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She got out of the car quickly, tucking her serviceable old coat around her for warmth and keeping her hands shoved into the deep pockets. She went up the long drive, her breath blowing warm little puffs against her cheeks. It had to be a good ten degrees colder at this elevation.
The air was as still and hushed as a church chapel. Beyond the hiking trails along the ridge and through the evergreen trees, Leslie caught sight of Lightning Lake. It was small and had been frozen solid for a couple of weeks now. On a beautiful, clear day like today, the surface sparkled in the sunlight, as though the ice were embedded with diamond dust.
She had a special fondness for that lake. It was there, years ago, that she’d had her first real conversation with Matt.
Although they’d been in the same sixth-grade class that year, she’d never actually spoken to Matt D’Angelo before. He was everything she was not—popular with the other kids, a favorite of the teachers. He’d already begun to display a natural talent for sports and a killer charm. His life was headed on an upward course, and Leslie suspected he knew it.
The boys he hung out with were cocky, arrogant creeps. The girls were giggly future cheerleaders already in love with their own images. None of them were Leslie’s friends. No one in Matt’s circle would have ever sat at the same lunchroom table with someone who lived in Mobley’s Mobile Court.
She told herself that their shallow attitudes suited her just fine. In spite of mediocre grades, she wasn’t stupid. Living with two volatile parents had taught her a lot about survival. Since summer that year, trouble at home had been particularly stressful. Her father’s temper was in full force due to his inability to hold a job for very long. She’d been busy developing an I-don’t-care approach toward the world in general from the day school started.
In February the PTA held a fundraiser, and the D’Angelos offered their property for a winter carnival—sleigh rides, cross-country skiing on the trails, ice-skating on Lightning Lake. Everyone said the D’Angelos knew how to host a celebration, and it should be fun as well as profitable.
Leslie had no intention of going.
But the day before the fundraiser she found herself suddenly volunteering to help out. Her parents were in the middle of a three-day argument, and with the weekend ahead and tempers escalating, the last place Leslie wanted to be was home, playing referee and maybe getting in the line of fire herself. Besides, she had a secret longing to see just what was so darned special about Lightning River Lodge, a place she’d been hearing about all her life.
By midmorning her feet felt frozen and her cheeks stung. The job of selling hot chocolate at a booth by the lake bored her. Only pride kept her from marching off and leaving Mrs. Elliott, the history teacher, to run the concession alone.
Every kid she despised seemed to be on the lake that day. She watched as they sailed laughingly around the ice. The boys wove in and out of the crowd with long, wild strokes—imagining themselves professional hockey players, no doubt. The girls spun in short skating skirts, a rainbow dazzle.
She’d seen Matt D’Angelo whiz by the stand several times. He made skating look effortless. His arms never flailed; he never lost his balance. He could stop so quickly that ice particles sprayed out from his skate blades.
Show off, she thought, but she couldn’t take her eyes off him.
Mrs. Elliott had gone up to the lodge for a few minutes, and Leslie had just poured herself some steaming chocolate when Matt skated up to the stand. Since his family had furnished the cocoa, she thought he might expect a freebie, but he didn’t hesitate to plunk down fifty cents.
Without a word she passed him a cup. He wrapped both hands around the plastic and took a cautious sip.
His cheeks were blotchy red, his dark hair disheveled, but there was a undeniable aura of potent energy about him; something in his eyes radiated confidence. In spite of herself, Leslie felt a warm tingle begin in her stomach. They spent several long seconds studying one another in such an odd silence that she picked up her own fresh cup and took a large swallow.
She had to stifle a gasp of pain. The heat from the cocoa seared the taste buds right off her tongue.
One of Matt D’Angelo’s brows lifted. “Didn’t that hurt?”
“No,” she lied, trying to suck cold air through her slightly parted lips.
“You sure?”
“It doesn’t,” she claimed, mortified. “Okay?”
His mouth quirked. “Guess it’s true what Danny says about you.”
The mention of his friend Danny LeBrock made her spine stiffen. She hated him. He insisted on trying to torment her with every dumb variation of her name he could think of—Help-Les. Friend-Les. Wit-Les. Lately he’d been partial to Hope-Les. She stared at Matt rigidly, unable to contain her curiosity. “What does Danny say about me?”
“That you’re the toughest girl he’s ever met.”
“He’s an idiot. I’ll bet he doesn’t even know very many girls. What girl would talk to him?”
Over the rim of his cup, Matt’s eyes sparkled in a look she’d seen him use on the other girls and several teachers. “Yeah, that’s probably true. Danny can be a loser sometimes.” He took another sip of chocolate, and she pretended to do the same.
“Can you taste anything yet?” he asked knowingly.
She nodded, though that wasn’t really true.
“Mom makes the best hot chocolate. She says the recipe is over a hundred years old and came all the way from Italy. From her mother’s family.”
She had to admit, Matt’s parents seemed like nice people. Mrs. D’Angelo had brought Leslie gloves to wear when she saw that she had forgotten her own. Without muttering a complaint, Mr. D’Angelo trudged down the trail time and again to keep them supplied with hot chocolate from the resort’s kitchen. They were so unlike her own folks, she wasn’t sure they were real.
Leslie gave him a look of mild interest, refusing to seem too impressed even though the chocolate was completely unlike the watery, instant brew she was used to. The rich mixture had filled her insides like a hot bath.
Someone called Matt’s name, and he looked over his shoulder. One of the girls he hung out with gestured for him to come back to the ice. He turned to Leslie. “Do you want to skate? We’re going to start up a game of whipcracker if we can get enough people.”
Her heart gave a little kick like a can-can dancer. As much as she wanted to say yes, she couldn’t. Her flailing trip across the ice would be as inept as a two-year-old child’s. Worse, maybe.
She fumbled around for inspiration, but came up empty. “I didn’t bring skates,” she said at last. “I came to work, not have fun.”
She sounded irritable, when she’d meant to sound practical. Matt didn’t seem to mind. He gave a little inside chuckle that threatened to draw her into the warm circle of his personality. “Take it easy. I’m just asking if you want to skate a few minutes, not rob a bank. I can snag a pair from the lodge if you want. We always keep extras for guests.”
“Look, I’m not interested.”
“Why not? I’ll bet Mrs. Elliott will watch the stand by herself for a while. She’s pretty cool for a teacher.”
Panic turned the chocolate in her stomach to an icy waterfall. She’d been hungry for friendship this year, but she wasn’t prepared for this overture. Not from someone like Matt D’Angelo, who probably had to beat friends off with a stick.
She gave him a challenging look. “Why are you talking to me?”
He looked genuinely puzzled. “What do you mean?”
“I’m not like your friends.” She jerked her head toward the ice, where several of his buddies were clowning around, waiting for him. “They won’t like it if you make them be nice to me.”
“I don’t make my friends do anything,” he said with a scowl. “And they don’t tell me who I can talk to.” He tilted his head at her. “Why are you so mad? Do you really want to fight over playing a couple of stupid games on the ice?”
Anger killed all sense of caution within her. “I can’t skate, okay? I never learned.”
She expected him to laugh, but he didn’t. “Is that all?” he asked. “Shoot, I can teach you in two minutes. Lucky for you, I’m the best skater on the lake today.”
Someone had to keep him from being so arrogantly sure of himself. “You’re not very modest,” she told him.
“Why should I be? It’s the truth.”
“I don’t want to learn to skate,” she said precisely.
“Sure you do.”
“No, I don’t. I want you to go away and leave me alone.”
She waited to be rewarded with anger from him now. How many times had he been told to get lost? Not many, she’d bet. But in the next moment, she caught sight of real catastrophe on the way. Danny LeBrock had skated off the ice and was crab-walking toward them.
He came up beside Matt and gave her his usual evil grin. “Hey there, Brain-Les.” His eyes raked over her mismatched clothes. “Nice outfit. Did you steal that sweater off a scarecrow?”
Most of the time Leslie ignored Danny’s taunts, vowing never to let him get to her, but the conversation with Matt had given her a wild, flaring discontent that left her unable to heed anything resembling rational behavior.
She lifted her chin. “Could I ask you a question, Danny?”
Danny looked suspicious. “What?”
“Is it true what everyone says? That your family tree is really just one stick and your father is also your uncle?”
It took him a moment to understand the insult. She caught sight of amusement in Matt’s eyes and the slightly off-centered lift of his mouth.
Danny paled and then his features tightened to cold-blooded scrutiny. Even at that young age, Leslie knew she’d made an enemy for life.
He shook his head. “I sure can’t figure out how you’re too dumb to make good grades when you have such a smart mouth.”
“Considering that your belt buckle probably weighs more than your brains, I’m surprised you can figure out much of anything.”
Ruddy blotches added more color to Danny’s cheeks as disbelief swept over him like a tide. He looked for help from Matt. “Who does she think she is?”
“Someone who doesn’t like to be insulted, I guess,” Matt said. “Let it go, Danny. Don’t spoil a nice day by being a total jerk.”
Danny made a move to come around the counter toward her. “Do you know what I should do?”
Matt halted him by taking a small step into his path. “What?” he asked. “Shut up and go back to the ice?”
After chewing the sides of his mouth for a moment, Danny blew a disgusted breath. The tightness in Leslie’s chest began to ease as he backed away. “We’re getting up a hockey game on the far end of the lake,” he said to Matt in a sullen tone. “If you can tear yourself away.”
They watched him filter into the crowd of skaters, then Matt turned back to face her. “My father says a still tongue makes a wise head,” he told her. “You ought to be more careful about the battles you pick.”
“Seems to me you ought to pick better friends.”
He laughed and tossed his empty cup in the waste-basket. “Most of the time I don’t pick them. They pick me.” With a few graceful steps, he was on the ice again, skating backwards as he called out to her, “Let me know if you and Danny ever decide to duke it out. I’ll hold your coat.”
Turning, he disappeared into the crowd of skaters. Leslie didn’t see him again that day.
On Monday morning Danny LeBrock showed up at school with a butterfly bandage plastered across his swollen nose and a black eye. One of the girls who specialized in classroom gossip told Leslie that Matt D’Angelo had accidentally flattened Danny during the hockey game on the lake. Nobody seemed to know the exact circumstances, but Danny sure didn’t seem chummy with Matt that day.
Leslie made a point to catch up with him between classes. She didn’t waste time with vague hints as she came up beside his locker. “I hear you whacked Danny LeBrock. Nearly broke his nose.”
He stopped twirling the combination lock and looked at her. “Yeah. His face picked a fight with my elbow during the hockey game Saturday. My elbow won.”
“Did you do it on purpose?”
“No. Why would I do that?”
“You mean, besides the fact that he’s a nasty little creep who probably has a 666 birthmark someplace on his skull?”
“That’s not very nice,” he said with a laugh. He shook his head and went back to fiddling with his lock. “No wonder you have a hard time making friends.”
“I don’t. I’m just picky. Unlike some people.”
His eyes swung sharply back to her. “Danny isn’t my friend.”
“Since Saturday?”
“Since forever. I can’t help who tries to hang around with me. My mother says I’m charismatic. That means—”
“I know what it means,” she said. “I hope your mother also tells you that a little modesty is a good thing in a person.”
“You know, you’re a riot, Meadows. You ought to have your own television show.”
He looked annoyed now, and her heart banged up in her throat, but her battered dignity wouldn’t allow her to back down.
“I don’t need anyone to fight my battles for me,” she told him.
“No. You don’t,” he said in the mildest tone she’d ever heard. But in the next moment, her insides swam with an odd sense of loss when he slammed his hand upward to shut his lock. Giving her a final sullen look, he turned away and left her standing in the hallway.
She was quite sure that that would be the last conversation she’d ever have with Matt. She avoided him for weeks, and he certainly seemed oblivious to her presence. But in the spring, her life suddenly went from bad to worse.
Her father lost his job in construction. After drowning his misfortune at a bar, Quentin Meadows decided that the best way to handle unemployment was to slash his ex-foreman’s tires and smash the windshield of his truck. He spent two nights in jail.
Leslie endured those forty-eight hours as though she’d been sentenced as well. She listened to her mother cry, tried to convince her to eat something, and wished she had the nerve to run away.
By then she should have been used to the self-destructive events that seemed to pepper her life as a member of the Meadows family. And this one wasn’t too bad, really. Although everyone knew about it, none of the kids mentioned the incident when she came back to school. Not even Danny LeBrock, who had stopped calling her names and was now focusing all his attention on some other poor victim.
Leslie had forgotten about her English teacher and worst nemesis, Mrs. Bickley.
The woman hated her for the lack of thought she put into her homework, for daydreaming in class, but mostly—Leslie was sure—for being poor. Rumor had it that Bickley had come from the wrong side of Lightning River herself and despised any reminder of that past, especially from a slacker like Leslie Meadows.
The last-period bell had rung when Mrs. Bickley caught the attention of every kid. “Just one moment, class,” she said, sounding as though she’d just remembered something. “Leslie, I meant to speak to you.”
Leslie didn’t say a word as she stood beside her desk and waited. It was her first day back, and she was determined to keep a low profile. All around her she could feel the other kid’s stares, their eagerness to go. The girls blew impatient breaths. Behind her Danny LeBrock smothered an oath. Beside her Matt slowly stuffed homework papers into his notebook.
Mrs. Bickley gave her a sweet smile. Leslie should have known right then that trouble was coming. “Can you come to school early tomorrow morning?” she asked. “I’d like you to make up the test you missed yesterday.”
“Sure,” Leslie said. “What time?”
“Seven o’clock?” the woman replied, pretending to hunt for her scheduling book.
That was another bad sign. Bickley was a neat freak who knew where everything on her desk was.
After a moment, the teacher frowned. “Yes. Can you make it that early? I mean, your father isn’t still…going through his current difficulties, is he?”
There was a snort of laughter from the back of the room and a few tittering whispers. Blood pounded loudly in Leslie’s ears. That swipe had to be deliberate. It had to be.
“You mean, is my Dad still in jail?” she asked in a voice that hardly shook at all. “No, he’s out. I don’t know what terrible trouble he’s got planned next, so I’ll get Mom to bring me.”
Bickley gave Leslie one of her mechanical smiles that never reached her eyes. “That will be fine, then. I’ll be waiting for you at seven. Class dismissed.”
