“I don’t see why all this drama of coming down to the station was necessary, Officer Peele,” she said as she signed the paperwork to release me. “If you were going to let them off with a warning, you could have simply done so at the house.”
“Well, ma’am, we wanted to make sure this was an experience they wouldn’t soon forget,” Officer Peele said, hooking his thumbs into his utility belt.
“I think that the educating of children falls to the parents, Officer Peele, don’t you?” she said. “Please tell Chief Harrison to call me. I’d like to have a few words with her. And you’d better hope I’m in a better mood then, or I’ll be filing a formal complaint.” Officer Peele turned purple and nodded mutely. Then Loretta snapped her fingers at me and waved at the door. I scurried out ahead of her, joining Lauren, who was waiting in the small square lobby area.
Loretta stepped up behind us, tugging on a pair of leather gloves and pulling her keys from her wrist bag. Her hands were shaking, and she dropped the keys on the floor with a clatter. I bent to retrieve them and held them out to her. My heart felt like lead.
“I’m really sorry, Loretta,” I said sheepishly. My voice was like a squeak.
“I don’t want to talk about this now.” She looked at the keys for a moment, then turned to my sister. “Lauren, you’ll drive home. I have a sudden splitting headache.”
“Yes, Loretta,” Lauren said.
Then Loretta slid between us and out the door into the frigid night air.
“I think I broke our grandmother,” I said.
Lauren took the keys and put her arm around me, giving me a quick squeeze. “Let’s just get her home.”
* * *
• • •
The ride back to Evergreen Lodge felt miles longer than the Uber trip we had taken to get out to Chase’s house just a few short hours earlier. Loretta spent the entire drive with her eyes closed and the bridge of her nose pinched between her thumb and pointer finger. When Lauren attempted to turn on the radio, Loretta simply tsked, and Lauren turned it right off again.
I sat in the back of the car, feeling like the worst piece of sludge ever to grace the planet. Not only had I not so much as seen Loretta all day long, but then we’d dragged her out of bed with a call from the police station. What must she have thought when she’d picked up the phone to hear it was the Evergreen PD calling? What must have gone through her head? It was no wonder she had a splitting headache.
Lauren kept glancing at me in the rearview mirror, and I was sure my expression mirrored her own. We were both worried. Not just about what Loretta might do to us tomorrow, but about Loretta. She’d never been silent for this long. At least not that I had seen.
My phone pinged and I flinched. Who the hell would be texting me now? Maybe Carina, letting me know whether or not she was going to be grounded?
“Will you kindly turn that off?” Loretta bit out, eyes still closed from what I could see in the side mirror of the car.
“Sorry, Loretta.”
I fumbled with my phone, turning it over to hit the power button, and saw that the text wasn’t from Carina. It was from Christopher.
My heart began to pound. Finally. He was finally responding! I opened the text, not daring to imagine what it might say.
Wow! I can’t believe you met Adam Michel. That’s so cool Tess!
Tears pricked at my eyes. It had been a long day. And I had been so worried I’d never hear from him again. After everything that had happened, this olive branch felt like exactly what I needed. Then, the three dots began to scroll again, and I quickly turned off the sound on my phone so Loretta wouldn’t hear when the next text came in. I watched and waited for what felt like hours. Finally, his next text appeared.
Listen, I can’t do this anymore. I shouldn’t be talking to you. Good luck with the list
Wait. What? He wasn’t serious. I started to text him back, but then the three dots popped up again.
Sorry. Hope you have a good new year
Wow. And I’d thought this night couldn’t get any worse.
An insistent knocking at our hotel room door woke us up the next morning. I cracked one eye open and glanced at the digital clock on the table between our beds. It was 7:45 a.m. I couldn’t even believe I’d fallen asleep. For most of the night, I’d stared at the ceiling, going over and over the night and trying to figure out what I could have done differently. Not said yes to the party, for one thing. Not trusted Damon when he’d said TP’ing Chase’s house would be fine. Not putting the toilet paper prank on my list to begin with. If only I could go back in time.
But no such luck.
I put my pillow over my head and groaned, hoping the person at the door would just go away, but they kept knocking, and Lauren finally threw a pillow at me.
“You’re closer to the door!” I griped.
“You’re the reason we didn’t get to bed until three a.m.!” she replied.
She had a point. I threw my covers off and stomped over to the door, checking through the peep hole. When I saw who was on the other side, I stood up straight, my heart skipping a terrified beat.
“It’s Loretta,” I whispered urgently.
Lauren sat up, her hair covering half her face. “What?”
“And she looks like herself again!”
“Girls!” Loretta barked, but still in a low enough voice that she wouldn’t disturb the other guests. “I can hear that you’re whispering in there. Open the door.”
Lauren shrugged at me like, What else can you do? So I took a deep breath and opened the door. Loretta’s eyes flicked over my pajamas before she stepped into the room, flipping on the light and nearly blinding the both of us. Lauren threw a hand up and squeezed her eyes closed for a second before blinking them against the onslaught.
“We are going to have breakfast in the Overlook. Just the three of us. I want the two of you to meet me there at eight-thirty sharp.” She glanced around the room where both of us had shucked off our clothes into piles before climbing into bed last night. No one had brushed their teeth, washed their face, or thought about being tidy. Didn’t Loretta realize we’d only gotten to bed less than five hours ago? Hadn’t she gone to bed less than five hours ago? “We are going to be spending the day together, so I suggest each of you showers quickly and makes yourself presentable. I will see you in forty-five minutes.”
She strode out the door, closing it quietly behind her, and Lauren flopped back onto her bed with a sigh.