"Welcome to Rocky Mountain High!" a tall, scrawny guy in a blue fleece pullover and baggy jeans said to Aria and Klaudia as they strutted through the ski store's fake-snow-decorated double doors. "Is there anything I can help you ladies with today?"
"We're cool," Aria said, strolling past racks and racks of down-filled coats. It was Thursday after school, and Aria and Klaudia were shopping for the Kahns' ski trip to New York this weekend. But now that she was inside the store, which was decorated with posters of skiers and snowboarders spraying up roosters tails and wildly flipping in the air, she wondered if this was really a good idea. Honestly, Aria had always found skiing kind of…pointless. You rode a gondola to the top of a big hill, raced down at speeds that could kill you, and then did it over again. And, oh yeah, it was below freezing outside.
"Are you sure you don't need some help?" the sales assistant asked, his eyes fixed on Klaudia. Today, she wore a pink mini dress, gray tights, and furry Uggs that somehow made her legs look shapely and long. Those sorts of boots always made Aria's legs look like tree stumps.
Klaudia looked up from her iPhone, and batted her eyelashes at the sales boy. "Oh! I know how you can help. There's a jacket in back on hold for Klaudia Huusko. Can you go get?"
"Klaudia Huusko?" the guy repeated. "Is that you? Where are you from?"
Klaudia grinned at him. "If you get jacket, I tell you."
The guy saluted, spun around, and made a beeline for the back room. Aria gazed at Klaudia. "Did you really order a jacket?"
"No." Klaudia giggled. "But now he leave us alone! He be back there for hours!"
"Nice." Aria gave Klaudia a high five.
"Okay." Klaudia squared her shoulders and steered Aria to the back of the store. She promptly selected a purple down-filled jacket, legging-like black ski pants, matching purple-and-black padded ski gloves, a package of thick Wigwam socks, and orange goggles with a thick strap. Chuckling, she placed the goggles over Aria's eyes, then put a blue pair on her own. "Sexy, ja?"
Aria stared at her reflection in the mirror. She looked like a bug. "Ja," she agreed. Then she spied a rack of jester hats worn only by the dorkiest band geeks or drama kids at Rosewood Day. "Those are sexier."
"Oh, ja," Klaudia said. They galloped over to the rack of hats, trying each one on and making sexy poses in front of the mirror. Each jester hat, felted king crown, and oversized cloche was worse than the last.
"Smile!" Klaudia cried, using her iPhone to snap a picture of Aria in a fleece pointed cap and an orange ski mask that made her look like a burglar.
"Say cheese!" Aria took a photo with her own phone as Klaudia pulled on a wooly hat with bear ears. Amazingly, even that made her look cute.
They pulled more and more hats off the racks, taking pictures with long socks on their hands, in lace-up boots that looked like they could battle the frozen tundra, and in fur trapper hats that fell over their eyes. Then, Klaudia pointed at something on a hanger. "Try this. Noel will like."
It was a bright yellow snowsuit with a padded butt. Aria wrinkled her brow. "Noel would like that? It'll make me look like a huge banana!"
"He will think you serious ski bunny!" Klaudia insisted.
"But it's…yellow," Aria murmured.
"It will bring you together as couple!" Klaudia's eyebrows made a stern V. "What you have in common? What you do that's same?"
Hackles rose on the back of Aria's neck. "Did Noel tell you that?" An image of the two of them sitting on the Kahns' sectional, swapping relationship stories floated into her mind. Maybe Noel had confessed that he and Aria were a bit mismatched. Maybe he'd even said Aria was kooky, the word Ali always used when she said Noel wouldn't go for Aria in a million years.
Or what if Noel told Klaudia Aria hadn't slept with him yet? Would he tell her something like that?
"He tell me nothing." Klaudia pushed her white-blond hair behind her ears. "I just trying to help what I see! Like Dr. Phil!"
Aria stared at a ragged pair of snowshoes mounted on the wall. Klaudia was smiling so genuinely, as if she really thought she was giving good advice. Maybe she was. Aria and Noel were pretty different. She attended his home lacrosse games, but she always tuned out halfway through. She never wanted to watch the latest Jason Statham movie with him, and she sometimes found his never-ending my-parents-are-out-of-town-again house parties tedious. Noel tried a lot harder with Aria: He went to poetry readings with her, even though he found them intolerable. He tagged along to her favorite ethnic restaurants, although he usually ordered items on the menu most closely related to a hamburger or chicken nuggets. He even supported Aria applying to the Rhode Island School of Design instead of to Duke, where he's already gotten a lacrosse scholarship.
Maybe Aria hadn't given enough back. Maybe she hadn't been a good girlfriend. The incident in Iceland flashed through her mind again, and she shut her eyes.
"Okay," Aria consented, gathering the snowsuit in her arms. "I'll try it on. But if it makes my butt look enormous, I'm not buying it."
"Awesome!" Klaudia cried.
Then Klaudia's eyes widened at something across the store. "Be back," she murmured, migrating toward a long black coat with a fur hood that looked almost identical to the one she was wearing. Aria turned to the dressing room, then noticed an iPhone balanced on the hat rack. It had a big Finnish flag on the case.
"Klaudia?" Aria called. The phone had to be hers.
But Klaudia was too busy finding the coat in her size. Aria picked up the phone. It made a chiming sound, startling her. She stabbed the screen to shut it up. A text bubble from Tanja, Klaudia's friend, appeared. The text was in Finnish, but Aria noticed her name in Klaudia's previous message. Huh.
She peered across the store again. Klaudia had tried on a coat and was inspecting herself in the mirror. She looked down at Klaudia's phone. It felt heavy in her hands. She should just turn it off. Friends didn't read the other friends' texts.
But as she slipped into the dressing room, her name on the screen haunted her. What were Klaudia and her friend saying about her? Was it good or bad? Just one peek, she decided. She moved her finger across the iPhone to unlock it. The text thread between Klaudia and Tanja popped up, blocks and blocks of words with umlauts and Os with slashes through them. Aria skimmed the Finnish, spotting Noel's name. Then Noel's again. And then again. But maybe that was natural—they were living under one roof. Maybe Aria would write about her foreign exchange host, too.
Finally, she found her name at the bottom. Aria on peikko, Klaudia wrote.
Peikko? Aria sounded it out in her mouth—PEE-ko. It sounded so cute, like a Disney character. What could it mean? Sprightly? Gamine? The best friend ever?
Excited, she scribbled it down on a pad she kept inside her purse. After a moment, she decided to copy Klaudia and Tanja's sentences about Noel, too. Maybe Klaudia had written about one of Noel's cute and slightly embarrassing habits Aria already knew about. It could be something she and Klaudia could laugh about together—Hey, I accidentally saw your text about Noel. Isn't that crazy that he watches iCarly every afternoon?
"Aria?"
It was Klaudia. Aria peered through the crack in the dressing room and saw her standing only a few feet away. "Uh, hey," Aria said. The iPhone felt like a grenade in her hands. She quickly hit the Home screen button, opened the door of the dressing room, and shoved it out. "I found this on the floor. I didn't want someone to step on it."
"Oh." Klaudia glanced confusedly at Aria, but then just shrugged and slipped it in her pocket. "You try on ski suit?"
"Just getting to it." Aria shut the door again. She stared at her reflection, expecting the guilt to be written on her face, but she looked like she always did—wavy black hair, ice blue eyes, and pointed chin. The urge to find out what peikko meant pulsed inside her. Maybe Klaudia could teach her Finnish and the two of them could use it as a secret code against the Typical Rosewoods.
She reached for her own phone in her bag and copied the Finnish texts into Babel Fish. The little wheel spun slowly, processing the results. When a new page appeared, Aria's mouth dropped open.
Noel deserves better, said the English translation of Klaudia's texts. He is so hot and American sexy and needs a real girl.
Like you? Tanja wrote back. Klaudia replied with a winking smiley.
Aria's stomach burbled. She hadn't just read that. Babel Fish had made a mistake. Swallowing hard, she typed in Aria on peikko. The page loaded even slower this time.
"Aria?" Klaudia's voice sounded from the other side of the dressing room. "It look good? You super ski bunny?"
"Uh…" Aria glanced frantically at the snowsuit hanging from the hook in the corner. It was so yellow it nearly blinded her. Why had Klaudia chosen it for her? Because Noel would appreciate the effort…or because it would make her look like a neon-yellow Sasquatch? Because he was a super hot American not and needed an appropriate girlfriend, not a skiing-hating, artsy freak?
Don't think that way, she told herself. Klaudia had been nice. There had to be another explanation.
But then the latest translated page popped up. Aria read the line slowly, her mouth suddenly bone-dry. Aria is a…troll.
Aria's hands gripped her phone. Aria on peikko meant Aria is a troll.
"Is okay?" Klaudia called from outside, her voice still friendly and chipper.
Aria ran her hands down the length of her face and stared at her phone again. Suddenly, it made a loud trumpeting sound, nearly causing her to drop it. New Text Message From Anonymous, the screen said.
Dizziness overcame her. Please no, Aria thought. But when she opened the text, she saw it was exactly what she feared.
Watch out, Aria—I think you have some competition. We both know Noel has a thing for blondes, after all. Mwah! —A