Envy - 2 (9 page)

She stood in the door for a moment, half in, half out, and a shaft of light sliced into the darkness, sending up a groan of discomfort from the bowels of the bar.

“Yer in or yer out, senorita,” the bartender with the fake Zapata mustache cal ed to Kaia. She flinched at the scraping sound of his voice. “Make up your mind,
por favor
” Harper waited and watched. It was the first test of Kaia’s commitment to the cause—and, to her credit, she passed.

“Was
this
real y necessary?” she asked Harper, sitting down across from her.

“What?” Harper tried her best to look comfortable, though not
too
comfortable, as if this world were foreign but unintimidating—and especial y as if she weren’t planning to take a shower the moment she got out of there to wash the stench out of her hair. The goal had been to throw Kaia off balance, to make sure she was out of her element—a plan which, by al appearances, had worked like a charm. Harper would just have to deal, and keep her own squirming and scowling to a minimum.

“This
place
” Kaia said, waving her arms in elaboration, as if to encompass the cardboard lizards and cacti papering the wal s, the tinny salsa soundtrack, and the seedy denizens al in one sweep. “Or is this just your thing?”

Harper shrugged, affecting unconcern. “You’re the one who thinks Kane and I have this dirty little plan,” she pointed out. “I would think you’d understand the need to be a little discreet.”

“Whatever.” Kaia grabbed a napkin and gingerly flicked away the mysteriously colored crumbs littering her side of the table. “I take it we’re getting right down to business?”

“I’m done with smal talk if you are.”

“Good.” She leaned forward, and Harper was once again taken by her perfect form and poise, even in a place like this. And that rust-colored asymmetrical shirt? It was unmistakably a Betsey Johnson original. Harper closed her eyes for a moment and, with a sharp pang of envy, briefly considered what it would be like to have Kaia’s life—but she couldn’t even begin to imagine.

“Here’s how I see it,” Kaia continued. “You want Adam. Kane—for whatever reason—wants Beth. You teamed up to split them up, and you’re ready and waiting for them to fal , heartbroken and sobbing, into your arms. How am I doing so far?”

Harper was disgusted with herself. Some secret plan. What a joke. And it sounded even more pathetic coming out of Kaia’s mouth. But she played it off. She had to.

“So far you haven’t told me anything I don’t know,” she complained.

“I’l take that to mean, ‘Why, yes, Kaia, that’s the situation exactly. Please enlighten me as to how to make my dreams come true.’”

“I’m listening.”

“So you’ve got Beth tutoring Kane—a nice move, incidental y, but Adam’s too much of a wuss to break up with her just because he’s jealous. He’d never trust his own instincts on that one—and princess Beth isn’t going to fal on Kane unless you push her.”

“Again, waiting for the newsflash,” Harper drawled, inwardly bristling at the way Kaia casual y spoke of Adam’s flaws and failings, as if she knew him so wel .

“Wel , for one thing, what you may not know is that Adam has some secrets of his own that Beth might not be too happy to hear.” A secretive smile crept across Kaia’s face.

Harper knew exactly what she was referring to, but any pleasure she might have drawn from taking Kaia down a peg was hol ow. She’d caught a glimpse of Kaia-and-Adam, act one, and had yet to wash the painful images out of her mind. She didn’t like to be reminded of act two, when they’d adjourned to a bedroom; Harper had, merciful y, missed the fireworks. But she could imagine. And did—often.

“Yeah, yeah, he slept with you,” Harper said, the words slicing into her. “Big deal. Anyway, I can’t use it.” Kaia’s eyes widened, and Harper smiled, knowing that at least she’d taken the wind out of the other girl’s sails, as hoped. But Kaia wasn’t thrown off for long.

“So he told you? Interesting—and not too smart.”

“Wel , that’s Adam, honest to a fault. Of course, he used to be loyal to a fault, too,” Harper said, glaring, “before
you
got through with him.”

“Do you want to fight about my popping your boy’s cherry, or do you want to get him for yourself?”

“What’s the difference?” Harper asked irritably. “I told you, I can’t use it. If Beth breaks up with him over this, he’l spend the rest of the year feeling guilty and chasing after her.

That does me no good at al . And, not that I real y care, but I imagine that Beth wouldn’t be bouncing back too quickly either—I see her as the ‘I can never trust a man again’ type. After something like that, I don’t think Kane would exactly be her type.”

“Good thing I have a backup plan, then,” Kaia said triumphantly. “One that turns Beth into the vil ain. Adam wil be looking for a ‘true’ friend to turn to, and you’l be right there to pick up the pieces.”

“Sounds perfect. Only one problem—Beth would never cheat on Adam. She doesn’t have it in her.”

“Oh, real y?” Kaia smiled, and it seemed she was about to say something, but she stopped herself, paused for a moment, and then continued. “Wel , I suppose you’re right. And
we
know that, and
Beth
knows that, but there’s no reason Adam has to. And al that real y matters is what
he
believes.”

“He accuses her—unjustly—she gets mad, we get mutual destruction.” Harper nodded eagerly. “I like it. But how—” She cut herself off at the sight of two drunken hulks looming over their table, one uglier than the other. (Although it was admittedly difficult to judge: Were buck teeth uglier than gold teeth? Was the jagged scar above the eyebrow uglier than an irregularly shaped red blotch covering the chin? Was mountain man hair uglier than no hair?) Baldy leered down at the two girls, his stained T-shirt exuding the stench of cheap beer.

“You ladies are at our table,” he slurred.

“’S
our
table,” Mountain Man agreed. “Everyone knows that.”

Baldy tried to squeeze into the booth with Harper, but with a yelp of anger and a sharp jab, she successful y pushed him away. He stumbled backward, but Mountain Man broke his fal .

“Wasn’t nice,” Mountain Man warned them. “You’re sitting at
our
table, you must belong to us too. Move over.” Kaia wrinkled her nose and shot Harper a look of disbelief. “Why are these losers talking to us?” she asked.

Harper cringed at her choice of words—she’d spent enough time around Grace’s roughnecks to know that the best tactic was to shut up and get out of the way. But she wasn’t about to be bested by Kaia’s bravado. So she mustered some of her own.

“I don’t know—they must be as stupid as they are ugly,” she said, forcing a laugh. It felt good.

“Who you cal ing stupid?” Baldy asked menacingly.

“You sure ain’t too ugly yourself, babe,” Mountain Man leered, passing his greasy hand through Harper’s hair.
That
was enough. She jumped up from the table—and suddenly realized she was tal er than both of them.

“Listen, buddy, get the hel out of my face,” she snapped.

“Who’s gonna make me? You? Or your hot little friend?”

As Harper searched for the words that would end this fiasco before it went any further, a scruffy guy about her age came wandering over.

“We got a problem here?” he asked, getting in Mountain Man’s face. “She asked you to leave her alone.”

“Who asked you, shithead?” Baldy growled, stepping up behind their knight in scruffy armor.

It was over in an instant.

Scruff Boy punched Mountain Man in the gut and, before Baldy had a chance to react, gave
him
a shove hard enough to knock both men to the ground. As the two losers lumbered up to their feet and began advancing on him, they got a nasty surprise—a tap on the shoulder from the Cactus bouncer, a WWE reject who looked like he bench-pressed losers like them for a warm-up. And, apparently, a friend of Scruff Boy’s.

Five minutes later the bouncer was back at the entrance, having barely broken a sweat, Mountain Man and Baldy were stumbling through the parking lot with a few fresh scars to show off to the ladies, and Scruff Boy? He was stil standing there.

Harper looked him up and down—medium height, medium build, wildly curly black hair, and dark, catlike eyes. Kind of hot, real y, beneath that stubble and the torn Clash Tshirt. She knew who he was, of course—she knew every guy in town. Especial y the hot ones. He went to their school, barely (this was his second senior year in a row), played in a band, ran with a crowd that drank too much and smoked even more. Pretty much a total waste of space. But he had, after al , cleaned up their mess. They should probably be polite—

“Why are
you
stil here?” Kaia asked him, curling her lip in disdain.

Or not.

“You two okay?” he asked, in a slow, zoned-out voice. “I’m Reed.” He stuck out his hand for Kaia to shake—she left him hanging.

“We’re fine,” Harper jumped in, again not to be outdone. “So you can just run off back to … whatever it is people like you do.” He stood frozen in place, looking at them both with a mixture of disgust and disbelief.

“What are you waiting for?” Kaia final y asked. “A medal?”

“Actual y, a thank-you,” he informed her. “My mistake.”

“You’re right. It was,” Kaia said, and turned back to Harper. “What was I saying?”

Harper watched the boy out of the corner of her eye. He stood there for another moment, as if waiting for them to let him in on the joke. Then reality sank in. He shook his head and trekked back across the bar to a booth crowded with deadbeat delinquents. They pounded him on the back and slammed him with high fives—impressed by the fight, she supposed. Good thing they hadn’t paid attention to the aftermath. Reed Sawyer could take on two drunken thugs with ease, but apparently in Harper and Kaia, he’d met his match.

“You were about to blow my mind with your oh-so-perfect plan,” Harper prodded Kaia, putting the whole sordid incident out of her mind.

Kaia laid it out for her, step by step, and when she was done, Harper leaned back and let loose a low whistle of admiration. It was breathtakingly perfect—beautiful, and a little complex, but if everything went smoothly, it would deliver the goods. She could already imagine herself in Adam’s arms.

And if Kaia real y came through, and she owed al her happiness to her worst enemy? Wel , if it got her Adam, it was a debt she’d be wil ing to spend the rest of her life repaying. And knowing Kaia, that might be exactly how long it would take.

The Wizard of Oz
was playing at the Starview. It played there every year in October, and every year, Miranda and Harper went to the last showing and split a large popcorn and an overpriced box of Mike and Ikes. It was tradition, and had been ever since eighth grade, when they’d both desperately wanted to go but had been too embarrassed to admit it to each other. Final y, on the day the movie was set to close, they’d each secretly snuck off to the theater—only to run into each other in the lobby, both buying boxes of Mike and Ikes.

By now it was a ritual set in stone, down to the whispered comments they tossed back and forth during the show and the postmovie pizza and beer at Guido’s. (The beer had been a tenth-grade addition, but in some cases, it was worth making a change.) It was tradition—fixed, beloved, and unbreakable. At least, until now.

Now Miranda stood at Harper’s locker, waiting in vain for her friend to show, watching the minutes slip past and the other students fade from the hal , until only she stood there, patient and alone.

The movie started at five. By four, Miranda was done waiting. She’d already waited an embarrassing half hour too long.

And she wasn’t about to go to the movie herself, not alone, not as if the past five years had never happened and she was stil a gawky eighth grader too worried about her status to admit a geeky love for Munchkins.

No, apparently Harper had better things to do—probably some guy had sworn his everlasting love and she’d taken him out for a quick spin—“quick” being the operative word, since use ’em or lose ’em got tedious if you hesitated too long before moving from the former to the latter. Or so Harper always said.

Not that Miranda hadn’t elimidated her share of lovestruck losers—it was just that the tan, dark, and handsome set didn’t usual y flock in her direction. At five feet one, maybe she was just too close to the ground for them to see her.

She was tired of being invisible and—apparently—forgettable. Why should Harper have al the fun? Miranda found her car, one of the last in the largely empty lot, and took off toward the strip mal on the edge of town.

Her new and improved look had waited long enough, and outfit number one was there, ready and waiting for her.

Was it too risqué? Did it make her boobs look big? Did the skirt make her ass look huge? Maybe.
So what?
she fumed silently, trying to drown out Harper’s scoffing voice in her mind. At least it makes a statement. At least people wil remember I’m there.

Never return to the scene of the crime. If it worked for
Law & Order
, it worked for Beth, so she’d spent the last weeks studiously avoiding the newspaper office as best she could. Every time she set foot inside, even with other people around (and she made sure there were
always
other people around), she could feel the weight of memory pressing down on her. The smal space, a refurbished supply closet that she’d petitioned the school to al ocate to the newspaper, had felt so cozy, so warm and familiar—a place she’d fought for and won.

It had been a home. Now it was just a dank and claustrophobic cave—every time the door closed, her heart sped up, her throat constricted. She felt trapped by those wal s, just like she felt in French class every time Mr. Powel ’s eyes alighted on her. Sometimes their gaze locked before she could look away, and she felt his eyes boring into her, the way his tongue had when his arms were wrapped around her, pushing himself against her and—

No matter what she may have been fantasizing about in her most secret, most ridiculous daydreams, she never would have acted on it. Never.