Snow drifted into her face as she walked uptown. It wet her eyelashes and the tips of her ears and melted instantly on her cheeks. It was the first serious snowstorm of the year, and already a thick layer of white covered the sidewalks and the tops of mailboxes and the pointy spires of Grace Church. Normally she loved the first snow in the city, when traffic slowed down and sirens got quieter, and the whole city seemed to go on mute. But tonight she didn’t notice. As she trudged up a deserted Broadway, Alex’s hurt, angry voice rang in her head like a car alarm.
In one day, she’d lost everything. The job. Alex. Her reputation. The money. And maybe even Lizzie.
Lizzie. She stopped at the corner, where snow was silently filling up a metal garbage can. Only Lizzie could bring her back to herself right now. Only Lizzie could assure her that her life wasn’t completely over. She had to talk to her. Now.
She dialed Lizzie’s number. The phone was freezing against her ear. Pick up, she thought. Please pick up.
It rang twice, three times, four times, and then went to voice mail. She hung up. If Lizzie couldn’t get to her phone, she usually sent calls right to voice mail so that it didn’t even ring. The fact that she’d let it ring four times meant that she didn’t want to speak to her. That she wasn’t picking up on purpose. Carina had never felt this alone. Not ever.
By the time she got off the 6 train at Fifty-ninth Street, she was damp and chilled. She pushed past some Christmas shoppers on the platform and sprinted up the steps. She couldn’t wait to get into a hot bath, climb into bed, and forget this day.
But as soon as she walked in her front door, she saw the coat-rack set up in the hallway and the waiters scurrying in and out of the kitchen with drinks on trays, and the extra security men standing with Otto at his desk, monitoring the tiny television screens with stony expressions. Great, she thought. It was her dad’s holiday cocktail party.
Her dad’s holiday parties weren’t really her scene. It was always a mix of the same groups: the Money (usually men in dark blue three-piece suits), the Models (stick-thin, bobble-headed women with sharp, alien-like features and long, slick ponytails), and the Media (more average-looking men and women in fancy clothes and bad haircuts, staring with envy at the Money and the Models). She’d walked around these things before, usually with a glass of eggnog and either Lizzie or Hudson in tow, but tonight it was the last thing she felt like doing. She was almost at the stairs when she heard a woman shriek with amped-up laughter. She looked over and there was her father in the middle of a crowd of people. He stopped talking when he saw her.
“Carina? Are you okay?” He walked toward her, stopped short, and took in her disheveled appearance. “You’re soaked.”
“I got caught in the snow,” she said.
“Come with me,” he said sternly. “We need to get you dried off.” He put his hands on her shoulders and steered her to the kitchen.
“Dad, this isn’t ER or anything, I’m fine,” she said.
“You look like something out of a Dickens novel,” he muttered. “Come on.”
The shrieking woman, who had small eyes and a blond pageboy, pulled him aside. “Karl, about the Vanity Fair piece, I think the best thing to do is speak to Graydon directly—”
“Be right back, Elise,” he said gruffly, and kept going. Carina made a mental note. She’d never seen him blow off one of his party guests like that before. Especially for her.
When they walked into the kitchen, white-suited cater waiters were moving gracefully around the room, refilling their trays.
“Marco?” her dad yelled out. “Can we get some towels here, and some hot chicken soup?” He helped her off with her coat and her gloves, pulled off a bunch of paper towels, and dried her hair. “Here, sit down,” he said, leading her to the kitchen table. “And Marco? That soup? We’re waiting!”
Marco ran over with a steaming bowl of chicken noodle soup and a stack of towels. Where he’d gotten it so quickly, she had no idea.
“Did something happen to you today?” he asked, taking a towel to her hair as she wiped her nose with a napkin.
“No, I’m fine,” she said, picking up her spoon. She sneezed loudly.
“Did something happen at school?” he asked. “You get in a fight with someone?”
“No.” She sneezed again. “Well… yeah. Maybe.”
“What happened?” He finished drying her hair and covered her hand with his own.
Suddenly she felt tears come to her eyes. It was the first nice thing anyone had done for her all day. And the fact that it was coming from him, the last person on earth she expected to be nice to her, was overwhelming.
“Carina?” he asked, even more gently. “What happened today?”
The inside of her throat burned, and she felt that tingling in the tip of her nose. But she refused to cry in front of him. Just out of habit.
“I got fired,” she said.
“Fired?” he repeated. “From what?”
“Remember how I said I was planning that party? The Silver Snowflake Ball?”
Her dad nodded.
“Well, I got in a fight with the girl in charge. Ava Elting. And she fired me.”
“Why?” he asked. “On what grounds?”
“Misrepresentation of services, I guess.”
Her father let her go and tilted his chair so that he faced her. “Okay, tell me everything. Just start from the beginning.”
Carina wiped her nose with the back of her hand. “Well, it all started with this guy,” she said, cringing a little. She’d never talked about her love life with her dad. But there was no way around it now. “This guy, Carter McLean. He asked me to go on this snowboarding trip with him and some friends, to the Alps.”
“The Alps?” her dad repeated.
“Yeah, his uncle has a place there. And I said I would go.”
“You did, huh?” he said wryly.
“Anyway, it was free except for the airfare and the lift ticket and food,” she went on. “Which I figured would cost about a thousand dollars.” She put her hands in her lap and took a deep breath. “Which, obviously, I don’t have.”
“Yes,” he said, more seriously.
“So I decided to get a job, but I couldn’t find one, and then this girl, Ava, said she needed a party planner, someone to take care of all the details for this Christmas ball that’s ultrafancy and totally a big deal and all that. And I said I could do it. And she really wanted me to do it.”
“Why did she want you to do it when you don’t have any experience with party planning?” he asked.
“Because…” She sighed. “Because I’m your daughter. And she figured that I could get her Matty Banks and Filippo Mucci and the fanciest flowers. And I let her think that. But she wanted me to get them for free. As favors. But nobody wanted to do me a favor. Everybody wants to get paid.”
Her father gave a rueful smile. “Yes, they do.”
“So, I had to kind of… improvise.” She gulped. “I found this guy who’s an incredible DJ, but he’s my age and just starting out. And this guy’s sister was going to do the table decorations. And then I got these awesome appetizers from Trader Joe’s—that she loved. And I was going to bake the cupcakes myself. I was going to do the whole thing for practically nothing.”
“But you didn’t tell this girl that,” he prompted.
“No. I couldn’t. She wouldn’t have gone for it. Not at all. She wants this party to be in the Style section.”
Her father frowned slightly. “So she found out?”
She nodded. “Yeah. And she fired me.”
“But how could she fire you? This wasn’t a real job.”
She hung her head and picked at her napkin. “She was going to pay me a thousand dollars.”
“A thousand dollars?” he said in disbelief.
“So I could go on this stupid trip. Dad, I did the work,” she argued. “I planned the party. I did everything she asked me to. I just didn’t want to tell her that I had to ‘slum it.’ To use her words.”
“First of all, you didn’t slum it. But why couldn’t you just be honest with her?”
Carina shredded the napkin between her fingers. “Because if I told her that I couldn’t get these people, she would have expected me to ask you to do it for me. And I wasn’t going to do that. Not with, you know, what’s been going on,” she said delicately. “So it was easier to just pretend I could do it. People expect me to be a certain way. They think of me a certain way. You know that. That’s why you wanted me to do that interview, remember?”
The Jurg rubbed his chin and looked away.
“I’m not gonna tell this girl that I’m walking around with a cell phone from ten years ago. Well, I finally did, actually,” she pointed out. “But I’m fine with it. I really am. I’ve changed. I’m a different person now. But I just couldn’t be that different person in front of people yet.”
She sniffled one last time and nudged at some noodles and carrots with her spoon. “Sometimes the way people see you is the way you see yourself,” she said.
Her dad stayed quiet beside her. She thought she could feel his disappointment getting stronger every second.
“I’m proud of you,” he said at last. “You have changed. You have.” He squeezed her shoulder. “Now let’s just fix some of this mess.” He reached into his jacket and pulled out his BlackBerry Pearl. “Who did you say she wanted? Matty and who else?”
She put her hand on his arm. “Dad, don’t. It’s too late anyway.”
He put the BlackBerry to his ear. “I’m sure Matty’d be happy to do it. What was the date again?”
Carina yanked his hand down. “Dad, stop.”
Slowly, he put his hand down and hung up.
“It’s done,” she said. “I messed things up. And now I have to live with it.”
“Carina, I’m just trying to help you,” her father said.
“No, you can’t,” she said. “This is my problem. Not yours. And not even you can swoop in and save people every time.”
She pushed her chair away and stood up. She was so tired. She really needed to lie down. And her head was starting to get woozy.
“Well, what happened with that guy?” he asked.
“Which guy?” she asked.
“That Carter fellow.”
“Oh. Nothing,” she said. “That’s totally over. And for the future… can we just pretend I never told you about him? Or any guy?”
Her dad nodded. “Fine with me. Now go get some rest.” He stood up, and for a moment she thought they might actually hug, but instead they walked to the door.
When she got up to her room, she collapsed on her bed and pressed her face into the pillow. Her head was pounding and her forehead felt hot. She could feel herself starting to get sick. Really sick. But as she drifted off, something inside of her knew that from now on, she was going to be okay.