Winter White

  “Yes,” Kellen said. She thought she saw his mouth twitch. “It is something.”

  “Such fine craftsmanship,” Gwynie said, admiring one of the steel beams. “He worked months to get this right.”

  Kellen shook his head solemnly. “You can tell.”

  The woman’s blond ponytail swished like a horse’s tail when it meets a fly. “We’ve had several calls about it. A potential buyer is coming in this afternoon.”

  “What is the asking price?” Mira had to know. Were there really people out there interested in a piece like this?

  “Twenty-six thousand dollars,” the woman said without blinking. The phone rang, and she hurried to answer it, which was good because she missed Mira’s gaping mouth. “Tell Mr. Capozo if any more of his students want to see Changeling, they should get here soon. I’m sure it will be sold by next week.”

  “We’ll tell them to rush over,” Kellen promised. “They won’t want to miss this.”

  “Please tell me you’re kidding,” Mira whispered, the horror all but unmistakable in her hazel eyes. Kellen winked. “Thank God! How is this considered art?”

  They looked at the ginormous eyesore again, and Kellen could barely contain his laughter. Neither could Mira. The curator glanced their way. “Let’s get out of here.” Kellen led her to the exit. Mira tried hard to keep up with his long strides. She did not want him letting go of her arm.

  “What about the rest of the assignment?” Mira asked. “We’re supposed to write about five different paintings.”

  “I know someplace better.” Kellen pushed the gallery doors open, and she felt a rush of warm air as they stepped onto Main Street. Even though it was fall, anything would be warmer than that igloo they were just in. “How do you feel about a field trip?” Kellen asked. “Where we’re going, we can tackle our art assignment and eat.”

  “Food and homework tackled? I’m in.” Her heart revved slightly. Kellen was inviting her someplace with food! Corky’s had been her idea. This one was his. Did that make this a date? “Where are we headed?”

  “You’ll see,” he said, looking a lot like her brother Connor when he was trying to get away with something he shouldn’t. Kellen let go of her arm, and she tried not to appear disappointed. “Do you have a bus pass?”

  “A bus pass?” she repeated, this being the first time the words bus and pass had ever crossed her lips in the same sentence.

  Kellen shook his head. “Come on, princess. I’m taking you to my town. It’s time someone shows you how the other half lives.”

  Before Mira knew it, she was on the M14 bus headed for Peterson, crammed between an older woman carrying a grocery bag that smelled of red onion and a guy listening to his iPod so loud that she could have sung along. Kellen was standing in front of her, acting like a cushion every time the bus stopped short. He had his feet planted squarely on the ground, slightly apart, and he seemed to be balancing like he was on a surfboard. Peterson was a fifteen-minute ride from Emerald Cove made thirty minutes with the bus stops, and she spent the entire time wondering what Kellen’s town would be like. He had told her Peterson was nothing like Emerald Cove. Did that mean it was a carbon copy of Izzie’s Harborside, check-cashing stores on every corner and bars on the windows? If it was, how was she supposed to react? She’d put her foot in her mouth too many times with Izzie, and she did not want to do the same with Kellen. He may have teased her about being a princess, but she was determined to prove him wrong. But when she stepped off the bus at their stop, she wasn’t prepared for what she saw.

  “This is Peterson?” Mira looked from the picturesque street to a cute baby in a pricey stroller. She half expected the baby to explain herself.

  “Were you expecting something else?” Kellen asked.

  “No.” Mira’s face heated up as she spotted the Starbucks on the corner right next to a dog-grooming shop. She felt like such an idiot. Again. “It’s really cute.” Just nothing like what I thought it would be, she didn’t add.

  Peterson’s tree-lined square looked exactly like Emerald Cove if you took away the boutiques and the Apple store and replaced them with a music shop and a barbecue restaurant that had a giant cow statue out front. Metal sculptures jutted out of the walkways. A sketch artist worked on a bench nearby. Kids walked by in the same jeans and Ts she wore. The outdoor seating at a café was full. She could already tell the town had a cool, laid-back vibe.

  “You thought Peterson was going to be like Harborside, didn’t you?” Kellen seemed to have read her thoughts. “That’s okay, I get that a lot at EP. People hear scholarship and they immediately think I live in a trailer park.”

  “I didn’t say that, I just…” Mira took a deep breath, thinking about what she wanted to say. “Okay. I didn’t say it, but I did think it. Forgive me?”

  “I am not mad.” A crooked grin spread over his face. Mira watched two kids walk by with ice-cream cones. “I already know how you think, Mirabelle Monroe.”

  She wasn’t sure if that was a compliment, but she decided to take it. Something was still eating at her, and she couldn’t hold it in. “So why do you go to Emerald Prep if you live someplace like this?”

  “Ah, she continues her downward spiral, ladies and gentlemen.” Kellen applauded to those around them, and she narrowed her eyes. “Why don’t you go to public school?”

  Well… She didn’t have an answer for that one.

  “Uh-huh. Just what I thought.” Kellen studied her like he had that awful painting. “Just because I live someplace cool doesn’t mean I don’t want to go to a school that has a state champion fencing team.”

  “You don’t fence.” The smell of crepes from the nearby bakery was making her hungry.

  “True.” Kellen turned left onto another equally cute block. “My parents are big on education, and Peterson’s fine, but if I could go to Emerald Prep for next to nothing, why not? I took the test, got almost a full ride, and here I am. My only regret is that my benefactor is the Ingrams. I wish they weren’t, but what am I going to do? My parents have a lot more on their minds than my scholarship sponsor.” His face darkened. “My dad’s company keeps talking about moving their headquarters to another state.”

  “Can they do that?” Mira tried not to sound worried.

  “Maybe.” Kellen shrugged. “He doesn’t talk about it much, but he needs his job. My mom was laid off over the summer, and money’s tight. But enough about my family’s drama.” His green eyes looked greener in the late afternoon light. “Any other questions on your list? My favorite color is cobalt blue, in case you were wondering.”

  “Okay, clearly I need to stop talking,” Mira said.

  Kellen stopped in front of a store that had flyers covering the windows. The sign said Sup. What the heck was Sup?

  “You’re making that look again.” Kellen imitated Mira’s doe-eyed nervous expression perfectly. He even tried to push his sandy blond hair behind his ears, like she often did, but his wasn’t long enough.

  She crossed her arms. There was only so much teasing she could take. “Are you going to make fun of me all afternoon? Because I could take a bus right back to Emerald Cove right now.”

  Kellen viewed her skeptically. “I’d like to see you figure out the bus schedule.”

  “I could.” She tried to think of ways she could get home if she had to. “I mean, I’m sure someone could show me how.”

  Kellen shook his head. “Why don’t we just finish our assignment first?” He held the door open for her. A thumping bass beat from some new Pitbull song was being played so loudly, the tables were vibrating. They appeared to be in a coffee shop, but there was a stage at one end where a lonely microphone stood unattended. The dark purple walls and the Goth-looking chick making cappuccinos behind the counter didn’t exactly warm up the vibe. Where had Kellen brought her?

  The song ended, and Mira could hear Kellen again. “What do you want?”

  “Are we taking this to go?” she asked hopefully. She didn’t have any a
ntibacterial wipes on her to scrub down those dingy-looking tables.

  “No, we’re here to do our art assignment,” he said as if it should be obvious. “This is an art house. Well, an art house and a coffee bar, but it’s pretty well known. They’ve displayed a lot of work from up-and-coming artists in North Carolina.”

  For the first time, Mira noticed the walls. They were covered with paintings, and those that couldn’t fit were propped up on easels. A few of the funky metal sculptures she had seen on the street were in miniature form near the espresso machine.

  She walked over to the wall to examine a painting that caught her eye. It was of an old man in a frayed sun chair watching a small child jump in the waves. “This is a George Piner,” she said in awe. They had learned about Piner in class. He was the first painter in their area to get his work displayed at the MoMA in New York.

  “I’ll leave you and Piner alone while I get us some drinks,” Kellen said.

  The brushstrokes of the ocean were so vivid, she wanted to touch them. She pulled her notebook out of her bag and started to write. It was much easier now that she had something inspiring to look at.

  When Kellen returned a few minutes later, she had already taken pictures of the painting and written a page of notes. “Wow, you really are hooked on this one.”

  “I keep wondering what the old man is thinking.” She stared at the picture. “Is he sad that he isn’t young anymore, or is he thinking about how happy his own life was at the beach?” She glanced at Kellen sheepishly. “Maybe I’m just reading too much into it.”

  “I think that’s what you’re supposed to do with a painting.” Kellen took a seat at a table nearby and pulled out his notebook. “At least I do. There are so many different ways to look at someone’s work.”

  Mira wanted to see more paintings. She stopped at a tiny canvas painted in bright colors. It was a comic strip about a robot whose parents adopt a coffeemaker and say it’s the robot’s brother. Mira cracked up. “Have you seen this one?” she asked. “It’s hilarious!” Her eyes caught sight of the small name tag to the right of the painting: Artist: Kellen Harper. Mira spun around. “You did this one?”

  “Guilty. I worked on it here.” He looked at it for half a second. “It’s not my favorite comic, but Lily, the owner, insisted on putting it up.”

  Mira was impressed. Kellen’s work was in a real gallery. A coffee house gallery, but still. The only place her work was displayed was on their fridge. “I didn’t know you liked comics.”

  “Love them.” Kellen offered her his notebook, and she flipped through it. Not surprisingly, small comics filled almost every page. “I like reading and writing them. Manga, too. Not that I’m that good at any of it.”

  “You are good.” His sketchbook was incredible.

  “I don’t usually show people my stuff,” Kellen admitted.

  “Well, I’m glad you shared it with me,” she said, her voice soft, her hands sort of sweaty. Oh God, please don’t let me leave sweat stains on his artwork. It had to mean something that he was opening up to her. “I don’t have a clue what I’m doing in painting,” she told him. “I like it, but I can’t see my work ever being displayed in public.”

  “Why not? They run contests at Sup all the time. They just started a new one.” Kellen handed her a hot-pink flyer from the coffee counter.

  WHAT’S SUP, ART AFICIONADOS?

  THINK YOU HAVE WHAT IT TAKES TO SHARE ART SPACE WITH THE LIKES OF PINER, FEIST, AND ALBRACK? THIS MONTH’S CHALLENGE IS GETTING REAL WITH YOUR ART. SHOW US THE ANGST IN YOUR OWN LIFE THROUGH YOUR PAINTBRUSH. SHOW US YOUR BEST SELF-PORTRAIT. ONE WINNER WILL HAVE THEIR WORK DISPLAYED ON OUR WALLS FOR A MONTH. AFTER THAT, WHO KNOWS WHERE YOUR ART WILL WIND UP?

  “You have to enter,” Mira told Kellen over the roar of a new song. Oh wait, that was just the coffee-bean grinder. “You would win.” She slid the contest flyer toward him.

  Kellen pushed it back. “Why don’t we both enter?”

  She shook her head and tried to send the flyer his way again, but Kellen kept his fingers on it. “I’ve never really drawn people before.” All I draw is flowers and trees. How lame was that? Sure, Monet did the same, but she couldn’t compare herself to Monet. She wasn’t sure she could draw something as personal as the lines on a person’s face or someone’s nose. She glanced at the Piner wistfully. It was so beautiful.

  “Why don’t you draw yourself at that cotillion luncheon?” Kellen suggested. “You said it was the craziest one you’ve been to. I’m sure you can come up with some good expressions for people’s faces.”

  “Maybe.” She had been looking for a cotillion opening all afternoon so she could bring up her lack of an escort, but now that the moment was here, it didn’t seem to fit into the conversation.

  “What are you afraid of?” Kellen taunted. He was always up for a dare.

  “I’m not afraid.” Kellen held her gaze, and she cracked. “Okay, maybe I am a little. I don’t draw my personal life.”

  “That’s art,” Kellen said. “Why do you think Piner’s painting affected you so much? He drew real life. He didn’t stick a metal pipe through a canvas and call it a day.”

  Mira glanced at the Piner again. “What if my painting comes out awful?” She had never sounded so unsure of herself before. She didn’t like it.

  “Come on. Give it a shot. We can enter together.”

  That was certainly an incentive. Mira bit her lip.

  “If you’re that worried about someone seeing it, don’t be,” Kellen said. “There must be dozens of Monroes in North Carolina.”

  That was true.

  Kellen pushed the paper her way again. Sometimes he could be so stubborn. Kind of like Izzie. “What do you have to lose?”

  “Okay.” She folded the flyer and put it in her notebook. “But I’m not making promises.”

  They talked so long after that conversation that the chai tea latte he’d bought her was now lukewarm. “Thanks,” she said out of nowhere, making Kellen look up from the notebook he had been drawing in. “It’s nice to have someone to hang out with again.” Sometimes he made her so nervous, especially when he was staring at her like that.

  “Yeah.” He looked at her carefully between sips of cocoa. He had a small white line on his upper lip from the whipped cream, but she didn’t tell him. He looked cute like that. “I like hanging out with you, too.”

  And that’s when Mira felt it. Hope. The hope that maybe, just maybe, Kellen liked her back.

  Twelve

  The buzzer sounded, and Izzie hit the pool, her head bobbing above and below the water ten times before she took a breath. She sped through the water with a determined focus. There was no time to worry about where her competitors from St. Alexander’s Girls School were. She’d made that mistake before and paid for it dearly. When she finally hit the wall, she felt a moment of panic like she got when she wasn’t sure what was going on around her. But when she broke through the water, she heard cheers coming from the red side of the bleachers. She must have won! She took off her goggles and twirled them in the air, jumping up and down in the pool.

  “Time for the breaststroke one-hundred-meter race, one minute and nine seconds, a win for Isabelle Scott,” said the announcer as Izzie pulled herself out of the pool.

  “Nice one, Izzie!” Coach Greff threw a towel around her.

  “You are a machine, woman!” marveled Violet, who was standing with Nicole.

  Nicole grabbed Izzie’s arm and led her to their section in the bleachers. “Look at your triceps! No wonder you powered through two laps! Are you sneaking in workouts?”

  “Yes,” Izzie lied, still out of breath. “After you guys leave, I do fifty laps.”

  “Show-off.” Violet adjusted her camo swim cap. “You are quickly becoming the star of this team. Coach Greff is your biggest fan.”

  The indoor pool had a high glass ceiling, but the room was still a hothouse. As Izzie glanced at Savannah across the bleachers through the muggy haze, she
could almost feel the other girl’s hatred. “Let’s hope you-know-who doesn’t see it that way. I don’t need any more problems.”

  “She’s too preoccupied with cotillion to worry about you,” Nicole assured her.

  “And she’s ignoring the Butterflies because of it,” Izzie grumbled. “She missed our meeting the other day because she was shoe shopping for our next dance lesson!”

  “Are you surprised? Butterflies isn’t her main focus anymore,” Violet said. “She has a white dress to buy and a group of fellow debs-in-training to make miserable.”

  Izzie shook her head. “Mrs. Fitz seemed upset when she and Mira didn’t show. Mira at least had an excuse. She had to go to some gallery for an art assignment, but still. Mrs. Fitz told me she feels like no one is taking their club duties seriously, and she’s right. There are so many things we could be doing, and instead we can barely get everyone to a meeting.”

  “Wait till Founders Day planning starts,” Nicole warned her. “It’s even harder to get everyone’s attention then.”

  Izzie got so frustrated by the Butterflies’ lack of drive sometimes that she wanted to scream. They needed a real leader. Mrs. Fitz needed to put herself in charge, but she wouldn’t. She was a by-the-rules girl, as she called herself, and the rules said that Savannah and Mira were in charge.

  “Why don’t you organize the next event?” Violet asked.

  Izzie bit her lip. “I know I did the last one, and if no one else wants to get their act together, then maybe I should take over.”

  “Woohoo! She realizes her power!” Violet fist-bumped her.

  “But I can’t,” Izzie reminded them. “Only a cochair can nominate a new project.”

  “Those rules are ridiculous,” said Violet. “They give Savannah ultimate power, which we all know she does not need.”