You're Invited (5 page)

“So, um, I saw you at the Visitor's Center the other night. Are you Mrs. O'Malley's grandson or something?”

“Or something,” he answers, now brushing sand from his elbow.

Geez. He's really annoyed. If it weren't for those blue (cobalt? Is that a thing?) eyes and that accent, I might give up on this one. Maybe I'll learn all about L-O-V-E from a book instead. I point to his T-shirt.

“Drama camp, huh? Are you an actor?”

He heaves a (very dramatic, one might say) sigh and his eyebrows smoosh down. “Trying to be. I'm supposed to be at camp right now working on my craft. But me mum and da had to run some research trip and they deposited me here with me great-aunt.”

Accent. Accent! Wait, whoops. I was so busy listening
to the way he formed his words that I didn't actually hear them. Something about aunts and research.

“That's nice,” I say with a ginormous smile.

He cocks his head and looks at me sort of funny, then gives a little shake and turns back to the beach. “Thanks again for running me over,” he calls over his shoulder.

Whoa. He did not just turn his back on me, did he? I stand with my jaw dropped open for a second, watching him start up the boardwalk.

This is so not over.

HOMEMADE PITA CHIPS

Ingredients:

3 pieces of pita bread

4 tbsp olive oil

1 clove of garlic, smashed

salt and pepper, to taste

Preheat over to 375 degrees. Cut pitas into 8 wedges each and place on a baking sheet. Brush each wedge with olive oil and garlic. Season with salt and pepper. Bake for 12–15 minutes.

**If Lauren is around, double this recipe.

**Don't eat these before talking to Linney, or she'll sniff the air and act like she's allergic to garlic. She's probably a vampire.

A
n
army of plastic bride and groom cake toppers grin at me, like they know I have zero idea what I'm doing.

Okay, not
zero
idea. I mean, I know I'm ordering a cake, and I have a whole list of pictures and instructions from Sadie to go along with it. But this place is So Not Vi. It's all pastel and frou-frou, and it smells like a hundred Pixy Stix exploded inside. This whole party is So Not Vi, so it's not like that should be a surprise. And I have to put myself into one of those prissy, fluffy costume dresses. If I get stuck with the pink one that looks like wearable cotton candy, I will NOT be happy. I'd do anything to help Sadie, but that's really asking too much.

I shiver in the AC—it's turned up so high that I'm really thankful I have contacts now instead of glasses that would fog up the second I stepped back outside—and glance down the length of the glass display case. Mrs. Marks, the owner of Marks Makes Cakes, is still busy with the same woman.

“Violet?” A sniffy little voice says from behind me.

I know that voice. And it makes me want to roll my eyes and run away at the same time. Only two people call me Violet—my meemaw and Linney Marks.

“You're
dripping all over the floor.” Linney points at the pink linoleum, which is dotted with drops of water.

As she slips behind the display case, I twist my ponytail up. Totally wrong choice, because even more salty ocean water squeezes onto the floor. I really should cut my hair. A cute little bob or pixie style would be way more practical for swimming and volleyball. But I kind of secretly think that long hair is prettier.

Not that I'd admit that to anyone.

“Um, sorry. I was swimming and then I had to come here and . . .” Yeah. Not sure why I'm trying to explain myself.

Linney's just standing there in her dry yellow sundress and dry highlighted hair, eying my drippy ponytail and soaked-through T-shirt and running shorts like I've committed crimes against fashion. Maybe I should've gone home and changed instead of pulling my clothes over my swimsuit. That's something Becca would know to do. She's always trying to lend me dresses or curl my hair or attack me with some piece of makeup.

But at least Becca's nice about it. Linney—not so much. In fourth grade, I invited a bunch of girls in our class over for a sleepover. I'd never thought it was weird to live in Sandpiper Pines Mobile Home Park. I mean,
Dad and I had always lived there, and Mom too, before she left to “follow her dreams” in California. Whatever that means. But I barely remember her.

Anyway, the second Linney's mom dropped her off in front of our trailer, everything changed between us. She frowned at the rust spots outside that Dad kept meaning to sand off and repaint but never could because he worked so much. She perched on the kitchen chair inside like it might swallow her whole. And she refused to eat any of the spaghetti and homemade marinara sauce I'd cooked. (That was some good marinara too. I'd just figured out that if you add sugar to it, it totally changes the way the sauce tastes.)

Dad's always worked so much that he only ever had time to make mac and cheese from a box. That got really old after a while, so I taught myself how to cook. And it turned out that I really liked it. Cooking is like doing the best science experiment ever, or maybe a puzzle that has no right or wrong answer.

So, the next week at school after my party, Linney told everyone how I was “poor” and how sad it was that I had to live in an ugly trailer and maybe that's why I always wore running shorts and tanks. Which is so not true—that
last part, anyway. The rest of it . . . I'm not so sure. I thought she might let up once Dad and I moved into Meemaw's nice beach house a couple of months ago, but she hasn't.

“So . . . why are you here? Isn't there some kind of game or meet or something you should be at?” Linney's not even looking at me. She's too busy rearranging the Bridal Battalion in the light-up display case.

I take a deep breath. I have to deal with Linney. For Sadie. When Linney made fun of my greenish-tinged pool hair last winter, Sadie accidentally-on-purpose knocked green paint onto Linney's brand-new jeans during art class. Best day ever.

“I need to order a cake from your mom,” I finally say.

“I can take your order.” Linney shuts the door to the case and opens a binder. “What flavor?” From somewhere behind the display case, she plucks a pink pen topped with—what else?—a cake.

“Linney?” Mrs. Marks has waved the other customer out the door. “I can take over.”

“No, Mom,” Linney barks. “I've got it.”

Mrs. Marks scurries away toward the kitchen in the back.

Okaaay. That was kind of uncomfortable.

“It's sort of complicated.” I push the pictures across to Linney. “It has to look like that plantation house in
Gone with the Wind
, with little trees and grass and stuff. And a tiny Scarlett and Rhett. Here's a picture of them.”

“I
know
what Scarlett and Rhett look like.” Linney writes something in the binder as I silently pull the pictures back and clutch them in front of me.

Linney taps the cake part of the pen on the page. She gives me the same pitying look she did the day everyone turned in their twenty dollars for the class field trip to Raleigh. Everyone but me, that is. (At least until Becca insisted she'd “just happened to find” a twenty when she was sweeping in the Visitor's Center.)

“This isn't going to be cheap, you know.”

Okay. That's low. And how much do I hate that I can feel my face going red? Dad and I haven't lived in that trailer since April, but people like Linney will never forget it. I grit my teeth and don't say anything. For Sadie.

I look her straight in the eye. “This is for Molly Campbell's ninth birthday party. You know, the Campbells who built those new condos down by the mini-golf place? I can pay for it. It should say ‘Happy Birthday, Molly,' and the cake needs to be chocolate. We'd like it
delivered to the Poinsettia Plantation House on Saturday morning by eleven. Just call me if your mom has any questions. I have to get back to the beach for the volleyball game now.”

And with that, I do my best Becca-inspired flounce right out the door—and turn the wrong way down the sidewalk. But Linney's either stunned into silence or not even looking, because she doesn't say anything as I flounce back by the Marks Makes Cakes window to grab my bike.

I unlock my bike from the rack and pedal fast through the square and toward the beach. Dealing with a monster like Linney totally earned me a detour by Beach Sports. I wish I knew how to stop letting her get under my skin. Dad says she'll forget all about it once we get to high school, but that's
ages
away. I roll past the souvenir T-shirt shop, and brake to a stop outside Beach Sports, where they've got all kinds of beachy sportiness displayed on the sidewalk to lure tourists to their cash registers.

Right there, side by side, next to a row of boogie boards, sit Vi's Most Wanted. Two kayaks in hunter green—Dad's favorite color. I'd put up with a hundred Linney Markses to get my hands on those. I've been
saving my babysitting money since March. If I keep landing sitting gigs, Dad and I could be cutting through the water in those green kayaks by September.

Assuming I can get him away from work long enough, that is. Being in construction means you have to work a zillion hours a day, every day of the week. Unless it rains, then you don't work at all. And there's never enough money for things like kayaks or field trips or fancy ingredients from that ethnic grocery store that opened on the next island over. Dad always refuses to take the money Meemaw offers for stuff like that. Meemaw is my mom's mother, which makes things weird between her and Dad. He only agreed to move into her house because she'll be in Maine all summer and she didn't want to rent the place out. She told Dad he'd be doing her a favor by us moving in.

My phone buzzes in my pocket. It's lilac and So Not Vi, but it's a phone. Lauren's parents gave her a new one for her birthday, so she passed this one on to me. Embarrassing, but like I said, it's a phone. Which is better than no phone. And the lilac is maybe just a
little
bit cute.

Balancing over my bike, I click it on.

Hottie McH h8s me.

Becca.

I snort back a laugh. She has to mean that new guy she met at her parents' Visitors' Center thingy.

???
I type back.

Kinda sorta crashed into him.

Okay, now I laugh for real. Tourists give me funny looks as they wander by Beach Sports. Girl in wet clothes perched on a bike, laughing at her phone. I guess I do look a little crazy.

Why did u do that?

2 say hi.

Becca. Becca, Becca, Becca. Seriously, with all her know-how about clothes and makeup and stuff, she's completely clueless when it comes to actually talking to guys. Not that I really know a whole lot about boys either, but at least I know that running one over on your bike is probably not the best way to make friends.

“Vi?” Speaking of guys, Lance Travis, king of Sandpiper Beach Middle School sports, skids to a stop next to me. “Why aren't you at the beach? Major volleyball tournament, remember?”

I push off on my bike, down Coastline Drive, making sure to cut right in front of him when he starts pedaling again. He wobbles a bit and then rolls up next to me.

“Loser,” he
says, with his Lance-like half-smile that makes Becca sigh every time she walks by him.

“Butt breath,” I say. “Did you find us a sixth person for our team?”

He rubs a hand through his short brown hair as he pedals. “Yeah, this Irish dude who showed up at the basketball courts in the park yesterday. Cruddy basketball player, but he swears he's good at volleyball.”

“Great. Guess it's better than being down a player.” My phone buzzes again. I glance at it, expecting Becca, but it's Sadie. “Hold up,” I say to Lance.

He brakes and looks back at me. “You're stopping to text? Really? You're such a girl.”

I punch him hard on the arm for that. “This is important. Just a sec.”

Cake status?
Sadie wants to know. She's probably sitting at her kitchen table, surrounded by charts and Post-it notes and whatever else super-organized people use to stay super organized.

Cake ordered,
I type back.

Did they have mini S & R?

Whoops. In all my flouncing and dripping, I kind of forgot to make sure they had a little Scarlett and Rhett to stick on the cake. Linney said she knew what they looked like . . . so she would've told me if they didn't, right?

I hope so, anyway.

I know I should pedal back and find out for sure, but Lance is already giving me the evil eye for texting when I should be headed for the game. Okay, I'll just call later.

Yup. Don't worry!
I type to Sadie.

“Vi! Volleyball, now! I'm leaving without you,” Lance calls over his shoulder.

I shove the phone into the waistband of my shorts and take off after him. I'll call the cake shop after the game. No big deal.