Winter White (7 page)

“No, you don’t.” Mira pouted. “Brayden likes you. Everyone at school is talking about it.” Izzie had a feeling that the latter half of that statement bothered Mira more.

“Everyone,” Hayden agreed, trying to keep a straight face, even as Mira gave him the stink eye. “Face it, Mira. Izzie is more popular than you are now.” He hurried ahead of Mira down the path to avoid being hit and opened the front door.

“Thanks. Rub it in! Mono is more popular than me these days,” Mira griped, and stomped inside. The three of them filed into the foyer.

Izzie still couldn’t get used to the size of the house even after living there for the past few months. Every square inch of it looked like it belonged in an expensive furniture showroom. The Monroes’ taste was definitely more traditional than Grams’s shabby-chic place, but the vibe was still homey. Well, it had been. With all the bickering and silent treatments going on, the whole place felt a little frosty now.

“Don’t be depressed.” Izzie flung her bag on the entry room bench. “Savannah still talks about you,” she said encouragingly.
“Well, if you count all the negative stuff she says.” Mira’s scowl deepened.

“Don’t worry, Mira,” Hayden told her. “Give it two weeks. By that point some other unfortunate girl in the sophomore class will look twice at Lea Price’s boyfriend, and they’ll have someone new to hate.” Hayden dropped his backpack in his designated cubby. “By then, I’m sure you’ll have a new group of girls to boss around.”

“Thanks.” Mira sniffed. That seemed to please her a bit.

The new-friend topic gave Izzie a thought. “Speaking of new people, have either of you ever met Brayden’s sister, Dylan?” Hayden and Mira looked at each other warily.

“Of course we’ve met her,” Mira said. “Have you?” By Mira’s expression, Izzie figured it was best to shake her head no. “She’s nothing like Brayden,” Mira told her. “I’m not one to talk”—Hayden coughed—“but when Dylan lived in EC, she had major mommy/daddy drama going on, and not for lame reasons like my-mom-won’t-let-me-put-red-streaks-in-my-hair-for-the-swim-meet.”

“Well, it was unreasonable.” Izzie thought of the week before. “I told your mom it would wash out.”

“Dylan has done everything you can think of to make her family’s life more scandalous than an episode of
Real Housewives
.” Mira began to tick off the indiscretions on her fingers. “Wearing an off-white dress to cotillion, getting several
tattoos, showing up tipsy at one of her mother’s dazzling self-thrown birthday parties. Dating a guy from out of town who worked at a tattoo parlor in Harborside.” Mira’s eyes widened. “I’m sure he was really nice,” she added quickly, “but it was still a scandal.”

“Forget I brought her up.” Izzie wasn’t about to get into an argument with Mira about Dylan. Personally, none of the supposedly scandalous things Dylan had done sounded
that
bad. They sounded like things a person would do to forget they lived somewhere like Emerald Cove. And that was a feeling Izzie understood completely. She kept waiting for the day that she woke up and finally felt like she belonged there, but she wasn’t sure that day would ever come.

Aunt Maureen’s laugh brought her back to the present. It was coming from the kitchen and it was followed quickly by their father’s. The last time Izzie heard him laugh like that was when Connor painted his face like Darth Maul with her aunt’s lipstick.

“What are they doing home?” Mira’s voice was anxious, just like Izzie’s stomach felt when she heard Bill’s voice. “I thought they were at a fund-raising rally in Raleigh.”

Hayden shrugged and headed toward the kitchen. “I guess it ended early.”

Izzie used to find Emerald Prep the most stressful part of her day. She looked forward to hurrying back to the Monroes’
where she could sit and watch whatever Kaitlin Burke movie was on ABC Family in peace. But now it was the opposite. She dreaded coming home and finding
him
there.

Hayden looked at them strangely. “Aren’t you guys coming? I thought you wanted something to eat.”

“I’m not hungry,” Izzie said quickly.

“I had a big lunch,” Mira seconded.

“In the car, you both said you skipped lunch.” Hayden sounded suspicious. He pointed to Izzie. “You said you had a meeting with Mrs. Fitz.”

Mira forgot for a moment about needing a cover. “You had a private meeting with Mrs. Fitz? Why? What are you talking about? Tell me,” she said excitedly.

“Nothing.” Izzie looked at her feet. “I just had a few questions about the club.”

“Like what?” Mira wasn’t getting Izzie’s hint to drop the topic. “I gave you a Social Butterflies’ orientation kit, right?” Her face crumpled. “You’re not quitting, are you?”

“No,” Izzie said. “I like it.” As much as it killed her to admit it, the stuffy, prestigious Emerald Prep Social Butterflies club she had joined by default was growing on her. Some of the girls may have been in the group for the status, but there was no denying the group’s commitment to charity work. That’s why she had stopped in to see Mrs. Fitz. Izzie had half a dozen ideas for events clogging her brain, and she wanted to run them by their club director in private. She
wasn’t ready to share them in front of the group yet. “I wanted to know what the final number was that we raised for the community center,” she lied. It wasn’t really a lie. That topic did come up. “We raised close to nine thousand dollars.”

“That’s amazing,” Mira said. “The center must be thrilled.”

Izzie could still feel Hayden’s eyes on them. “I thought you were going to the kitchen for a snack.”

Hayden loosened his tie that had the EP insignia on it and shook his head. “You guys can’t avoid him forever, you know.”

Yes, I can
, Izzie wanted to say. But she didn’t. Instead she watched as Hayden swung open the door between the dining room and the kitchen. She could just make out Bill’s navy pin-striped suit as the door swung closed.

“This isn’t fair!” Mira complained when Hayden was out of earshot. “I’ve been dreaming of that chocolate cream pie in the fridge since third period.”

“Since when do you eat pie?” Izzie was even surprised by its number of calories.

Mira shrugged. “Since I have no one to look good for.”

“Please,” Izzie said, not playing into her pity act. “Look good for yourself.”

“Mira? Izzie?” Aunt Maureen called out. “Are you two home?”

Aunt Maureen knew they were, but this was her polite way of getting them to show their faces rather than run upstairs.

“We might as well face the fire and get a cookie out of it,” Izzie said.

Seeing her uncle/dad/liar didn’t get any easier. No matter how big he smiled, or how nicely he asked about her day, Izzie still couldn’t stop thinking about how he had let her down. He had given her a roof over her head and new clothes to call her own, but he hadn’t given her what she’d needed the most: a sense of family. Aunt Maureen had done that, which was why even though she had been in the know, Izzie couldn’t be mad at her.

“Hi, girls,” Bill said cheerfully. He took off his reading glasses, the ones Izzie always thought made him look intimidating, which was probably why he never wore them on television or for photos. “Did you have a good day?”

Mira was too busy staring at the chocolate cream pie on the kitchen counter to bother looking their dad’s way. There was only one slice left. Izzie took an M&M cookie. She did not want to face Mira’s wrath over that piece of pie.

“Mom, did the mail come yet?” Mira asked.

“Not yet,” Callista told her. “We’ve been waiting for it ourselves.
O
is supposed to send us an advance copy of the article they did on your father.”

“Haven’t they heard of e-mail? It’s quicker,” Izzie said without thinking. Bill chuckled. Izzie didn’t look at him.

“They said something about not wanting the layout to be misconstrued.” Callista leaned her long arms on the counter.
She had a yellow legal pad in front of her, and it looked like she had been taking notes. “How was school?”

“Super as always,” Hayden smirked. “Well, unless you’re Mira or Izzie.”

Callista’s face clouded over. “Are you still having a hard time? God, I hate high school! What do you two have to do with any of these politics?”

“Mira’s former best friend is Holden Ingram’s daughter,” Bill explained.

Callista groaned. “No wonder school is miserable. If that girl is anywhere near the snake her father is…” Callista glanced down at her dessert plate, embarrassed. “That was wrong. Sorry. I just get so mad sometimes!” She looked at Bill. “The Ingrams are trying to ruin a super candidate like your dad by backing that one-trick pony Steven Fray. It makes me sick to think about the money they’re throwing at him.”

“Holden Ingram has come out publicly to support your father’s new opponent for the ticket,” Aunt Maureen explained, her face grim. “He’s a rookie district attorney who is riding the family-values wave. As if marrying the secretary you got pregnant is family values!” Aunt Maureen’s voice had a hard edge Izzie hadn’t heard before. She seemed so stressed these days. “The Ingrams are determined to get Fray the nomination instead of your father.” She looked at Izzie worriedly. “Fray also supports Holden Ingrams’s coastal revitalization
project and wants to start by tearing down half of Harborside Pier, including the community center.”

Izzie felt like she had just been sucker punched. Her former community center was always in jeopardy of not having enough funding, but it hadn’t occurred to her that someone would try to take a wrecking ball to it.

“I don’t want you to worry, Isabelle,” Bill told her. She knew he had withdrawn his support of Holden’s project. “I’m going to do all I can to make sure no one touches the community center unless they’re renovating it.”

“Thanks, Unc—” Izzie paused. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what to call you anymore, and I can’t keep pretending not to call you anything or say ‘hey, you.’ ”

He took a sip of coffee. “What do you want to call me?”

“
Dad
feels weird,” Izzie said quickly, and felt her cheeks burn. That sounded mean. “
Uncle
doesn’t work, either, though, right? Since that’s clearly a lie?” She had noticed sometimes it was harder being angry at Bill then just letting things go.

“If calling me Uncle makes you comfortable, then do that,” he said thoughtfully. “Or just call me Bill.”

“But not in public,” Callista said hastily, and everyone looked at her. “It’s just so forward—well, for down here. I don’t know how that would go over in the polls.”

“I’m more worried about what Izzie wants,” Bill said, looking directly at her. “If you want to call me Bill, call me Bill.”

Izzie thought for a moment. Did she really want to get used to calling him something else when she was just getting used to
Uncle
? “I think I’ll stick with
Uncle Bill
for now.” He nodded.

The rest of the room was so quiet, Izzie could hear the sound of the dishwasher running in the background. Mira broke the ice with a strange new topic.

“So, Callista, I was wondering…” Mira twirled a lock of her hair around her finger. “Any chance
Teen Vogue
might want to interview me and Izzie?”

“Why would we want to do that?” Izzie looked ready to have a heart attack.

Callista munched on an M&M cookie. “I think that’s a super idea! I’m sure they’d love to have you. I’ll make some calls. I know the editor at
Justine
personally.”

Mira squealed, and now everyone was looking at her. “What? I want to help the campaign.” She stared at them innocently.

“Yeah, that’s the reason you want to be in a magazine,” Hayden said wryly.

Izzie didn’t have time to wonder what Mira’s real reason was, because two seconds later, the front door slammed so hard, their coffee mugs shook, and Connor bounded in. He dropped a pile of mail on the table. “Cookies!”

Aunt Maureen handed him one and started sorting through the mail. When she came to an oversize, thick cream
envelope, she stopped. Before Izzie could figure out what the invite was for (an invitation for a spinning-class-for-asthma-relief fund-raiser had come the day before), Mira snatched the envelope from her mom. The two of them ran their fingers along the calligraphy that spelled out her name. Then Mira carefully broke the seal, pulled out an invitation, and shrieked.

“I’ve officially been invited to cotillion!” She let herself collapse on the island in relief.

“Was there really any doubt?” Hayden asked.

Mira didn’t answer him. Instead, she waved the invite in Izzie’s face. “Look!”

Izzie took the invitation and read it herself.

Mirabelle Monroe is cordially invited, after three years of service and hard work, to participate in this year’s cotillion class and make her debut at Emerald Cove Castle on the Cliffs on Saturday, December 13, at 7 PM. All cotillion members are expected to participate in this fall’s classes, which consist of both etiquette and dance….

Izzie stopped reading. “
This
is what you’re excited about? Another dance? Doesn’t this town get tired of parties?” It never ceased to amaze her how many bashes EC had and for
such silly reasons. Last week, they attended a garden party to celebrate the new park playground.

“Cotillion is a big deal.” Mira took the invitation back before Izzie could get a chocolate smudge from her cookie on it. “Why does no one get that?”

Aunt Maureen hugged Mira. “I do. It feels like only yesterday I was taking you to your first precotillion dance class. I’m so excited for you, sweetie.”

“What makes this dance different from the nine trillion other black-tie events EC has? The cheesy white gloves and bridal gowns?” Izzie asked her.

“No. I mean yes,” Mira said, getting flustered. “White gloves are cool! I’m sure Kate, Prince William’s wife, wears them for official functions.”

“But why do
you
need to wear them? You’re not a princess,” Izzie reminded her.

“Shh!” Hayden put a finger to his lips. “I’m not sure anyone told her that.”

“Why did Mira get two letters?” Connor held up a second large cream envelope that had been buried in the unopened mail. Izzie could see her name from clear across the kitchen counter and she practically spit out her iced tea.