Falling Into You (11 page)

She
sounds nothing like herself. Her voice is low and serious and for a second, I think she’s about to cry. I throw my arms around her.

“Those don’t
sound like friends to me.”

Sophia
was hardly ever serious.
I knew that despite her flippancy, her devil-may-care clothes and hair and attitude, she was always watching, paying attention.
She was calculating, yes. She always got what she wanted. But sometimes she seemed more like a lost little girl than a grown-up seductress who wrapped everyone around her little finger. And this was one of those times.

“It’s the
world that I live in. That’s why I wanted you to come. I thought you could add an extra something. The je ne sais quoi, the Midwestern
fabulousness
and the lack of
caring about your humble roots,
” she says
.

T
he moment
is
gone and the twinkle
had come
back in
to
her eye
.

“My humble roots?” I repeat
,
punching her lightly on the arm.
“Wow. You are such a
brat
.”

“It was meant to be a compliment,” she manages to get out,
before
tossing the pillow
at my head
. “You know, that approachable, girl-next-door thing.”

“You mean the fact that everyone thought I was the maid?
I think that girl in the kitchen even thought that I was
a homeless person brought in for a
little entertainment.
”
But
I
’m
laugh
ing
with her
. In the light of the morning, particularly given the coffee shop conversation with a jaw-droppingly handsome boy, those moments of isolation on the balcony didn’t seem so bad anymore.

I was in New York, in a beautiful apartment
, with an unlimited food and booze budget, and we were
sans
any parental figures. A
ll the people at the party
who thought I was a total loser
didn’t matter
in the grand scheme of things; I would never see them again
after my little jaunt to the city was over
.

“They did not!”
Sophia
is mock-outraged. Then she starts
laughing. “Wow. What a bunch of dicks.”

I look
at her mischievously. “They definitely did. But this could be fun. We could pass it off like I’m some long-lost princess who wears Target jeans and we
would need a super-sensitive timer to
count the numbe
r of seconds before they start
fawning all over me.”

A devious look comes
into the corner of her eyes.
“
Or you’re actually the illegitimate daughter of the Crown Prince of Bahrain or something.”

I laugh
at that one.
Sophia
’s scheming co
uld get out of hand, so I nip
it in the bud. “It
doesn’t matter anyways,” I tell
her. “We’ll have a good trip.”

She smiles, at ease now. She
looks
me up and down. “We can certainly do that.
Now, dear, I know that you don
’t
ever
give two shits about what
you wear
, but if
you’re
going to be with
me
, in my city, for the next
two
weeks, we
are
definitely going to have to do something about
your
wardrobe.
Particularly if the plan is to pass you off as a princess.
So, the first item on the agenda is shopping. Lots of shopping.”

Her words still teased, but in a flash, s
he had become the other
Sophia
, the New York
Sophia
, and I sigh
. Lots of shopping
was the
absolute
last thing I wanted to do.

Money meant nothing to her. It meant everything to me.
I
almost had a nervous breakdown over
the whole plane ticket thing.
After I had spoken to my
mom
and agreed to join
Sophia
in the city,
her
father
had paid for our plane tickets to New York before I had the opportunity to offer. I had clicked on the link that her stepmother’s secretary had sent, hoping to find out exactly how much it had cost, so I could write her a check. My salary for my lifeguarding job at school was a measly eight dollars an hour, but I worked almost 30 hours a week, so I had built up a little savings fund that I thought I could use in New York.

Four thousand dollars.

I had given an involuntary shudder when I saw that number on my computer screen. I immediately checked my bank balance. It would almost totally wipe me out. I sent an e-mail to the secretary who had arranged our flights, asking her if I should just send a check or try to pay with my debit card.

I only got a six word response.
The
flights are already paid for
.

The gnawing feeling in my stomach
only
intensified
when we stepped into the first-
class cabin on the plane.
I should have realized, since
I would bet that
Sophia
had never fl
own coach in her life
.
Of course, the closest I had ever come to the first-class
cabin was at the beginning of flights when they make you pass all of the people sitting comfortably in their plush chairs, enjoying their cocktails and appetizers.

It should have been fun to be one of them for a change, but the thought of an almost empty bank account consumed any joy that I may have been able to get out of it.
I didn’t enjoy the little shrimp rolled in bacon (which were
fabulous
, by the way) or the glasses of champagne the flight attendants had handed to us with nary a mention of showing ID.

I couldn’t keep up with
Sophia
and her spending at school
, but I tried anyway.
I cheerfully went along with
her
and the other girls on my floor to expensive dinners, secretly picking up extra shifts in the pool to make up for the money I was spending.
Sophia
must have known that I couldn’t afford it,
because
always tried to throw her dad’s credit card down
for both of us
.

“I got it,”
she would say
.
“No,”
I would reply.
“I’m fine
.”

The table would be filled
with
appetizers and dess
erts and drinks
and
even though I always stuck
with water and salad
, it got split evenly between all of us and I would watch two or three early morning shifts disappear along with the dishes
. 
I couldn’t ever remember a time when my
mom
had allowed me to get an appetizer with a meal, let alone a dessert. It wasn’t like we were poor or anything, just careful.

Every time I heard an offer to pay for me (my lack of wealth was not a secret at Greenview)
, I heard my mother’s voice in my head—
“You are the only you that you’ve got. And by letting someone buy things for you, they get to buy you, too.”
And I would politely refuse.

When we had arrived,
Sophia
’s father and stepmother had been there to greet us before they
left for their “cottage” in the Hamptons
.
I had known before we came that William and Cleo were going to be spending the break in the Hamptons and on one “one of the islands.” I wasn’t exactly sure what that meant, but it conjured up images of white sand beaches and fruity drunks.
Sophia had told me that we would see them the first day and for a few days the last week. Knowing that we would be alone in the city for basically the entire duration of the visit was a bonus for me, although it would have been a deal-breaker for my mother.
So, I may have let her get the
impression that I
would be
singing Christmas carols with Sophia’s family
all week
.

As soon as we walked in
to the apartment
,
I put a check for the
cost of the
plane ticket in
William
’s hand. He had looked down at it, and said, “What’s this?” like I was some kind of alien.

He looked again, finally understanding.
“
This is c
ompletely unnecessary.
Sophia
invited you here. We aren’t going to let you pay for a little plane ticket, now, are we?”

He had taken my check, representing all of the money I had saved from working two jobs in high school and one in college
,
and threw it in the trash. Part of me was secretly grateful that he had turned my offer to pay down. But the owing continued to eat away at me. Nothing could have made it more clear that this wasn’t my world than the careless gesture of tossing all of my hard work into the trash.

First world problems.

I had been lost in thought, silently wondering how I was going to be able to pretend that I couldn’t find anything of worth in all of the shopping that New York
offered
.
Sophia
was going on and on about some
fabulous
boutique that she had discovered the year before when the strum
ming
of “Let’s Get it On
” (her ringtone), comes
from her phone.

“Ugh. It’s
Cleo
. 
I have no earthly idea what she could want.”

“It’s okay.
Get it.”

Sophia
mouths
sorry
to me and answers
the phone.

“
Cleo
,” she
says
impatient
ly
. “
Mmm-hmmm.
I don’t know what you’re talking about.
Where is it? What? No, I have
Hallie
here. We were going to do a New York day. Yes, yes, I know it’s a tradition. I know.
What? Overnight? No,
Cleo
, I can’t…Oh,
I could bring her along.
”

I shake
my head emphatically. I wasn’t going to intrude on
Sophia
and her
ridiculously
well-coiffed stepmother
.
Whatever the “overnight” was, I was guessing it was going to add a whole other pile of guilt on top of my feelings about the plane ticket.

Sophia
gives
m
e a questioning look and I shake
my head again. “Never mind about bringing her. Ok, ok, I’ll ask her if she minds. What time tomorrow? Of course I will. I’ll call the service and get it all set up. Of course.”

Sophia
turns
to me, an apologetic look on her face.
“Shit, shit, shit.
I am so sorry,
Hallie
. I told
Cleo
that I would do this spa trip thing today and tomorrow, and with the party last night, I totally, 100 percent, forgot about it.”

I had forgotten about it, too.
The week before,
Sophia
had mentioned the annual spa overnight that had become a tradition with her and her stepmother
. She had invited me to tag along, but when I refused, she had insisted
that she would find a tour guide for me to see the city with
.
I was hoping that she had forgotten about that, too. I was actually looking forward to spending the day by myself—no one to impress or feel awkward around for a change.

I wanted
Sophia
to have the day with
Cleo
.
I knew that
Sophia
actually liked
her
,
mostly
because s
he didn’t pretend like she was replacing
Sophia
’s
mom or anything
(who
Sophia never saw because she lived in Paris with her “second family”
)
. I also knew that some of it came from
the fact that
she
took
Sophia
shopping and on a tour of all the best restaurants in the city on
almost
a daily basis
.
I liked
Cleo
, too;
when
I
met
her
the day before, she had been kind and pleasant and had ended our introductions with the promise of getting to know me when she got back to the city. Besides Chris, she was by far the nicest
New Yorker that I had met
.