Happy
Holidays, everyone! Here's a little Winter Solstice 2017 present for all of you, set in the Ever After universe, but this time with Phoebe's big sister, Trixie :)
I filled it with ice skating and cocoa and even some Phoebe bookishness as Trixie has a little winter break adventure of her own. Hop on over to here to read the full story, and enjoy the little excerpt below!
“I bumped into Luke at the
Promenade yesterday,” I said in the general direction of my phone while trying
to pin the roll of white faux fur in place. I’d kicked Phoebe out of our room
to work on her Christmas present, and between my shaking hands and the fiddly
silk velvet I’d picked up from a bargain bin in a basement shop in the Garment
district, I was starting to think I was never going to finish. My hand slipped
and I pricked myself with a pin. “Crud.”
“That…
sucks.” I could practically hear Amani cringing over the phone. “Did he say
anything?”
I stuck
my finger in my mouth and inspected the fur to make sure I hadn’t gotten any
blood on it. “He introduced me to his new girlfriend.”
“Of
course, because he’s a jerk. You know, the offer I made on Thanksgiving to make
you a dartboard is still open. My new printer can even do a high res print of
his face.”
“He’s not
worth wasting your ink,” I said, breaking into my first genuine laugh that day.
“It would
be for a good cause. Does your sister want a blow-up of his face for her
archery target thing?”
“Don’t encourage her.” Feebs would
probably jump at a Luke-target, then complain about how it dulled her arrows or
something. “Honestly, it wouldn’t have been so bad if he hadn’t been so smug about introducing her, as if I’d been the one who broke up with him.” I took my frustration out by
slamming a pin particularly hard into my pincushion. “’Oh, Beatrix, I want you to meet my girlfriend, Zane. She’s a fine arts major, like me.’” I
disconnected the presser foot of my sewing machine with so much force the
machine actually shook. “As if fashion design isn’t ‘real’ art.”
“You’re
going to break your sewing machine,” Amani pointed out, then said, “Luke was
always a jerk, but you were too into bad boy artist types to listen to the rest
of us.”
“Rub it
in.” I tossed the old presser foot into my sewing machine table drawer with a
thunk.
“You know
he’s wrong about the fashion design thing, right? Just like he’s been wrong
about practically everything ever.”
“I know,
but…” I took a minute to think as a I stared at my presser foot options. “It’s
not really that, he just said it to hurt me. It’s—” I hesitated, then dived
right in, “—it’s just that I thought I was over all this and it wouldn’t bother
me so much.”
She made
a tsking sound on the other end of the line. “It was only a month ago, Trix.
Don’t be so hard on yourself. Look, I’m going with a few of my classmates from
Rowan to the RiverRink tonight, you really should come.”
“I’m not
going to crash your group.” I clicked on a more velvet-friendly presser foot
and dropped into my chair. “Could you imagine how needy I’ll look? Hi, I’m just
Amani’s dork friend from high school who needs cheering up because of her jerk
ex.”
“You are not a dork. You are my super-cool elite
fashion designer-to-be friend who is home for the holidays from New York City.
And I really want you to come, I haven’t seen you in ages.”
“Umm, I
saw you during Thanksgiving break?” I lined up the edge of the cape and
faux-fur under the needle and dropped the presser foot, cringing at how high it
sat on the thick fabric and praying it would still feed. Phoebe was going to
get an exact replica of the cape Belle wore with her pink dress in Beauty and the Beast even if it killed
my machine.
“Thanksgiving
doesn’t count because you spent half of it in Boston and the other half crying
into leftovers. C’mon, Trix. My friends are cool and you need this.”
I poised
my foot over the machine pedal and pouted at my phone. She was right, as always.
“Fine, what time?”
“We’re
meeting at Lindenwold at six.”
