Paradise sucked until I found the suicide note. And then it didn’t suck at all. It was so good, in fact, that I thought maybe my entire life was finally going to change. And then, that last night, everything tanked. But somehow, over the next few months, my life did begin changing.

That’s jumping way ahead, though.

I should start at the beginning, when my mom told me we were going to Paradise in the first place.

two

It was a typical Wednesday evening in Topeka, New York. Spring break was coming up next week, so I had nine minutes of homework, which I did while IMing my best friends, Ellie and Leora, surfing for celebrity gossip, and sending a virtual plate of snickerdoodles to my brother’s ReaLife page. Then, since I
happened
to be on ReaLife, I checked out Samir Basu’s online profile. And then, since I have no self-control, I opened every photo on his page and drooled waterfalls over his caramel cheekbones and milk-chocolate eyes. I lust after Samir and, yes, have even fantasized about how we’ll gloriously merge cultures (me: Jewish; him: Indian) for our wedding ceremony. Never mind the trivial fact that when I pass Samir at school he rarely waves at me. Ellie, Leora, and I are still debat
ing whether, during archery on Monday, Samir was coughing up a lugie or saying, “I love you forever, Jena Gornik.” My best friends, those traitors, went for the mucus. One guess where I cast my vote.

Finally, I closed my future husband’s ReaLife page, grabbed the Froot Loops, and parked in front of the TV. I wasn’t watching a specific show, mostly just using it as background noise as I copied quotes into my everything book. I’m obsessed with quotes. You name the person—Albert Einstein (smart), Toni Morrison (very smart), Nicholas Sparks (pure genius)—and I’ve got one of their sayings. My everything book is a regular blank journal I bought last year. The cover is that famous black-and-white photo of the couple kissing outside Hôtel de Ville in Paris. I once googled the image and was crushed to learn that not only was the kiss
staged
using models, but the woman later sued the photographer for damages. I did my best to block those facts out.

Mostly I fill my everything book with quotes about love, life, heartbreak, and inspiration. In my sixteen years of life, I’ve had yet to experience love or heartbreak (or even much inspiration), so instead I stockpile other people’s musings about those things. Sometimes I scribble strands of overheard conversations into my
book. Now and then I tape in a note someone discarded in the halls of Topeka High School. You’d be surprised what you can find when you’re a trash-picker. Two weeks ago, I scooped up a crumpled Post-it from the locker area outside the band room.
Do calc. Practice flute. Get bikini wax for Sat. p.m.
When I read that, I was like,
What?!!
I can guarantee that if I ever have to wax down yonder for some specific event, those other to-dos would fade into oblivion. But since I’m still in the math-and-music-practice stage, I must glean from other people’s exciting lives, and it all goes into my everything book.

Around eleven thirty that Wednesday night, my mom got home. A few times a year, she has a big night out with her college roommate, Luce Wainscott. Luce lives in New York City, an hour and a quarter south of Topeka on the commuter train. Luce is insanely wealthy. When she takes my mom out, they go to an expensive restaurant and Luce orders a bottle of chardonnay and spends more on the appetizers than we probably do on an entire month of groceries. Luce even pays for my mom to take a car service back to Topeka. My mom always tries to split the tab, but Luce is so loaded (Texas oil fortune) it’s a joke that my mom (a first-grade teacher) would plunk down her credit card.

“Is Dad sleeping?” my mom asked as she flopped onto the couch next to me.

“I think so,” I said. My dad works at the junior high three towns away and has to wake up by five fifteen every morning. “I haven’t heard from him in a while.”

My mom kicked off her shoes and hoisted her feet onto the coffee table. “So he didn’t tell you?”

“Tell me what?” I asked, vacuum-sucking a fleck of Froot Loops out of my braces.

“Where we’re going for spring break,” my mom said, smiling.

“Where
who’s
going?”

My parents had next week off too. But with my brother, David, in college, we didn’t have any extra money for vacations. The whopping plan so far was that I was going to take a bus to Binghamton and spend four days with Grandma Belle. That’s my mom’s mother. We bake kugel and watch the soaps and drive her Buick to every all-you-can-eat buffet in town. My mom is always saying we’re a family of big-boned women, but Grandma Belle calls me luscious. I totally don’t buy it, but she says someday I’ll realize she’s right.

“You and me, Jena,” my mom said. “We’re going to Paradise, a five-star resort in the Caribbean.”

The Cari-
what
?

Before I could question the amount of chardonnay my mom had consumed, she went on to explain how, at dinner tonight, Luce mentioned that she’d reserved an enormous suite at Paradise next week and had tons of extra room and we should tag along. And so my mom whipped out her cell phone and called my dad, who bought the plane tickets and kept it secret from me all evening.

I was speechless. My mom never whips out her cell phone. My dad doesn’t splurge on last-minute plane tickets. I wanted to ask my mom how come we’re in a parallel universe where my life is exciting and my parents are cool. But something else was heavy on my mind.

“Is Skye coming?” I asked.

“Of course,” my mom said. “That’s the whole point.”

“The whole point?”

“Luce and I will get time together and you and Skye can run around and have fun.”

For one, I don’t run. Not on a track. Not on a treadmill. And certainly not with Skye Wainscott. Luce’s daughter is seventeen and beautiful and lives in Manhattan and has a gorgeous boyfriend and, to top it off,
she has appeared in commercials and on TV shows. Ever since we were little, we’ve been stuck together when our moms hang out. But what the moms don’t understand is that Skye basically ignores me. And so, naturally, I can’t stop babbling around her. That’s what I do when I’m uncomfortable. I feel a compulsive need to fill silent space.

My mom gave me the details of the trip. We’d fly to a small island in the Caribbean this Saturday and return the following Friday. All I could think to say was that my bathing suit from last summer doesn’t fit anymore. My mom handed me her credit card and told me to check out the sales on Lands’ End. Once she’d headed upstairs, I scooped up some cereal and thought about how Paradise could go two ways:

Paradise Won:

Skye and I would bond. She’d finally decide I was worthwhile and I, in turn, would cease my verbal diarrhea. Everything I said would sound suave and sophisticated. We’d go jogging on the beach and meet guys everywhere we went (but since Skye has a boyfriend they’d all be for me), and I’d get a butterscotch tan and my butt would miraculously become toned.
By the time I returned to Topeka High, the world would meet a whole new Jena Gornik. I’d no longer be pegged as a B-plus student in a school full of geniuses. The band director would bump me to first-chair clarinet. Samir Basu would shoot his arrow in my direction (metaphorically, of course) and we’d start going out and he’d ask me to the junior prom and I’d no longer be the only sixteen-year-old in Westchester County who’s never been groped. Well, I did kiss a greasy, zit-specked guy at my cousin’s bar mitzvah last year, but I’d really rather not count that one.

Or, more realistically:

Paradise Lost:

Skye would blow me off. My life would remain pathetic.

This is the real world, not a Nora Roberts novel, so I had a sneaking suspicion it’d be option number two. But sometimes, by the flickering glow of the TV screen, it’s nice to dream a little.

three

The thing about walking through an airport with Skye Wainscott is that she’s stunning. She’s tall and willowy with a high forehead, a perfect nose, smooth skin, and long, curly black hair. She was wearing oversized sunglasses, cargo pants, and a delicate shirt that showed off her boobs (which are bigger than mine even though she’s way skinnier. NOT fair.). The iPhone cord dangling out of her pocket topped off her casually perfect ensemble. And then, enter me. My chin had broken out the night before, so I was powdered like a funnel cake. I’d spent fifteen minutes blowing out my hair, and I’d obsessed about my clothes until I came up with an ensemble that seemed chic and urban in my bedroom mirror. But now, under the glaring lights of Kennedy airport, it all felt wrong.

It was a few minutes before seven. We’d just cleared security, and the moms were going in search of coffee. Skye wanted to get magazines for the flight and I was tagging along. I could tell that the guys we passed, plus a handful of women, were checking her out. Maybe they were trying to place her from one of her commercials or shows. I had to wonder what they made of me. Did they think I was Skye’s friend? Unlikely. Did they think I was her sister? No. If we were related, we’d have at least a few genes in common. Did people think I was her maid? Do people even have maids anymore?

When we got to the newsstand, Skye grabbed
People
and
Entertainment Weekly
and began thumbing through
In Touch
. I stood next to her, browsing
In Touch
even though I get my celebrity dish from the blogs because it’s cheaper and more immediate and, anyway, I was going to attempt to read
Dandelion Wine
on this plane ride. My brother gave it to me last month. Now that David is an American studies major, he’s always trying to push books that have some greater meaning about our country. When he came home for Passover all he could blabber about was his “Cold War Culture” course and how if I really wanted to understand the contrasting viewpoints in
1950s America (did I ever say that?) I had to read
The Catcher in the Rye
alongside
Dandelion Wine
. I tore through
The Catcher in the Rye
(and developed a major crush on Holden Caulfield) but have only read the first page of
Dandelion Wine
. So far, so dull.

“Are you reading anything good?” I asked Skye.

“Mostly just scripts,” she said without looking up.

“You mean movies? That’s so cool.”

Skye glanced at me, one eyebrow raised.

Shut up, Jena,
I warned myself.

“I’m just saying,” I said, “that it’s amazing you get to
read
movies before they’re actually made. I mean, who else gets to do that?”

Skye pushed a curl back from her face.

“Are you doing any interesting projects now?” I asked.

“Not really.” Skye shrugged. “Just a lot of auditions.”

“Anything I’ve heard of?” I pressed. Ellie, Leora, and I are obsessed with Skye’s career. Every time Luce tells my mom that Skye is going to be on something, we watch it, even if it’s just a thirty-second commercial. I’d never admit this to Skye, but she’s our big connection to the glamorous world outside of Topeka.

“It’s kind of early, you know?” Skye said.

“For what?”

“I’m not really in the mood to talk about work.”

My cheeks burned in shame. I headed over to the cashier to buy gum, except a Twix bar began calling my name. I could imagine peeling off the caramel with my teeth, crunching hard on the cookie center. I slid the Twix and a pack of Trident across the counter and quickly gave the guy my money before Skye could see that not only do I act like a loser, but I eat like one too.

I ended up flying first class to Paradise.

When Skye and I met up with our moms at the gate, Luce insisted I trade tickets with her so she and my mom could sit together in coach. I looked at my mom like,
Is this okay?
but she shrugged and didn’t say anything. My mom is weird around Luce. Sometimes it seems like she’s being bossed around.

Skye and I boarded the plane early, with the other elite travelers. As we settled in our smooth leather seats and a flight attendant took our drink orders, I was having a majorly surreal moment. I couldn’t believe I was headed to an island in the Caribbean. I figured I’d have to wait for my honeymoon (my honeymoon with Samir) for something like this. And not
only that, but flying
first class
. For one, we never fly anywhere we could feasibly drive. For two, whenever we have flown, we go coach. As we’re boarding the plane, my dad always wonders (way too loudly) who in their right mind would spend eight times the amount for extra ass room. It’s totally embarrassing, especially since we’re a family who could use the extra ass room.

“I can’t believe this,” I said as I buckled my seat belt.

Skye was in the window seat, her iPhone on the tray table. “Can’t believe what?”

“First class. The Caribbean. I definitely didn’t think this is how spring break was going to go. I was supposed to visit my grandma in Binghamton and spend my days obsessing about Samir Basu.”

“Who’s that?”

“A guy at school.” I snorted. “My boyfriend in some alternate reality. Definitely not like how you have it with Matt.”

Skye fiddled with her diamond-encrusted necklace. “I broke up with Matt.”

“Oh my god! When? Why?”

“In March,” Skye said.

Skye scrolled through her music. She didn’t look
the least bit devastated. I was tempted to say
Are you INSANE?
Skye and Matt had been together for almost two years, so I’d met him at various gatherings and, let me tell you, I wouldn’t dump him if he got herpes, drained my bank account, and stranded me alone with our unborn child. Not that I’m aspiring to be a disease-ridden, broke single mother, but Skye’s ex- (oh my god,
ex
) boyfriend is the ideal male specimen. Matt is a tousled-hair prep-school boy, a multimillionaire with his own BMW and sailboat (seriously). And he’s friendly, even to me. At Luce’s Fourth of July barbeque last summer, Matt mentioned I should come on his boat sometime. Skye later joked that Matt invites the entire universe aboard his sailboat, but that didn’t stop my ego from getting a serious boost.

The moms passed us on their way to coach.

“Hey, girls!” they called out.

As soon as they were gone, I turned to Skye. “So why did you break up with Matt?”

“I needed a change.”

“How did he take it? Is he together with anyone else?”

Skye pursed her bee-stung lips. “Why are
you
so curious?”

“Whatever,” I muttered, my cheeks flushing again.

Skye stuck in her earphones and settled her head on the pillow. Just before she closed her eyes, she said, “He’s not exactly your type, Jena.”

My stomach lurched. What she meant was I’m not
his
type. Duh. It’s not like I don’t know that.

As we taxied toward the runway, I sank back in my seat. I popped a few pieces of gum and opened
Dandelion Wine
. Skye looked like she was already asleep. The plane took off. I read a few chapters. I have no idea why my brother insisted I read this book, but it was all I had for the plane ride.

Once we reached cruising altitude, I double-checked that Skye was sleeping and then dug around for the Twix bar. I ripped open the paper and downed the whole thing, sucking the caramel out of my braces. As I stuffed the wrapper into my barf bag, I suddenly felt fat and gross. If I had any hope of landing a guy even
close
to Matt, I was now one Twix bar further from that happening.

Other books

The Ice King by Dean, Dinah

Murder on a Silver Platter (A Red Carpet Catering Mystery Book 1) by Shawn Reilly Simmons

The Big Reap by Chris F. Holm

Ditto Ditto by R.J. Ross

Lovers and Newcomers by Rosie Thomas

Wild Song by Janis Mackay

Falling in Love by Stephen Bradlee

5 Easy Steps to Make Your Website Your #1 Employee by Steve Johnsen

Her Notorious Viscount by Jenna Petersen

Caterpillar Without A Callsign by Isaac Hooke