Lucky Break

  LUCKY BREAK

  inside girl

  a novel by J. MINTER

  author of the insiders

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Also by J. Minter

  Imprint

  for Harriet and Vic, with love

  Chapter 1

  THE GOLDEN PARISIAN ADVENTURE

  They say springtime is for lovers. And when you’re in love in the springtime, what better place to go than Paris? And who better to bring along to the City of Lights than four of your very best friends?

  “Will my flatiron work with this adapter?”

  “Do you think gladiator sandals are totally passé in Paris?”

  “You guys are going to kill me—I forgot to renew my passport!”

  “Girls,” Camille commanded, waving her Phillip Lim bracelet cardigan–clad arms at our usual table in the crowded Thoney cafeteria. Everyone dropped her chopsticks to listen to my habitually calm, cool, and collected best friend say, “I can barely hear Flan think above all your stressing!”

  “Sorry, Flan,” Amory said, sliding her new pair of black leather Antik Batik sandals back in their hemp shoe box. “What were you saying?”

  “I wasn’t saying anything,” I realized. “Was I?”

  “Not exactly,” Camille admitted, twirling a strand of her signature waist-length dirty-blond hair around her finger. “But I know you, and you had that scheming little look on your face. Whenever you get that way, you’re thinking about something important.”

  “Or … she’s thinking about Alex,” my other friend, Morgan, sang. It was kind of a new thing for Morgan to tease me for gushing about my boyfriend. Ever since she hooked up with her current beau, Bennett, I hardly recognized my previously romantically challenged pal. These days, Morgan always let her dark hair down, and more often than not, the girl formerly known as Little Miss Jaded wore pink.

  Having been called out, I could feel my cheeks turn the shade of her fuchsia sweater.

  “Oh, busted!” Camille joked.

  “I wasn’t just thinking about Alex,” I defended myself. “I was thinking about all of us, being in Paris, together. Ladies, I have a feeling this spring break is going to be one for the books.”

  “Or the tabloids.” Amory grinned. “Since I’m bringing a movie star,” she sang, doing a seated version of the cabbage patch dance. “A movie star, movie star.”

  Camille threw her last piece of sushi at Amory. “Will you quit rubbing it in?” she teased. “And why are you so much better at the cabbage patch than me?”

  After ducking to avoid getting smacked by sashimi, I grinned at my friends around the table. Following my brief but memorable era as a public school girl last fall, I’d been happily settling into the all-girl Thoney School on the Upper East Side. Not only was Thoney the alma mater of every female in my family, it was also the prep school of choice for my oldest friend, Camille. And, as she’d told me on the first day of school, when she introduced me to Harper, Amory, and Morgan: mi posse es su posse.

  This posse had been planning our fabulous voyage for months, ever since the whole crew spent the night at my Perry Street town house for a classic movie night back in January. We’d rented An American in Paris and started out trying to one-up each other with our best impersonations of Leslie Caron pirouetting into Gene Kelly’s arms. Well, one thing led to another, and the next thing we knew, I had the brilliant idea that we stop acting like Americans in Paris and become them. Except we didn’t really want to stand out as Americans. The goal was to completely immerse ourselves in all things français.

  The boy factor, well, that was a last-minute addition. When Alex mentioned that he happened to be sans spring break plans, I had a revelation. It was just so rare that all five of us girls were simultaneously giddy over guys who returned the feeling. And what were the odds that all five of our crushes would be ready and willing to join us in Europe for ten days? I’d already found the most adorable flat on the Boulevard Saint-Germain, and the landlord just happened to have an identical suite for the boys on the floor directly below us. The vacation would be worlds away from the one I’d taken to Nevis with my Stuyvesant friends over Thanksgiving: all the stars were aligning for this trip to be unprecedentedly amazing.

  I was almost shaking with excitement as I looked at the girls. There was Camille, already getting in the zone with her red velour beret. She’d confessed to having bought her boyfriend, Xander, a matching blue one at a sample sale on Broome Street—which had made Amory groan, but I assured her it would really bring out the intense blueness of Xander’s eyes.

  Morgan was gleefully texting Bennett, who was probably sitting in the Stuyvesant cafeteria downtown, editing his weekly column for the school newspaper while he waited for Morg’s hourly check-in.

  There was Amory, who I knew had bought the Antik Batik sandals because Jason James, her hottie actor crush, had mentioned that ancient Greek history was his favorite subject in school.

  And there was Harper, who hadn’t stopped wearing Lacoste tennis skirts over her Prada argyle tights ever since she started playing doubles with New York tennis legend Rick Fare.

  We were all so freaking happy. So why were the girls staring at me with that anxious look in their eyes?

  Oh, right—the trip planning! We were supposed to be going over last-minute details before our flight on Friday. We were supposed to be crossing the t’s in our itinerary and dotting the i’s in Paris with cute little hearts. Since the Golden Parisian Adventure (aka GPA) had been my idea in the first place, I’d kept up with most of the logistics in a massive golden binder that I’d found at a stoop sale on Stanton Street.

  “Okay,” I said, whipping out my binder. Jeez, this thing was getting heavy! “Where were we? Who forgot to renew her passport?”

  “That would be me.” Morgan raised her hand, looking sheepish.

  “Not a problem,” I said, making a note in the binder. “My mom’s BFF with Chuck Schumer’s travel coordinator. The senator programmed the embassy’s phone number into her speed dial. E-mail me your social security number and I’ll have them overnight it to you. Next?”

  I looked up at my friends, who were staring at me with dropped jaws.

  “What?” I asked.

  “Flan, is that you?” Camille said. “You’re so … organized.”

  “Hey, don’t sound so surprised,” I said.

  “I can be organized. It just takes me being really, really, really excited about something. Like a romantic trip to Paris with all of you!”

  “And don’t think we don’t appreciate your efforts with the doorstop—I mean, binder,” Amory said, looking slightly intimidated by the size of the GPAB. “Any words of wisdom in there re the gladiator sandals?”

  “They’re adorable,” I said.

  “But do they say Paris?” Amory asked. “Or do they scream tourist?”

  “Hmm, yes,” Camille joked, lifting up a shoe by its long leather ankle strap. “All you need now is a fanny pack and an over-the-shoulder camera.”

  Jokes aside, I knew Amory was serious about her trends. She�
��d be mortified if she were spotted on the Rive Gauche wearing something gauche.

  “Hold up the shoes,” I told her. I picked up my iPhone and snapped a picture of A holding the sandals with a nervous little smile. Then I texted it to my friend Jade Moodswing, the be-all and end-all of French fashion.

  CHIC OU PAS CHIC? I wrote.

  A minute later, her response:

  TRÈS, TRÈS CHIC!

  I held out the phone for Amory to read.

  “Thanks, Flan!” She beamed. “Huge sigh of relief.”

  “Moving on,” I said, checking that off my list. “Someone had a question about a hair straightener?”

  Dutifully, Harper produced her don’t-leave-home-without-it flatiron, which we’d dubbed the Blue Genie for its deep aquamarine hue and magical defrizzing capabilities. In her other hand she held out an adapter that looked like it had been purchased in 1983.

  “Yikes,” I said. “I wouldn’t trust anything I loved with that monstrosity. Short-circuit city. Here,” I continued, pulling out a small, sleek adapter that I’d borrowed from my sister’s stash. Feb had an adapter for just about every place on earth that used electricity. “Use this.”

  Harper pitched the older model into the trash with a hefty thud.

  “Thanks.” She smiled. “This will be much easier to fit in my carry-on!”

  “Such a little troop leader, Flan.” Camille laughed.

  She’d known me since elementary school, so she did have a right to be surprised. Just last month, I’d gotten myself in way over my head when I tried to set up all my friends on blind dates on the same night. And then there was that time when I thought I could single-handedly redesign the school’s démodé lacrosse uniforms as the platform when I ran for class office.

  Somehow, I always managed to pull off my crazy schemes in the end, but as my partner in crime, Camille had witnessed many a plan B, plan C … and sometimes a plan D before I spelled success.

  “What else do you have in that carpetbag?” she asked, pointing at my Chloé taupe messenger. “Toilet paper? Girl Scout cookies?”

  “Rope?”

  Our whole table looked up to see Kennedy Pearson and Willa Rubenstein standing over us, hands on both of their hips.

  Kennedy had just gotten a short Katie Holmes blunt cut that only made her look more like the angry Doberman she was. She still wasn’t over the fact that I had friends because I was nice. And Willa, with her million-dollar wardrobe practically falling off her waif figure … well, none of us had ever really been able to figure out what Willa’s problem was—other than being friends with Kennedy, the devil incarnate.

  “Okay, Kennedy.” I sighed. “I’ll play along. Why would I need rope exactly?”

  Kennedy shrugged. “Only because I heard that you had to bribe your so-called boyfriends to come with you on this little trip. Since they’ll probably run screaming from you as soon as the plane touches down in Paris, you might want to bring some rope, you know, to keep them on a tight leash.”

  Our entire table busted out laughing, much to Kennedy’s infuriation. What made it so hilarious was the fact that Kennedy used to have this power over me. A comment like that back in seventh grade would have sent me sobbing into the bathroom. But by now, I knew who I was. And I also knew who Kennedy was: a fading star who would lie her way back to being popular if she thought she had a chance.

  “And what are you doing over spring break, Kennedy?” Amory asked. “Nursing Willa back to health after her third nose job?”

  “Or starring in an episode of What Not to Wear?” Camille added.

  But Kennedy didn’t take her eyes off me.

  “’Bye, Kennedy,” I said, waving to give them both the hint. “Whatever you end up doing over spring break, I hope you have almost as much fun as we’re going to have.” I looked back at the girls. “Like that’s possible.”

  “A hundred dollars says everything falls apart before your flight even takes off,” Willa hissed, rolling her eyes once more before she and Kennedy stormed out of the cafeteria.

  “So, who wants the last bite of my croissant?” Camille asked once they were gone, because we were so over wasting our time acknowledging those two.

  “Me!” the rest of us all shouted together, fighting for the crusty end piece.

  “You know,” Harper said, looking at her platinum Movado watch. “In a little less than, oh, seventy-two hours, we won’t have to fight over the last bite of croissant.” She grinned around the table.

  “Because we’ll be …” Amory sang, reviving her cabbage patch dance.

  “In Paris!” we all shouted together, collapsing on the table in a fit of excited laughter.

  Chapter 2

  A PA FOR ALL SEASONS

  After school, I swung by my trusty tailor, Mrs. Woo, to pick up the yellow Miu Miu cocktail dress I’d had altered.

  When I walked into her tiny underground shop on Jane Street, Mrs. Woo dropped the pair of AG jeans she was hemming and started waving her arms in the air. She dashed to the back room, emerging a minute later with my ray-of-sunshine dress hanging in a plastic bag. My mom had sworn by Mrs. Woo since Feb was wearing Ralph Lauren Baby. She pretty much knew our family’s inseams inside and out.

  “You’ll wear this to fancy Flood family dinner tonight?” she asked.

  “No,” I said, holding the strapless knee-length dress up against me in the mirror. I couldn’t wait to get it on. “I’m going to a party with my boyfriend. It’s a benefit for a charity resort opening in Maui, so I thought, you know, yellow … sunlight …”

  “Perfect.” Mrs. Woo nodded, closing her eyes. “But your mother will miss you tonight. She came by this morning to pick up the St. John suit for the dinner party.”

  “No,” I said, confused. “My parents are in Minsk—”

  Just then, my phone rang. I looked at the screen and saw my mother’s photo pop up. It was one I’d snapped of her lying on our living room couch with two cucumber slices over her eyes. She’d kill me if she knew I’d taken it—usually Mom insisted on striking a pose—but this image was my favorite way to imagine her: close to home.

  I flashed the phone at Mrs. Woo, smiled, and said, “Guess I should take this. Thanks for the dress!” Stepping back out on the street with the dress draped over my arm, I picked up the phone.

  “How quickly can you be at Morimoto?” my mom said.

  “Huh? I’m supposed to meet Alex at 60 Thompson in an hour. I didn’t even know you were—”

  “In town?” my mom finished. “Don’t remind me. Long story short—the plane ran out of fuel halfway to Minsk. We’re here for one night before we jet to the Amalfi Coast. But it’s not all bad, darling. Patch and Feb are here too. We’ve all got scads to go over before we take off again.” My head was spinning, but Mom was still going a mile a minute. “Your father and I figured the most painless way to iron out logistics would be over family dinner. It’ll be half organizational, half show-and-tell, entirely delicious. So you’ll meet us? Mori’s working tonight so he’ll do a special menu.”

  I didn’t need Morimoto’s touch to seal the deal—though I was obsessed with his scallop sashimi salad. Usually, when someone in my family told me to jump, I did: right into a cab to meet them. But what was I going to tell Alex?

  “Do you want to invite the Prince?” Mom sang.

  Among my friends, Alex had earned his nickname—the Prince of New York—back in my huge-crush days, when I was still intimidated by his cool demeanor at parties. Ever since she overheard me call him that on the phone with Camille one day, my young-at-heart mom hadn’t been able to let go of the nickname.

  I knew that Alex had been looking forward to this party for weeks. Some of his lacrosse friends from D.C. were taking the train up, and he hardly ever got to see them.

  “You know what?” I said to my mom. “Alex will understand. We’re spending ten days with each other in Paris anyway. I’ll meet you guys at the restaurant in twenty.”

  Hailing another cab and wo
ndering whether the yellow dress would be too much for a family dinner—who was I kidding? I was a Flood!—I texted Alex.

  HEY, BABE. MOM SURPRISED ME WITH A FAMILY DINNER THAT WOULD BE HARD TO MISS. FORGIVE ME FOR SKIPPING THE PARTY TONIGHT?

  He wrote back:

  ONLY IF YOU PROMISE TO SIT NEXT TO ME ON THE PLANE. GIVE MY REGARDS TO LES FLOODS.

  Awesome. I hopped out of the cab feeling lucky that Alex and I never had to deal with drama. We were both just naturally understanding and trusting and laid back. I ducked into the bathroom in the Chelsea Market across the street to change into my dress. Zipping it up, I looked in the mirror and was blown away once again by Mrs. Woo’s needlework. The crisp puff of the skirt hugged my hips, and she’d taken in the once-gaping bust so that it lay across my skin just perfectly. I ran my fingers through my long blond hair and dotted on my sheer peony Stila lip gloss.

  I looked at my watch—good, I was still in the realm of fashionably late. I crossed the street and pulled open the heavy glass door of Morimoto.

  The Japanese restaurant was immaculately clean and spare, with sleek draped white ceilings, bamboo banquettes, and transparent paneled walls with about a million shimmering blue lightbulbs behind them. When you breathed in, you couldn’t smell anything—which was unusual for a restaurant, but the best indicator of superfresh sushi. The dining room was so quiet that the waiters were actually whispering.

  It was all so Zen—and so not Flood. I guessed my family wasn’t here yet. If they had been, I’d have heard them.

  Someone tapped my shoulder. I turned around to face a hostess in a sleek white silk kimono. “Are you Flan Flood?” she whispered.

  “Yes,” I whispered back, feeling funny.

  “Your family reserved the private den in the back.” She pointed toward a beaded curtain and I followed her down a dimly lit hallway. When she opened the door to the private den I never knew existed, I suddenly felt right at home.

  The room was bustling, loud, full of color—and more than a few people who I was pretty sure weren’t in my family.

  “There she is!” My dad beamed, stepping forward to give me a hug. Dad’s face was glowing, probably from the golf tournament he’d played last week in Caracas, and his eyes were twinkling—probably from having his entire family in the same room for a change.