Read Home for the Holidays for Free Online Page B

it'd be all over, wouldn't it?”
    “Fugheddaboudit,”
Nicky said, and laughed.
    That night, after dinner, Nicky and Tommy sat roasting marshmallows and making s'mores.
    “This is great,” Tommy said. “I've never been camping before. This is what you do at Camp Whatchamacallit?”
    “Camp Runnamucka. For that, you sleep in a tent and get bitten by bugs. And you do rowing, and canoeing, and hiking, and archery, and …”
    “It sounds like the L.L. Bean Olympics,” Tommy said. “This is better.”
    “Yeah, this is pretty good.” Nicky speared another marshmallow. “Also, there are these two parties coming up. One of them is the Snow Ball. It's a big deal in Carrington.Dinner and dancing. Kind of formal, but kind of fun. Everyone brings a date. That's next Sunday night. And tomorrow night there's a party at my next-door neighbor's house. Wanna come with me?”
    “Why not?” Tommy said. “So far, life in Carrington is pretty sweet.”

5
    E arly the following morning, Uncle Frankie came into Nicky's room and said, “Come on, kid. We're going down the shore.”
    “Now?” Nicky wiped sleep from his eyes. “But isn't it snowing?”
    “We're going to check out this joint your father has lined up,” Frankie said. “You wanna come with us?”
    “Let me wake up Tommy,” Nicky said. “We'll come downstairs.”
    Over breakfast, Frankie said, “Hey, Tommy. How's that chin?”
    Tommy pushed gently on the bandage. “Not so bad,” he said.
    Frankie laughed. “I should see the other guy, right?”
    “Yeah, if Nicky had let me have a piece of him.”
    “What a tough guy,” Frankie said. “So where is this place?”
    “It's in Newton,” Nicky's father said. “Right on the sand, by the boardwalk. For the summer, you have to reserve a year in advance. In the winter, it's empty. So I rented the whole place.”
    Nicky's father drove, with Frankie in the passenger seat and the boys in back. They took the interstate south, then a little highway through some marshy wetlands. Soon they were driving down a windswept beach road. Each beach town had its own boardwalk, lined with arcades, restaurants and snack bars selling hot dogs and hamburgers or fish-and-chips and ice cream. Everything was closed for the winter.
    A hundred years before, the tiny town of Newton had been a weekend getaway for wealthy people. Stately homes stood over the dunes, looking out at the sea. One of them was now the Newton Manor B&B, an elegant three-story Victorian building that looked like a wedding cake.
    “What's the ‘B and B’ part mean?” Frankie said. “Isn't it a hotel?”
    “It means ‘bed-and-breakfast,’” Nicky's father said. “It's like a hotel, except they serve you a big breakfast, and the rooms are more like bedrooms in a house. Sometimes you share a bathroom with someone down the hall.”
    “That's skeevy,” Frankie said, looking disgusted. “What if you don't know the people?”
    Nicky's dad shrugged.
    “So that's why they gotta throw in the free breakfast,” Frankie said. “B and B my eye. It should be called B.Y.O.B.—bring your own bathroom.”
    The owners were an elderly couple named Mary and Marvin Monroe. “We're looking forward to meeting your friends,” Mary said. “I hope they'll be comfortable here.”
    “How many bathrooms you got?” Frankie said.
    “Why, six,” Mary said.
    “And how many bedrooms?”
    “Fourteen,” Mary said.
    “Oh boy,” Frankie said.
    “Nicholas, you and Tommy go check out the beach while we settle up here,” Nicky's father said.
    The boys stood on the dunes. The ocean was white-capped and rough.
    Tommy said, “This sure ain't Coney Island, or Brighton Beach. This is like—the
beach.
Look at those waves.”
    “I'll race you to the water,” Nicky said. “Don't get wet! Go!”
    Chilled by the windy beach, the boys were just thawing out when they got back to the house for lunch.
    Nicky said, “Mom, can we go for a swim after lunch?”
    “Of course,” she said.