One Black Rose (19 page)

She saw me looking at her skin and grinned. “Normally I’d try to hide them, but at the moment I’m too excited to hide them! During Court sessions they come out more. It’s wonderful!” She’d said everything very fast and maintained a tight hold on my hands. Mrs. Roth, who was still standing behind me, excused herself, giving me a pat on the back and Holt a meaningful look as she left.

 “Holt said that Samuel talked to you,” said Susan, suddenly becoming serious, even worried-looking. “Why?”

When I paused, not quite knowing how to answer, Holt said quietly, “Because he’s part of this too. It should be him.”

“If it’s not, it’s not,” said Susan, shrugging. “He should just leave well enough alone. Plus, Mrs. Cheshire….”

“Anyway,” said Holt, glaring at Susan, “we should talk about the Solstice Party.”

I was relieved at the change of topic. I was already embarrassed enough.

Instead of worrying more about Mrs. Cheshire, I listened to Holt and Susan chat about the Party. Susan couldn’t wait for it. She would literally jump up and down with excitement when they went over some of the details. Apparently there was going to be a fireworks display to rival New York City’s, not to mention Fairy-cooked food that would eventually put all of the guests in a blissful stupor.

Eventually, though, I started to yawn. I hadn’t realized how late it had gotten, and I was beat. As soon as Holt saw that I was tired he sprang into action and offered me a ride home. Saying goodnight to Susan, who was still going like she had popped five-hour energies every three, I went to the garage and got in the car.

The drive back to Carley’s house was too short, as usual. When the house came into view I saw that it was dark. At some point in the evening Carley had texted me, but I’d been so caught up in Fairy talk and Solstice plans that I hadn’t answered. I’d talk to her in the morning, I told myself.

I smiled a goodnight to Holt and headed inside. Once I had showered, changed, and gotten into bed I thought to wonder how odd it was that Holt had gone back to not touching me. His touch was very tempting, but I worried that it was because he didn’t want to provoke the Cheshires. I fell asleep thinking of fireworks.

Despite the stress of the last few days, after I woke up and showered the next morning I felt happy and refreshed. I knew I’d see Holt that day, and I couldn’t wait to be near him. The thought of Mrs. Cheshire made me a little uneasy, but I pushed it away.

Once I had showered, I pulled on a blue t-shirt and white jean shorts, applied a bit of makeup, and headed downstairs. As usual my brown hair was hopeless. I knew I wouldn’t see Holt until later, so I definitely wanted to hang out with Carley. With everything going on, I’d barely seen her the past couple of days. I wanted to see Nick as well, and I wondered if there were any developments between the two of them that I needed to hear about.

Carley’s door was closed as I passed and the kitchen was empty, so after I made a bowl of cereal I sat down in front of the TV. I flipped through channels until I found one that was playing a movie. At first I wasn’t sure what it was, but once I saw Molly Ringwald and Emilio Estevez I knew it was
The Breakfast Club
.
Nothing like eighties romance movies in the morning.
I sat back with my cereal and waited for Carley to wake up.

I had a long time to wait. After
The Breakfast Club
ended there was still no sign of her, so I went outside to read. It was too nice a day to be inside watching TV, and if I waited until the afternoon to go out it would be really hot and muggy. In a little while I heard a car coming down the road before I saw it, and when I looked up from my book I saw Nick turning into the driveway. I watched him park in his usual spot and hop out.

“Morning,” I said, grinning at him as I closed my book.

“Hey, Autumn. How are you?” asked Nick cheerfully as he came up to the porch.

I heard a stomping from inside the house and knew Carley must be coming. “Good,” I said, answering his question.

Nick came up the steps and sat next to me, eyeing the front door. A breath later Carley banged her way onto the porch. She was wearing a sundress with pink and yellow stripes, and a scowl.

“Morning,” she said, looking at Nick but carefully avoiding me.

“Morning,” we both said in unison, then smiled at each other.

Carley rolled her eyes.

“Nick was going to take me shopping for the Solstice Party,” said Carley, finally looking at me.

“What? Why didn’t you tell me? I need to go,” I added, irritated. “I don’t have a dress either.” It was just like Carley to blow me off.

“I would have told you if you’d been around or answered your phone,” she answered icily.

“Oh,” I said. I thought Carley was being a bit overly dramatic. I’d missed one text from her, not like a thousand, and most of the time I was with Holt she was with Nick, so it seemed to balance out, but if she wanted to be mad then fine.

“You can just come with us,” Nick offered. Carley attempted what would have been a withering glare, but Nick didn’t notice it. The fact that he missed the face she made just made her more irritated.

“Look, Carley, I’m sorry, I’ve been busy the past couple of days,” I pointed out.

“We’ve been busy too,” said Nick. He took my book from my hands and examined the cover. “It’s not like there’s been tons of time. Plus, we’re spending today together.”

“Yeah, until one of her many guys calls,” Carley muttered. She sat in the blue rocking chair and crossed her arms over her chest.

“What?” I said sitting up straight. That was too much.

“Nothing. Never mind. Yeah, you’re sorry. Okay. Let’s go,” she said. Without another word she headed for Nick’s car while Nick looked at me apologetically.

“She’s just missed you, that’s all,” he said, handing the book back to me.

“I can tell,” I said, following him off the porch and to his car. Carley was already buckled into the front seat, so I was forced to take the back.

“We going to the mall?” Nick asked cautiously.

Carley only nodded, then turned the radio up loud enough so that it would be hard to hear what anyone said. Nick raised his eyebrows at me in the rearview mirror, but didn’t comment.

Carley was obviously in a bad mood and she was going to take it out on me, but I didn’t think I’d done anything wrong. I had had a lot to deal with the past couple of days. She had no idea and it wasn’t like I was intentionally avoiding her. Plus, as Nick had said, now we were going to spend all day together.

By the time we got to the mall, all three of us seemed to be in a bad mood. While he was driving Nick had tried to talk to Carley a couple of times and she’d simply turned the music up louder. He’d finally given up and glared at the road ahead. And I was mad that Carley was mad and Carley was just mad.

I’d never been to this mall before, but I quickly realized there wasn’t much to it. As Carley had explained to me, the biggest mall in Maine was in Portland and we were way too far away for that. This one had a couple of local dress stores and some places to eat. The town looked a lot like Castleton except that many of the buildings were bigger and more of them were made of brick.

Nick quickly made an excuse to leave, saying something about how he wanted to check out the video game store down the street.

I really didn’t want him to leave me alone with Carley (and it looked like she felt the same way), but he dashed off before either of us could stop him.

Without a word, Carley headed for one of the dress stores.

“I don’t get why you’re so mad,” I said, keeping up with her as she speed-walked. “It’s only been a couple of days and you’ve been hanging out with Nick. When he was lost that night I went looking for him.”

“With Holt. You went looking with Holt,” said Carley bitterly.

“You told me to,” I said, exasperated.

“So,” said Carley, “you shouldn’t lead him on!”

“Wait, what are you talking about?” I asked, incredulous. How was I leading anyone on?
“Don’t play stupid,” said Carley. “You don’t even like him.”

Ah, now I got it. Carley didn’t realize how much I cared about Holt and how much I didn’t want to hurt Samuel and his family, or how caught in the middle I was. She thought I was just bored and trying to fill up my summer.

“Wait, Carley, since when do you think I’m all calculating about guys? Who have you been talking to?” I asked, stopping to put my hands on my hips.

“No one,” she said, flouncing ahead.

I caught up with her again. “Carley, why do you think I’m leading Holt on?”

“I’ve just been hearing stuff about the two of you,” said Carley evasively, refusing to look at me.

“From the Cheshire girls, I bet. You should know better than to listen to them,” I said. I felt my stomach turn. Had they gotten to my friends too? Poisoned their minds against me?

“They came up to me while Nick was picking out a video game yesterday. They said I should tell you to stay away from Holt for your own good.” Rolling her eyes she said. “Autumn, how could you be so stupid?”

I took hold of Carley’s arm. “Listen to me Carley, you can’t believe anything they say. It’s poison.”

“Yeah, right. What would they get out of it?” she asked.

“You have no idea,” I said. “Just please don’t believe them. I like Holt. A lot, and I’m going to keep seeing him. They can’t tell me what to do.”

Carley thought about what I said. Finally she shrugged. “Fine. Let’s go shopping.”

I was relieved. Carley had been pissed before and I was worried she’d do something drastic like kick me out of the house. Who knows what the Cheshire girls had been saying to her.

The dress shop we went to was a funky second-hand place. It was covered with racks and racks of clothes, so much so that it was hard to find paths around the place to see anything. There was only a little light coming in, which made it difficult to see the woman knitting behind the counter. But I could see that she had gray hair and lots of makeup on and her clothes looked like a perfect advertisement for what was in the store.

“Awesome,” Carley breathed.

Carley and I started looking through the store. The woman behind the counter ignored us and continued to knit. Eventually, Carley found a dress she liked. It was short and purple, with just a few sequins around the bodice. I found a couple that might have been okay, but neither ended up fitting me very well and I couldn’t sew to save my life, so I had no way to tailor them. I waited for Carley to come out of the dressing room to show me her dress.

“Cute,” I said after she’d tried it on.

“I love it,” she replied. “Do you think Nick will like it?”

“He’ll love it,” I said, smiling.

She bought the dress and we headed for the next shop. Even though Carley already had her dress, I still needed to find one. “So, what about you and Nick?” I asked, trying to sound as casual as possible. I was shocked to see Carley’s face turn bright red.

“What about it?” she asked, pretending to rummage through her bag. For a minute I let her pretend, since her face was getting redder by the second, but finally I just had to ask.

“Do you like him?” I pushed. “The two of you spend a lot of time together. He’s always over at the house.”

“I, I don’t know,” she stammered. “Sometimes I think he likes me and sometimes I think he just wants to be friends. I know he gets annoyed when I talk about other guys, but he talks about girls sometimes too. You should have heard him go on about Susan.”

Susan was very pretty and very nice, but I knew Nick didn’t really like Susan. If every girl who was pretty or nice could date any guy that was nice we’d all have a lot less trouble finding boyfriends. (Yes, I was sticking myself into the “nice” category. Sue me).

“You should tell him,” I encouraged her. “Tell him how you feel.”

“Yeah,” said Carley. “That’s not going to happen, but thanks for the suggestion!”

I rolled my eyes, but I would have to leave it at that. I didn’t want to push her. I knew she would just get more stubborn about it. Plus, Nick could deal with Carley on his own without me butting in. He clearly wasn’t ready to tell her how he felt yet either.

We tried two more stores, the only other dress stores around, but had no luck finding me a dress. I didn’t even find a dress I KINDA liked. Maybe I was making it too hard, but I wanted this perfect, gorgeous dress, and the ones I’d found had all been nice, or fine, but none had been amazing.

After we left the last shop Carley said, “Autumn, I don’t know what to do. You have to have a dress.”

“Isn’t there any place in Castleton I can look?”

“There’s a dress shop I guess you could try,” said Carley, “but I’ve never been in it, so I don’t know if you’d find something there.”

“Maybe I’ll just go there,” I said, putting sunglasses on against the bright midday light. “Or wear something I already have.”

After we finished shopping, we headed back to meet Nick. He was waiting for us by his car and looked sweaty under his baseball cap. I hadn’t realized how much time had gone by, but it was now way past lunchtime and really hot outside.