Sunset Island - Sunset Secrets Part 12

"Not unless you're planning to drive at the same time" was Emma's reply.

"Oh, that famous Cresswell sense of humor,"

Sam remarked, settling in for a good sleep.

Emma drove for the next hour listening to cla.s.sical music and daydreaming about Kurt.

When she first saw the snowflakes, she rea.s.sured herself that they were just blowing around and didn't appear to be sticking.

But within a few miles the weather had changed drastically. The air was thick with whirling snow, and an icy layer of white had already started covering the road. Emma touched the brake pedal and felt the car fishtail. A tingle of fear ran up the back of her neck.

"Sam, wake up," Emma called to her.

"Wha-wha?" came Sam's sleepy voice from next to her.

"Wake up!" Emma commanded, using her best Katerina Cresswell voice. No one could sleep through that.

"What?" Sam said irritably, rubbing her eyes.

"It's snowing," said Emma, trying to stay calm as she wondered how she was going to pull over safely. Everyone was going so fast! Couldn't they see that the road was slick?

Sam sat up. "All right!" she cheered. It was the first snow she'd seen in a year. She'd forgotten how invigorating a good snowstorm could be.

"Sam, I mean it, I'm going to have to pull over," came Emma's steel-edged voice.

"What's the big deal?" Sam asked, stretching.

"It's just a little snow."

"Please, Sam, you don't understand," Emma said, gulping hard.

Sam finally focused on how weird Emma was acting. Her voice was shaking, her shoulders were hunched over, and her knuckles were white where her hands gripped the steering wheel.

"But, Em, you grew up in Boston and Switzer- land, for Pete's sake! You must know how to drive in the snow!" Sam asked.

"Well, I don't!" wailed Emma. "I wasn't allowed to! Lawrence or one of the school's chauffeurs always drove me when it snowed!"

"You're kidding," Sam said.

"No, dammit, I'm not kidding!" Emma yelled.

The car fishtailed again as Emma tried to slow down. Up ahead, cars were braking.

"Look," said Sam, leaning forward, "it's easy . . ."

They were fast approaching what looked like a traffic jam ahead.

Sam continued, trying not to alarm Emma, "Whatever you do, just don't slam on the-"

Emma slammed on the brakes.

Immediately the wheels locked and skidded on the slick road. The car went sliding toward the knot of cars ahead, making a soft crunching thud as the b.u.mper of Emma's car hit the fender of the car in front of them.

Emma sat there for a second, dazed, then she and Sam got out of the car. The driver ahead, an older woman, met them by the fender. The woman wore snow boots and appeared to have on a warm-up suit topped by a plaid car coat and a red tam-o'-shanter spangled with large mirrored sequins. Both Emma and the woman began to a.s.sess the damage.

Emma's car looked like it would come away with only a scratch or two on the b.u.mper. But the other woman's fender was deeply dented, mashed all the way up into the wheel well, though miraculously not pressing on the tire.

"My insurance will take care of this," Emma told her. "I'm just so sorry."

"Don't feel bad," said the woman, the pompom on top of her hat bobbing as she spoke. "I almost did the same thing to the car in front of me. Let's just hope the police get here before too long.

Mitzi has an appointment at the beauty shop. I'm Camille Baker, by the way."

Sam and Emma introduced themselves. Sam, glancing in the back window of Camille's car, thought she was seeing things: a miniature tarn, exactly like the one Camille was wearing, popped above the back seat, then vanished again.

"I suppose we can go ahead and trade insur- ance information," said Camille. "We can all sit in my car. There's plenty of room and Mitzi just loves to meet new people."

The mystery of the vanishing tarn was solved when Camille opened the car door to a round of maniacal yapping. A bug-eyed chihuahua, wearing a matching red tarn and sweater vest, greeted Camille with a series of canine acrobatics.

"This is Mitzi," said Camille. "Mitzi, say h.e.l.lo to the nice girls."

Mitzi greeted Emma with a bounding pirou- ette. But Sam, climbing into the back seat, found herself nose to nose with a snarling miniature Cujo.

"She doesn't like redheads," apologized Cam- ille. "I don't know why. That and nail-biting are her only faults."

Sam and Mitzi maintained a standoff in the back seat while Camille scribbled down insurance information and rattled on about the fortune that could be made in bite-resistant doggie nail polish. It was a very long twenty minutes before a squad car got to them.

After accomplishing all the necessary paper- work, Emma found the policeman, an Officer Leeman, fixing her with a questioning gaze.

"Miss Cresswell," said Officer Leeman, "I called your license into our computer bank-purely routine, you understand. But I'm afraid you'll have to come with me to headquarters. Your friend can follow along in your car."

"Am I being cited for the accident?" Emma asked.

"No, ma'am," said the policeman. "We're put- ting that down to hazardous driving conditions."

Emma was cold and tired and she wanted to get to a hotel. "So what is the problem, then?"

"The problem," Officer Leeman said, "is that you are listed as a missing person."

Everyone was nice enough at police headquar- ters, but Emma had to put up with some chiding for not having gotten in touch with her father.

Even Sam got into the act.

"It was stupid," Sam said bluntly. "It wouldn't have hurt to check in from Savannah. You knew then that he was looking for you. If you'd just done that, we wouldn't be sitting in this stupid police station right now."

That remark burned Emma. // Sam doesn't understand about my family by now, she thought, there's no point in trying to explain.

The real irony of the situation was that her father wasn't even reachable. According to Rosa, the housekeeper for the Palm Beach residence, he and Valeric had taken off for some island- hopping in the Caribbean. The fact that Emma left a message for him satisfied the highway angry at Sam for not understanding her, and angry at herself for being so wimpy. Where is the new, carefree Emma? she wondered.

7 wish Carrie were here. Emma stared out the window morosely. / need some mature advice, and Sam is not exactly the person to give it to me.

Meanwhile, Sam was trying to pretend that Emma's freeze-out didn't hurt her feelings. Hon- estly! Emma makes every little thing into World War Three! Sometimes she acts like the whole world revolves around her. Sam, too, wished Carrie were there. Carrie always knew what to say to smooth out the rough spots between Emma and Sam. Besides, Sam was quite certain ~that Carrie would agree with her about how dumb Emma was acting.

Neither Emma nor Sam broke the silence, and they managed to hit the outskirts of New York City two hours later without having spoken one word to each other.

Once they reached Manhattan, however, Sam got too psyched to keep up the silent treatment, no matter how Emma felt. It was all just too exciting.

"Oh my G.o.d, I can't believe I'm in New York!"

Sam exulted as they cruised south toward SoHo.

Even in the snowy weather the streets were teeming with action. People of every size, shape, and color were out on the streets. It was a constant parade of people.

Within moments of using her key to get into her Aunt Liz's SoHo loft, Emma had kicked off her shoes and headed into the kitchen, where she found a half-empty bottle of Chablis in the refrig- erator.

"Want some?" she called to Sam as she poured herself a gla.s.s.

"No, thanks," Sam called back from the living room, where she was standing at the window looking down on the local scene. "I can't believe how hip this place is," Sam said in wonder.

Emma gulped down half a gla.s.s of wine and refilled her gla.s.s quickly. Aunt Liz's loft was looking better and better all the time.

Emma awoke the next morning with a pounding headache.

Hangover, she thought. Her stomach rolled over as she remembered last night's wine before dinner, wine with dinner, and the additional bottle she'd picked up on the way back to Aunt Liz's apartment.

Now she rummaged through her aunt's medi- cine cabinet for something she could use as a hangover remedy. Finally settling for aspirin- free pain reliever, she took two, then headed toward the kitchen to forage for something to settle her stomach.

"You look like dog meat," Sam said cheerfully from the kitchen table, where she sat sipping coffee.

"Actually, I feel fine," Emma said coolly. She wasn't about to admit her hangover to Sam, who had cautioned her several times the night before that she?d better eat more if she was going to keep drinking.

"Well, good," Sam said. "I'm glad you feel fine.

So-I'm all ready to go when you are."

"I won't be more than fifteen minutes," Emma promised in her frostiest voice. She turned and headed for the shower.

I'm dying, a voice in her head told her as she held her head under the steaming hot water.

Why, why, why did I do this to myself?

Fifteen minutes later Emma was ready to go.

She wrote her aunt a thank-you note in a shaky hand, and left it propped up on the kitchen table.

Sam drove the first two hours out of New York, and Emma got some badly needed sleep.

By the time she woke up her mood had improved greatly. I'll never drink again, she vowed to herself. She felt sane, sober, and ready to meet up with Carrie.

"There she is!" Sam yelled, opening the door and bolting from the car to hug Carrie as Emma eased into the s.p.a.ce in front of Hummingbird, the cafe they'd decided on for lunch.

Emma was feeling better by then, but her energy still couldn't match Sam's, and for a moment she felt left out of things. Then Carrie was pulling Sam around to Emma's side of the car. Carrie opened the door, and she and Sam fairly dragged Emma out of the car and into a three-way embrace.

"Look at you!" cried Carrie, holding Emma at arm's length, then stepping back. "Look at this car! I want to hear about every single adventure you two had-the uncut version!"

Emma thought she'd never been so glad to see Carrie. Dressed in jeans, a deep purple sweater that brought out the color of her velvet- brown eyes, and a wonderful scarf in muted tones of rose, blue, and purple, Carrie looked fresh, pretty, and confident. Carrie can handle any- thing, thought Emma. Yale, a boyfriend or two, a career on the rise. I can't even handle my own family! It occurred to Emma that Carrie might not even like her so much if she knew how weak she really was. The last time they'd been to- gether, everything had seemed so clear. But now . . .

"You must be living right," Sam said, looking Carrie over as they were being seated for lunch.

"You look as healthy as a horse!"

Carrie's face reddened, as if she'd been smacked.

"I know I look like a cow-" Carrie began.

"You don't!" Sam protested. "I didn't mean anything by that! You look great, that's all I wanted to say."

"Anything but the truth," Carrie murmured.

"That's ridiculous!" Sam cried. "You look fabu- lous!"

Sam meant what she said. To her, Carrie looked fabulous-poised, centered, totally to- gether. And she certainly didn't look fat. Now if only I could sneak some makeup onto that Ivory Girl face of hers, Carrie would be perfect.

"I know I ... gained a few pounds," Carrie said ruefully.

"Well, if you did, I certainly can't tell," Emma told her.

"You can't tell because I'm wearing baggy clothes again," Carrie pointed out honestly.

Even as she was saying this, a voice in Carrie's head was telling her to shut up. Stop obsessing about your problems! she instructed herself. She was determined to turn the conversation to some- thing else. After all, no way could either Sam or Emma relate to the anguish of a weight problem.

"So how's the wonderful world of Disney?"

Carrie asked Sam.

"Great!" Sam replied brightly, grabbing for a menu. "Let's eat, I'm starved!"

"I'm not very hungry," Emma murmured as she glanced at the wine list. Sam shot her an admonishing glance.

Don't start on me, Sam, thought Emma. I'm going to relax and have a good time now that the three of us are together. When the waiter ap- peared, she ordered a gla.s.s of claret, since no one else was interested in sharing a bottle.

Carrie was surprised to see Emma drinking wine at lunch, but then she remembered her friend's European education. People over there always drank wine with meals, and Emma cer- tainly knew how to take care of herself.

"So tell me," Carrie asked when Emma's wine arrived and she and Sam were sipping on Diet c.o.kes, "how was life on the road?"

"Well, the truth of the matter," Sam began, "is that I've been breaking hearts all along the way."

"But I take it yours is still intact," Carrie said with a laugh.