Sara Shepard - Burned

On Friday morning, Aria and Noel stood in the ship’s kitchen at separate workstations. In an attempt to do something together, they’d signed up to volunteer in the all-natural, all-organic kitchen. Little did they know they’d be assigned to the breakfast shift at 6 A.M.

Aria peeked into Noel’s bowl and frowned. “I think you put too much flour in the batter,” she whispered, glancing surreptitiously at Bette, the large woman who was in charge of the kitchen.

Noel’s brow furrowed, and he peered at the laminated recipe next to him. “It said twelve cups for this size of a batch. I think that’s what I did.”

Aria fluffed the batter with a fork. “I think it’s supposed to be thicker. It’s way too flaky.”

Noel snickered. “ You’re flaky.”

He tickled Aria’s side, and she swatted him with an oven mitt. She had to admit the early morning breakfast thing was fun: They were the only kids in the kitchen, there was a romantic classical-guitar station on the radio, and the air felt fresh and clean, not yet tropically humid. True, Aria hadn’t realized most of her kitchen chores would involve handling meat: removing thousands of strips of free-range turkey bacon from the freezer, frying up lumpy grass-fed beef sausages, even dealing with something called scrapple, which she was convinced contained pig snouts—albeit organic pig snouts. But even that was a small price to pay for having some solid Noel time.

Noel poured more milk into the batter. “Hey, since we’re up early, we should go for a walk on the beach. I could show you the rap Mike and I are going to do for the talent show on Sunday.” He nudged her.

“That would be great!” Aria said, but then bit her lip, remembering. “But I can’t today. I promised I’d mini-golf with Graham this morning.”

“Oh.” Noel stared into his bowl. “That’s cool.”

Aria tossed another tray of bacon onto the griddle. It sputtered loudly. “I’m really sorry. If you’d asked me earlier, I could have rearranged things.” They’d had dinner with a big group of kids last night. Aria and Noel had barely talked.

“I said it’s fine,” Noel said stiffly. “You sure are spending a lot of time with that Graham guy, though.”

Aria wrinkled her nose. That Graham guy? That was something her mom would say. “It’s not like I’m into him. He’s one of those guys who dresses up in armor and goes to jousts.”

“But is he into you ?”

She laughed. “Definitely not. I’m trying to get him to talk to his crush, in fact. His old girlfriend died, and he’s too shy to talk to her on his own.”

Noel looked up, surprised. “How did she die?”

Aria bit down hard on the inside of her cheek. “Um, I’m not really sure.”

Really, she shouldn’t have told her friends about Graham, either—they couldn’t get it out of their heads that Graham might be A. Yesterday evening before dinner, when they’d met to go through their hula routine, Emily had told her she’d seen Graham lurking around one of the halls. And Hanna, who was hanging out with them even though she was now doing an act with Naomi, remarked that it seemed like Graham didn’t have any friends on the cruise—he was always sitting alone at meals. “What if he came aboard for other reasons—like stalking us?”

“He’s not A,” Aria had urged. “It wasn’t even like his relationship with Tabitha was recent.”

“Yeah, but you said that he liked her more than she liked him,” Hanna reminded her. “Maybe he thought she was his true love or something. Maybe he’s one of those crazy guys who is just dying to get revenge on someone.”

“You don’t even know him,” Aria had said defensively.

“Yeah, but neither do you,” Hanna retorted.

Now, she cleared her throat and looked at Noel. “I just feel like I need to help the guy out. It’s fun to play matchmaker.”

Noel took a sip from the mug of coffee sitting next to him. “Just as long as you don’t play matchmaker and match him with you . You might be leading him on and not even know it.”

The bacon sizzled loudly. “You don’t trust me?” Aria asked.

“Of course I do,” Noel said quickly. “It’s just … I thought this cruise would be different. I didn’t think this Eco Hunt of yours would take up so much time.”

Aria pointed her spatula at him. “ You’re the one who didn’t want to do the Eco Hunt with me. You’re the one who insisted on surfing. You knew I couldn’t do it with you. You know I can’t swim very well. But you did it anyway.”

“You said I could!”

“And I meant it,” Aria said. “I think it’s awesome that you’re having so much fun. But don’t guilt me because I’m having fun.”

Noel’s eyes widened. “Fine. I won’t say anything. I won’t bother you at all.”

“Good,” Aria answered, hardening.

She turned back to the bacon. Noel stirred his mix. His movements became so forceful and impassioned that all of the excess flour rose up in a cloud and covered his face in a fine white mist. He blinked hard, looking like a mime.

Aria couldn’t help but laugh. After a moment, Noel laughed, too. He shook his head and gently knocked her shoulder. “I’m sorry. I’m being an ass.”

“No, I’m sorry,” Aria said, grabbing a paper towel and wiping the flour off his face. “I don’t want to fight. I want us to have fun. But you shouldn’t be jealous about Graham, okay? I love you .”

Noel spit flour from between his lips. “You’re both really arty, though. You probably have a lot in common.”

Aria’s mouth fell open. Seriously? There had been plenty of times she’d felt inferior around Noel—he was so wealthy, good-looking, and popular that sometimes she still felt like kooky sixth-grade Aria, Ali’s dorky sidekick. But this was the first time he’d ever told her he didn’t feel good enough for her.

“Noel …” She touched his arm. “You’re being ridiculous. I promise.”

“Okay,” Noel said after a moment. “It’s just that I really wanted to take a walk today so I could give you this.”

He brushed off the flour from his hands and pulled out a gold necklace from his pocket. A pendant spun slowly on a chain. It was tarnished and a little battered, perhaps antique, with an intricate, swirled design on the front.

The locket looked vaguely familiar. “Did you get this at one of those expensive jewelry shops in Old San Juan?” she asked.

Noel shook his head. “I actually found it on the beach at our surf spot in Puerto Rico yesterday. I almost stepped on it. It’s like it was meant to be mine—or yours.”

“It’s like a sunken treasure,” Aria whispered, letting Noel hook it around her neck. She peered down at it. There was an initial on the front—an I ? A J ? It was impossible to tell, as the letter was almost worn away. The necklace had had a whole life before her, a whole story she’d never know about.

“I’ll wear it always,” she told Noel, and wrapped her arms around him, not caring that she was getting flour all over herself. And then, as easy as that, everything felt perfect again.

An hour later, Aria and Graham stood on the green of the ship’s mini-golf course. Technically, they were supposed to be discussing the next clue for the Eco Scavenger Hunt—it involved figuring out which part of the ship was constructed with the highest percentage of recycled materials—but their gaze was on a girl bent over a tee at Hole 5 instead. It was Tori. She was wearing a long peasant skirt, a ribbed blue top, sandals that had little jewels on each strap, and a silver ankle bracelet, which struck Aria as both bohemian and Shakespearian. Tori swung her club and gently tapped the blue golf ball toward a clown’s open mouth, but it hit the rail and rolled back down the ramp.