One Moment in Time (6 page)

But I
have
worked hard. And I'm going to work harder. I'm not giving up. I'm going to wait and see what Genevieve has to say about my email before breaking down and telling my brother.

“Everything's fine,” I say. “I just really wanted to open that letter myself.”

“Okay,” Neal says, but he doesn't sound sure. “Well, just send Mom a text and tell her that.”

“I will.”

“All right,” he says. “Talk to you soon.”

We hang up, and I send my mom a quick text, telling her that I heard my letter from Stanford arrived and I'm so excited, but can she please not open it because I want to do it myself, and can she maybe give it to Neal so that he can overnight it to me in Florida? I think about asking her to overnight it herself, but the less time she spends with that envelope, the better.

I'm on my way back to Celia and Paige when the text from my mom comes in.

I already opened it. Please call me.

CELIA IS DRUNK. OR AT LEAST, THE BEERS SHE
had earlier combined with her time in the sun is making her feel sick. When she wakes up on the beach two hours later, she's nauseous and wants to go back to the room.

“I don't feel good,” she moans to me as we walk her back toward our hotel.

“Yeah, me neither,” I say. It's true. I haven't had anything to drink, but my stomach has been churning ever since I got that text from my mom. I haven't called her. I haven't heard back from Genevieve, either. The whole thing is making me feel like I'm going to throw up. Every time I swallow I can taste acid in the back of my mouth.

“How are we going to get her inside?” Paige asks.

I resist the urge to roll my eyes. Why is she asking
me
what to do? It's not my fault Celia got drunk. It's not really anyone's fault, I guess. Except Celia's. I mean, Paige and I
aren't her keepers. Although Paige
was
with her when Celia bought the beer and then drank it.

“I don't know, Paige,” I say. “We'll just have to do our best.” I sniff the air around Celia. “She doesn't smell like beer or anything. If anyone asks, we'll just say she might have sun poisoning.”

Luckily, when we get into the lobby of the hotel, it's empty. We start dragging Celia down the hall. “Ooh, I'm going to throw up,” she says. She leans against the side of the wall and then slides all the way down until she collapses in a heap on the floor. Her legs are all askew, and her left boob is coming dangerously close to popping out of her bikini top.

“Gross,” Paige says.

“Celia, honey, try to wait until we get to the room,” I beg.

The last thing I want is to clean puke up off the floor. How disgusting.

We manage to get Celia to the room and into the bathroom before she loses the contents of her stomach.

“Gross,” Paige says again as we stand outside the door, listening to Celia retch. I resist the urge to be annoyed with Paige because she's so useless.

Instead, I knock on the bathroom door. “Celia, sweetie, are you okay?”

“Yes,” comes the faint reply.

“Do you want one of us to come in there?”

“No. I'm just going to rinse my mouth and then I'll be out.” The sound of the toilet flushing comes through the door.

“She sounds better,” I say to Paige. “She probably just needs to sleep some more.”

Celia emerges from the bathroom, looking surprisingly put together, and drops onto the bed. “I need to sleep, just for a few,” she says. A second later, a loud snore fills the room.

I have to get out of this room. I have to get out of this room so I can go make a plan. Plus, it's very claustrophobic in here—definitely not good for my stressed-out stomach. But what kind of excuse can I come up with to leave Paige here alone with Celia?

I give a big yawn. “Well, Celia seems fine now,” I say brightly. “Maybe we should all take a nap. You know, in our own rooms.”

Paige is sitting on her bed, sifting through this huge Ziploc bag of jewelry she brought. She pulls out a big tangle of necklaces and looks at them forlornly.

“Great,” she says. “My necklaces are all screwed up.” She sighs and starts trying to pick them apart with her fingers. I wonder why the hell she put them in a plastic bag if she didn't want them to get all tangled. Then I realize this is a horribly mean thought to have. I shouldn't take my bad
mood out on Paige just because my life is a complete and total mess. It's not right.

“Can you help me?” she asks.

Sigh.

I take the tangle of metal chains out of her hand and start to pull at them. Wow. She really has gotten these all tangled up. At least they don't look that expensive. More like stuff she got at Express or Old Navy. Probably her parents made her leave her expensive jewelry at home.

“Thanks,” Paige says, sounding relieved. “That was making me feel stressed.”

“You know what you should do,” I say kindly. “You should take a nap.”

“But I'm not tired.”

“Well, you don't have to sleep. You could just have some quiet time. You know, to relax and recharge. I can, too. You know, in my room.” She's looking at me blankly, so I decide it's time to make it more clear. “I think I'm going to go back to my room now for a nap.”

Paige glances over at Celia. “What about her?”

“I'm sure she's fine,” I say. “She's just going to be sleeping. You can handle it.”

A look of doubt crosses over Paige's face, and then her eyes flick down to the necklaces in my hands. “I think you're making it worse.”

I look down and see that she's right. The chains are in an
even bigger tangle than they were when I started. “Oh,” I say. “Um, well, this is one of those things that might have to get worse before it gets better. You know, like a staph infection.”

“Staph infections don't get worse before they get better,” Paige says. “And I don't think necklaces do, either.”

Before I can refute what she's saying, my phone rings. My stomach drops into my shoes. My mom! It has to be! She's calling to find out why I haven't called her yet. I won't answer it. There's no way I can. I have to come up with a plan first, figure out what I'm going to do, what I'm going to say.

I really need to talk to Genevieve, so that by the time I talk to my mom, I'll be able to give her the good news that the whole letter was a mistake. Or maybe I'll tell her the truth—that the letter was actually true, but that I took matters into my own hands and made them reverse their decision. I can't decide which one is better—that I got accepted in the first place or that I made them change their minds. Honestly, probably that I got accepted in the first place.

Of course, that means I'll have to hope my mom won't find out I convinced my way in. But how would she ever find out? I'm going to be eighteen in a couple of months, and college acceptances are supposed to be personal and confidential. When Paige turned eighteen last month, the pharmacy stopped letting her mom pick up Paige's prescriptions until they got permission from Paige. Of course, Paige's mom already knew she was on birth control,
because she's the one who took her to the gyno when she turned fifteen.

I reach over and pick up my phone, wincing as I look down at the caller ID.

Oh. It's not my mom.

It's a 941 area code, and the caller ID flashes
UNKNOWN
,
SARASOTA
,
FL
.

Is someone from the hotel calling me? Have they figured out we've smuggled in a drunk Celia and are now calling to let us know they're going to be notifying our parents and sending us home? Actually, now that I think about it, that wouldn't be the end of the world. If I got in trouble and was sent home, I could use it as an excuse for why I didn't get into Stanford.

I answer the phone and put on my most professional-sounding voice.

“Hello?”

“Hello, may I speak with Ms. Quinn Reynolds, please?” The voice on the other end is female and sounds young and very pleasant. If it was someone calling to bust us for drinking, I doubt she'd be so excited-sounding to talk to me. And I doubt she'd be so young. They'd probably leave it to some old person to yell at us.

“This is she,” I say.

“Hi, Quinn, this is Margot Duvall from Biogene,” she says.

I sit up straight on the bed. Margot Duvall is the woman who's supposed to be interviewing me for my internship! Things are looking up!

“Hello, Margot,” I say smoothly. “It's lovely to speak with you.”

“Who's Margot?” Paige stage-whispers. She frowns down at her necklaces and then brings one up to her mouth and begins working on a knot with her teeth.

I make a gesture at her to be quiet, and she rolls her eyes in a
sor-ry for living
kind of way.

“It's lovely to speak with you, too, Quinn,” Margot Duvall says. She has that polished way of speaking you only get from going to boarding school in Connecticut. This isn't a guess—I know she went to boarding school in Connecticut because I know everything about her. Well, everything about her that's available on the internet. Anytime you're interviewing for a position, you should get to know everything you can, not only about the company, but about the person interviewing you.

“Anyway,” Margot goes on. “I'm calling because we received your email, the one you sent yesterday?”

“Yes,” I say. “I'm very eager to set up a time to come and meet you.”

Margot Duvall sighs. “Yes, well, that's why I'm calling. I'm so sorry, Quinn, but I have to let you know that the internship has been filled. We found the perfect candidate,
and she's accepted the position.”

For a second, I have no idea what she's talking about. In fact, I feel like maybe I've misheard her. Did she just say they found the perfect candidate for the job? How is that possible? I'm the perfect candidate for the job!

Celia moans from the other side of the room, then leans over and clutches her stomach. “Ooh,” she says. “I really don't feel good again.” Then she pukes onto the rug.

“Oh, for god's sake,” Paige says. She looks at me accusingly. “Why didn't you put a trash can down for her?”

“I'm sorry,” Margot says from the other end of the line. “Is this a bad time?”

“No, it's a great time.” I stand up and slip out the door of the room and into the hallway. Which, thankfully, is clear. I take a few steps toward the lobby so that Celia and Paige can't overhear me. “I'm sorry, so what was it you were saying?”

“I was saying that I'm sorry, but unfortunately, the internship position has been filled.”

“But I don't understand,” I say. “I've been trying to confirm a time for my interview for the past few days, and no one's gotten back to me.”

“I know,” she says, and her tone is a little more clipped this time, like it's lost some of its polish. “Because we've filled the position. So I'm sorry, but it's no longer available.”

“But you promised me an interview.” I'm shocked to
realize that
my
voice has lost some of its polish as well. How can this be happening? How can they have just offered the position to someone else? You can't just offer a position to someone else after you've promised someone else an interview. It's not polite. Or nice.

“I know, and I'm terribly sorry.” I hear another line ringing in the background. “But at least now you'll get to enjoy your senior trip.”

“But I don't want to enjoy my senior trip, I want to have an internship at your company!” Wow. I sound slightly hysterical. I wonder if maybe I didn't put on enough sunscreen. Sometimes when I sit in the sun for too long I start to get a little nutso. I try to compose myself. “What I mean is, um, are there any alternate opportunities you may feel I'm qualified for? A different internship, perhaps?”

“I'm sorry,” Margot says, but she doesn't really sound sorry. She sounds actually like she's glad they gave the job to someone else and not a crazy person like me. “But we only have one position available for someone right out of high school.”

I think about begging her, or asking if I can come for an interview anyway, but I know I need to get off the phone before I completely lose my dignity and any chance I have of working with her in the future. “I'm sorry to hear that,” I say. “But if something comes up, please do keep me in mind.”

“Of course.”

We hang up and I just stand there for a moment, stunned. My phone buzzes and I look down at it, but it feels weird, like the hand holding my phone isn't even connected to my body.

One new email. I pull it up.

From Genevieve.

In the Stanford admissions office.

Dear Quinn,

Thank you so much for your email. Unfortunately, all decisions of the Stanford Admissions Committee are final and binding. We have a very strict process that ensures the merit of every applicant is taken into consideration. Since everything is done by committee, there is no appeals process as you inquired about.

Thank you so much for your interest in Stanford University.

~Genevieve Peletier

Wow. She definitely doesn't sound as nice as she did before. Probably she thinks I'm psycho. Am I psycho? I feel a little bit psycho. My heart is beating fast in my chest, and suddenly I can't breathe.

I try to calm myself down, but the hallway suddenly feels unbearably hot. Even though my face feels like it's burning, goose bumps break out on my arms. The floor starts to spin
under my feet, and I know I need to get out of there.

I walk quickly through the lobby and out the double doors, then just keep walking until I get to the end of the cobblestone path. I push my way out onto the sand, onto the beach, and keep going until I reach the ocean. The cold water floods up onto my legs, and it must shock my system or something, because I immediately start to feel a little better.

I gulp in the salty air and try to get my heart rate to slow to normal, but it's not really working. It's pounding so hard I'm afraid that people around me are going to hear it, or at least notice that I'm freaking out.

I decide that maybe I need to sit down on the beach.

And that's when I see him.

Nathan Carson.

Lying on the sand a few feet away from me.

Making out with Gracie Noble. Their legs are tangled together, and his hands are in her hair. I just stand there for a second, watching them. And then I laugh, because it really is pretty comical. It's not even that I liked Nathan that much, not even that I wanted to hook up with him that badly.

It's just that in the span of a few hours, everything I had that was even a
possibility
is gone from my life. Stanford. Gone. My internship. Gone. Kissing Nathan. Gone. My parents being proud of me. Gone.