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“How’s Donna LaDonna? Do you think you can get her to give me my clothes back?”
The suddenness of my attack startles him. His skate slides out beneath him
and for a moment, he flails. “Ha. You’re one to talk.”
He steadies himself and we glide along silently, while I mull this over.
It’s my fault?
What did I do? I pull my cap down over my ears as a boy on hockey skates hurtles toward us, laughing over his shoulder at his friends, completely unaware of the dozens of other people skating on the pond. Sebastian grabs the kid’s shoulders as we’re about to collide and pushes him off in the other direction. “Watch it!” he says.
“You watch it!” the kid growls.
I skate away to the side, where several sawhorses have been set up around a patch of dangerous ice. Black water laps at the edges of a ragged hole.
“You were the one who disappeared last night,” Sebastian points out, a note of smug triumph in his voice.
I give him a half-dirty, half-astonished look.
“I was looking for you everywhere. And then Lali told me you’d left. Really, Carrie,” he says, shaking his head. “That was rude.”
“And it wasn’t rude of you to dance with Donna LaDonna?”
“It was a dance. That’s what people do at a dance. They dance.” He takes a pack of cigarettes from inside his leather jacket.
“No kidding. But they don’t dance with their girlfriend’s worst enemy. Who also stole her clothes!”
“Carrie,” he says patiently. “Donna LaDonna did not steal your clothes.”
“Then who did?”
“Lali.”
“What?”
“I had a long talk with Lali after you left.” He holds a cigarette between his thumb and forefinger as he lights up. “She meant it as a joke.”
I suddenly feel queasy. Or queasier, as the cold air has done little to alleviate my hangover.
“Don’t be mad. She was afraid to tell you because you made such a big deal out of it. I told her I would tell you and she asked me not to because she didn’t want you to be angry.” He pauses, smokes some more, and flicks the cigarette butt into the patch of dark water, where it sizzles like a defective firecracker before floating gently under the ice. “We both know how sensitive you are.”
“So now I’m sensitive?”
“Come on. I mean, with what happened to your mother—”
“Has Lali been talking to you about my mother, too?”
“No,” he says defensively. “I mean, maybe she mentioned it a couple of times. But what’s the big deal? Everybody knows—”
I think I’m going to be sick again.
Don’t bring my mother into this. Not today. I can’t handle it. Without speaking, I pick up a splinter of wood and toss it into the watery hole.
“Are you crying?” he asks, half smirking and half sympathetic.
“Of course not.”
“You are.” He sounds almost gleeful. “You act all cool on the outside, like nothing bothers you, but inside you really care. You’re a romantic. You want someone to love you.”
