The Holiday Switch(66)

There’s a crack in his voice, and I look up to his troubled expression. “Hmm?”

“Teddy? Lila?” A woman’s voice interrupts us, and we look up to Ms. Velasco approaching us, with Mom at her side. “I wanted us to be together for the fireworks. But I guess the two of you got the memo already.”

And while Ms. Velasco is grinning, Mom is not. Her expression is stone-cold.

Teddy steps back, but we keep our hands clasped.

“Lila. What are you doing?” Mom’s interrogative gaze slides from me to Ms. Velasco. “Did you know about this?”

“I had no idea.” At Mom’s silence, Ms. Velasco frowns. “Don’t worry, I’m sure it’s not serious.”

Whoa. Teddy and I aren’t serious, but hearing it like that takes me aback.

“I hope not,” Mom replies. “Teddy’s…well…and Lila…”

Ms. Velasco half laughs. “What about Teddy?”

“First of all, he’s in college. And second, he’s everywhere.”

    “Everywhere?” Teddy asks, eyebrows plunging in concern.

“Now, Cat, you’re out of line,” Ms. Velasco warns.

“You said so yourself, Lou. You can’t keep him in check. You don’t know where he is half the time, and Lila…she’s in high school.”

“Hello?” I lift a hand. “We’re right here.”

“I’ll have you know that Teddy’s the one who’s been encouraging her to apply for that internship.”

“What internship?” Mom frowns.

“Mom.” I raise my voice, though I’m looking at Teddy with one question running through my head: How does Ms. Velasco know about the internship?

“For that book review site,” Ms. Velasco continues. “I had no idea she had this amazing blog. I took a read myself, and I’m so impressed. Tinsel and Tropes. How clever.”

“Tita Lou,” Teddy jumps in, at the same time my mother turns to me incredulously. Teddy continues. “Lila, that’s what I wanted to tell you. I’m Santa with a View.”

I reel back. “Santa with a View? You sent me the link?”

“I did.”

“Why didn’t you say so?” This is all too much at once.

“It was before we were…and I thought you wouldn’t have applied if you knew that I was the one who sent it.”

I shake my head. “I don’t even care about that. What I can’t believe is that you told her,” I whisper.

“I…It just came out,” he says.

“Lila?” Mom asks.

I glance up at Ms. Velasco, then at Teddy, and then at my mother, whose confusion is evident on her face. Anger and disappointment swirl inside me. It rises up like the drift during a snowstorm, just as someone announces the five-minute countdown to midnight.

    My mother excuses herself from our circle. At her departure, anger wins out. I kept my side of the bargain. Teddy didn’t.

“If you’re spilling my secrets, then maybe you should spill yours too, Teddy,” I say. “You should ask him about where else he’s been spending his time, Ms. Velasco.”

I pull my hand from Teddy’s grasp and take off after my mom.





SATURDAY, JANUARY 1

I spend the first minute of the new year in our minivan with my mother, with fireworks lighting up the sky behind us, the popping noises resonating in the space even though the windows are rolled up tight. But it doesn’t drown out the somber mood. My teeth are still chattering, more from nervousness rather than the chill.

After the fireworks, Mom finally speaks. “What’s that about, Lila? What does she mean, blog?”

“It’s a book blog.”

“Okay?” She crosses her arms.

So I explain. I go back to the beginning, when I started it, how it’s almost two years old, that it’s something I truly enjoy. I explain Teddy’s role in the internship, and how I both do and don’t want a chance at it.

I know I’m in trouble because of the silence. My mother is usually anything but speechless.

She stares out the front windshield. “Why did you keep it a secret from us?”

    “Because I knew you would react this way. You don’t like social media at all, and I knew you and Dad wouldn’t understand.”

“And yet you did it anyway.”

“I did. I love my blog, Mom.”

Mom sighs. “Do you know what’s sad about all of this? I didn’t get to share this love with you. You made so many assumptions, Lila. You thought that Dad and I wouldn’t change our minds. You thought that we couldn’t be bothered with what you love. You thought that we wouldn’t be sensitive to what you needed. All this time, I thought bio was what you loved. Are you changing your mind there too? Is writing what you want to do?”

“Is that such a bad thing?”

“That’s not it. But I don’t know what’s going on here, Lila. I feel like I’m suddenly looking at a different person.”

I cringe. “You don’t mean that.”

“I do—because of everything you’ve said thus far. What am I supposed to do with that? And this thing with Teddy. What is that?”