Slippery Slopes (20 page)

Melissa listens to Dove and stares at the “signature drink.” Three layers of color—peachy pink on the bottom, pale green in the middle, and bright raspberry on top, crowned with a spear of fresh fruit. Dove rests her chin in her hand and doesn’t speak.

“What a sight for sore eyes!” Melissa leans in for a sip, desperate to make Dove forget about her Will woes.

“Right,” Dove agrees mournfully, finally giving in and taking a swig. “A sight for sore eyes.”

“I could say the same thing about you!” From behind Dove, a fresh face leans back in her chair. “Lily de Rothschild, I knew it was you! Not even your hair could disguise you!” The voice is attached to a young woman with the brightest smile Melissa has ever seen. Dove turns and sees her and can’t help but smile back.

“Let me join you.” She pulls her chair over to their table and Melissa kicks Dove under the table. Dove kicks her back.

“Melissa Forsythe, this is an old, old family friend, Emmy Taylor.”

“God, you make me sound ancient,” Emmy says, tossing her auburn hair back from her freckled face. “The truth is, Dove and I used to be quite a team.” Dove’s eyes go round and her mouth opens to protest. Emmy smirks and says in a conspiratorial way to Melissa, “Don’t let her deny it! We stayed up on this hill. At some private club …” She looks at Dove to back her up. “What was the name of that place?”

Dove shrugs. “We were at Wyndham Manor. You were at …” Dove’s voice is muffled by her straw.

“Sugar Hut. That’s it! That’s the name of the place.” Emmy grins excitedly. “What a cool place. Melissa, you should totally see it.” She pauses, looking at Dove’s drink until Dove hands it over and Emmy sips it. “The Sugar Hut. Ah, the memories. I wonder who’s in it now.”

Dove looks panicked. Melissa can’t figure out why until she repeats the name
Sugar Hut
in her mind. Where had she heard it before? Then it hits her. Max. Max is staying there. No wonder Dove doesn’t want to deal with anything remotely connected to him—or their past.

“I have an idea,” Emmy Taylor announces. “I have to get back to my friends—if I can find where they’ve gone off to. But later, want to crash the Sugar Hut? Just see who’s there and demand an instant party or something?” She licks her lips. “It could be fun … for old times’ sake?”

Worry builds in Dove’s stomach. She shakes her head immediately. “No. No, we can’t, we have to—”

Melissa jumps in. “We have an appointment.”

Emmy looks mildly disappointed. “A spa treatment? You can change it.”

“Not a massage or facial, Emmy. We have a meeting….” Her mind goes blank. Who? Where could they possibly both have a meeting?

“With Matthew Chase.” Melissa spits the name out, then bites her lip, nervous about lying. In the airport there’d been posters of Matthew Chase, the famous Australian chef who opened a new restaurant on Nevis and was rumored to be heading to New York to start filming his own television show. Melissa had stared at the poster longingly, wishing she could afford to eat at his place or could somehow meet him and tell him how much she admired his casual but careful kitchen ways.

Emmy looks suitably impressed. “Matthew Chase? Well, I guess that’s an opportunity you can’t pass up … even for a bit of fun with me.” She stands up and looks at Dove. “Have you suddenly taken an interest in cuisine, Lily? I know you hosted some great dinner parties back in the day, but aren’t you just vacationing?”

Dove gives a sideways glance at Melissa. “Yeah, I’m taking a break—but I have recently developed a renewed interest in cooking …” She and Melissa lock eyes, instantly thinking back to sweating in the tiny kitchen at Les Trois, serving up tons of delicious food for their guests, prepping and chopping and exhausting themselves all in the name of creative cuisine and good tips.

“I have a fabulous personal chef at home,” Emmy says. “Remind me and I’ll pass along his name should you ever give up your own … ambitions.” She laughs, not meanly, but as though cooking for oneself were a silly escapade. Leaning down to fix the strap on her sandal, Emmy adds, “But I mean what I say about getting together at some point. Maybe after your meeting with Matthew Chase.”

Dove nods.
There’s no way she’s going to take no for an answer, so I might as well choose what I do rather than get roped in.
“I’m not up for trekking all the way to the Sugar Hut,” she says. “It’s old news. What else did you have in mind?”

Emmy stands up, her turquoise tank dress bright even against the colorful backdrop of the café. “Tell you what.” She reaches into her small bag and pulls out a slip of paper. “To wrap up my winter holidays I’m having a grand fete at the Botanical Gardens next week. See you there?” Her eyes let both Melissa and Dove know that it’s not so much a question as a command.

Melissa shrugs.
How bad could a party be? Besides, it’s not as though we have anything else to do.
“Sounds great. Thanks!”

Dove nods and accepts the European kiss on both cheeks from Emmy before finally exhaling as she leaves.

Dove watches Melissa finish her drink. “I guess we have plans. Future plans.”

“I guess so.”
But what about now?
Melissa wonders.
What about today, tomorrow, and my luggage-less days ahead?

Dove signals for the bill. “So now I’m assuming we actually have even more reason to raid Pulse. Looks like we’re in serious need of clothing.”

“I thought you didn’t care about things like clothing,” Melissa reminds her as she fishes in her pocket for some cash.

Dove brushes her bangs off her forehead, spiking them slightly. From her bag she pulls out a plain light blue elastic strap and slides it on her head. With her hair all the way back from her face she appears even more petite, more vulnerable.

“I don’t. At least, not really,” she says. Off in the distance, on the sidewalk, Dove sees a group of guys in various shades of button-downs—the unofficial off-duty yachting uniform.
Is William with them?
She squints into the sun, trying to see. Where is he now? Feeling guilty that he missed meeting her? Missing her in the midst of a dream? Or waking up near some long-legged party girl he met on the beach bash circuit? “Maybe I’m not up on all the island info,” Dove says, as though Melissa can read her mind, “but someone knows Will—Nevis is too small an island to have secrets.”

“Secrets? What’s the big deal?” Melissa follows Dove’s gaze. She checks her watch, anxious about the time. The idea of not having a place to stay or any semblance of a plan won’t leave her alone.
If we don’t come up with something soon, maybe we’ll have to leave. Or at least, I will. I can’t very well sleep on the beach, can I?

“Just come with me,” Dove says, seemingly oblivious to the larger issues at hand.
The whole purpose of being here is to find William, and that’s my personal plan,
Dove thinks as she drops money on the table.
A job and a bed are only minor details.
She pulls Melissa out of the café and closer to the group of wandering yacht boys.

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Off the Trails
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Emily Franklin is the author of
Liner Notes
and a story collection,
The Girls’ Almanac
. She is also the author or coauthor of over a dozen young adult books including
The Half-Life of Planets
(nominated for YALSA’s Best Book of the Year) and
Tessa Masterson Will Go to Prom
(named to the 2013 Rainbow List). A former chef, she wrote the cookbook-memoir
Too Many Cooks: Kitchen Adventures with 1 Mom, 4 Kids, and 102 Recipes
to chronicle a year in the life of new foods, family meals, and heartache around the table. Her fiction and essays have appeared in the
Boston Globe
, Monkeybicycle, the
Mississippi Review
,
Post Road Magazine
, Carve Magazine, and Word Riot, as well as on National Public Radio, among others. Her recipes have been featured in numerous magazines and newspapers, and on many food websites. She lives with her husband, four kids, and one-hundred-sixty-pound dog outside of Boston.

All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 2007 by Emily Franklin

Cover design by Mimi Bark

978-1-4804-5229-9

This edition published in 2013 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.

345 Hudson Street

New York, NY 10014

www.openroadmedia.com