“What?” She was surprised by the vehemence in his tone.
“The Christmas dance,” he said impatiently. “Are we going to the Christmas dance together or not?”
FOURTEEN
“The dance,” Alexis repeated, thunderstruck. Suddenly she recalled seeing posters all over the school’s common area, cafeteria and gym announcing the upcoming Snowflake Ball. Next to the prom, the ball was the biggest social event at their school, but unlike the prom, this dance was sponsored by alumni who owned businesses in the community, and it was open to the entire school. The kids often joked about it because they lived in Miami, where snowflakes never fell, and yet few wanted to miss the event. Glory and Charmaine had tried to rope her into being on the liaison committee, but she’d begged off.
“Yes, the dance,” Sawyer said. “It’s being advertised all over the school, you know. I just figured we’d be going, but since you’ve never once talked about it with me . . .”
“Sawyer . . . I—I forgot.”
He looked incredulous. “What do you mean you forgot? It’s next Saturday night at the downtown Hilton. Some of our friends have rented rooms for all-night parties. It’s the last blowout before Christmas break.”
“I didn’t forget on purpose! I—I saw the posters, but I just never took time to let it sink in. Honestly, Sawyer, I didn’t mean to ignore you. I—I’ve just got so much on my mind.”
His expression softened, but still he looked perplexed. “I’m not mad at you. I know how hard it’s been to have Adam in the hospital and all. It’s just that, well, sometimes I feel so left out of your life. You know, like I’m some kind of afterthought. I think about you all the time, and there’s no place I’d rather be than with you. It just hurts knowing you don’t feel the same way.”
She stiffened. “Don’t lay a guilt trip on me. Please. I do think about us.” She fudged some on the truth of her statement to him. Lately, she’d allowed many things to supersede thinking about Sawyer. She put her hand on his shoulder. “Do you still want to take me to the dance? I mean, I’ll understand if you’d rather take your dog or something.”
A small smile lifted a corner of his mouth. “My dog already has a date for Saturday night.” He looked into her eyes, as if searching for something. Finally he said, “We’ll hit the dance, then go up and visit Adam, fill him in on what he didn’t miss. I know you won’t feel much like going to parties, so we’ll skip all of them.”
Relieved, Alexis put her arms around Sawyer. He had read her mind perfectly—she didn’t want Adam to be all alone during a dance he’d most certainly have gone to if he’d been able. “You’re wonderful.”
His arms slipped around her. “No,” he whispered. “Just crazy in love.”
“Mom, I need a new dress.” Alexis found her mother doing paperwork in her home office and broke the news. “The Snowflake Ball is in four days.”
“Really? I would have thought you’d have shopped for a dress before now.” Eleanor swiveled her desk chair toward Alexis.
“I forgot about it until Sawyer reminded me. Maybe I can wear a dress from last year,” she added when her mother appeared distracted.
“No, no. Get a new dress. You deserve a new dress.”
“Why are you looking at me that way?”
“Sorry.” Her mother shook her head. “Seems sad to me that you forgot such a thing as the Snowflake Ball. It should have been on your mind for weeks. But I guess we’ve all had our minds on other things lately.”
Alexis could tell by the expression on her mother’s face that she was truly affected by Alexis’s oversight, although she couldn’t figure out why. “It’s just a dance, Mom.”
“Isn’t it amazing how priorities are realigned in times of crisis?”
Alexis realized that her mother was making a comment and wasn’t waiting for an answer.
“I just got off the phone with Larry Pressman,” Eleanor said quietly. “He wants to appoint me to a highly visible land-use committee—sort of a reward, I think, for all the work I did for him during the campaign.”
Alexis’s heart skipped a beat. Being together as a family during the past several weeks had been good for all of them, regardless of the terrible circumstances. “Well, I’m sure it will help out when you run for office next year,” she said, hoping her voice didn’t betray her disappointment.
“That’s what Larry said.”
“When do you start?”
Eleanor’s eyes went soft and unfocused. “I won’t start. I told him no, thank you. The whole political thing . . . it’s just not so important to me anymore. We don’t know what’s going to happen to Adam, if the drugs will work or not.”
Alexis bristled. “Of course they’ll work. He’s already doing better.” Abruptly, she asked, “Mom, would you like to help me shop for that dress?”
Her mother looked surprised. “I would have thought you’d want Tessa to go with you.”
Alexis shook her head. “Tessa’s not going to the dance. The only guy she cares about likes someone else, and I don’t want to make her feel any worse by dragging her dress shopping with me.”
“I see,” Eleanor said. “Pity . . . I like Tessa. She’s smart, talented and funny. Too bad this young man doesn’t see that.”
“Go figure,” Alexis said with a shrug.
Eleanor pushed up from her chair. “Look, why don’t we go poke around in some boutiques right now for that dress? We can call your father and have him meet us for dinner, then go up to the hospital and visit Adam together.” She grabbed her purse and rummaged for her car keys.
Alexis didn’t hesitate a second. “I’m out the door already.”
“Great dress,” Tessa said the next afternoon when she came home from school with Alexis. Alexis hadn’t planned to show it to her, but Tessa had insisted.
“The dance is highly overrated,” Alexis said.
Tessa stroked the satin fabric. “Only to girls who get invited,” she said.
“Tessa, I don’t want to go. It’s Sawyer who wants me to go.”
“Well, then you should go. And stop feeling sorry for me. If I can’t go with someone I really want to go with, why go?”
Alexis walked the dress over to the closet and hung it up. “Good point. What will you do on Saturday night?”
“I can always go visit a sick friend.”
Alexis smiled and returned to where Tessa was sitting on the floor. “That’s a plan.”
“You don’t suppose Kelly will be up there with him, do you?”
“I doubt it. She hardly ever goes to see him.”
“But he still likes her, doesn’t he?”
“ ’Fraid so.” Alexis couldn’t lie to her best friend. “One of life’s mysteries, if you ask me.”
“It does seem that the meaner a girl treats a guy, the more he wants her.”
Alexis winced, because she could apply that formula to her and Sawyer too. She certainly didn’t intend to treat him badly, or to be thoughtless, but she knew she was. She told herself that once Adam got out of the hospital, she was going to treat Sawyer with the kindness and consideration he deserved. “Sawyer and I will go to the dance, but we’ll skip the parties and head up to the hospital. Maybe we’ll run into you.”
“It could happen,” Tessa said, mimicking Kelly’s wide-eyed innocent look.
That Friday afternoon, Alexis found Adam in Rudy’s room playing cards. Rudy used a curved, slotted piece of wood to hold his cards upright, painstakingly inserting each card with his damaged fingers. Alexis was impressed by how well he was adapting to his loss and was beginning to think maybe he’d wield a bat one day too.
Once, when she and Adam had stopped by Rudy’s room, they had met the fireman who had rescued him. The man was big and muscular with hands as large as ham hocks, but when he had turned to leave, Alexis had seen that his eyes glittered with tears. “You hang in there, buddy,” the fireman had said.
And when he was gone, Rudy’s eyes shone. “He saved me. He picked me
up off the floor and carried me to my mama. He’s a hero.”
“You’re the hero,” Adam told Rudy.
The boy scrunched his face. “No way. What did I do?”
“You lived,” Adam said. “And you’re working hard to get well. Only heroes do that.”
“If you say so. Can you and Alexis stay and play fish with me?”
At the time, Alexis had been thinking about the ton of homework waiting for her at home. But she had dragged chairs to the side of Rudy’s bed, handed Adam a deck of cards and said, “Deal.”
Today’s card game wasn’t going well because Alexis could see that Adam didn’t have his mind on it. When he threw down an eight, Rudy exclaimed, “Hey! No fair. I just put down an eight and you told me to go fish.”
Adam picked up the card and handed it over. “Sorry . . . guess I wasn’t thinking clearly.”
Alexis wondered what was bothering her brother. That was the trouble with her twin radar—it only alerted her to the presence of a problem, not the nature of the problem. When the game was finally over, they said goodbye to Rudy, and she walked with Adam, pushing his IV pole to his room. Once there, she closed the door. “What’s wrong?”
Adam slumped into a chair. “What? Is my optimism waning?”
“Let’s just say that your unhappiness is showing.” She crouched in front of his chair, took one of his hands. “What’s going on, Adam? You’re not yourself. Is it . . . I mean, how are the treatments going?” Asking the question caused a shiver of fear to pass through her.
“Is that what you think? It isn’t always about the cancer, Ally. I’m more than just a case of cancer, you know.”
Chastised, she asked, “Then what? Rudy? Bad cafeteria food?”
Adam ignored her attempted joke. “It’s Kelly,” he said at last. “She . . . she called last night. She dumped me.”
FIFTEEN
“Kelly dumped you?”
“As in adiós, see you around, don’t call me, I’ll call you.”
Furious, Alexis cried, “How could she? How dare she!”
“She hemmed and hawed around it, but finally she just came right out and said, ‘I want to date other people.’ ”
“What other people? Who does she want to date?”
“That’s what I asked her, but she said no one in particular. She just wanted her freedom.”
“Oh, that’s rich.”
“It’s not like we were engaged or anything.” Adam’s voice quavered, and he cleared his throat.
“But everybody knew she was your girlfriend ever since last summer.”
“I can’t blame her. What girl wants a boyfriend who can’t take her out on dates? Or see her at school? Or even buy her a hamburger? It’s like I’m in jail.”
“Well, I blame her. You’re sick,” Alexis said. “It isn’t your fault.” She stood and began pacing the room, seething inside.
“Look at me, Ally. I’m a freak. No hair. Sores all over my body from the drugs. I look like a refugee in my clothes. I’m disgusting. No girl wants to be stuck with a guy like me.”
“But that’s on the outside. You don’t love a person for what he looks like. You love him for what he is.”
Adam gave a derisive laugh. “Get real. Looks matter, and you know it. Why are you so upset? You never liked her anyway.”
“But you liked her. She had no right to break it off with you when you can’t do anything to win her back.”
“Well, she’s gone,” he said. “She’s free to be with whomever she wants.” He sagged in his chair like a rag doll. The energy had gone out of him, and tears swam in his eyes.
Alexis thought her heart would break for him. “She shouldn’t have treated you this way,” she said under her breath. “What kind of a person kicks someone when they’re down?”
Alexis dressed slowly and meticulously for the dance. She figured she owed it to Sawyer to look her best. And she figured she owed it to herself for when she nailed Kelly to the wall. There was no way she was getting off scot-free.
“Are you sure she’ll be at the dance?” Tessa had asked when Alexis told her on the phone what had happened.
“She’ll be there, all right. There’s no doubt in my mind. Why else would she have used that line about dating other people?”
“Gee, I’m sorry I’m going to miss the fireworks. Does Sawyer know?”
“I’ll fill him in, but he’s not going to talk me out of dealing with her.”
“Should I have the police standing by?”
“Not necessary. It’ll be a clean kill.”
“What about teacher chaperones? I don’t want you to get in trouble.”
“I’m a senior in good standing, remember? What are they going to do to me—keep me from graduating because I tie some dopey little sophomore into knots?”
“Ah, but a sophomore who’s on the dance team,” Tessa reminded her.
“What’s that got to do with anything?”
“Nothing. Just thought I’d remind you that she does have friends.”
“Name two.”
Tessa was silent. “All right, people tolerated her because she was Adam’s girlfriend.”
“And now she isn’t. She’s fair game.”
“I know you’re protecting your brother, Ally, but don’t get too carried away. Will you promise me?”
Alexis sighed. “All right, I won’t draw blood, okay?”
“Well, if you do, just make sure you don’t get any on that fabulous satin dress of yours.”
For the first time that night, Alexis laughed. Trust Tessa to break the tension. “I’ll be careful,” she said. Very careful.
The Hilton ballroom glowed with light from sparkling crystal chandeliers. Oversized glittering snowflakes hung from the ceiling over a sea of linen-topped dining tables, and buffet tables were draped with royal blue cloths set with silver platters and elegant tureens. A dance floor of smooth black marble shone at one end of the enormous room, which was fronted by a stage where a live band played.
“Do you think they’re going to play that Muzak stuff all night?” Sawyer asked, picking a cheese cube off a platter.
Alexis was too busy surveying the ballroom full of her classmates to care about the music. “Maybe they’ll change it after we eat,” she said.
“Hope so. They need to pick up the pace.” He took several more cheese cubes and tossed them into his mouth like candy. “Have I mentioned that you look good enough to eat?”
“Twice, and thank you.”
He followed her gaze around the room. “You still looking for the little traitor?”
She focused on Sawyer. “I know she’s here. I just have to locate her.”
“What are you going to do? Throw her into the ambrosia salad?”
“Very funny. I just want to talk to her. What she did to Adam was cruel and thoughtless. You don’t break up with your boyfriend the day before a huge dance that he can’t take you to through no fault of his own.”
“But you’ve never liked her. I’d have thought you’d be glad she and Adam were history. Why do you care?”
“Because Adam cares.”
“So if somebody tromped all over me the way Kelly did him, would you flatten her for my sake?”
He was leaning against the table, his arms crossed, looking hunky in a white dinner jacket. Alexis patted his cheek. “That’s a trick question and you know it.”
“How so?”
“Because you’re big and strong. And healthy. You can take care of yourself.”
“But if I couldn’t?”
She leaned forward and kissed his cheek. “Then I’d clobber her.”
He grinned. “The old ‘Hurt me, but don’t lay a finger on someone I love.’ Is that it?”
“Sort of.”
“So that must mean you love me.”
She laughed. “What am I going to do with you?”
All of a sudden, Sawyer, looking over Alexis’s head, straightened and said, “Traitor alert.”
&nbs
p; Alexis whipped around. “Where?” But the question was unnecessary. She saw Kelly immediately. The girl wore a long silvery dress that clung to her every curve, and her long white-blond hair hung like a curtain of light down her bared back. Alexis felt her pulse quicken. Beside Kelly, dressed in a black tux, stood Wade. Two traitors . Somehow she wasn’t surprised.
“Now what?” Sawyer asked.
“Now we wait,” Alexis said.
Alexis bided her time, waiting until she saw Kelly head off to the ladies’ room. “Be right back,” she told Sawyer.
“Fifteen minutes,” he said, “then I’m coming in after you.”
Because it was early in the evening, the ladies’ lounge wasn’t filled with girls primping at the mirrors. Only Kelly. That was where Alexis found her when she went in. The second Kelly saw Alexis, the color drained from her face. Alexis shot her daggers in the mirror while she walked up behind her.
“Please don’t hate me,” Kelly said in a little-girl voice.
“Why shouldn’t I? You hurt my brother. If he’d been a regular guy and you dumped him, I’d have told him to suck it up and move on. But he’s not a regular guy, and you know that.”
Kelly’s gaze darted away from Alexis’s withering stare. “I tried really hard to be Adam’s girlfriend. . . . I really did— I mean, I do like him, but I just can’t take the sick part.”
“How do you know? You almost never went to visit him!”
“Don’t yell at me,” Kelly pleaded. “I wanted to stick by him. I really did. But . . . but whenever I saw him, I just fell apart. Don’t you think I’m hurt over this too?”
“You look wounded, and so does Wade,” Alexis said coldly. “So ready to step in and help you over your pain.”
“Don’t hate Wade because of me. Neither of us wanted to hurt Adam, but we just started liking each other. We couldn’t help it.”
“Was it all just a game to you, Kelly? Did you just fake caring about Adam?”
“I liked Adam just fine. It was fun being the girlfriend of a popular senior,” Kelly said defensively. “I—I liked that part. But not the other part. I just can’t stand seeing him melt away, and I don’t think I should have to apologize because I’ve moved on. I’m sorry I’m not strong enough for you, Alexis. I’m sorry I don’t measure up to your standards.”