New Year's Eve (21 page)

A
NNE STEPHENS TANNED AN
even gold. The thin straps of her bikini top were tucked in so that her shoulders would get no white stripes. The pale pastel of her swimsuit looked like ice against her skin. She lay directly on the dark gray slate that made a path around the swimming pool in her backyard. She loved the deep heat of the stones, soaking into her bones and giving her strength. She was going to need a lot of that to get through the rest of the day.

There was a certain joy in being beautiful. Anne liked being admired. She liked looking in a mirror. But there was a certain agony in it, also. People did not look beyond the beauty. Anne could be upset, but people would tell her how nice her hair looked. Anne could be screaming inside, but people would say how becoming that color was on her. Anne could be sick with fear, but people would say, You know, you should be a model.

Right now Anne was filled with rage and not one of the other four girls suspected a thing. Nobody saw her moods. It was as if beauty was supposed to put you beyond bad moods. A glamorous girl had no right to feel rotten and, if she did, she should keep quiet about it.

It was her parents she was mad at.

How could they raise a daughter, teach her right and wrong, teach her to say Thank you and Please, to brush her teeth, study hard, and cross the street only at corners…and then spend her last weeks at home telling her she was no good?

Anne, dear, you were just hired because of your looks. You have no background for this. You've never organized anything in your life. Your friend Kip could do this job well. But you? Darling, it's not too late to back out. Why don't you telephone Miss Glynn right now and say you've decided against it?

Anne, dear, your head is going to be turned by all those glossy, glitzy people. You won't be able to withstand the pressures.

Anne, you'll have to manage so much money. Your judgment isn't very good, you know. What if you find yourselves in Japan or Australia and you have no money because you've spent it all on silly souvenirs?

Anne, dear, a whole year? Why, you were so homesick at camp we had to go get you on the fourth night.

And when Anne, dear, did not give in to criticism, they began offering her bribes.
If you stay home, dear, Daddy will buy you your first car.

And when Anne, dear, resisted even the bribes, they began to tell her it wouldn't be any fun, anyhow. Anne, dear, you realize you won't actually see anything of those great romantic cities? You'll just be in airports, hotel lobbies, and
more
airports and hotel lobbies.

Under the hot August sun Anne's skin turned more golden.

But her thoughts burned and burned.

Emily struggled to keep total control. It was imperative not to break down. This was Anne's last day and Emily must not turn the attention on herself. That would be selfish.

Emily yearned to be selfish. She wanted to leap to her feet, screaming and sobbing and gathering them round her to comfort her and agree that Matthew O'Connor should be killed in a long drawn-out painful manner.

But Anne was her best friend. Emily believed firmly she had a duty to her best friend to keep the whole night on a cheerful happy level.

She made herself think about the party. The
Duet
was a lovely tubby boat that took tourists from Westerly to Swallow Island and back. Burnished brass rails surrounded a deck large enough to dance on, and loden-green paint gleamed on a cabin large enough to lounge in. She wondered how much the party would cost Con and why his parents allowed it. Nobody else had mentioned the practicalities of such a lavish send-off. Could it really be true that Con had arranged fireworks? Why, whole towns had to struggle to raise money for fireworks!

Emily fidgeted with her towel, and Beth Rose smiled at her as if to start a conversation. Any conversation with Beth Rose would be about boys. Emily could not talk about boys right now. Certainly not about her
own
boy. Emily blinked hard to keep the tears from rolling down her cheeks.

“Why, Em,” Beth said, “is something wrong?”

“No, no. Allergy. Humid air. Affects me like this.” Emily lay down and put the towel solidly over her eyes to soak up the tears. Her tears hurt, as if they were acid poured in there by some villain.

“Do you think Gary will be there?” Beth Rose whispered to her, so Anne could not hear.

Em felt sorry for Beth, still fond of Gary. They had studied a poem in English Lit. “No man is an island.” Well, John Donne was wrong. Gary
was
an island, complete with rivers on all sides and no bridges. Nobody would ever possess Gary and Gary would never try to possess anyone, either. He was content to be alone or on the fringes.

But then, thought Emily Edmundson, I am sorry for all girls, because all of us love boys.

She felt the ring on the fourth finger of her left hand. In that tiny gold circle were all the plans so carefully, lovingly made since New Year's Eve when Matt had placed it there.

All gone. All meaningless.

For Matt had had a better offer.

B
ETH ROSE COULD NOT
stand it any longer. It was driving her crazy, this gathering. Anne stayed suspended in a dream; Emily and Kip either slept or pretended to; Molly forced her bright, sharp chatter on people who didn't like her.

“Oh, my gosh!” Beth jumped up, stumbling over her own towel. “I forgot the ice cream.”

Kip glared at her. Emily slept on.

Anne said, “What ice cream?”

Molly's eyes narrowed.

Beth said, “My family. We're—having this big summer thing—uh—tomorrow—and I was supposed to drive over to Benjie's and get homemade ice cream. I've got to run.” There. She'd handled it well. Nobody would suspect Beth Rose was responsible for bringing the ice cream to the good-bye party. Beth slipped into her white jeans and sleeveless T, slithered her toes into sandals and headed for her car parked out front.

Anne cried out, “Bethie! Beth, where are you going? I'm not going to see you later. I'm leaving in the morning.”

“I forgot,” Beth said guiltily. “I mean, I didn't forget, it's just that the whole idea of you going abroad for a year—I can't get a grip on it, Anne. I can't believe it's actually tomorrow.”

Anne's silvery shiver of laughter matched her hair. She'll never come home, Beth Rose thought. She's going to be among stars and she's going to become a star. No wonder Con is throwing this huge party in a last-ditch attempt to keep her home. He knows that once the world has seen Anne, she'll belong to the world, not to him.

Anne hugged Beth fiercely. “Oh, Bethie, to think that two years ago you and I had never even spoken. We were so lucky we met at that dance. It feels like years ago. I feel like you and I have been friends forever and ever and ever.”

It was a strange, unsuccessful good-bye. Beth knew they would say it all over again in a few hours, but Anne didn't. And for all that Anne was sorry and would miss Beth, Beth could feel Anne shaking with excitement, her mind already gone, waiting for her body and clothes to catch up.

I will never forget Anne, Beth thought. But she will forget me.

That made Beth cry, and tears from Beth seemed to satisfy Anne, so they were able to break loose. Beth got into her car and drove quickly off, stopping around the corner to search for a Kleenex and mop up her tears before she went on.

Kip Elliott was filled with the joy of going to college soon.

For all those long high school years, she had struggled for good grades, run committees, chaired activities, and played on teams. She had read hundreds of college catalogs and filled out dozens of forms. She had taken SAT exams and visited campuses and lived through interviews.

The long wait for acceptance was over. College began in ten days. She had her dorm assignment, her roommate had written, her trunk had been shipped—and New York, New York awaited the arrival of Kip Elliott!

She remembered how, on the day her acceptance arrived in the mail, she raced into school screaming, “I'm going to college in New York City!”

Nobody was thrilled. “Why do you want to do that?” they all said, frowning. “Don't you want to be on a real campus? Aren't you afraid of crime? Don't you worry about getting homesick?”

“No!” Kip shouted. “No, no, no, a thousand times no!” She'd spent her entire last month of high school trying to find a single graduating senior who thought she was lucky. But they were glad to be going to ordinary colleges close to home, with big maple trees and wide campus lawns, low brick dormitories, and other freshmen they knew from home.

How unfair it was to have worked so hard for something nobody else even wanted.

Kip was definitely ready to leave Westerly.

Kip leaped into the pool suddenly, splashing Emily. She did a swift stroke to one end and came more swiftly back, working off a little of the tremendous energy she always had.

Anne herself never went into the pool. The chlorine hurt her eyes too much. Kip lived in an apartment with four little brothers. It is symbolic of the unfairness of life, Kip thought, that the girl who hates swimming is the one who owns the pool.

Kip had always envied Anne. Anne was so pretty and popular, with Con always at her side arranging the next time they would be together. Anne had plenty of money and a truly enviable wardrobe. Of course, Con had a few drawbacks, number one being that he was a conceited jerk.

Yet Kip liked Con. She had to remind herself what a jerk he was or she forgot. He was charming and funny and always said the right compliment to make a girl feel good. Even Anne (who had more proof than anybody what a jerk Con was) fell time and time again under Con's charm.

Those two had started dating in seventh grade. You had only to look at this year's crop of seventh graders to know that it was a disgusting uncivilized age. Thirteen-year-old boys didn't seem capable of anything other than rude, crude, and socially unacceptable noises. Yet Con and Anne had begun even then setting an example of romance few had been able to match then or later. (Of course, there was the little lapse of Anne's pregnancy and then giving the baby up for adoption; few girls
wanted
to match that at age sixteen, and unmarried.)

It's good, Kip thought, that Anne is leaving. If she went on to State University with Con, Con would stay in charge and Anne would stay obedient. Anne will come back changed. She'll have spent a year doing things Con can't even imagine.

Even
I
can't imagine them, Kip thought, pushing her jealousy away, not letting herself think of foreign lands and fine hotels and fabulous star-studded gala parties.

I wish it were my good-bye party tonight, Kip thought, diving under one more time. I wish somebody had decided to give me a goodbye party.

She started crying underwater, a weird feeling, and when she surfaced her tears blended in with the pool water streaming out of her hair.

She forced her thoughts to college.

There would be, among other things, eighteen hundred boys in her class.

Now how, Kip asked herself, can I possibly live with a collection of one thousand eight hundred boys and not find at least a dozen absolutely perfect ones? Answer: I can't. So, in a matter of days, life is going to be boy-perfect.

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Caroline B. Cooney is the author of ninety books for teen readers, including the bestselling thriller
The Face on the Milk Carton
. Her books have won awards and nominations for more than one hundred state reading prizes. They are also on recommended-reading lists from the American Library Association, the New York Public Library, and more. Cooney is best known for her distinctive suspense novels and romances.

Born in 1947, in Geneva, New York, Cooney grew up in Old Greenwich, Connecticut, where she was a library page at the Perrot Memorial Library and became a church organist before she could drive. Music and books have remained staples in her life.

Cooney has attended lots of colleges, picking up classes wherever she lives. Several years ago, she went to college to relearn her high school Latin and begin ancient Greek, and went to a total of four universities for those subjects alone!

Her sixth-grade teacher was a huge influence. Mr. Albert taught short story writing, and after his class, Cooney never stopped writing short stories. By the time she was twenty-five, she had written eight novels and countless short stories, none of which were ever published. Her ninth book,
Safe as the Grave
, a mystery for middle readers, became her first published book in 1979. Her real success began when her agent, Marilyn Marlow, introduced her to editors Ann Reit and Beverly Horowitz.

Cooney's books often depict realistic family issues, even in the midst of dramatic adventures and plot twists. Her fondness for her characters comes through in her prose: “I love writing and do not know why it is considered such a difficult, agonizing profession. I love all of it, thinking up the plots, getting to know the kids in the story, their parents, backyards, pizza toppings.” Her fast-paced, plot-driven works explore themes of good and evil, love and hatred, right and wrong, and moral ambiguity.

Among her earliest published work is the Fog, Snow, and Fire trilogy (1989–1992), a series of young adult psychological thrillers set in a boarding school run by an evil, manipulative headmaster. In 1990, Cooney published the award-winning
The Face on the Milk Carton,
about a girl named Janie who recognizes herself as the missing child on the back of a milk carton. The series continued in
Whatever Happened to Janie?
(1993),
The Voice on the Radio
(1996), and
What Janie Found
(2000). The first two books in the Janie series were adapted for television in 1995. A fifth book,
Janie Face to Face
, will be released in 2013.

Cooney has three children and four grandchildren. She lives in South Carolina, and is currently researching a book about the children on the
Mayflower
.