Picture Perfect #5 (12 page)

“Oh, Mari, I'm so sorry,” Gracie said. She reached down to take Mari's hand and pull her up out of the clothes. “I can't believe I left it out again.”

“You've left it out pretty much the whole time we've been here,” Mari grumbled.

“I know. You're right. I'm sorry,” Gracie said. “You kind of looked like Jimmy, though, lying there with your head covered by my underwear.”

Mari looked surprised. Then she laughed. “I did not have anything on my head.”

Gracie laughed too. “Are you sure?”

Mari swiped at her hair, making sure there was nothing there. But there was a smile on her face.

“Let me put everything away.” Gracie knelt and began refolding her clothes and packing them back in the suitcase for the millionth time. “You're right, Mari, I have been rude.”

“No, I shouldn't have said that—”

“Yes, you should. I just yelled at your brothers. All three of them!” Gracie said, embarrassed. “I'm a guest in their cabin, and I yelled at them. I mean, who does that? A rude girl.”

“No.” Mari shook her head. “You know who does that? A girl with no brothers.” She knelt down next to Gracie and helped fold. “You're not used to having annoying boys around.”

“It's more than that. They aren't really that annoying,” Gracie said. “Except Jimmy.”

“Well, he just wants you to pay attention to him because he likes you,” Mari told her.

“What?” Gracie asked. “What do you mean, he likes me?”

“You're a girl, you're pretty, you talk to him . . . so he has a crush on you.” Mari shrugged. “He's six. It's not that complicated.”

“Huh.” Gracie sat back on her heels, thinking about it. “That would never have occurred to me.”

“Again, you have no brothers. And you're not used to little kids,” Mari pointed out. “They don't mean to be annoying. They just don't know any better.”

“Oh, no, and I've been so mean to him,” Gracie groaned. “The poor little guy!”

“He'll get over it.” Mari laughed. “He probably already has.”

“It's not that your brothers are a pain in the neck, though. It's that you don't seem to be bothered by them,” Gracie said. “You seem to think they're funny, and normal, and not annoying. You'd rather hang out with them than with me.”

“Nuh-uh,” Mari replied. “I'd rather hang with you. But my whole family is here, and I can't just ignore them. Believe me, I think my brothers are a huge pain in the neck.”

“Then why do you keep going off to play with them?” Gracie asked. “I've been trying to tell you something all weekend, and you haven't paid attention at all.”

Mari frowned. “You mean your private conversation thing?”

“Yeah,” Gracie said.

“Well . . . you said to never mind, that you didn't want to talk about it with everyone in the house,” Mari reminded her.

“I know. I thought you would maybe try to find some time alone for us to talk,” Gracie said. “I've been dying to tell you this since last week.”

“Then let's go for a walk. It's not sleeting anymore.” Mari pointed to the window over their bed. “I'm willing
to walk through some slush if you are.”

“For some best-friend time? Definitely.” Gracie grabbed her warmest socks from the suitcase, then hesitated. “I haven't been a good guest, Mar. I'm really sorry.”

“It's okay. We probably should have realized that it would be overwhelming for you. Your family is so small, and us O'Hagans are used to being a crowd. I didn't even think about how nuts it must seem to you.”

“But I shouldn't have expected you to change the way you act just because I'm here. I should have tried to go with the flow more,” Gracie said. “I'm not so good at that.”

“You'll be better at it after this weekend!” Mari pulled her duffel out from under the bunk bed and began rooting around for socks and sweatpants. She shot Gracie a smile. “See? If I listened to you, I'd be dressed and ready to run out the door right now. Instead I'm still in pajamas.”

“So I'll try to relax more, and you try to follow the rules more,” Gracie suggested. “Deal?”

Mari stood up and threw her arms around Gracie. “Deal.”

Gracie hugged her back, so relieved that their fight was over.

“Let me get dressed and we'll go have some best-friends hang time,” Mari said. “I can't wait!”

“So the plan is to act really casual, like you're not even surprised that he knows your name,” Mari said, jumping over a slush puddle on their way back to the cabin.

“Right, like we're friends. He knows my name and I know his,” Gracie agreed, although she wasn't sure she could really pretend to be casual about Alex Parker. She got too nervous around him. She'd avoided him ever since the day he had said good-bye to her, just because she didn't know what to do. She didn't want to get all awkward and ruin everything, but when she was nervous, the awkwardness always happened.

“You can do it,” Mari said, as if she'd read Gracie's mind. “Think about it—you don't even have to make believe. You two
are
kind of friends. He does know your name, and you do know his.”

Gracie held out her hand and saw tiny snowflakes landing on her mitten. She smiled. “You know, you're right. All of that is true. I just have to act normal.”

“Because it
is
normal,” Mari said. “You guys are in band together, and you know each other, and sometimes you talk to each other. He doesn't need to know you have a crush on him.”

Gracie bit her lip, trying to imagine having an actual conversation with Alex Parker. “I don't know if I'm ready for us to talk to each other.”

“Okay, then here's the new plan,” Mari said. “On the first day back, you say hello to him. And that's all you have to do.”

“Just say hi?”

“Say ‘Hi, Alex.'”

The snow was falling harder now, so Gracie held up her hand to shield her eyes. “I can do that. I can say hello.”

“Good. It's a plan!” Mari stuck out her tongue to let the snowflakes land on it.

“I knew you'd help,” Gracie said quietly. “You always know what to do—you never get scared or awkward. You're so much braver than me.”

“Nah,” Mari replied. “I just don't think about things before I do them. If I planned anything out, I'd probably be scared of talking to a boy I like too. Instead I just plow ahead, that's what my mom says.”

“Well, it's brave,” Gracie insisted.

“It's also why I'm always forgetting my band folder,” Mari told her. “Because I'm plowing ahead without thinking about what I might be missing. Or leaving behind. Or forgetting to pack.”

Gracie grinned. “That's why I'm here to remind you.” She expected Mari to smile back, or give her a high five. But instead Mari frowned.

“Hey, Gracie? I'm really sorry about making us miss dinner with Juliana,” she said softly. “That was one of those times I should've thought things through better. I know it made you really upset, and I felt bad about standing her up too.”

“I know you did,” Gracie said. “Next time you'll think it through before you make a plan, and I'll double-check it for you. Like we usually do. I mean, our last plan ended up getting my mom to let me come on this trip.”

“Yeah, we're a pretty good team when we're not busy fighting,” Mari joked.

Gracie nodded. “It's a good thing we're done fighting, then.”

“Girls, come on back now,” Ms. O'Hagan called from the cabin. “We're going to head out to dinner before the snow gets too heavy.”

“Out? Where are we going?” Gracie asked as they walked—and slid—toward the cabin.

“We figured you girls were owed a dinner at the Old Barrel,” Mari's mom said.

“But Mr. O'Hagan just got all those groceries,” Gracie protested.

Mari waved her hand in the air. “We can eat through that before we leave, don't worry.”

“Oh, right. Seven people eat a lot,” Gracie said. “I keep forgetting! That would feed my family for a week.”

“Hey, Gracie, want to sit next to me?” Jimmy asked as they all climbed into the minivan.

“Definitely,” Gracie said, getting a big, goofy smile from him. For the whole drive to the restaurant—which was only about ten minutes—she listened to Jimmy talk about his friends from kindergarten. He didn't even seem to remember that she'd yelled at him earlier, and Gracie felt relieved. She hadn't meant to upset him, she'd just been too busy thinking about her own feelings to realize that she was hurting his.

“Curly fries, here we come!” Mari sang as her dad parked the car. The snow was falling faster now, and Gracie had to squint to make out the sign in front of the restaurant. It wasn't a normal sign, it was a humongous wooden barrel, at least eight feet tall.
THE OLD BARREL
was painted on the front of it.

“Cool,” Gracie said. “I hope they have a big enough table for all of us.”

“They do, it's called family style,” Mari told her as they walked into the warm, cozy building. “It's a bunch of long tables, and you sit with whoever else is there,
whether you know them or not.”

The waiter led them to a big table in the middle of the room, with a bunch of chairs pulled up along either side of it. A family with two little kids sat on one side, and Jimmy immediately took off to sit near them.

“I guess I'm not his favorite anymore,” Gracie commented.

Mari laughed. “Those kids are his age. You can't compare to that.”

Gracie glanced at the table. On the other side were an elderly lady and a girl with blond hair. “Hey! It's Juliana!” Gracie cried.

“Oh my gosh. Hi!” Juliana replied, jumping up. “I can't believe you're here! Are you at our table?”

“Yup!” Mari's face lit up, and she hurried over to sit next to Juliana. Gracie took the seat across from her.

“You must be the friends Juli made on the slopes the other day,” Juliana's grandma said. “I'm so glad we ran into you. I felt terrible that I had to ruin your dinner plans.”

“What do you mean?” Gracie asked.

“I was supposed to meet you here, but I couldn't because Grammy had already promised the neighbors we'd eat with them,” Juliana said. “We left a message with the restaurant. Didn't they tell you?” A worried
expression crossed her face.

“They didn't tell us, because we couldn't make it either,” Mari said. “We left a message here for you too!”

“That's too funny!” Juliana said. “They must've thought we were all crazy.”

Gracie could hardly believe it. She'd been so upset about them standing Juliana up, but it had all turned out fine.
Just like Mari said, sometimes plans change,
she thought.

“We're all having curly fries, right?” Juliana asked.

“Absolutely,” Gracie and Mari said at the same time.

Juliana laughed. “Do you practice talking like that?”

“We don't have to,” Mari told her. “We're best friends.”

Gracie's phone buzzed just as they were about to give the waiter their order. She glanced at the screen. “It's my mom,” she said. “Can you order for me, Mar?”

“Sure,” Mari said. “I'll just order two of mine, we want the same thing.”

Gracie got up and went out to the big old barrel on the front porch to talk. It was too loud to hear her mother in the restaurant.

“Hi, Mom. Are you at the no-phones hike again?” she joked. “Or are you actually allowed to talk now?”

“I can talk all I want,” her mother said happily. “Whenever I want! We ditched the wellness spa.”

“What?”

“I couldn't take it anymore. They said I had to eat steak for breakfast when all I wanted was yogurt,” Ms. Hardwick told her. “It was the last straw. I packed the bags and we made a break for it!”

“You just left?” Gracie could hardly believe it. Her mother was not the leave-in-the-middle type.

“That's right! I found a beautiful little bed-and-breakfast in Maine, and we're here for the night,” Ms. Hardwick said triumphantly. “Dad doesn't have to go for hikes in a wheelchair, I don't have to eat dinner food for breakfast, and we can call you any time we want. There are no rules at all!”

“Wow. What does Dad think?”

“I would ask him, but he's asleep in the big chair near the fireplace,” her mother replied. “So I think he's okay with it.”

“I can't believe you did that, Mom,” Gracie said. “You're such a rebel!”

“Well, rules were made to be broken,” Ms. Hardwick said.

“Can I tell you that the next time you won't let me hang out with Mari?” Gracie asked.

Her mother chuckled. “Yes, you can. I promise, Gracie, from now on I'm going to try to relax a little.
Maybe we don't have to have such a strict schedule
all
the time.”

“That's just what I was thinking,” Gracie said happily.

“You're obviously fine without us,” her mom went on. “I guess I have to stop thinking of you as my little girl—you're grown up enough to take care of yourself. And I just got a taste of having to follow someone else's rules when I'm perfectly capable of deciding what I want for myself.”

“Yeah,” Gracie said. “It's not much fun, is it?”

“No,”
Ms. Hardwick replied emphatically. “I'm sorry. I always thought my rules were there to keep you safe and healthy, but I guess you might not see it that way.”

“Well . . .” Gracie thought about it. “I still like having
some
rules.”

“Good, because you still do,” her mom said. “So what are you doing tonight?”

“Having dinner with the O'Hagans and our new friend, Juliana,” Gracie said. “And I'm going to write my report for Mr. Ferrone tonight. I've been taking notes all weekend, and now I know exactly what I'm going to say.”