“Good to know,” Carina said, making a mental note. She didn’t want to tell Alex just how important free food was to her these days.
“So I think we want to go frozen, right?” he asked after demolishing three more Dixie cups.
“Huh?” asked Carina, still eating.
“For the party,” Alex added.
“Oh yeah,” she said.
“Come with me,” he said.
She tossed out her empty Dixie cup and followed him down another aisle. This one was lined with open freezers full of frozen goods.
“Okay, first we have the chicken taquitos. Ten for three sixty-nine, and they’re incredible.” He held up the box. “And then we have the feta cheese and caramelized onion pastry bites,” he said, holding up another box. “Twelve for five bucks.”
“These are the appetizers?” she asked with uncertainty.
“Oh, and these are awesome,” he said, reaching down and pulling out another box. “These are the three-cheese, two-bite soufflés. Also the same price. You can’t go wrong.” He added them to the other two boxes and handed the stack to Carina.
Carina looked down at the cold boxes. She wasn’t sure if heated-up appetizers were what Ava had in mind, but at these prices, she wasn’t going to argue. “So how much do you think it would cost to do these for two hundred people?” she asked.
“About two hundred and fifty bucks.” Alex reached back down into the tub and started grabbing every box in sight. “We might be able to get half right now—”
“That’s okay,” she said quickly. “I’ll just get these. I’ll get the rest later.” Three boxes were all she could afford right now. As for the rest, she’d have to figure out a plan. They turned and walked toward the cash register.
“So you think Miss Birkin Bag will be cool with doing stuff on the cheap?” Alex asked.
“I’ll talk her into it,” she fibbed. “I’m sure she’ll love them.” She knew that the only way Ava would love them was if she didn’t know they came from Trader Joe’s. She’d have to come up with a fake place. A fake, fabulous place.
“So she wants you to get all this expensive stuff for free, right?” he asked, scratching the side of his head.
“Yup.”
“I don’t get it,” he said as they joined the line for the registers. “I thought these fancy charities had a pretty big budget for those parties. And now it sounds like they can’t afford to pay anyone.”
Carina fiddled with a bar of chocolate on display at the register, trying not to think about her thousand-dollar paycheck. “I guess everyone’s kind of cutting back,” she said vaguely.
“And if you’re so annoyed with this girl, why did you say yes to planning it?” Alex peered at her closely. “What are you getting out of this?”
A trip to the Alps, she thought. “She cornered me,” she said uncomfortably. “And sometimes it’s hard for me to say no to people.” It wasn’t the truth, but it was the best she could do.
Alex gave a small, bewildered shake of his head.
“What?” she asked warily.
“I’m not usually wrong about people,” he said. “But I was about you. You’re the opposite of everything I thought.”
“Which was what?” she asked as they moved up in line.
“Come on. You’re Karl Jurgensen’s daughter. The guy could buy and sell my whole family. And that purse probably costs more than what my mom pays in rent,” he said, pointing at her oversized Hayden-Harnett bag.
“So therefore I’m supposed to be mean?” she asked.
“Maybe not mean,” Alex conceded. “But at least stuck-up. And you’re not. You’re… cool.”
Before Carina could smile at this, she heard a familiar ka-CHUNG! from inside her bag. It was so loud that the man ahead of them in line turned around and stared at her purse.
“Wait. Is that your phone?” Alex asked. “Didn’t they stop making that ring in the third grade?”
“Whatever,” she said, scrambling to find the phone inside her bag and turn it off.
“Take it out,” he said. “Let me see it. I have to see it.”
“No.”
“Come on,” he insisted.
Reluctantly, she pulled the ancient silver phone out of her purse and handed it to him. “There, you happy?”
Alex stared at it in his palm as if it were a fossil. “Oh my God. This is from nineteen ninety-eight,” he said, awestruck.
“So what?” she asked, swiping it out of his hands.
“So what are you doing with that?” he asked. “Don’t you have an iPhone? I’d be happy to take you to the Apple store,” he said. “It’s just down on Prince Street in case you haven’t heard of it—”
“I already have an iPhone,” she muttered. She felt her cheeks start to burn as she dropped the phone back into her bag.
“Then why are you walking around with that?” Alex demanded.
“Because my dad cut me off,” she finally said, not looking at him.
There was an uncomfortable pause as the Trader Joe’s clerk began to scan her items. “That’ll be thirteen dollars and twenty-seven cents,” he said when he was done. “Cash or credit?”
“Cash.” Luckily she’d gotten her allowance two days earlier from the Jurg, but she’d already spent five bucks on eggs and pancake mix. She pulled out fifteen dollars from her wallet—the last of her money. The clerk gave Carina her change and she grabbed the paper bag of groceries. They walked to the doors in silence. She could tell from Alex’s silence that he was either slightly offended or really confused. Outside, a light rain was starting to fall.
“Cut off?” Alex asked. “What does that mean?”
“That means no iPhone, no credit cards. No money.” She pawed at a gum wrapper on the ground with the toe of her Puma.
“Why? What’d you do?” he asked.
She pulled a damp strand of hair out of her eyes and thought about how to answer this. “You know when you’re so mad at someone, and you have been for so long, that when something happens it just sets you off?”
Alex didn’t blink. “Yeah,” he said.
“Well, he did something that set me off.”
“What?” The way he asked this question, it sounded like he really wanted to know. That he might even be on her side. She looked up the street. A falafel vendor was handing a pita stuffed with hummus to a heavyset guy. A homeless woman pushed a cart down the street, muttering to herself. She realized that she wanted to tell Alex the truth about everything—about the divorce, about her dad’s cheating. About how the Jurg had ruined her family. But she barely knew him.
“Nothing,” she said quickly. “It’s not important.”
“Does Miss Birkin Bag know?” Alex asked, a smile starting to form at the edges of his lips. “That you’re… broke?”
Carina shook her head. “It’s not something I’m publicizing, if you get what I’m saying.”
He stared at her and then nodded okay. “Well, just tell me how she likes those taquitos,” he said finally, hopping on his board. “And if you need anything else, lemme know.”
“I will,” she said. “Thanks, Alex.”
Alex stuck his earbuds into his ears. “No prob’m,” he said as he pushed off with one foot. Then he glided away from her down the street into the falling rain.
As she watched him skate down the block, she felt exposed, as if he’d just wandered into the locker room and seen her changing out of her gym clothes. How had she ended up telling him so much? Was it him being nosy—or had she needed to tell him about it? And was there any chance she was into him?
No, she decided, watching him skate across Third Avenue and up to the L station. He didn’t give her that squiggly, butterflies-in-her-throat feeling that Carter did. But she’d told him her secret, and now she didn’t know what they were. Definitely more than acquaintances, but not quite friends. Not yet. They were something else.
And that something else made her feel unsettled but also comforted, in a strange
way.
Then she remembered she’d gotten a text in the store. When she took out her phone, there was the name she’d just been thinking about. CARTER.
What r u doing l8r?
A jolt rocked her chest. So he wasn’t over her, apparently.
Smthg with u , she boldly wrote back, and hit Send.
He wrote her back in under a minute.
Dinner 2nite. Serendipity. 8.
Her stomach did another free fall. She wrote back.
Can’t wait.
chapter 17
She was standing over the two outfits on her bed, trying to decide which one to wear on her date with Carter, when the intercom buzzed on the wall of her bedroom.
“Ava Elting on her way up!” came Otto’s voice through the speaker. He didn’t talk very often, but when he did it was always more of a scream.
“Okay!” she yelled at the intercom, and turned back to the bed to scrutinize the clothes. She’d narrowed her choices down to the sexy black dress that she’d worn to the last Chadwick dance, and the more casual, less high-stakes option of yellow cashmere V-neck and jeans.
She held the black dress up to her and checked herself out in front of the full-length mirror on her closet door. Since being cut off, she hadn’t worn anything dressier than a nice top and jeans, and now the dress looked weirdly formal to her. Was it too formal? And had Carter been at the dance and possibly seen her in this? She went to her MacBook Air on the bed and was just about to iChat with Hudson about it when she saw that she had a new e-mail. From Laetitia Dunn.
She clicked on the message.
To: Chamonix Peeps
From: TishD
Hey!!! Just wanted to let everyone know I’ve booked us all into the Ritz-Carlton for the night of December 26th since Carter’s place won’t be ready for us yet… We’ll each have a junior suite, unless you’re Anton and need more room for your clothes (LOL!)… It’s all on my Amex so people PLEEEASE pony up the cash ASAP… Thanks! LD
Carina reached for her stress ball. The Ritz-Carlton? That hadn’t been part of the plan. There was no way she was going to be able to afford that.
The intercom buzzed again. “Your friend is here!” Otto called out.
“Coming!” she yelled. The last thing on earth she felt like dealing with now was Ava. But she just needed to get this dumb tasting over with. She pulled on the yellow cashmere top and jeans and ran down the stairs.
Ava stood in the hall, staring intently at the Andy Warhol soup can. Her burgundy J Brand cords were so tight that they looked painted on, and her hair was swept back in a series of knots behind a jeweled headband.
“Um, is that real?” she asked, pointing at the painting.
“I think so,” Carina said.
“Huh, that’s cool,” she said, downplaying her disbelief with a haughty toss of her curls. “So, I don’t have a lot of time. I guess we should get started?”
“Fine with me,” Carina said. “Everything’s in here.” She led her into the dining room.
Ava glanced quickly at the Michelangelo-inspired painted ceiling, the gigantic crystal chandelier, and the twenty-seat table, but didn’t say anything. “Okay,” she said, taking a seat and pulling out a tall bottle of smartwater from her enormous bag. “Where’s the food?”
“Coming right up,” she said with an irony that Ava didn’t catch, and walked through the swinging door into the kitchen. She grabbed the platter that she’d prepared a few minutes before, and on her way back inside, she remembered her spiel.
“May I present feta cheese and sweet onion pastry bites, organic chicken and stone-ground corn taquitos, and four-cheese mini soufflés!” she announced, placing the platter in front of Ava with a little waiter-like flourish.
Ava squinted at the tiny appetizers. “Is this from Café Luz?” she asked doubtfully.
“It’s from an even cooler place in the West Village that’s not even open yet,” Carina gushed. “But this place has much better buzz. And Jessica Biel’s one of the owners.”
Ava picked up a pastry bite, sniffed it, and took a tiny bite. “Ummm,” she said, looking at it with surprise. “That’s yummy. What’s this place called?”
“Oh, it doesn’t have a name yet,” Carina said. “Or a phone number. It’s so hot that they’re really trying to stay under the radar.”
Ava nodded knowingly, and then picked up one of the taquitos. “Stone-ground corn is the best,” she said, and then popped it in her mouth.
“Yeah,” Carina said, still trying to keep a straight face.
“Yummm,” she said with her mouth full. “Who’s the chef? Mario Batali? Daniel Boulud?”
Carina pretended to think about it. “His name is Joe… something. Something French.”
“Well, I can tell he uses really high-end ingredients,” she said. “And I like the contrast between high-end and casual. That was just what I was going for, actually,” she said, munching.
“So should we do them?” Carina asked, already knowing Ava’s answer.
Ava popped a mini soufflé into her mouth and then pushed her chair back. “I’m cool with it. As long as he’s not going to charge us.”
“There might be a small fee, like… two hundred bucks,” Carina said, pretending to pull the number out of thin air. She was still going to have to buy all this food.
Ava nodded moodily. “Okay. Let’s do a hundred of each.” She stood up. “And when this place is open, we’re totally going, right?”
“Oh, totally,” Carina fibbed, leading Ava to the door.
“Oh, by the way,” Ava said, turning around. “I googled Alex Suarez and the only DJ I found was some guy who placed third in the Stuyvesant math team and spins at some weird place downtown. That’s not the same guy, right?”
Carina hesitated. She could tell Ava the truth. But she’d gotten away with the food so far. Another little fib wouldn’t kill her.
“Oh no,” she said, before she’d even thought about it. “This guy spends a lot of time in LA. I think he just did Mary-Kate and Ashley’s birthday party at Chateau Marmont.”
Ava fingered her diamond A as they walked to the front door. “Well, I’m impressed, Carina. At first I thought you might be full of crap, but your dad’s right. You should do this for real.”
Otto turned around at his desk and gave Carina a puzzled look.
“Thanks,” Carina said, ignoring Otto’s look.
“See you on Monday,” Ava said. She glanced nervously at Otto. “You don’t have to look in my bag again, do you?”
Otto shook his head.
“Oh, okay,” Ava said, and walked out the front door.
Carina ran up the stairs to her bedroom. Everything was going perfectly! Ava had completely fallen for her little ruse, and now she was off to have an amazing time with an extremely cute guy. Things couldn’t be going better. Thank God for Alex.
After a quick shower, an even quicker blow-dry, and a hurried sweep of her closet, she was dressed and finally ready for Carter McLean. Her V-neck sweater wasn’t exactly the Catherine Malandrino halter top, but it would do. She took one last look in the mirror, checking her teeth for spare taquito bits, and gave herself a little pep talk. Just before she left, she took out her phone and texted Alex.
It WORKED!!!
She almost felt like giving him a hug.
When she walked out onto the street, she remembered that she hadn’t even given her friends the update. She took out her phone and texted her friends:
Going on date with Carter! And Ava loved the food!
Hudson wrote back:
NO WAY—THAT IS FATE
And then Lizzie:
Call me as soon as it’s done!
Serendipity had been one of their favorite places when they were kids. The food was incredible, and so was the house specialty: the Frozen Hot Chocolate. It was only fitting that she’d have her first date with Carter at a restaurant she’d always loved. Another good sign, she thought.
When she got to the restau
rant, she saw Carter sitting alone at one of the white tables in the corner. He wore a pale blue button-down shirt and a charcoal fleece jacket left casually unzipped, and his dark curls were brushed off his forehead with a little product. He waved to her, and her mouth went instantly dry.
“You’re late,” he teased as she sat down.
“Well, I was just at Paragon, picking out my new snowboard,” she teased back. “Have I told you that I’m going to crush you?”
“My uncle got you your lift ticket,” he said. “So you better not be talking smack.”
“Me? Never,” she flirted as she picked up the oversized menu. “Okay, what do I want?” She opened the menu and her eye went straight to the prices. “Fourteen bucks for a chicken salad sandwich?” she blurted.
Carter looked at her strangely. “Are you okay?” he asked.
“Oh, yeah, that just seems a little pricey,” she said, feeling a hot flush spread across her cheeks.
“Uh, dinner’s on me,” Carter said. “So don’t worry about it.”
“Oh, I know,” she said, trying to smile, and then buried her head in the menu. She wanted to die.
Thankfully a mustachioed waiter appeared at their table a second later. “All set?” he asked, readying his pen.
“I’m gonna have the Young Chicken Sandwich,” said Carter. “And a Frozen Hot Chocolate. And the banana split for dessert.”
Her eyes went straight to the Outrageous Banana Split. Twenty-two dollars? For a banana? she wanted to say, but stifled herself. “I think I’ll just have an iced tea and the Ultimate BLT,” she said with a pleasant smile.
The waiter scribbled their order and walked away.
“Do you have some issue with money?” Carter asked. He was pretending to smile, like his question was almost a joke, but she could see in his eyes that he was serious.
“No. Of course not,” she bluffed, smoothing her hair. “I just haven’t been here in a while. They raised their prices.”
Carter was still looking at her oddly. “Uh-huh,” he said. She could practically hear him thinking FREAK. FREAK. FREAK.