Free Winter White by Jen Calonita Page B

had pressed Mira’s dad to go ahead with a press release about Izzie straightaway—even though it was obvious at dessert the other night that Barbara and her mom were flat-out against it. Lucas’s real-life fairy-tale spin had the newspapers and morning shows in a tizzy. Who wouldn’t eat up a story about a poor girl from Harborside getting taken in by a wealthy ballplayer-turned-senator and his family? Lucas looked like a kid who’d bought a candy store as he whisked Mira’s dad out of the house Saturday morning to give interviews all weekend about helping out those “less fortunate than yourself.” Everyone wanted to meet the insta-princess, but Mira’s mom—who stopped speaking to her dad when the story hit—whisked Izzie to Atlanta hoping the barrage of camera crews would disappear by the time they got back. From what Hayden told Mira, Izzie didn’t have a clue that the world now knew everything there was to know about Isabelle Scott. Her old cell phone had been shut off, and Mira heard Izzie say she was having trouble with her new phone, so she couldn’t retrieve messages.
    Not that Izzie said any of this to Mira. Oh, no, even after Mira had done her best to be the sweetest hostess this side of the North Carolina state line, Izzie still barely said two words to her. She pretty much kept to herself. The whole situation was driving Mira crazy. They were turning their lives upside down for her, and Izzie could barely spend two minutes with them! Hayden told Mira she was expecting too much. (“You don’t lose your life overnight and just jump headfirst into a new one,” he said, sounding wise beyond his years.) But Mira wanted Izzie to seem grateful. Was that too much to ask?
    Maybe who Mira was really mad at was her parents. It wasn’t like them to do something this rash. Dad usually talked every situation to death, whether it was switching cable providers or how he wanted his family to stand at a ribbon-cutting ceremony. But he added a new family member to the house and said zip? It was bizarre. As Mira eyed her EP classmates walking to homeroom, she wondered what they were thinking about the Monroes. Being a senator’s daughter—and Savannah’s BF—put her on everyone’s radar, and sometimes Mira still couldn’t get used to the glare. She wasn’t supposed to care what anyone thought of her, but she did, and she was dying to know what they were thinking as they walked past her at that moment. She hadn’t spoken to anyone but Taylor since the story broke and Taylor hadn’t brought it up. He was more concerned about the new football jerseys the team was getting. She had never been more worried about her friends’ reactions than she was at the moment.
    “Over there is the Monica Holbrook Arts Center,” Hayden said to Izzie as they walked across the main quad. He had taken over the role of tour guide that morning when Mira claimed she had a headache. “You and Mira have homeroom in there this morning and second and third period.” He took Izzie’s schedule and scanned her list of classes. “Then you have to go to the Neil Hancock Science Center. You should have more than enough time. We have six minutes between classes since everything is so spread out, but the science center is right over there.” He pointed across the lush lawn, where students were catching up after a long summer.
    “Six minutes,” Izzie repeated, fidgeting in her navy blazer with the yellow EP emblem. Mira’s mom had shown her how to layer her white shirt and tie, and which kneesocks to wear for school and which to save for assemblies. Thankfully, she had persuaded Izzie to remove her blue nail polish and lose her clunky, silver rings for the first day. “I really appreciate your help, Hayden,” Izzie said shyly.
    “I know this place can be intense, but you’ll get the hang of it,” Hayden told her. Izzie didn’t look convinced. She had her eye on the school drop-off zone a few yards away. Several teachers and aides