Chapter 04
"Summer is going to be really boring if everyone else is always working," Sam complained, digging her spoon into her tofu ice cream. "Well, Danny at least seems like he'll still have plenty of free time since he didn't pick up too many hours at that coffee shop. But Tucker sounds like he'll be working from dawn to dusk at the electronics store. I asked him if he was saving up for something, but he wouldn't tell me." She frowned, stabbing in frustration at her bowl of ice cream.
"You're not think about reconsidering the whole no summer job thing, are you?" Paulina questioned with one dark eyebrow lifting as she frowned at the woman sitting across from her. In high school, neither of them would have expected to one day being sitting with each other while sharing ice cream. Sam was actually surprised that Paulina even ate ice cream considering her desperate need to always be perfectly beautiful. The men in the ice cream shop were all swooning over her.
"No," Sam answered, glaring at all the men who couldn't seem to take their eyes off Paulina. "Although my dad was suggesting I go into work with him a few times during the summer. He wants to get me all familiarized with the company for when I take over one day." Sam rolled her eyes and sighed. It was completely expected of her take over as the heiress, and she was working on earning her business degree for when that day came. After they graduated college, they would all be going off to get real jobs, and Sam wanted to enjoy what few summers they had left before they all had to grow up and join the real world.
Paulina frowned as she swirled her spoon around her bowl, mixing the gooey fudge with the vanilla ice cream. "It might not be so bad having a job though," she said after some thought. "Work experience is always good. Maybe next summer. I don't think I'm up to handling a job right now. Law school was so stressful."
"I'm surprised Kwan had a job right away when he got back from med school." Sam licked the ice cream off her spoon as she remembered that oddity. "When did he even have time to apply for a job?"
Paulina shrugged, putting down her spoon. "When I talked to him last, it sounded like he would be super busy this summer with his job. But he wouldn't tell me anything about where he's working." She leaned over the table with a serious expression on her face. "I called his parents the other day, and they said they didn't know anything about Kwan even being home yet. Apparently they thought he was staying at med school for the summer."
"Okay. That's a little worrisome." Sam's brow furrowed. "Why would Kwan be lying to his parents?"
"I don't know, but it's making me worried. He seems so different since graduation." Paulina frowned down at her ice cream. "It makes me feel like I've lost both my friends. Dash ran off to god knows where, and Kwan's being all distant and weird." She sighed as she leaned her head into her hand. "I wish they would talk to me again."
Sam opened her mouth to complain. What were she, Danny, and Tucker then? Were they not good enough as friends to Paulina? But her mouth snapped shut, and she sighed. If she was in Paulina's place and Danny and Tucker were acting all weird or disappearing on her, she would feel pretty miserable about the whole thing too.
"And Danny!" Paulina sat up, throwing her hands into the air in a show of frustration.
"What's wrong with Danny?" Sam demanded defensively, anger building up prematurely when she thought Paulina was about to insult her friend. The three of them got along pretty well when they dragged Danny shopping. Both of them enjoyed teasing Danny about the whole drag incident, much to his embarrassment.
"I can't believe he wants to find someone other than Dash," Paulina complained then sighed. "I mean, I get his point. He deserves someone that will actually love him. But," she frowned at Sam, "I really wanted them to work it out, you know. If Dash would stop being so completely stupid about it, maybe they could be together. They were so cute together on that date. You should have seen them! Dash has never been like that with anyone else he dated. He was so madly in love with Danny."
"When he thought Danny was a girl," Sam reminded miserably. "I don't think there's much hope that Dash is going to suddenly stop being a dick and forgive Danny."
"I know," Paulina mumbled sadly with her eyes cast down to the table. Silence fell over them for a few moments. Then Paulina slapped her hand down on the table. "We should throw a party!"
Sam jumped at the sudden announcement. "A party?" she questioned with a confused knitting of her brow.
"Yes!" Paulina grinned proudly. "We'll have a party and invite a ton of people. We can introduce Danny to a bunch of people. I bet he'll find someone there that he'll like. What do we have to lose? He said he wanted to move on, as much as I hate him for saying that."
"Dash and Danny just weren't meant to be, Paulina."
"I still refuse to believe that." Paulina glared with such a dark fury that even Sam was impressed by it. "But since Danny seems determined to move on, a party sounds like the best idea. We can have it this Friday. Oh, and I can get my dad to lend us the space at that club he owns! We'll have to provide everything like food and drinks and music. But we can manage to get that all together by Friday."
Sam thought about it. She never would have thought that she might one day host a party with Paulina. They had such different tastes on everything. Paulina dressed in pink and radiated sunshine and rainbows while Sam still preferred the Goth look. She grew her hair out over the year away at college, and some of the men in her classes seemed to really like her with the long hair. Even though more than a few of them asked her out, Sam never said yes. Her thoughts were still on Tucker, and as much as she would like to date him, she was wary about the whole long distance thing.
"Food and drinks shouldn't be difficult," Sam said, leaning her head on her hand and tapping a finger on her lower lip. "My mom can get in contact with a cater that usually does all of the dinners my parents host. I'm sure they can manage to whip up some decent party food. But what about music? Do we get a band or a DJ?"
"A band would mean we'd have to audition them first," Paulina pointed out as her face scrunched up at the thought. "And we might not find a good one while a DJ just has to play whatever music we decide to have." Her eyes lit up suddenly, and she grabbed her purse. After searching through it, she pulled out a card between her forefinger and middle finger. "Or we could see if Ember could play at it?" She grinned widely.
"Ember? Really?" Sam sighed, resisting that urge to bang her head on the table. She still couldn't understand what people saw in the ghost's music, but apparently Ember made a comeback over the year.
"What? Her music is great!"
"But you got her to play at that dance. Don't we at least want someone new?"
"What do you have against Ember anyway?" Paulina frowned, folding her arms on the table. "What did she ever do to you?"
"Being a ghost comes to mind," Sam said in a lowered voice so that no one but Paulina would hear her. "Trying to take over the world with her mind controlling music. Turning Danny into some sickly puppy love dope for me. Making me end up kissing Dash," she shuddered, "to snap Danny out of it."
"What?" Paulina almost shrieked. She glanced about nervously with a weak smile when people glanced their way. "What do you mean you kissed Dash?"
Sam sighed and bowed her head. "That's the only thing you took from that? And I don't see what's so great about kissing him. He wasn't a very good kisser." It was only a quick, smashing of their lips together, but from that, Sam didn't get a very good impression of his abilities as a kisser. She really didn't understand how Dash swept Danny off his feet with that kind of kissing.
Paulina shook her head like she didn't want to think about Sam and Dash kissing. "Well, Ember did help out Danny during that fight at the dance. She can't be all that bad."
"Okay. Maybe she's not all evil," Sam grumped. She still didn't want Ember to be the one playing at the party, but Paulina generally got her way when she wanted something. Taking a deep breath, she said, "I guess Ember wouldn't be that bad to play at the party."
"Excellent! Oh, this is so exciting!" Paulina pulled out a notepad and started writing down details for planning the party.
"I'll never understand why you decided on going to law school." Sam leaned on the table as she watched Paulina grin madly as she wrote. "You seem like you'd be a great party planner."
Paulina shrugged, glancing up from her notepad. "I don't know. I've always kind of liked studying law. I know that sounds pretty crazy." She laughed. "But it's true. Party planner is just a hobby for me. I always liked throwing parties in high school. Well, if the whole lawyer thing doesn't work out, I'll always have party planning to fall back on."
"You're a lot different than I thought," Sam mumbled, shaking her head.
"Well, you never really knew anything about me." Paulina gave a pointed glare at Sam. "You only saw me as a shallow girl."
"You have to admit you never gave me the chance to get to know you."
"True. We both made snap judgments about each other." Paulina tapped her pen against her chin before jotting something else down on her planning list. "But that's high school. I think everyone did that even if they didn't mean to. If not for Danny dressing up in drag, we probably still wouldn't be able to stand each other."
"Who would have thought that would bring us together?" Sam laughed. She never would have predicted the consequences of suggesting that Danny cross dress to avoid Devon. In hind sight, it seemed like a silly suggestion, but when she thought of it, she couldn't resist sticking Danny in a dress to see what he would look like. She was pretty certain that fact made her weird. "So," she said with a serious look, "how come you're still single? I thought you, out of all of us, would be dating someone."
Paulina lifted her head and stared at Sam. A frown settled on her face as she twisted the pen in her hands. "Well, I did have plenty of opportunities. I had lots of guys asking me out, and it's not like I didn't date at all during the year." She shrugged as she glanced away. She wasn't oblivious to the eyes of the men in the ice cream shop watching her. "But they were all the same." She gestured with a hand like she was implying her comment extended to all the men present. "They all just stared at me with that look like they were trying to undress me with their eyes, and they never listened when I talked, and they got all grouchy when I wouldn't kiss them." She breathed out a sigh, anger in her eyes. "Sometimes I wish I had given Danny a real chance. I think he at least would have been more caring about me, not just treating me like I'd be some easy, quick lay or something."
"He was pretty madly in love with you before, and he is a great guy." Sam felt a little sorry for Paulina. She never thought about how the other woman would feel about the way men stared at her. In fact, she always assumed that Paulina liked the attention, and maybe part of her did, but clearly it wasn't the attention that she wanted. "But I'm sure there's a guy out there for you. You just haven't found him yet."
"I don't know. At this point, I'm done with guys. Almost all of them only care about looks. I'm just going to stay focused on my studies." Paulina frowned as her gaze turned back to her notepad.
Sam sighed when she saw that miserable expression on Paulina's face. Now she wanted to help both Danny and Paulina find someone. Maybe the party was the right thing for both of them.
