Love, Lies and Texas Dips (23 page)

“Hush,” Ginger shushed her, and Laura melodramatically zipped her lips, tossing an imaginary key over her shoulder.

Ginger jerked her chin toward Honey, who was just lifting her head and rising from the floor miraculously. “That’s all there is to it,” she professed when she stood upright again, lowering her hands to brush at her skirt.

“Brava!” Cindy Chow jumped on her feet and started clapping, like she was at the Houston Metropolitan Opera giving a standing ovation to the lead soprano.

The rest of the girls politely applauded, except for the Bimbo Cartel who, Ginger noticed, merely studied their nails, looking bored.

But Honey seemed not to care. She blushed happily, nodding in Cindy’s direction. “Well, thank you kindly for your enthusiasm, Miss Chow, is it? Now how about I show you one more time without this skirt on? Then I’ll see what y’all can do.” With that, Honey tugged at the beaded belt around her waist until there was a slow
riiiip
of Velcro. The belt flew off as did the skirt attached to it, leaving Honey standing there in blue satin shorts and her sequined high heels.

Ginger had to throw her hand across her mouth to keep from cracking up, though the other girls couldn’t hide their nervous giggles.

Mac moaned and buried her face in her hands while Laura crossed her legs and tapped a toe impatiently on the floor, murmuring, “When did this turn into
Dancing with the Stars?
”

“You don’t want to jerk your way down.” Despite the tittering around her, Honey went right on talking. “Think escalator, not elevator,” she said, then proceeded to do the Texas Dip again, only now, without her floor-length skirt, they could watch her feet and legs as they changed positions.

This time when Honey lifted herself like a rising Phoenix, it was she who clapped loudly. “All right, all right, the floor show’s over. It’s y’all’s turn now. Who wants to go first? Let’s see what each of you can do, so I’ll know how much we’ve gotta work.”

“I’d like to go first.” Jo Lynn Bidwell popped out of her chair before anyone else could say a word. She flipped highlighted blond waves off her shoulders and put her nose in the air. “If that’s okay with you, Ms. Potts, of course,” she added, smoothing her skirt.

“No,” Honey said, and Ginger wasn’t the only one who released a surprised “Ooooh.”

“What did you say?” Jo Lynn bristled, looking like a girl who hadn’t heard the word no too often.

“I said, no, it’s not ‘Ms. Potts.’ Please address me as ‘Mrs. Mackenzie,’” Honey instructed, the bright smile never leaving her face. “Now, try again.”

“May I do the Texas Dip,
Mrs. Mackenzie
?” Jo Lynn ground out, her eyes narrowed on Honey, while the rest of
the room snickered behind their hands, except for Camie and Trisha, who scowled.

“Yes, you may.” Honey gestured toward the open space in the center of the living room and stepped aside.

Jo Lynn strolled forward a few paces, then turned her back deliberately on Laura—at least, that was how it looked to Ginger.

Laura must’ve felt the same, as she uttered tightly, “I think I just got dissed.” She narrowed her eyes on Jo Lynn’s backside, and Ginger put a hand on her shoulder as a reminder to stay put.

“You sure you don’t need something to lean on? And I guarantee some of y’all will need a hand from your escorts,” Honey said from the sidelines, but Jo Lynn waved her off.

“I was born to Dip,” Jo declared, standing posture-perfect with shoulders back and chest out. Trisha and Camie grinned and gave her two thumbs-up.

“Born to Dip? More like Bitsy’s made her practice it ever since she turned six … with leg weights strapped to her back,” Laura whispered, the spark returning to her eyes.

“I hope she eats it,” Mac added as she leaned across Laura, and Ginger hushed them both.

“Well, go on then, Miss Jo Lynn. Show us what you’ve got,” Honey urged, and Jo raised her arms and positioned herself with one foot slightly behind the opposite ankle.

The room quiet around her, Jo Lynn executed the deep curtsy perfectly, her body fluidly descending to the floor, her head bowing over the bent knee in front as she turned her cheek toward the floor. Effortlessly, she remained there for several beats before she gracefully came up again without stumbling or hesitating.

The Bimbo Cartel hooted and whistled while the rest of the Rosebuds politely applauded.

“Why, that was certainly nicely done,” Honey said, sounding distracted as she looked around her. “How about we get another demonstration?” Her gaze settled squarely on Laura. “What say you, Miss Laura? Are you up to it? Want to give it a shot?”

“No,”
Ginger begged, clutching at Laura’s arm. She was hardly in the best shape to try the killer curtsy, and the last thing Ginger wanted was for her to crash and burn in front of the Bimbos. But Laura shrugged off her hand.

“Sure, I’ll do it,” she said, and stood up. “Though I think I’ll try it barefoot, if that’s okay.”

“That’s all right, sugar,” Honey assured her. “Anything you want.”

“Laura’s
going to curtsy?” Camie rose from the damask sofa, flipping her dark waves behind her shoulders and pursing her glossy lips with faux concern. “Are you sure that’s a good idea, Mrs. Mackenzie? Shouldn’t she sit down with her feet up, so her ankles don’t swell? Maybe I should take a turn.”

“Look, here, sweet pea, interrupting Laura isn’t very ladylike. What say you show a little respect for your fellow deb?” Honey chided, and ordered Cam to sit back down.

Laura slipped off her flats and walked slowly toward the center of the room. When she hesitated, Honey nodded, encouraging her. “Go on, baby doll, and take your time. The Dip isn’t easy for anyone ….”

“What about for any
two?
” Trisha piped up, rearing her strawberry-blond head. “As in, maybe Laura shouldn’t be doing the Dip in her condition.”

Oh, hell
, Ginger thought, her breath catching in her throat,
this is bad. This is very, very bad
.

“What condition?” Honey glanced at Laura, who seemed to have frozen in place. Her cheeks had lost all color. “Are you sick?”

“She’s probably just sick in the
mornings”
Cam said, while Trisha giggled behind her. Jo Lynn sat between them, hands in her lap, unnaturally quiet though Ginger could see a self-satisfied smirk on her lips.

Mac slipped into Laura’s seat beside Ginger, bending over to hiss, “If they say another word, I’m going over there.”

“No, you’re not,” Ginger insisted, grabbing her hand and holding on.

Laura didn’t even turn her head at the insult. In fact, she hadn’t moved a muscle.

“What’s wrong, Laura? Did you miss taking your folic acid? Or are you having a craving? Something like pickles and ice cream?” Camie egged her on until Mac ground out,
“That’s it,”
and jerked out of Ginger’s grasp.

Mac strode across the living room, sweeping right past Laura to stand in front of the Bimbo Cartel. “Shut your nasty mouths!”

“Oooh, I’m scared.” Camie rose from the settee, hands on hips, and sneered into Mac’s face. “What’re you gonna do if I don’t, Bookworm?”

Mac shoved her hard, and the brunette Bimbo stumbled backward in her high heels and went down fast, her flowered skirt flipping up in the air as she hit the floor with Mac on top of her.

Trisha and Jo Lynn shrieked, cowering together on the sofa just a few feet behind the tangled mess of arms and legs and flying hair.

“Get her off me!” Camie screamed, and Trisha flew to her rescue, floral skirts swaying, as she tried to peel Mac off Camie.

“Hey, let her go!” Ginger came out of her seat, rushing over to Mac’s aid and getting tangled in flailing arms, like in a vicious game of Twister.

“Stop it! Everybody just stop it right now and return to your seats!” Honey yelled at the top of her lungs, and her voice rose to a pitch high enough to call every dog in the city.

“Here, take my hand,” Laura said, and Ginger grabbed eagerly, allowing herself to be pulled onto her feet. Then they took hold of Mac’s arms and set her upright as well.

“What’s wrong with you?” Ginger said under her breath as she dusted off a disheveled Mac, whose glasses sat cockeyed on her flushed face. As they walked back to their chairs, Mac kept protesting, “But I had to do it,” which made Laura smile and whisper, “Nice tackle, girlfriend.”

But Ginger didn’t find anything nice about Mac’s actions at all, despite her good intentions. She just hoped to God no one had used a camera phone. If one of the debs had taken a shot of the catfight, Mac would get reprimanded by the GSC at the very least, if not banished from the Rosebuds altogether.
What the hell was she thinking?
Ginger wanted to shake her, not thank her as Laura had.

“I can’t believe this, I really can’t.” Honey folded her arms over her chest, glancing at Camie Lindell and then over at Mac. She shook her head, clearly distressed. “If Bootsie Bidwell could see y’all now, I wouldn’t have to worry about teaching any of you the Dip. You’d all be out on your fannies by morning. Now, I hope you’ve gotten that out of your systems so you can start acting like the ladies your mamas would like to think they’ve raised, instead of a bunch of alley cats with your claws out.”

Wedged between a red-faced Trisha and a smug-looking Jo Lynn on the settee, Camie pointed at Mac and whined, “She started it!”

Ginger clamped her hand over Mac’s mouth to keep her from shouting back. She’d seen enough drama tonight to carry her through the rest of deb season.

“Oh, so Michelle’s to blame, is that it?” Honey barked back, effectively shutting Camie up. “Well, I’d hardly call you innocent, sweet pea, not the way you were mouthing off. So unless you want me telling Miss Bootsie exactly what I saw and heard this evening, we’ll just call it a draw. We’ll chalk up what transpired to the Dip bein’ a nerve-wracking thing to learn. Sometimes girls stumble. Trip-ups happen. Everybody with me on this?” She looked around the room, nodding her blond head when no one gave her any lip. “All right then, let’s get on back to practice, shall we? And no more shenanigans!”

They picked up where they’d left off, with Cindy hopping out of her chair to try the Dip next. Laura stayed glued to her seat, and Mac managed to keep her mouth shut. All the while Ginger counted the minutes, thinking it was the longest hour of her life, even worse than when she’d gotten her wisdom teeth pulled.

*  *  *

“I couldn’t help it,” Mac said for the tenth time, toying with the piece of Whole Foods tomato basil pizza on the plate in front of her. “Camie
so
asked for it. What else was I supposed to do, just sit there doing nothing while she humiliated Laura?”

“And I, for one, am grateful that one of my BFFs stood up for me,” Laura declared, her blue eyes flashing fire. “So what if the GSC hears about it? Mac was only defending me.”

“Mac, you should know better! You’ve been telling Laura to sidestep the Bimbos for ages and then you go and pull a stunt like that.” Exasperated, Ginger stared them down from across the round oak table in the Mackenzie’s kitchen. “If we don’t ignore them, they’ll never stop. Don’t you get it? They
want
to provoke you into doing something stupid. They
want
y’all to get in trouble.”

When neither Mac nor Laura responded except to pick at their pizza, Ginger sighed, frustrated as all hell. She’d hoped that when the three of them had a chance to talk after all the other Rosebuds had left—and Honey had slunk off to her bedroom complaining of a migraine—they’d be calm enough to see how the Bimbos were playing them for fools. Instead, Mac and Laura were treating
her
like she’d done something wrong for wanting to stay on the sidelines.

“You just gave Jo Lynn Bidwell the perfect opportunity to rat you out to Bootsie.” Ginger drilled in her point, wondering why they didn’t understand. “Destroying people is what she does for fun. She’s out to clobber you, Laura, and if it means taking down Mac, too, well”—she threw a hand in the air—“no skin off her surgically refined nose.”

“But Honey even said she’d stick up for Mac,” Laura reminded her. “Besides, Jo Lynn’s toadies started it, right? Everyone was a witness to that.”

“Something came over me,” Mac grumbled. “I just snapped.”

“Well, don’t do it again!” Ginger slapped the table, causing
all their plates to rattle. “Self-restraint, people,” she barked at her friends, her normally soft voice rising. “You have to realize they’re masters of manipulation. Think about it. First, Camie mouths off about the rumor, like she wanted to remind everyone in the room about the lie that Laura’s pregnant. Who do you think it would benefit if Bootsie knew
that?”
She raised her eyebrows. “If the selection committee hasn’t heard about the MySpace dirt already, getting the play-by-play on what happened tonight will only clue them in.”

“Thanks for making me lose my appetite entirely,” Laura replied, and pushed her plate aside.

“If you’re trying to make me feel bad, it’s not working.” Mac glared at Ginger before tossing her wadded-up paper napkin onto the picked-over pizza on her plate. “I’m not sorry for what I did.”

On hearing that, Laura got a satisfied smirk on her face, which ticked Ginger off all the more.

“I don’t care if you’re sorry or not, Mac. Just remember all that advice you’ve been dealing out about leaving the Bimbo Cartel alone, and take it.” Ginger looked at Mac, then at Laura, then back at Mac again, like she was watching a Ping-Pong tournament. “Can’t y’all see that I’m just trying to keep the Three Amigas in this together? Isn’t that what you want too? Or am I the only one?”

Though Laura avoided looking at her, Mac set her elbows on the table, her face pinched with guilt. “Okay, okay, I’ll promise to behave”—eyes downcast, she gave the bridge of her glasses a push—“if Laura promises to stay away from Dillon. My God, if Jo Lynn gets wind of Laura’s plan to train with Big D, it’s all over.”

“Thanks, Mac,” Laura snapped.

“Maybe Jo already knows,” Ginger suggested, because it made sense. “Maybe that’s what’s got the Bimbos riled up tonight.”