“As self-absorbed as my parents can be, they like us with them for Christmas.” The idea worried and depressed me in equal parts.
“Where are they planning to go this year?”
Chess’s question brought home our differences. She and I had lived on the same floor in the dorms our freshman year. She’d roomed with Jamaica while I’d roomed with Saylor. Both Chess and Jamaica came from single-parent homes and didn’t have much money. Saylor and I came from affluence—me more so than Saylor, but neither of us needed jobs, scholarships, or loans to pay for school. On paper the four of us shouldn’t work, but from the minute we met, we clicked. It didn’t hurt that I sought out paid internships and saved as much of my allowance as I could, and Saylor volunteered at a local nonprofit, giving us some common ground. Times like now, though, reminded me how lucky—and spoiled—I was.
“Aspen. At least I can disappear on the slopes during the days and avoid all of them.” As I sat with my friend who’d never been to Aspen, my answer sounded both spoiled and petulant to my ears. Then I had an idea. “Would your dad let me shadow him, do you think?”
She scrunched her brow. “Shadow him?”
“You know, job shadow him. Watch how he ends the year and sets up inventory for the next year, how he plans his workforce and suppliers for the coming year.” The more I thought about it, the more the idea of going to Chess’s for part of the break excited me. “If your dad was open to it, I could talk to my advisor and maybe set up a way to earn some extra credits by writing an observational paper. What do you think?” I sat up so fast, I almost sloshed the dregs of my tea all over my yoga pants. “Double bonus—we could hang out together on New Year’s.”
One brow shot up, but a twinkle lit Chess’s eyes. “Hanging out with you on New Year’s would be fun. Having you with me at the hardware store would take away some of the monotony of finding fittings and exchanging the power tools the wives bought their husbands for the bigger ones they actually want.” A smirk crossed her face. “When I have my weekly FaceTime with Dad, I’ll ask him.”
“You’re a peach, Chess. Thank you.” I walked around the couch to my kitchen and started the kettle again. “Hand me your mug.”
She passed hers over the couch.
While the tea steeped, I splashed a shot of Jameson into each of our mugs. Then I topped them up with lovely black tea and a touch of honey. My friend’s eyes saucered when she took the first sip before a smile bloomed over her face.
“What are we celebrating?”
“Christmas break fun and frolics together.”
We clinked mugs and drank again, and my morose mood lifted like the arc of a rainbow after a storm.
“Piper. What’s this about cutting Christmas vacation short? We see little enough of you as it is.” Annoyance tinged Dad’s voice over the phone.
“I’m doing an internship over the break,” I said with as much patience as I could inject into my tone. “I would have thought you’d approve. After all, don’t you always say that to get ahead in business, you have to position yourself for the best opportunities and jump on them when they arise?”
“Yes, when it’s an actual business opportunity. You’re talking about interning at a mom-and-pop store in a tiny town in the middle of Montana. That’s hardly the same thing.” The sigh that followed told me Sean Maxwell was pinching the bridge of his nose as he gathered himself to “talk sense” into me. “Christmas break is the perfect time for you and your sister to address whatever it is that has you not speaking to her. You need to stay with us.”
Screeching at Dad absolutely wouldn’t help my situation. After three slow breaths, I countered, “You want me to take a fail on this internship?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean that my advisor signed off on it. I’m expected to work with the owner of the store and write a paper detailing the experience with specific references to my coursework from this semester. It’s basically a two-credit class.” I paced my postage-stamp-size kitchen. “The credits are extra, but a fail will hurt my GPA and look terrible on my transcript.”
“Piper.” His tone said he was giving in. “I don’t know what you’re up to, but we need to deal with this. You haven’t been watching out for Pippa at all, and she needs your good example.”
Huh. Phillipa hadn’t told some horror story with me as the villain? What was her excuse when she showed up at Thanksgiving with Charlie? The temptation to solve the mystery clawed at my insides, but then I remembered the expression on my sister’s face on the day of The Fuckery, and I decided I didn’t need to know.
“She’s twenty, Dad. Isn’t it time for her to find her own way?”
“She’s your sister. Your mother and I count on the two of you to look out for each other.”
“Like you look out for us?” was on the tip of my tongue, but I bit it back.
I stared at the light flurries of snow dancing outside my kitchen window. “Here’s the thing, Dad. I don’t want an F on my transcript. If you aren’t willing to change my flight, I’ll buy my own ticket back here. Pippa will be with you and Mom, so I imagine she’ll be fine.”
“If you’re that serious about it—”
“I am.”
A sigh gusted through the phone. “I’ll have my assistant change your ticket. When do you need to be back to school?”
“The twenty-sixth.” Before he could grump about the speed of my departure from the fam, I rushed through my plan. “I need to drive up to Harlowton on the twenty-seventh so I can start on the twenty-eighth. It’s the only way to do the full two weeks before classes begin again on campus.”
“Whatever you’re trying to avoid, it’s not going away until you address it.” His long-suffering tone told me he’d probably left marks on the skin on either side of the bridge of his nose. For someone who hadn’t spent much time with me over the past seven or eight years, my dad had an uncanny way of reading me. “Your flight to Aspen is the twenty-second. You’re seated in business with your sister. Perhaps you can work it out on the plane.” The command in his voice said it wasn’t a suggestion.
