“That’s wonderful, Adelaide.” I was surprised at her chipper tone, and I felt a little bit of my icy exterior chip away. “Well, I just wanted to let you know that Chris has been sniffing around lately. I was very vague when I told his mother where you left off too, but he’s been asking lots of questions lately. Seriously, Adelaide, I’m not sure what you did to that boy, but he is still very much in love with you. It’s kind of nauseating.” And there goes that ice, freezing right back into place.
“I don’t know what to tell you, mother. I haven’t had any sort of contact with anyone back home since I left. Chris just needs to get over me, I guess.”
“Hmm…we’ll see about that. He’s been threatening things lately if I don’t inform him of your whereabouts. He acts as if I kidnapped you and stashed you away somewhere.”
“What kind of things is he threatening?” I asked, sitting up straight as the door opened and Callie and Zoey both walked in. They both waved to me before dumping their bags on the floor and heading into the kitchen.
“You know exactly what things I’m talking about. I warned him just to keep his mouth shut, and if he really ever wants anything to do with you ever again it would be for the best. Does he really think blabbing things about you is the key to your heart?”
“I don’t know,” I mumbled. “I just don’t understand why he would do that. What Chris and I had was juvenile. It probably wasn’t even love.” It was nothing like what I felt for Justin. I wasn’t sure if it was love yet, but it was definitely working in that direction.
“Well, whatever it was doesn’t change anything. You know how something like that could ruin our reputation around here. This town is all about the gossip.”
I bit my tongue, wanting to agree with her, actually she was the queen, but I just didn’t feel like getting into that right now. A girl’s night was planned for tonight, and I was going to have some fun with my roommates before we all headed off in different directions tomorrow.
“Well, mother, I need to get going-”
“Oh, I wasn’t finished yet, Adelaide,” she interrupted. “The main reason for my call was to inform you that Mia and I will be coming down to visit for the holidays. I all ready spoke to your grandmother to inform her of the details and everything is all set there. We’ll be down a couple of days before Christmas Eve. Mia and I are going to leave after Christmas Eve dinner to meet up with Gerald at the airport.”
“Really?” was all I could muster as I sat there in shock. The first part of that had set in when she mentioned Mia’s name. Mia was Gerald’s daughter, and we had only ever seen each other a handful of times since our parents had been married.
She lived with her mom in Michigan and was basically the complete opposite of me. Mia was a year older than me and had always strived to impress everyone. Whenever I made some kind of mistake, I always had to hear Mia this and Mia that. I had come to really hate her over the years, even though we barely knew each other. She had gone off to college on a full-ride scholarship after graduating and that was the last I had heard from her. It was actually a little strange that my mother hadn’t thrown her in my face lately.
But the fact that my mother was coming to visit me for a holiday, at my grandparent’s house, was pretty shocking too.
“Are you staying there?”
“Of course not, Della.” A loud laugh came through the phone. “As if I could stand your grandparents for that long. No, we found a hotel nearby that will do well enough. I’ll call you when we get to the airport, we’re getting a rental car, but maybe you could meet us somewhere for lunch.”
“Sure, mom,” I replied simply, not knowing what else to say. We said our goodbyes, and I walked into the kitchen, sliding up onto the counter as Zoey and Callie sat at the small table we had jammed in there, eating leftover pizza from the night before. Their chatter stopped suddenly when I came in, and I looked at the two of them, neither one’s eyes meeting mine. I knew something was up right away. I had to ask Callie to shut up half the time and lately Zoey wasn’t much better.
“What’s going on with you two?” I asked, swinging my legs back and forth, my eyes darting to theirs.
“Nothing,” Zoey answered quickly, stuffing a piece of pizza in her mouth to point at how full it was.
I turned to Callie who had opened her mouth to speak but then quickly shut it when Zoey had instead answered. They did some kind of communication with their eyes that I could normally read, but not this time.
“Callie, spill it. I know you’re dying to, and you know I’ll eventually find out. So please, whatever you have to say, just say it.”
“We-ll,” she dragged out. “We picked up the school newspaper on our way back home.” She looked at me as if I had done the same thing, but I just shook my head. “Okay, and…you know I don’t read that thing.” I think the schools newspaper department was trying to make it edgy or something by making it into more of a gossip rag more than anything.
“And there was some information in there about you that was pretty surprising,” Zoey answered blandly, narrowing her eyes at me.