Always Something There to Remind Me Read Free Page A

call, and the fear he wouldn’t … all of that wasn’t necessary this time.
    He felt the same way she did.
    She went back inside smiling.

Chapter 2
    Present
    I could not figure out how the bitch had made it to her sixteenth birthday without someone killing her.
    Roxanne Tacelli. Brattiest fifteen-year-old I’d ever met, and I could completely remember being a rather difficult fifteen myself, so that really was saying something.
    Yet here I was, events coordinator for the Farnsworth-Collingswood—one of the top luxury resorts in the world—planning the ultimate Sweet Sixteen party for her, under the doting eyes of her parents, the watchful eyes of my employer, and the electronic eyes of multiple VTV cameras, which were filming the entire event for a reality TV show that promised to suck the soul directly out of anyone who watched it.
    The Farnsworth-Collingswood Hotel Group had two locations, one in Geneva, Switzerland, and one in Virginia, just outside Washington, D.C. Both were the same sleek, modern European style with quirks and bells and whistles galore—everything from indoor water parks to landing strips for small aircraft and the ability to acquire just about any amenity a guest could want (for a price) and so both were major party destinations. And we’re talking huge parties.
    My job as events coordinator was therefore, usually, a blast.
    Usually.
    “Okay, so, Erin, I want bowls and bowls of all green M&Ms,” Roxanne, age fifteen, was saying. “I heard rock stars do that. With my face on them. They can do that, right?”
    They could, but I didn’t have time to answer.
    “Or pink,” she went on, nodding to herself, like I’d just pointed out how much prettier her already cosmetically altered face would be on pink. “What do pink M&Ms mean?”
    At first I didn’t answer, assuming she was just in the middle of her stream-of-consciousness list of I wants , but then I realized there was silence and all eyes were on me.
    “Um. Erin?” Roxanne clicked her tongue against her teeth. “Hello?”
    I looked up from where I’d just written pink MMs, get high-res picture smaller probably better and said, “I’m sorry?”
    Roxanne sighed and rolled her eyes like little brown marbles circling my apparent ineptitude. Really, she was a cartoon. “What do pink M&Ms mean?”
    They mean you’re a spoiled-rotten little snot whose parents will piss away their money on just about anything, thereby proving everything every manifesto-writing wack job has ever said about the class system in America. I gave a wan smile and said, “They mean you’re going to have the best birthday ever.”
    It was the same voice I would have used with my daughter when she turned six.
    Despite the fact that Roxanne acted like a six-year-old, she was savvy enough to know when she was being talked to like one, and she didn’t like it.
    “Right.” She snorted. “So green means you’re horny and pink means best birthday ever !”
    Her mocking of my own fake enthusiasm was incredibly insulting. Probably in part because of its accuracy.
    But I could barely react to that before her mother’s indulgent chuckle filled the air. “Roxanne, I don’t know where you come up with this stuff or where you learned such words!” She touched a hand to her too-bright red hair (clearly an attempt to match Roxanne’s copper color) and I noticed the lipstick she wore—almost the same shade as her hair—had smeared onto her whitened front tooth. Her face was smooth and lineless, forcibly so, but her hand, with its crepey texture and sun spots, showed her true age. Especially next to the artificial color of her hair.
    I sighed inwardly. If my kid were saying that kind of thing to adult strangers, I’d take her by the ear, nun-style, to the nearest bathroom and wash her mouth out with soap. Or at least threaten to—I’d always found the threat of embarrassment was much more effective with Camilla than actually following through.
    Of course,