Authors: Marni Bates

Decked with Holly (3 page)

BOOK: Decked with Holly

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I hadn't thought of that, but I merely shrugged it off. “I'll lay low for a while then. I'm not
you,
Tim. Girls recognize lead singers, but drummers . . . not so much. And I can always go by Nick instead of Dominic. It's close enough that it won't trip me up.”

“Well, if you're sureâ”

“Oh, he's sure,” Chris interrupted.

“I am.”

“Then I guess . . . I'm in too.”

I almost couldn't believe my luck. Tim hadn't put up much of a fight at all. Not that I was complaining, but I had expected him to flip through his planner, call up our manager, check out airfare prices online as well as the availability of the recording studio, before agreeing to anything. Either Tim was starting to feel the burnout too, or he missed Corey badly enough to jump on the opportunity I was offeringâfrankly, I didn't care which reason had him acting like a normal human being. Although maybe “normal human being” was a bit of a stretch, considering that Tim reached into his backpack and tossed a can at me with a quick “Think fast!” as my only warning.

I bobbled it once. “What the hell!”

“Pepper spray,” Tim explained, then snickered at my surprised expression. “To fend off female admirers so you can actually get that writing done.”

I briefly considered tossing it back or handing it over to Chris, but then I shoved it into my bag. “Thanks, but I'm not going to need it.”

I only wish that had been true.

Chapter 3

Holly

M
ost girls don't get grounded right before Christmas because they slapped Santa in a mall, in front of a mob of little children.

Then again, most girls don't get escorted out of the aforementioned mall by security guards and depend upon their seventy-five-year-old grandfather to bail them out.

I felt so guilty about the whole thing. Well, not so much the slapping Santa part, since pervy St. Nick had it coming. But the rest of it,
that
I regretted. Especially since my cousins had obviously gotten pictures of the whole thing.

There was also the little problem that since I was grounded (rather unfairly, I might add, since I did
not
start the skirmish) I couldn't try on any of Jen's more cruise-ship-appropriate wardrobe. Allison and Claire would
de finitely
be making their snide Little Orphan Annie references to me when nobody else was around to hear them. And since Aunt Jessica and Uncle Matt were sharing a room, Andrew and Jacob were paired up, and my grandpa had booked a cabin for himself . . . I'd be sharing a room with the Twins from Hell. So that would give them an infinite number of opportunities to make me feel like crap.

Oh, goody.

Still, there was nothing for me to do about it. It was my grandpa's birthday cruise and even though I was rather miffed that he hadn't bothered to listen to
my
side of the story, he was still the only real family that I had.

Which was why I had a big, stupid smile plastered on my face as we went through the time-consuming process of boarding the ship surrounded by a throng of excited vacationers. Half of the crowd was already wearing enormous tropical shirts, as if they couldn't wait another second to defy office-wear convention with big palm tree prints. None of them looked as harried and harassed as I already felt. In fact, I was getting the distinct impression that some of them even
enjoyed
the awful tinny wail of Christmas carols Ã la Bob Marley blaring from the nearby deck of the ship. I really hoped that once we actually got out to sea someone with good taste would take over the role of playing DJ.

But I was determined to stay upbeat, or at least to do a good job pretending. I imagined Jen's reaction to the scene. She'd probably be glowing with excitement as she brushed her long auburn bangs out of her eyes. And then Jen would have said something ridiculous like, “Aren't you just
so
excited! This is going to be the best vacation ever!”

It's always sunshine and rainbows for Jen. Except around Christmas when she trades them in for Santa and reindeer.

Me . . . not so much.

Still, I kept that stupid grin in place even while the employee in charge of checking passports struggled to identify me as the girl in my hideous passport photo. Of course, I had been having a bad hair day and my head was surrounded by a scraggly, dirty-blond mess, which, combined with the glazed look in my green eyes and the noticeable sheen of sweat on my forehead, made me look both unintelligent and ill. The only person I had ever willingly shown that picture to was Jen and she had laughed before assuring me that I usually looked much better. Then again, she had also once informed me that my hair was the color of burnt honey and that my nose was decidedly aristocratic. After which I had politely informed her that she was full of it.

I don't even know where she gets that nonsense. Aristocratic nose? If she meant that I had a rather distinctive schnoz (thanks to my Jewish ancestry, I guess) she could have just come out and said it. No amount of sugar coating was going to change the situation.

Still, remembering Jen's earnest expression almost made me smile for real as my passport was returned to me. But Claire caught a glimpse of it and instantly said, “Oh, my God, hideous photo much!“

“Claire!” her mother reprimanded. “You know that not everyone is naturally photographic like you and your siblings.”

That's my aunt Jessica for you: Well intentioned, maybe, but her cutting words leave no doubt as to how her daughters have become so well versed in the art of insults.

“But why does she have to room with me and Allison?” Claire whined, tossing back her pale blond hair that was decidedly
not
the color of burnt anything. And apparently she didn't care in the least that I was standing
right there
. “Why can't Little Orphan Annie stay in Grandpa's room instead?”

“Because it's his birthday and he deserves a break!” Aunt Jessica snapped. “He has to live with her year-round as it is!”

Ouch.

It's times like these when I occasionally indulge in a daydream about what life would be like if my parents were around. I particularly like the version where my effortlessly cool mom marches over to her sister, calls her a self-involved bully with monstrous children, and then takes hold of my hand and orders me to “just ignore them” since they “aren't worth worrying about.”

I always try to take my imaginary mom's advice, but it's never easy.

Especially since the moment Claire, Allison, and I reached our cabin, both of them looking cruise-ship stylish in their short shorts and strappy tank tops, they instantly started unpacking into the dresser that was intended for all of us to share. When I mentioned that, however, they just pointedly eyed me in disgust, letting their gaze linger on my scuffed Converse shoes, ordinary jeans, and favorite ReadySet band shirt (gray and worn to the point of maximum comfort).

So I liked to be comfortable. That wasn't a crime.

Except in Los Angeles, apparently.

“Okay, here are the rules,
Annie,
” Allison told me, when she finally deigned to acknowledge my presence. “You don't speak to us. You don't speak to anyone near us. You don't follow us. You don't ask us stupid questions. Actually, you don't ask us
any
questions. You stay out of our way and in return we
might
not send those pictures of you as a skanky elf to everyone at your high school.”

My mouth fell open. It's rather hard to forget that my cousins made a pact with the devil to become both gorgeous and evil, but each time I think I understand their slimy interior they do something even more despicable. You'd think that at some point I would realize that they don't have any redeeming qualities. But I guess a really stupid part of me keeps hoping that the little family I have might eventually try to make me feel like less of an outsider.

Like I said:
really
stupid part of me.

“You look even dumber than normal with your mouth open like that,” Allison told me sweetly. “Just so you know.”

I snapped my jaws shut and said, “Fine. No problem,” through clenched teeth.

“Excellent. Then Claire and I will share the bed and you can take the roll-away cot.” Allison put on her fakest smile. “Our room arrangements are going to stay between the three of us. If you were to squeal about any of this to Grandpa, that might ruin his birthday trip. And you wouldn't want to do something so selfish to an old man. After all, how many birthdays does he really have to look forward to? Not many, I bet.”

I didn't know how they could be so cavalier about my worst nightmare, my biggest fear, the terror that was more real to me than rapists or serial killers or weapons of mass destruction: watching our grandpa feel the weight of each one of his years until they crushed him into dust.

Knowing that it's coming and not being able to do anything to stop the process.

For them, it was just another way to manipulate me.

Evil. So evil.

“Of course not,” I said stiffly. I snatched up my backpack, which held my journal, my camera, my iPod, and a sketchpad as well as a nice pack of colored pencils, and left the room. All of that stuff had kept my babysitting money from ever earning interest in my bank account, but it had been completely worth it. At that moment all I wanted was to sit out on the top deck, listening to the playlist Jen made me for my birthday and breathing in the salty air while it whipped through my hair.

The reggae Christmas tunes were still playing in an endless loop, but I cranked my music up louder and let myself relax for the first time in days.

I could do this. I could avoid ninety percent of my family for the next eight days. Jen would tell me to work the situation to my advantage, and the more I thought about that the better I felt. I was headed for a tropical location: sand under my feet, sun heating my skin, soothing waves lapping against the ship as we pulled out of Los Angeles.

A few pesky relatives couldn't get me down.

Except the waves didn't seem to have the intended soothing effect on me. If anything, they made me feel a bit queasy. But I had everything under control. I drank some water to counterbalance any dehydration from my time out in the sun and tried to convince my body that I wasn't actually on a floating chunk of wood in the middle of nowhere. This was a
luxury
chunk of wood, making it an entirely different story.

By dinnertime, I had drawn two sketches of my delicious fruit smoothie, I had ranted in my journal, my iPod was in serious need of a recharge . . . and my stomach still felt a touch unsettled. Still, I made my way over to the dining area where my family, so to speak, was already waiting at table eighteen. Jen would have tried to convince me that since I was almost eighteen, the table number was a good omen. But not even Jen would have been able to convince me that it wasn't embarrassing for me to slink into the fanciest dining room the ship offered, five minutes late, in distressed denim with a band logo splayed across my chest.

I didn't stand out too much in a sea of formal skirts and dresses.

Oh, wait, yes I did.

Next time, I was changing in the cabin. Avoiding the Twins from Hell wasn't worth this kind of social mortification.

But my failure to meet the dress code was just the beginning of my problems. The menu appeared to be created entirely so that I would have no idea what I was ordering. It was all stuff like “Cascadia Fideua,” which appeared to have too many vowels to me. I decided to play it safe and just go with basic Alfredo noodles, but that only inspired my aunt to ask, all concernedly, “Are you sure that's best, Holly? That's awfully fattening, you know.”

“Yeah, it's not like you need the extra padding,” Allison chimed in snarkily.

This is when my imaginary parents would smash a lemon meringue right into the twins' stupid, perfectly-made-up faces, before hauling me off somewhere.

Instead, my grandpa gave me a slow, knowing wink and ordered his lasagna.

None of the other guys, Uncle Matt or Andrew or Jacob, appeared to notice anything unusual in the shift of topic. Maybe because they were so accustomed to those kinds of jabs in their own household. Considering that Aunt Jessica then passed the bread basket to her husband, maybe they were fine with the way things worked.

Boys got the bread rolls and the girls got water refills.

Because that's fair.

“You really need to be going to a gym on a regular basis,” my aunt informed me. “Otherwise your tummy will pooch . . . more than it already does.”

I glanced down surreptitiously to my lap and even though my loose band shirt hid it, I knew there was a slight belly roll. It wasn't like my (sigh) muffin top was noticeable most of the time. And okay, maybe I bought roomier shirts specifically so that they wouldn't showcase my middle, but everyone has
some
physical area that they critique in the mirror. I just have an aunt who likes to confirm my fears by vocalizing them in public.

“You didn't actually pack a bikini, did you, Holly?”

I shook my head, unsure if I could keep my words civil if I opened my mouth.

“Oh, good! Maybe if you avoid all starches and sweets and work out
really
hard you might be ready for one by the time we get back to LA.” She looked pretty doubtful. “Maybe. If you lose . . . a pound a day.”

So, I'll never be mistaken for a movie star or a model. Living in LA, I see plenty of girls at school who look glossy and perfect every dayâand Jen and I will never be among them. Because no matter how many articles I read on the best way to dress with an apple shape (or was it a pear? Some kind of fruit), I can't seem to pull it off. Whatever bizarre skill Allison and Claire had been born with that made them effortlessly stand out in a crowd, it wasn't hereditary.

And I didn't exactly need a reminder from my aunt that I was deficient in essentials.

“Wow, hottie incoming,” Allison muttered to Claire under her breath as she refilled her glass, which was already getting quite the workout.

I glanced up partly because I needed the distraction and partly because I wanted to see if we shared the same aesthetic when it came to boys.

Apparently, there was one thing the three of us could agree on.

BOOK: Decked with Holly

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