Alex's Challenge (16 page)

For the umpteenth time, Nat was reminded of how great it was to be back—she and her mom had brunched on bagels and veggie cream cheese, watched a couple of cartoons, and just taken it easy for the morning. It had been so long since Natalie had slept past seven that her body automatically woke her up—but she'd ignored the internal alarm, rolled over, and promptly fallen asleep.

“Hannah!” Natalie shrieked.

“Natalie!” Hannah screamed.

The two girls leaped at each other, hugging ferociously. “Oh my god, it is so good to see you, Nat!” Hannah said. “I thought this day would never come!”

Natalie laughed. “So melodramatic,” she said teasingly. “Some things never change. I'm beyond thrilled to see you, too—but I gotta tell you, seeing your adorable skirt—I'm pretty anxious to get out and get shopping!”

Natalie's mom laughed. “She means she's anxious to tell you all about the boy she met this summer, Hannah. And to buy clothes.”

She crossed the living room and picked up her purse from the red easy chair that was Natalie's favorite place in the house to curl up and read a magazine.

Drawing out her wallet from the bag, she looked up at Natalie. “You know the budget, Nat,” she said, handing over a credit card. “And make sure you try everything on.”

Nat just rolled her eyes good-naturedly. “Oh, I will, Mom . . .” she said. As she and Hannah went out the door, she leaned back in and said, “And don't worry—I'll try on everything I see!”

Her mom laughed, and Nat closed the door. She and Hannah headed to the elevator bank.

“I swear,” Natalie joked, “I pretty much forgot how to use an elevator—I couldn't remember what floor we lived on for a minute!”

“Then your mom reminded you about takeout, right?” Hannah teased her. “What was the first thing you ordered?”

“Spicy tuna roll . . . mmm . . .” Natalie said, smiling and closing her eyes at the memory. “Edamame . . . miso . . . red bean ice cream . . .”

“Snap out of it, sushi girl,” Hannah said. The green light above one of the elevators blinked. “You remember how to get to the lobby?”

“Ha-ha,” Nat said.

In the lobby, Charles, the doorman, held the door and tipped his hat as the two girls sauntered out to the street. “Good-bye, ladies,” he said. Winking at Natalie, he added, “And welcome home!”

“Thanks, Charles,” Natalie replied. “Have a great day!”

On the sidewalk, she looked at Hannah. “Uptown, or down?”

“Oh, you've been out of the City longer than I have,” Hannah responded, shielding her eyes with her hand and looking up and down the street at the passersby. “You choose.”

“Hannah, you've only been back for a week!”

“I know, but you've only been back for, like, less than twenty-four hours.”

Natalie laughed. “Good point. Okay, down. It's gorgeous out—want to walk?”

“Sure,” Hannah said easily.

The girls walked in silence for a few minutes, and Natalie looked up at all the buildings. She couldn't believe how
tall
everything was, after a summer in a place where the highest things around were trees, not huge skyscrapers. All around her, there were crowds of people, pushing and walking and biking and driving. At camp, there had been lots of campers—but nothing like this. The city felt hectic, claustrophobic, even.

Natalie
loved
it.

Hannah looked over at her. “So I ran into Kyle Taylor the other day,” she said, breaking the silence. “At the Boathouse in Central Park—he was there with his big brother.”

“Really?” Natalie said. “I expected to hear from him at least a couple of times over the summer. I was sort of disappointed when I didn't,” she admitted.

“Yeah, I know. He told me he left the address at school on the last day and couldn't get anyone to let him in to get it. He looked really miserable about it.” Hannah stopped before crossing the street, and looked at Natalie playfully. “Remember how to tell if you can walk?” she teased.

“Yeah, it's the big orange hand, right?” Natalie deadpanned. She was quiet for a moment. “So . . . what else did he say about me?” The light changed, and they walked on.

“Nothing. I told him when you were coming back and that was basically it, because his brother came, and they left.”

“Oh.” Natalie considered this for a minute. “So . . . do you think he's still interested?”

“I don't know, Nat,” Hannah said—sort of evasively, Natalie thought. “Probably.”

Before Natalie could continue, Hannah pointed off to her right. “Hey,” she said, stopping in front of a boutique they'd been to before. “Let's go in here.”

“Okay,” Natalie said. “So, what do you think—”

“Wow, back-to-school sale!” Hannah said.

Okay,
Natalie thought.
Am I crazy or is she changing the subject?

She shrugged off the weird feeling and headed toward the sale racks in the back of the store, where Hannah had already pulled a gorgeous blue sweater down and was checking the size. “Hannah, that's fantastic,” Natalie said, trying to push her worries aside. “You've got to get it!” Hannah slipped the sweater over her head, and though it was the wrong color to wear with her miniskirt, the sweater looked amazing on her.

“Does it come in my size?” Natalie asked, and Hannah laughed. It was just like old times. Natalie started to relax, and started digging through the rack.

Jenna looked over at her brother Adam, who was lying on the couch in their dad's basement, reading some new manga he had brought along for the weekend. She sighed loudly, and when he didn't look up or comment, she sighed again, louder this time.

Finally, Adam looked up. “What's wrong with you?” he asked, sounding annoyed.

“I'm so bored, Ad,” Jenna replied, hoping her voice sounded as pitiful as she felt.

She could not believe that she was stuck at her dad's new place on her first Saturday night back from camp—in a town where she didn't know anyone but her two brothers and her sister, and where there was absolutely. Nothing. To. Do.

The night before hadn't been bad; it'd been two months since the four kids were together, and it was great to see their dad. They had stayed up really late—later than their mom ever would have let them—and watched talk shows and the late movie and told their dad all about camp. And then they'd slept in, which was great after getting up at the crack of dawn all summer.

But then Saturday had rolled around, and Jenna found herself wanting to die from the boredom.

“Why don't you watch TV?” Adam suggested. He rolled over onto his stomach and looked back down at his comic book.

Jenna sighed for a third time. “Adam, you know Dad doesn't have the cable hooked up yet.”

“So? Watch network,” Adam said. “You've been at camp. Pretend you're roughing it.”

“It's Saturday night!” Jenna cried. “There's nothing on network.
Nothing
. Maybe, like, some Hallmark Hall of Fame movie. Anyway, I don't feel like watching TV. We've been staring at that screen all day.”

She knew she had a point there. After breakfast, their dad had insisted on taking them to Blockbuster, where they'd rented more movies than they could ever watch in a weekend. Even a weekend in a boring town where they didn't know anyone and where there wasn't anything to do.

The five of them had watched one movie, but then Steph and Matt had escaped to the mall, and Dad had gone upstairs to do some more unpacking and decorating.

That was seven hours ago. Jenna and Adam hadn't left the basement since. At around one, their dad had brought down a piping hot pizza he'd made from scratch, plus a two-liter of soda. He'd stayed for a half hour or so talking with them, but then he'd gone back up to clean. Jenna and Adam hadn't had the heart to tell him their mom had taken them out for pizza before dropping them off the night before. But even worse than that was the interminable boredom that set in when their dad went upstairs to clean.

Just thinking about how bored she was made Jenna feel worse. “Adddaaaaam,” Jenna whined. “Can't we, like, play cards or something?”

Adam looked over his comic at her. “If Dad has cards, they're not unpacked,” he said. “We've ransacked this place. Come on, just check your e-mail or something.”

“I already did. When did Steph and Matt say they were coming home? Maybe they'll take us out.”

Adam snorted. “To where, a movie and pizza?”

Jenna flopped onto the floor. “Even driving around would be better than this,” she said.

Just then, she heard a car pull up overhead. Jumping up and clapping her hands together, she said, “Thank God! They're back!” Adam didn't respond, just rolled over onto his back.

Jenna ran up the stairs, taking two at a time. “Steph! Matt!” she called excitedly. “Do you guys want to—” When she reached the living room, she stopped. The door was wide open, but looming inside the entrance was a guy who was definitely not one of her siblings. It was a pizza delivery guy. With a big cardboard pizza box in one hand, and a two-liter bottle of soda in a plastic bag in the other.

“Look, Jen!” her dad said, beaming. “I ordered us a pizza!” He handed some folded cash to the pizza guy, who handed over the food and then shoved the money in his pocket, turned, and left. Jenna's dad swung the door closed and carried the food into the kitchen. Jenna followed, and in the kitchen, sank into a chair while her dad opened cabinets, taking down plates and glasses.

“And,” her dad said, looking proud, “open up the freezer! There's a surprise in there, too!”

Jenna sighed and got up. When she opened the freezer, she gasped—it was absolutely chock-full of tons of different flavors of ice cream. Her dad laughed out loud. “I figured you probably didn't get much ice cream at camp,” he said. “So I thought I'd make up for it.”

“Wow, Dad,” Jenna said slowly. “You certainly did.” She sat back down at the table. “But this smells delicious,” Jenna went on quickly, recovering.

She opened a box and slid out a piece of pizza, putting it into her mouth without blowing on it. She was rewarded with a huge pizza burn on the roof of her mouth. She chewed and swallowed quickly as tears welled up in her eyes. “Seriously, it's great,” she said, trying not to cry.

Her dad looked up hopefully. “I was thinking that after dinner, we could get out the Scrabble board and play,” he said. “You and me, and Adam if he wants to. What do you say?”

“That sounds great,” Jenna responded, thinking:
Anything's better than another movie
.

Her dad reached out and fluffed her hair. “Great, kiddo,” he said. “Why don't you run and get Adam for dinner?”

On her way down to the basement, Jenna heard a car pulling into the driveway. “Are they back?” Adam called up to her, hearing her footsteps on the stairs.

“I think so,” Jenna said, walking over to sit next to him. “Listen, Ad . . . Dad got pizza for dinner. That car we heard before was the delivery guy.”

Adam looked at her in disbelief. “Are you kidding me?” he said, putting down his comic book. “That's, like, three meals in a row.”

“Yeah, I know,” Jenna said. She rolled her eyes. “He's trying to be Superdad or something. How much do you want to bet he tries to take us to the zoo tomorrow, or something?”

“Seriously,” her brother said. He sat up. “On the other hand, though, Mom hardly ever gets us pizza. Maybe this'll be nice—kind of break up the monotony of Mom's chicken and rice, chicken and noodles, chicken and potatoes . . .” Jenna laughed. “Chicken with asparagus . . .” Adam went on.

Jenna picked up a couch pillow and whacked him with it. “Come on, loser,” she said. “Let's go eat. And then I'll kick your butt at Scrabble.”

“I can hardly wait,” Adam said drily. He got up off the couch, though, and Jenna followed him upstairs to the kitchen.

After dinner, Jenna retreated to the bedroom she was sharing with Steph. She lay down on her bed feeling overstuffed and exhausted.

After a few minutes, Steph walked in. “What's up with you?” her sister asked, sounding concerned.

“Nothing,” Jenna replied. “I'm just tired.”

“Look, Jen, I know it's a little dull here. And don't think it's escaped me that this is the third meal of pizza we've had in the last two days. But try to be a good sport. Dad's having a rough time right now.”

“Aren't you bored, too, Steph?” Jenna asked, sitting up on the bed.