Free Falling Into You by Lauren Abrams Page A

one of them for a change, but the thought of an almost empty bank account consumed any joy that I may have been able to get out of it. I didn’t enjoy the little shrimp rolled in bacon (which were fabulous , by the way) or the glasses of champagne the flight attendants had handed to us with nary a mention of showing ID.
    I couldn’t keep up with Sophia and her spending at school , but I tried anyway. I cheerfully went along with her and the other girls on my floor to expensive dinners, secretly picking up extra shifts in the pool to make up for the money I was spending. Sophia must have known that I couldn’t afford it, because always tried to throw her dad’s credit card down for both of us .
    “I got it,” she would say . “No,” I would reply. “I’m fine .”
    The table would be filled with appetizers and dess erts and drinks and even though I always stuck with water and salad , it got split evenly between all of us and I would watch two or three early morning shifts disappear along with the dishes .  I couldn’t ever remember a time when my mom had allowed me to get an appetizer with a meal, let alone a dessert. It wasn’t like we were poor or anything, just careful.
    Every time I heard an offer to pay for me (my lack of wealth was not a secret at Greenview) , I heard my mother’s voice in my head— “You are the only you that you’ve got. And by letting someone buy things for you, they get to buy you, too.” And I would politely refuse.
    When we had arrived, Sophia ’s father and stepmother had been there to greet us before they left for their “cottage” in the Hamptons . I had known before we came that William and Cleo were going to be spending the break in the Hamptons and on one “one of the islands.” I wasn’t exactly sure what that meant, but it conjured up images of white sand beaches and fruity drunks. Sophia had told me that we would see them the first day and for a few days the last week. Knowing that we would be alone in the city for basically the entire duration of the visit was a bonus for me, although it would have been a deal-breaker for my mother. So, I may have let her get the impression that I would be singing Christmas carols with Sophia’s family all week .
    As soon as we walked in to the apartment , I put a check for the cost of the plane ticket in William ’s hand. He had looked down at it, and said, “What’s this?” like I was some kind of alien.
    He looked again, finally understanding. “ This is c ompletely unnecessary. Sophia invited you here. We aren’t going to let you pay for a little plane ticket, now, are we?”
    He had taken my check, representing all of the money I had saved from working two jobs in high school and one in college , and threw it in the trash. Part of me was secretly grateful that he had turned my offer to pay down. But the owing continued to eat away at me. Nothing could have made it more clear that this wasn’t my world than the careless gesture of tossing all of my hard work into the trash.
    First world problems.
    I had been lost in thought, silently wondering how I was going to be able to pretend that I couldn’t find anything of worth in all of the shopping that New York offered . Sophia was going on and on about some fabulous boutique that she had discovered the year before when the strum ming of “Let’s Get it On ” (her ringtone), comes from her phone.
    “Ugh. It’s Cleo .  I have no earthly idea what she could want.”
    “It’s okay. Get it.”
    Sophia mouths sorry to me and answers the phone.
    “ Cleo ,” she says impatient ly . “ Mmm-hmmm. I don’t know what you’re talking about. Where is it? What? No, I have Hallie here. We were going to do a New York day. Yes, yes, I know it’s a tradition. I know. What? Overnight? No, Cleo , I can’t…Oh, I could bring her along. ”
    I shake my head emphatically. I wasn’t going to intrude on Sophia and her ridiculously well-coiffed stepmother . Whatever the