"Hey, Em, there"s Dairy Dip a mile ahead. Can we stop? Please please please please?"
"We just ate breakfast a couple of hours ago!"
"So? Fresh air makes me hungry!" Sam re- sponded reasonably.
A minute later, Emma gave in and turned into a small gravel lot beside a white-painted stand topped by a human-sized statue of an ice cream cone with a cute little swirl on the top. The menu, displayed in colorful pictures above the counter, offered everything from foot-long hot dogs to banana splits.
"Maybe I"ll have the chili instead," Sam vacil- lated.
"It"s real good chili," said the girl behind the window. Sam read "Kelly" off her nametag. She looked younger than she and Emma, Sam noted.
Shades...o...b..gAl"s, she thought. She shook off the feeling and asked, "How "bout the Strawberry- b.u.t.terscotch Extravaganza?"
"That"s good, too," said Kelly.
"Sam, would you please make up your mind?"
said Emma.
"Okay, okay," Sam said, then leaned in to give her order to Kelly. "I"ll have a chili dog deluxe and a hot fudge sundae supreme," she said.
"Yuck!" Emma said, wrinkling her nose in distaste.
"And another chili dog deluxe for my friend here," Sam added.
"Sam," Emma protested, "I don"t want a chili dog."
Sam turned to look at her. "Have you ever had a chili dog?"
"Well, no," Emma began.
"Then how do you know you don"t want one?"
Sam asked reasonably. She turned to the young girl behind the counter. "You tell her, Kelly.
They"re good, aren"t they?"
"The best," Kelly agreed.
"I rest my case," Sam said solemnly, folding her arms.
Emma looked from Kelly to Sam and back to Kelly again, who stood there patiently, waiting to put the order in.
Emma had to laugh. "Fine. I"ll eat a chili dog."
A few minutes later, Kelly slid the two chili dogs through the slide-up screen and stared anxiously at Emma as she picked up the chili dog.
Emma regarded the paper-wrapped concoction doubtfully. Finally she reached out tentatively to gingerly lift one corner of the wrapping.
"Don"t look at it," Sam advised her. "Just open your mouth, shove it in, and chew. Think of this as an initiation into your new life."
Sam"s last words triggered a response. After all, Emma reasoned, I"ve eaten all kinds of exotic foods in other countries. South Carolina, at the moment, was seeming somewhat like another country to Emma. In one swift move she un- wrapped the dog and took her first bite.
"So?" asked Sam. She and Kelly stood waiting for Emma"s reaction.
Emma grinned. "This is actually not bad," she replied, folding back the wrapping some more and taking another bite. "Not bad at all."
"Welcome to America," said Sam.
Emma laughed, and she and Sam raced to finish off their chili dogs. Then Sam got her sundae and the two girls sat at one of the picnic tables located in a shady area on the side of the Dairy Dip.
As Emma watched Sam slurp the sundae into her mouth, she realized she felt something she hadn"t felt in a long time-completely happy. She raised her legs up onto the bench and clasped her hands around her knees, lifting her head to the sun. Suddenly, everything felt right. Even the worn denim of her jeans felt perfect under her fingers. Just that morning Emma had dug into the bottom of her suitcase to find the faded jeans she had worn last summer on Sunset Island.
She"d barely worn them since, but now that they were on her again, it felt like being with an old friend.
Memories flooded back, starting with when she"d first bought them to help bring her ward- robe more in line with what the other girls were wearing. Walks on the beach with Kurt, happy casual evenings with the Hewitt family, free afternoons and evenings at the Play Cafe with her new friends Carrie and Sam-these jeans had seen it all. How could she have let them languish, neatly folded and unworn, for so long?
"Yum, I could eat another," Sam said, licking up the last bite of melted ice cream.
"So eat another, then," Emma said.
Sam stared at her. "Where"s the wrinkled nose? The air of disdain? I mean, I cultivate at least half of my gross eating habits just so I can get a rise out of you!"
Emma laughed and stood up to stretch. "Who cares? This is the new anything-goes Emma."
Sam threw the plastic sundae dish into a trash can and licked some chocolate off her finger.
"What happened to the old uptight-heiress Emma?"
"I have banished her for the duration," Emma said regally as they headed toward the car.
"Oh, I see," Sam said in the same tone of voice as Emma. As they pa.s.sed the order window she turned to wave at Kelly. "Do tender our compli- ments to the chef!" she called.
Kelly grinned hospitably. "Anytime. Y"all come back, now."
The girls had rounded the corner and started the car when Kelly called after them, "Hey, the radio says there"s a powerful big storm coming in from the west. Y"all drive careful!"
But it was Sam"s turn to drive, and with Graham Perry"s latest tape blasting from the stereo, neither Sam nor Emma heard Kelly"s warning. Both girls waved cheerily as the car kicked up gravel and hit the open road.
"Hi, this is Carrie, and I can"t take your call right now ..."
Carrie lunged for the phone. "I"m here, I"m here, just a minute while I turn off this stupid machine."
She had heard the phone on her way up the stairs, and for some reason had felt it was a call she needed to catch. Flicking off the answering machine, she spoke again into the handset. "h.e.l.lo?"
"So rumor has it I"m talking to an actual person," came a deep male voice.
"Billy!" Carrie breathed into the phone. "I just had a feeling . . . I"m so glad it"s you." Carrie sat down on the bed, cradling the phone receiver with her shoulder.
"As Pres would say, you"re a hard dog to keep under the porch, you know that?" Pres, the ba.s.s player for Flirting with Danger, was from Ten- nessee, and the other guys in the band were always quoting his colorful Southern expressions.
"That"s cuz this dog works like one," Carrie quipped. "I"m hardly ever in my room."
"So I"ve discovered," Billy said. "So how"s life in the fast lane?"
"Exhausting," Carrie replied truthfully. "I just came back from a midterm."
"No doubt a piece of cake for you, oh brainy one," Billy said lightly.
"I wish," Carrie said. The truth was that her midterm in English Lit really had been difficult.
And Josh, who had sat only two rows away, wouldn"t even look at her, let alone speak. But all that seemed so much less important now.
"So, listen, I"ve got a surprise for you," Billy continued.
"You"re flying to Yale to whisk me off to Paris for a few days before we all meet at Sunset Island?" Carrie guessed hopefully.
"Sorry, not that good," Billy said with a laugh.
"Someday, though . . . anyway, here"s the deal.
The band"s booked at the Play Cafe the first night you"re back on the island."
"Hey, that"s great!" Carrie exclaimed. "I"d love to hear the Flirts again. But how did that hap- pen? I thought it was off season. They don"t usually have bands at the cafe in April, do they?"
"True, and they don"t usually have fires, either.
But they did a couple of weeks ago," Billy re- ported.
"At the Play Cafe?" Carrie asked with concern.
"Was anyone hurt?"
"Fortunately not," Billy told her. "The way I understand it, some wires got crossed in the heating system. The clean-up is just about fin- ished, but the kitchen"s pretty much of a loss.
We"re doing a benefit to help Ken get the place put back together in time for summer."
"Ken must be devastated!" Carrie exclaimed.
Ken Miner, who owned the Play Cafe, was a favorite with all his patrons.
"He"s holding up pretty well, but the bank that holds the mortgage on the place is hurting.
That building"s mostly wood, you know. You can only get so much fire insurance on a structure like that, and the most expensive stuff-all that equipment-was in the kitchen."
"Wait a minute," said Carrie. "How big a benefit can you pull off when hardly anyone"s around at this time of year?"
"Hey, I told you the Flirts have been gaining quite a following around the colleges in Portland, Bangor, even down through New Hampshire and as far away as Boston now. Plenty of kids can"t afford to go too far for spring break-they"ll spend a Sat.u.r.day night on Sunset for a good cause, no problem."
"I can"t wait," Carrie said, smiling wistfully.
She wished she could make the time between now and leaving for Sunset Island a mere millisecond.
"I"m so excited!"
Billy laughed. "I"ll see to that."
Carrie was glad a blush couldn"t be seen over the phone. A thought popped into her mind: that was the difference between Josh and Billy. Billy could actually make her blush.
"So listen," Billy continued, "say hi to Emma and Sam for me. And speaking of Sam, Pres is watching^the horizon for the first sign of that wild red hair of hers. What"s the deal with her, anyway?"
"Last I heard, she was footloose and fancy- free," said Carrie. "But that was over a week ago, and you know how it goes."
"I do know how it goes," said Billy softly, "and I hope you"re willing to wait another week for me."
"Don"t even consider another possibility," Carrie answered fervently. "I"m not." Oh, she was so thankful she"d had her wits about her last night!
"Okay then, gotta run. You have a safe trip."
Carrie told Billy good-bye, hung up, and flopped on the bed. She was exhausted from staying up all night, but now her tiredness had a pleasant glow to it. Just a few more days, and she"d be with Billy!
All her efforts of the past couple of weeks were coming to a satisfying conclusion now: midterms would be over, and even the paper would shut down for spring break. As to her other new pastime, she knew she was pushing it, forcing herself to vomit after meals now as well as after between-meal indulgences. But it was working so well that she was hopeful a change in her appear- ance would be apparent by spring break after all.
She"d already lost almost five pounds.
"So what about Pres?" Emma asked Sam. They were now about an hour past Columbia, South Carolina, where they"d gotten on a small high- way. The landscape had turned from pine flats to soft, rolling hills.
"What about him?" said Sam.
"Aren"t you excited about seeing him?"
"Well, yeah. In a way. I guess."
"Very decisive answer, Sam." Emma laughed.
Sam swept a strand of hair out of her eyes and reached over to insert another tape into the tape deck.
"He"s ... I don"t know," Sam said lamely. "I mean, he"s gorgeous. And exciting. And hot ..."
"You poor baby!" Emma teased. "How can you stand him, then?"
Sam sighed. "It"s just not ... I don"t know.
It"s not love."
"So what"s love, then?" Emma asked.
"How am I supposed to know?" Sam said, "I"ve never been in it. But when I am in it, I"ll know.