Winter's Kiss (27 page)

I reached over and gave him a shove. “I’m serious, smart guy,” I said. “If you can think of a better idea to handle this, then spill it.”

“I can think of a better idea,” Allie put in. “Stay with Cam. Figure things out. Live happily ever after.”

That was Allie for you. Hopeless romantic. “I already told you, that won’t work,” I said patiently. “How are we going to live happily ever after when I’m running a lab in Boston or New York or Atlanta and Cam’s running a kitchen right here in Claus Lake?”

“But you guys are such a great couple!” Allie actually looked as if she might burst into tears. “I mean, okay, maybe you’re not that much alike. But that’s kind of what makes it work!”

“She’s right, Lex,” Nick agreed. “If you ever hooked up with someone as logical and ambitious as yourself, you’d drive each other crazy.”

Yeah. He had a point. Then again, it wasn’t really
the
point.

“Plus you guys have always been so happy together,” Allie said. “You barely ever even fight or anything.”

“I know we seem happy enough now,” I said. “But we’ll probably both be even happier once we’ve moved on. And it’s not like we can’t stay friends, like I said. In fact, I can’t imagine not having Cam in my life one way or another.”

That, as it turned out, was quite literally true. As I sat there, I tried to imagine it. Not having Cam around. Never talking to him, never hanging out together. Maybe never seeing him again after graduation.

But it didn’t work. My mind couldn’t seem to put together that kind of scenario. It just Did. Not. Compute.

I shrugged it off, deciding it didn’t matter. If my plan worked out the way I was picturing it, there would be no need for me to imagine Life Without Cam. We could stay good friends, hang out for the rest of senior year and all next summer. Then when I went off to college, he’d still be there for me just like Allie and Nick, supporting me from a distance, giving me one of his patented pep talks as I dove off the high board of life into my exciting new future.

Meanwhile he would be free to figure out how to put his own future in motion. He could find himself a girl who would be perfectly content to stay in Claus Lake all her life, maybe hostessing at Cam’s future restaurant and serving on the refreshments committee with him for the Ball. There were tons of girls at our school who would dream of nothing more, especially if the plan involved an amazing guy like Cam.

“I don’t know, Lex.” Nick still seemed dubious as he methodically scarfed down the rest of the popcorn. “Maybe you should think about this some more.”

“Yeah,” Allie agreed. “Don’t forget about the Fast and Furious Theory. The quicker you try to make big moves or decisions in a relationship, the more likely it is to end in anger or heartache.”

“You know, that theory actually
almost
makes sense,” I said. “But it doesn’t apply to me. Not unless almost four years counts as a quick move.”

“You might as well give it up, Allie,” Nick put in. “This is Lexi Michaels you’re talking to, remember? Once her mind is made up, that’s that. No turning back. Mule city.”

I made a face at him. “Very funny,” I said. “Why don’t you just come out and call me stubborn?”

“I thought I just did.” He shrugged. “But here you go, Ms. Literal. You’re stubborn.”

I laughed. Now that I’d finally made my decision, I was feeling a little better already. It was always kind of comforting to have a course of action, a plan to follow. No more looming uncertainties. Just a problem to be solved, sort of like an especially challenging and complex bio lab. Now that I had the gist of how to approach it, I just needed to nail down the details and I’d be all set.

“Okay, you guys.” I leaned over to grab the last few pieces of popcorn before Nick could polish them off. “So help me out here. It’s time to set up a little social experiment. I need to get my boyfriend another woman!”

four

Getting Cam a new girlfriend turned out to be a lot harder than I’d expected. In fact, for the first few weeks I wasn’t sure I’d be able to pull it off after all.

For one thing, none of the girls at school seemed quite right for him. When I’d first concocted the plan, Claus Lake High School had seemed to be bursting with vaguely appropriate potential girlfriends for Cam. But once I got specific, it seemed every girl I considered had some fatal flaw. Carla Myers talked too much—if he ended up with her, poor Cam would never get a word in edgewise. Amalia Rozin was too quiet and passive. Cam wasn’t the type of person who wanted to do
all
the talking and planning in a relationship. Patti Amundson was rumored to have cheated on her last boyfriend, and there was no way I was going to risk fixing Cam up with someone who might betray him. No, if this was going to work, I was going to have to find just the right girl. The perfect girl. The girl Cam deserved.

“What about Talia Lund?” Allie asked one day at lunch. She was still dragging her heels on this whole breaking-up-with-Cam thing. But at least she seemed to be trying to help.

I glanced across the school cafeteria at a pretty blond girl talking and laughing with her friends and shook my head. “You mean little miss peppy-peppy cheerleader?” I picked up my sandwich. “Ugh. I don’t think so. Cam doesn’t go for that type.”

“Right.” Allie rolled her eyes. “Funny how none of the girls we know seem to be good enough for Cam. Maybe this is the Maybe Not Theory in action? You know, you don’t
really
want to go through with this, so you’re sabotaging your own efforts?”

“Sorry, guess again.” I paused to take a bite of my sandwich. “I’m just trying to be scientific about this,” I added after I’d chewed and swallowed, “to give my plan the best chance to work. That means narrowing it down to the absolute best candidate before proceeding.”

“Right.” Allie pursed her lips and sort of smirked.

* * *

“Check it out,” I said to Cam. “There’s Margie Mendenhall. She looks really pretty in that outfit, doesn’t she?”

He barely looked up from the pine garland he was attaching to a lamppost outside the fireman’s hall. “Huh?” he said, glancing briefly at a girl walking her dog farther down the block. “Oh. I guess. But listen, that reminds me—we should start thinking about our costumes for the Ball soon. You know the good ones always go fast. What do you say we go as reindeer this year?”

“Maybe,” I said. “But listen, did you know Margie’s a really good cook? I heard she won some kind of recipe contest in some magazine last year. Maybe we should go ask her about it.”

“Not right now, okay, sweetie?” Cam’s tongue poked out of the corner of his mouth as he bent lower, totally focused on what he was doing. “Your aunt will kill us if we don’t get these garlands up today.”

Glancing down the street, I saw Margie round the corner and disappear. Maybe it was just as well Cam hadn’t taken that particular bait. Sure, the two of them had that cooking interest in common. But while Margie was really sweet, I wasn’t sure her sense of humor would mesh with Cam’s that well.

I leaned back against a parking meter and shoved my hands in the pockets of my parka as I watched Cam finish hanging the garland. There was a definite nip in the air these days—October was almost half over, which meant the town’s holiday preparations were in full swing. In Claus Lake, the arrival of October didn’t mean it was time to put up the Halloween decorations, the way it probably did in most places. Nope, the only nod to All Hallow’s Eve was maybe a witch’s hat on the giant Santa outside the used car lot and some pumpkins mixed in with the mistletoe. It was pretty much Christmas-Christmas-Christmas from October 1 straight through the New Year.

Nick’s mom being in charge of decorations for the Ball meant she was involved in decking more than just the hall. Before long there wouldn’t be a square inch of Claus Lake that wasn’t bedecked and holly jolly.

Helping out with that was keeping me pretty busy. So was my mom, who was cochair of the food committee and counting on me to help keep her organized and halfway sane. Then on top of that there were the SATs, my college applications, and of course the usual daily grind of schoolwork and so forth.

With all that going on in my life, was it any wonder my plan seemed to be stalled before it had begun?

* * *

One Sunday afternoon in late October, I answered the door expecting to find Mrs. Abernathy from next door, who was late for the food committee meeting currently taking place in the glassed-in sunroom at the back of the house. Instead I found Allie standing on the front porch, wrapped in her favorite down jacket and a long purple scarf.

“Come on in,” I told her. “You’re just in time to help me make coffee for Mom’s committee. I can use the help, too. They’re all caffeine fiends.”

She grimaced, but came in anyway. “Listen, I can’t stay long,” she began, unwinding her scarf.

“Likely excuse,” I joked. “Would it sweeten the deal if I told you there are cookies?”

She laughed. “No, I’m serious,” she said. “Tommy gets home from soccer practice in, like, half an hour, and I told Mom I’d be there to meet him.” Tommy was Allie’s eleven-year-old brother. He was pretty much a computer freak. If someone wasn’t there watching him, he’d spend all his time on the computer, to the exclusion of food, sleep, homework, and possibly breathing. “But first I really need to talk to you,” Allie went on. “You know that girl Jaylene who lives across the street from me, right?”

“You mean the Southern belle of Willow Street?” Jaylene was a chatty, giggly bleached blonde whose family had moved to town over the summer from somewhere south of Scarlett O’Haraville. “Yeah. What about her?”

“Well, you know she’s still kind of new in town.” Allie followed me into the kitchen, where the coffeepot was bubbling. The sounds of Mom and the rest of the committee chattering and laughing drifted faintly through the sliding glass doors in the breakfast nook. “So she doesn’t know that many people yet.”

“Really? She doesn’t exactly seem like the shy type.” Jaylene was a year behind us in school, but juniors and seniors shared the same lunch period. I’d noticed Allie’s neighbor flirting with every guy in sight on numerous occasions. She was one of those people it was hard not to notice—and apparently the male population of Claus Lake High School agreed.

“Okay. But still, she’s going to that fund-raising banquet for the new high school over in East Lake next weekend, and she asked me to help her find a date. She wants someone classy who looks good in a suit and tie.” Allie shrugged. “So I thought of Nick. I’ve been worried about him—he’s still really down about the whole Rachel thing. I thought maybe this would be a way to help him start moving on. But I wanted to check with you first to see if you think it’s a good idea before I say anything to either Nick or Jaylene.”

“Nick will never do it. He hates getting dressed up and sitting around listening to speeches,” I said automatically, though I wasn’t really thinking about my cousin. I’d just had one of those flashes of inspiration that usually only hit me in the lab. “But I have a better idea—what about Cam?”

“What about him?” Allie looked genuinely confused for a second. Then her face cleared, and her eyes widened. “Wait, what? Are you serious?”

I shrugged. “Sure, why not? Cam will take her to that banquet if I ask him to. And who knows? Maybe spending the evening with another girl will be enough to finally jump-start my plan.”

“Are you sure you’re thinking of the right Jaylene?” Allie asked. “She doesn’t really seem like his type. Besides, Cam hates sitting still for that long just as much as Nick does.”

“I know, I know.” I grabbed several coffee mugs out of the cabinet and lined them up on the counter. “Cam will be bored to death. And Jaylene is all wrong for him. But it doesn’t matter. He hasn’t picked up on any of my hints about more appropriate girls. So maybe the important thing is just to get him out there, spending time with someone else. Being on a date with a girl other than me. That way, he might get used to the idea and maybe want more. You know, kind of like Pavlov’s dog.”

“I don’t know, Lexi.” Allie sounded troubled. “This is Cam’s life you’re talking about here, not some science experiment. He’s not going to suddenly decide he wants to date another girl—especially a girl like Jaylene—just because he’s stuck with her for a few hours.”

“You never know.” I reached for the coffeepot and shot her a sly look. “What about that old Opposites Attract Theory you’re always throwing in my face?”

She groaned and I chuckled, suddenly sure this was the right move. Okay, so Allie was right—there was no way Cam was going to suddenly fall for someone like Jaylene. She was giggly and prissy and high-maintenance and pushy and loud and maybe a teensy bit trashy, with her pink mohair sweaters, high heels with jeans, and baby blue eyeshadow. In other words, exactly the kind of girl Cam
didn’t
like.

Still, I knew he would agree to the date as long as I made it sound like he was doing Jaylene a big favor. He was like that. So what did I have to lose?

“A banquet?” Cam sounded dubious.

But I was prepared for that. “I know it’s a drag,” I said, reaching over to squeeze his hand. Not wanting to waste any time, I’d hurried over to his house as soon as I could get away from Mom’s Merry Minions back at the committee meeting. “If you really don’t want to do it, that’s okay, but I promised Allie I’d ask. She’s just worried that since Jaylene is new in town, she won’t be able to find anyone to go with and might just decide to stay home.”

“No, it’s okay,” Cam said immediately—just as I’d known he would. “I don’t mind, if you’re sure
you
won’t feel weird about it.” He smiled and squeezed my hand. “You know, me out with another woman …”

Okay, so maybe I was already feeling a teensy bit weird. But I wasn’t about to let
him
see that. Instead, I just waved one hand airily.

“Don’t give that a second thought,” I assured him. “It’s totally cool with me. Listen, I’d better get back home before Mom notices I didn’t load the dishwasher yet. Here’s Jaylene’s number. I’ll have Allie tell her you’ll call.”