“This. What do you think the Ms mean?”
Lauren snatched the page from my hand and scanned it, squinting. “International Buffet, New Year’s Eve Teen Dance, Campfire Bingo…all marked with an M.” She slapped the paper down dramatically and looked up at me. “You don’t think she means mandatory, do you?”
“Oh, no. No way,” I said. “I plan to spend the next six days in this room, reading and watching TV.”
“There’s a shock,” Lauren said sarcastically.
“You’re the one who was just watching YouTube!” I shot back.
“I was relaxing for five minutes, not hermit-ing myself away for days.” Lauren got up and pulled off her sweater, which she tossed onto the floor in a heap. “I’m going to get out of here as soon as possible. But if Loretta thinks it’s going to be so I can…‘build gingerbread houses,’ ” she read off the list, making a disgusted face, “she’s out of her mind.”
Actually, building gingerbread houses sounded kind of fun. My dad and I used to make them every Christmas when I was little—from a kit, but still. I loved planning out the decorations for our house and using the squeeze bag of icing to attach the candies (the ones I didn’t eat). Suddenly I missed my dad so much my chest hurt.
Why was Mom making him leave? Why couldn’t she just try harder?
“I don’t know what your problem is,” Lauren said, looking over the calendar again. “Don’t you just love to have every moment of your life scheduled?”
Okay. She had a point. If I were in any mood for festive holiday fun, I would be all about this calendar of events, especially the mandatory parts. Honestly, even as I stood there, the idea was beginning to grow on me. If my grandmother wanted us at these things, we should go. I was sure she had her reasons.
“Mom says hi and have fun, by the way,” Lauren said, handing the paper back to me and holding up her phone to show me her messages. “She said answer your texts, too.”
I had turned my phone off as soon as we’d left our house in Philly that morning and hadn’t turned it on since. I didn’t want to talk to my mom. I didn’t really feel like talking to anyone. Except my dad, suddenly. I rummaged through my backpack for my phone and powered it up. There were a bunch of texts from my friends, wishing me a good trip or asking what I’d gotten for Christmas. Then there were five texts from my mother—all checking-in kinds of things—and one from my dad. He’d sent me a picture of a heart someone had drawn in the snow on a mailbox. My own heart panged.
I texted him back.
Good one. Twenty points.
He immediately sent me a thumbs-up and a kissy emoji. Me and my dad had been sending each other random hearts we found in the world ever since I first got my phone in middle school. My father traveled a lot for work—he was legal counsel for a midsized boutique hotel chain called Galileo Properties that had locations all over the world—and it was a fun way for us to stay connected even if he was in Bali or Belgium or Canada somewhere. We’d only instituted the point system when we’d had a mock fight over whose find on a particular fall day had been cooler—the yellow heart-shaped leaf I had found in the backyard or the heart someone had drawn in the dust on a Jeep parked outside a hotel in Australia along with the words Love is messy. The highest a heart could score was twenty-five points. I was being a little generous with my score for the snow heart, but I was in a generous mood. When it came to my dad, anyway.
I put my phone away without texting Mom and looked at the schedule. “Well, our mandatory International Buffet Dinner is in fifteen minutes.”
“Yeah, there’s no way I’m going to that,” Lauren said, back on her phone. “I wonder if there’s any place around here that has good tapas.” She opened Yelp and started typing.
There was a peppy knock on the door. Lauren and I exchanged a questioning look, and then she shoved herself off the bed and opened the door without even checking the peephole. The girl was going to get us killed one of these days, for sure.
“Hello. I’m Tarek. You must be Tess.”
The guy standing in the hallway didn’t look like a serial killer. He looked like the lead in a Hallmark Christmas movie. Except younger. He had broad shoulders, a thick head of brown hair, and eyes so blue I could tell they were blue even from across the room. He wore a forest-green Evergreen Lodge polo and black jeans that looked really good on him.
Lauren laughed. “Um, no. That’s Tess. I’m Lauren. The pretty one.”
Seriously? But Tarek just smiled. And it was a killer smile. Ugh. Lauren was a goner for sure. She fell in love at least once a day.
“I like your confidence,” he said. “Well, it’s nice to meet you, Lauren.” He glanced over at me. “I guess that makes you Tess.”
“Got it in one,” I said.
“Nice to meet you both,” he said politely. “Mrs. Sachs sent me to escort you down to our famous annual International Buffet Dinner.”
“Great,” I said. “I’m ready. Have fun with your tapas, Lauren!”
I made a move for the door, but Lauren stepped between me and Tarek. “Actually, I changed my mind. I had no idea this buffet thing was famous. How could I miss that?”
Shocker. Obviously, now that there was a hot guy involved, Lauren was in.
“Just give me five minutes to get ready,” she told Tarek. Then she placed one hand on his chest and literally shoved him into the hallway. Tarek laughed.
“All right, then. I guess I’ll just be waiting out here.”
“Yeah, you will!” Lauren gave him a finger wave and closed the door. Then she turned to look at me, her mouth open. “Oh my God,” she whispered. “Did you see that guy?”
“I was standing right here,” I said.
But Lauren was already in the bathroom, running the water, scrubbing her face, as if I didn’t even exist.
“You’re kidding me, right?” Lauren said as I slid into the chair next to hers at the long table we were sharing with Tarek and a bunch of random strangers. The Antelope Room was the buffet-style casual restaurant set at the back of the lodge, overlooking the award-winning gardens. Gardens that were bare right now, except for the dozens of intricate ice sculptures that dotted the empty flower beds, each lit with a spotlight that made it seem to glow from the inside out. The carvers had decorated the courtyard with everything from skiing snowmen to frolicking deer to—yes—a giant antelope, and a couple dozen kids were gathered at the windows, staring outside.
“That’s all you’re eating?” Lauren asked me. Accused me, really.