, the next day, Gretchen and I sitting on the sofa, side by side, staring out the picture window, waiting for something interesting to happen, for someone to fall on their way past. Spring would come and we’d still be there, immobilized, and both on diets…

“There’s this charity event on Presidents’ Day,” Sean continued. “Tons of high schools participate. It’s a mattress race.”

I coughed. “Excuse me?”

“Teams wear costumes and have themes and stuff. You slide down on a mattress, or on cardboard boxes, or on whatever you’ve made. We’ve all collected pledges at school. They give out awards for best costume, most money raised, all that.”

“Isn’t your mattress…full already?” I asked, picturing Sean’s group of friends all piled on top of it.

“We need a girl,” he said.

I bet, I thought.

“Our theme is Snow White and the Seven Hockey Players.”

I couldn’t even begin to think about how dumb that sounded. But then, a mattress race already sounded pretty stupid, on its own. “You’re kidding.”

“No.” He laughed. “But Snow White dropped out. She was dating Ian, but they broke up, so we’re, like…well, we’re sort of screwed. Please say yes.”

“Doesn’t some other girl at school want to do it?” I asked.

“Maybe. But who cares? I want you to do it,” he said. “And hey, if it sucks, we could just do this.” He kissed me, pulling me toward him. Then suddenly he was pushing my hair back behind my ear and saying, “Okay, got to go. Call me tomorrow—we’ll hang out.”

I was in kind of a daze as I watched him jog down the street toward his house.

As I walked into the house, I thought: I should have invited him to the cabin just then. I’d missed a totally perfect opportunity. What was my problem?

I was so happy that I didn’t even mind being sent to buy groceries by Gretchen as soon as I got home and told her everything was okay. She was smart enough not to say “I told you so,” which helped.

I didn’t see Conor when I walked into Zublansky’s, so I figured he wasn’t there. I grabbed a basket and walked around quickly to collect the stuff we needed for dinner. As I stepped up to Lane 8 to check out, suddenly Conor appeared.

“I’ve got it,” he volunteered, walking over to the line where I was standing. “Paper or plastic?” he asked me.

“Plastic,” I said.

“How’s it going?” He tried to sound casual, but his voice sounded a little forced to me. He could have avoided this—and me, I thought. Considering the way we’d left things earlier in the day, that’s what I would have done. So why was he jumping over to my line to help me?

I noticed he had a bruise near his eye, like Sean. “Ouch. Your face doesn’t look too good either,” I said.

“Excuse me?”

“No! I mean, your face is fine, your face is great. Just a little beat up.”

“It’s nothing. It doesn’t hurt. Superficial scrape is all. What’s for dinner tonight?” Conor asked as he started to pack the groceries.

“Chicken.”

“Yeah. I kind of figured.” He dropped the package of chicken into a plastic bag and it landed with a loud thump.

“Easy. Don’t break the chicken,” I said.

“I think it’s been broken already,” he said dryly. “So, just chicken. Baked? Fried?”

“Chicken with onions, mushrooms, peppers and tomatoes,” I said.

“No kidding,” he commented as he bagged each item in the same order I listed it. He stopped when he got to the tomatoes, and shook the plastic bag so that three of them rolled out. He started to juggle them, saying “I’m all about the tomatoes.”

The cashier and I looked at him, and then at each other, and exchanged irritated, he-is-so-annoying-and-we-have-no-patience-for-this glances.

When he dropped one tomato, he swore, then quickly let the other two fall right into a waiting plastic bag. “So, Italian night or what?” he asked.

“I don’t know what we’re having, actually. It’s Gretchen’s list, but I’m guessing it’s some kind of Italian dish. If you must know.”

“Oh, I had to know. I’m very nosy when it comes to my customers’ meal planning.”

“You are?” I laughed.

“No, not usually. People buy stuff that you don’t even want to think about putting together for a meal.”

“Like what?” I asked.

“Like…prunes and ground beef,” he said. “Lots and lots of both.” He made a face.

“Conor,” the cashier, an older woman, said in a weary, warning tone. “More bagging, less commentizing.”

“Commentizing?” Conor dropped a loaf of Italian bread and a package of thin spaghetti into a new plastic bag. “Mary, you are making up new words every day.”

“I have to do something to amuse myself,” she said. “You sure don’t help.”

“Help? Did you say help?” Conor cleared his throat. “Yes? Okay. I’d be glad to help you, Miss,” he said in a loud voice.

“Miss?” I repeated as I followed him out the automatic doors, past a bunch of giveaway newspapers in wire displays and a collection of carts and baskets. “Since when am I a Miss?”

“What do you want to be? Ma’am?” He quickly wheeled the metal cart toward the door.

“How about just…how about you let me carry my own bags?” I said.

“We have a rule here. Two bags’ worth, and you get me,” he said.

“Remind me to shop lightly next time, then,” I said. “Anyway, what’s in that bag? One thing?”

Conor laughed and strode out the automated exit doors ahead of me. “I wanted some air, okay? It gets boring in there.” He turned to the left as we headed across the parking lot, just as I turned right.

The cart smashed into my shin, then its wheels rolled right over my foot. “Hey! Watch it!” I cried. I jumped back out of the way, and Conor stopped in the middle of the lane to apologize.

“Look out!” I said, pushing Conor as a car came toward him, and he grabbed the cart to catch his balance.

The car veered around Conor—and instead sprayed me with slush as it went past.

“You are a seriously dangerous person. You know that?” Conor commented as he wheeled his way out of the driving lane.

“Hey. I’m the one who just got her foot run over. Not to mention drenched.” I looked at the bottom of my jeans, which were now soaked with water and slush.

“Like it hurt. There’s nothing in this basket,” Conor said as we started to move toward the minivan again.

“Then why are you carrying it out for me?” I asked.

“I told you! I wanted some air. Do you know how boring it gets, arranging things in geometric shapes in bags?” he asked.

I laughed. “Well, enjoy the fresh air. By all means.” I lifted the back of the minivan and he put the grocery bags inside, even though I could have done it myself with no problem. I hoped he wasn’t expecting a tip.

“Well, thanks,” I said, closing the hatch.

“No problem. Sorry about your foot,” Conor said.

It was hard to take him seriously when he was standing there in an apron. “You should take some time off or something,” I said. “You work too much.”

“Oh, yeah? This, coming from someone whose idea of work is collecting text messages?” he scoffed.

How could one person be so nice, and so rude, at the same time? “Okay, well, bye,” I said. “Have a great night.”

Well, at least I didn’t have to worry about what had happened that morning. Things with Sean were fixed, and fine. Things with Conor were back to normal: in other words, strange.

Chapter 12

“Excuse me,” I said as I climbed into the small, red pickup truck. “But what are you doing here?”

Shouldn’t you be at work? I wanted to say. A double latte goes unmade right now because of you.

“Ask him.” Conor didn’t look thrilled as I scooted over across the bench seat to sit next to him. Sean climbed in after me and slammed the door closed.

“Don’t slam it,” Conor said, aggravated. He looked like he needed a few more cups of coffee or something. I remembered Paula saying that he wasn’t a morning person.

“I didn’t slam it,” Sean protested. “I closed it.”

I sat there between the two of them: Conor was behind the wheel, my left leg was jammed against the shift-stick, and Sean was as close as he could be to my right leg. The mattress for the charity event was tied to the roof, on the truck topper.

“He insisted on driving when Ian couldn’t get the car like he thought,” Sean explained.

“I didn’t want to drive,” Conor said. “You made me.”

“No, you just didn’t want me to drive your truck,” Sean replied.

“Exactly.”

“So. Nice weather today,” I said, trying to interrupt before they turned this into a full-scale, all-day argument. “Sunny, not too cold…”

“Believe me, there are things I’d rather be doing,” Conor mumbled.

“No doubt,” Sean said. “Like harassing someone else?”

We pulled out of the neighborhood and started heading down Interstate Highway 35. If we took this highway north, we’d end up back at my hometown. Which maybe wasn’t such a bad idea, with things going so strangely this morning. But we were going south.

I was completely confused by the Benson Boys.

First, one of them basically starts dating me and we kiss. But then I see him with another girl. He says it’s nothing, but I’m worried. And we kiss some more.

Second, the other one acts like he thinks I’m stupid. Then all of a sudden he starts following me everywhere. Then he almost sort of kisses me.

And now here I was, smushed between the two of them, with a mattress bouncing on the rooftop, being buffeted by the wind as we reached sixty miles an hour.

Conor accidentally put his hand on my leg as he reached to push the stick shift into overdrive. “Oh, sorry,” he said, turning to me with a bashful smile.

“Sorry,” Sean muttered. “You’re not sorry. Well, you are, but not that way.” Then he snuggled closer to me, and put his hand on my other leg.

I wondered how far away this Buck Hill place was, and whether we’d all survive the journey intact.

When we reached the ski area, we had to park at the outskirts of the lot because we were a little on the late side. Conor and Sean hoisted the mattress off the truck and carried it on their heads over to the staging area, near the rope tow.

A local radio station was sponsoring the event, along with several other businesses. They had tables set up and were selling T-shirts to raise money. Music was blasting from speakers on top of a black van. There must have been a few hundred kids milling around, some in costumes and some as spectators, and lots of parents, too.

When we went up to the table to register, I wandered up and down the line, checking out the other organizations there.

“Are you going to sign up for the loppet?” Conor asked as he and Sean came up behind me.

“No. What’s a loppet?” I said.

“A ski race,” Conor said. “It’s Norwegian. This one’s in Mora and it’s called the Vasaloppet—it’s 30K.”

“Oh. Well, then I don’t think so,” I said. “I’ve never really done much cross-country skiing before. I tried telemarketing once—”

“Telemarketing?” Conor burst out laughing. “Did you say ‘telemarketing’?”

“What,” I said.

“I think you mean telemarking,” he said.

I grinned. “Oh yeah. That sounds better.”

And everyone at the table started laughing at me, and both Sean and Conor were laughing, too. The one time they agreed on something, and it had to come at my expense.

“Yeah, that’s the worst kind of skiing,” Conor said. “You have to hold the phone to your ear while you’re going downhill. There’s the do-not-call list, and then there’s the do-not-fall list,” Conor added.

“Very funny,” I said. But I couldn’t stop myself from smiling, because it actually was.

“I’m going to go find the guys—we’re meeting over by the locker room. I’ll be right back with your costume,” Sean said. “Ian’s bringing it.”

After he jogged off, Conor and I stood there for a minute, looking around at all the other contestants—if that’s what you would call them. “Don’t you need to find your team?” I asked him.

“Oh, no. I’m not doing this,” he said.

“Why not?”

“Are you serious? I’m just here to laugh at everyone else.”

“Why? Is there going to be a lot to laugh about?” I asked.

“Yeah. I think so,” Conor said. “For example? Here come the seven idiots.”

Sean and his friends were walking toward us. Their costumes were simple, no-brainers: They wore hockey team jerseys, over jeans. Some of them wore ball caps. A few of them carried hockey sticks.

“Hey,” a few of them greeted Conor, and me. As they all gathered around me, all I can say is that one or more of their shirts definitely hadn’t been washed since the last game. Which I guess made it an authentic costume.

“Which one’s Dopey? That you?” Conor asked Sean.

“Ha ha,” Sean muttered. “Look, Conor, you’ve got to help us out.”

“Wait a second. I only count six hockey players,” I said.

“Exactly. That’s why you’ve gotta do it with us, Conor,” Sean said. He held out a jersey. “Tommy’s sick. You have to fill in for him.”

Conor stared at the jersey. “You want me to wear the sick guy’s jersey?”

“It’s not Tommy’s, it’s one of mine,” Ian said. “I brought an extra after he called to say he couldn’t make it.”

“Go change,” Sean said.

“Wait. Who said I was doing this?” Conor said as he caught the jersey Ian tossed to him.

Then Sean held out a sparkling tiara to me. “Here’s your crown.”

“Snow White wore a crown? Really?” I asked. I put it on top of my head and mashed it down so that it would stay there. “Okay, that was easy. I’m ready!”

“And…here’s your outfit.” Ian handed me a black garment bag.

“Oh.” I peeked at the dress inside. I nearly dropped it. The costume looked like it might fit someone half my height. I held it up against me. “You cannot be serious. This is going to be way too short on me!”

“Hey, maybe we’ll score more points with the judges.” Sean winked at me, and his friends laughed.

I don’t want to score more points with the judges, I thought. I really only want to score points with you.

Therefore, I’d wear the outfit.

“Be right back,” I told the guys. Unless of course I ditched this entire event and ran for the hills. There were lots of hills around. It wouldn’t be hard.

“You have to be kidding me. This whole thing makes no sense,” I muttered as I changed into the outfit in the women’s locker room. Fortunately there were a few private changing rooms so I didn’t have to try it on in front of everyone. “Since when did Snow White hang out with hockey players?”

This must be what’s known as “taking one for the team,” I thought as I examined the skimpy cocktail-waitress-type outfit. It must have been from some sexy costume shop. Or sex shop, rather.

There was a short black skirt—a mini—and a white blouse that cinched right below the bust line. I was a Vegas act waiting to happen. I slipped my pink, furry boots back on, to keep my legs warm. Then I put on some deep red lipstick I’d borrowed from Gretchen for the part, and fixed my hair with the tiara. Wasn’t Snow White a brunette? And I was pretty sure she didn’t parade her cleavage around town. But oh well. This was for Sean.

I put on my jacket and stepped slowly out of the locker room. A couple of girls gave me critical glances, and I winced. Why am I doing this? I wondered. No wonder that other girl dropped out. She probably saw the costume, then changed her mind.

When I finally met up with Sean, he was waiting anxiously for me. “Come on, they’re all waiting at the top. Our start time is in fifteen minutes,” he said.

He didn’t even bat an eyelash at the fact I was all legs. Did this not faze him? Or was I not impressive as a leggy fairy tale heroine?

On our way up the ski lift (and I don’t even want to think of the view from below), a team went by on its way down in a cardboard ship that said, “Pirates of Lake Minnetonka.” A guy who looked a lot like Captain Jack Sparrow was at the helm, while ghosts—some real, some made of sheets—bobbed behind him.

Couldn’t I have been on that mattress ship? I’d kill to be a ghost right now, I thought. No pun intended.

We got to the top of the hill, and I saw the mattress and its pseudo-platform that I was supposed to lie on. It looked like an old desk with a few sleeping bags piled on top of it. Whatever these guys ended up doing with the rest of their lives, you can bet it wouldn’t be construction or design. One of them handed me a clump of plastic flowers to hold.

When the M.C. introduced our group, the guys raised their hands over their heads, like victorious boxers, and everyone cheered.

“You have to take off your coat,” Sean told me as he bowed to the crowd.

“I think she should keep it on,” Conor argued.

“I’m with you,” I said to Conor. I wasn’t about to do any bowing, needless to say.

“Come on, Kirst. Let ’em see the costume, or it won’t count,” Sean urged.

“Okay, fine.” I kept my jacket on until the last second. Then I flung it over to the side, and stood there awkwardly grinning and waving at the crowd. Meanwhile, the rest of the team was standing there sort of gaping at me.

We all gathered on the mattress, me lying on the platform and the guys standing around me, sort of in surfing stances.

“Whose bright idea was it to put non-stick Pam on the bottom of the mattress again?” someone asked Sean as we began hurtling down the slick snow.

“Come on, this is fun!” Sean cried.

Needless to say, we lasted about halfway down the steep hill. Guys tumbled off, or dropped to their knees to stay on. We were setting some kind of land speed mattress record, that was for sure.

At the bottom, we crashed into the hay bales and everyone tumbled on top of me, especially Sean. It was almost just like when we rolled off the toboggan, except this time I had less clothes on. Funny things happened when we went down slopes together.

Conor was one of the first people to get up. He leaned down to help pull me to my feet. “Come on, get up, your fans await.”

A huge cheer went up from the crowd gathered to watch, as we untangled ourselves, all stood up, and stepped off the mattress.

“Skirt,” Conor said out of the corner of his mouth.

I reached back and realized that my skirt had flipped up in the back. I pulled it back into place and muttered, “Thanks.”

Then the guys surrounded me, and we all posed for pictures. I didn’t think we’d win any prizes for that performance, but at least we’d raised money for charity. Gretchen had kicked in fifty dollars when I told her about the event.

“Do you want to go get a hot chocolate or something?” I asked Sean as we moved out of the way, so the next team could come down the hill. And some clothes? For me? Please?

“Sure. But I want to go down the hill a few more times—maybe jump on someone else’s ride,” Sean said. “Don’t you?”

“Not without changing first,” I said. “Are you crazy?”

“Crazy about that costume,” Sean said. “Can I call you ‘Snow’ from now on?”

“I’m contemplating suing you,” I said through clenched teeth as we posed for yet another photograph. “These photos. You’re going to confiscate them, right?”

“Oh. Right. Sure.” From Sean’s reaction, I wasn’t sure if he knew what “confiscate” meant.

“Okay, now I really must go.” I tried to give him a kiss on the cheek, but he turned away to talk to some pals just as I was leaning toward him, and I ended up kissing the air instead.

I walked as inconspicuously as I could away from the stage area, making sure I didn’t take any long strides that might make my costume ride up—again.

Conor was waiting off to the side with my jacket, which he must have carried down from the top. “Thanks,” I said.

“Hold on.” Then he thought better of it, and took off his jacket to give me, because it was longer and would cover more of me.

“Thanks, but I’ll just go change,” I said. “I’m ready to turn into a different fairy-tale character.”