Tempestuous (9 page)

During the two years we’d been dating, I’d adopted Brian’s group of friends as my own, and that had included self-proclaimed “complete fox” Rachel Alonso, whose confidence and general sense of superiority kept pace with my own. When Brian and I first hooked up, she had been dating a senior hottie named Max who ran in the same crowd. Our mutual respect for each other’s ability to manipulate and control people using only the words that came out of our mouths led to a fast friendship, and we spent countless nights cackling our asses off at our own little inside jokes, often made at the expense of others. I know, I know … classic mean girls. And that’s the saddest part of my whole undoing: not being ousted from their social sphere, but being forced to reflect on what a bitch I’d kind of been before all this happened.

Rachel had been single—a status she decried as wholly unnatural—ever since Max abandoned her for college last year. But mere days after the the SAT scam broke open, my former best friend started cozying up to my ex. They wantonly kissed each other at school, their gaping mouths reminding me of those sucker fish that clean algae off aquarium glass. Whatever, they deserve each other, I continued to tell myself. But despite my outward show of pluck and fortitude, I felt injured in the worst way. Not only had Rachel backed up Brian’s character assassination of me, telling everyone at school I had cooked up the SAT switcheroo to set Brian up, but she’d also made a mockery of our entire friendship when it became clear she had eyes on my man the whole time. And so I found myself with virtually no friends or sympathizers to speak of, trying to eke out the rest of the school year with at least a feigned degree of dignity. Let me just tell you this: anyone who says leprosy is a disease that’s been eradicated hasn’t set foot in a high school lately.

After Caleb’s last rude remark I’d been giving him the silent treatment, which somehow seemed less effectual and harder to maintain with him chained to my side. When Ariel sidled up next to us a few minutes later, I welcomed the distraction but ended up only getting more heat. Though, to be precise, Ariel usually didn’t get pissed so much as mopey and dejected.

“I could have gone with Troy and the guys, you know.”

“It wasn’t necessary.”

“But I could have helped!” she said with a whine. “You act just like my mom sometimes. She keeps me under house arrest and you keep me trapped behind this counter like I’m your slave or something.”

“I’m your first-class ticket to fun, and you know it.”

“Yeah, but you’re always minimizing me. I know you think you have a way with people, or whatever, but I’m no slouch myself.”

“So what are you suggesting, Ariel?” I sighed in annoyance and glanced testily at Caleb, who in turn glanced at the ceiling with wide eyes in a mocking “Don’t mind me!” face.

Ariel leaned closer to me, once again an overeager puppy.

“Those mean kids,” she said. “Why don’t you let
me
take a crack at them the next time they come around the food court?”

I had to hide a chuckle trying to imagine Ariel doing anything that could possibly pierce the armor of my friends-turned-foes. Her quirky disposition would irritate them the way a fruit fly might cause you to bat your hand in the air, but she was hardly a match for the likes of them. Or was she? Ariel seemed as harmless and timorous as a fawn, which would make her the perfect decoy for the plot that was now crystallizing in my brain. I knew my coworker had the prowess, tenacity, and—most of all—loyalty to pull it off.

“Well….” I said with a protracted pause. “You really think you’d be up to it?”

“Oh, I am! I am, I am!”

“Well then!” I clapped my hands together in delight, yanking Caleb’s right hand along in the process. I could sense him trying to ignore me. “Who says we have to wait for them to pay us another visit? Come with me.” I jerked my handcuffed arm and sent Caleb practically toppling off the counter he was sitting on. “Let’s check out the mall directory to strategize and make sure this is going to work.”

“Whoa—hold up now, hot dog girl,” Caleb said. (I didn’t.) “What are you up to? We’re a ‘we’ now—not a ‘you.’ You can’t just treat me like I’m the back end of a horse costume on Halloween. I get a vote here.”

“This isn’t a democracy!” I shouted back at him, yanking at his wrist as he stumbled to keep up. “You told me to leave you out of it, and I’m leaving you out of it. So just shut up, and keep up.”

Like a pair of witless zombies, Caleb and I lurched down the mall corridor until we finally synchronized our pace. Ariel flitted and skipped alongside us, über-eager to defend my honor. Part of me wondered how much of her enthusiasm was really just about getting the opportunity to be a belated participant in the high school sphere she had idealized from afar. My own petty, cliquish drama seemed a fascinating novelty to her, as impassioned and eyebrow-raising as a soap opera, minus the bad acting. I could see how an outsider might deem it all a welcome distraction from some of the more existential ponderings of adolescence: Doozies such as figuring out what you were supposed to do with your life, or weighing the likelihood that anything learned in trigonometry class would actually prove useful someday. The typical teen could be driven slowly insane by his or her own insipid inner monologues. Is it any wonder that we so readily devoured the sensational play-by-play and lurid gossip of the relationships that formed and/or splintered around us? Celebrity tabloid headlines seemed tame by comparison.

“Ow!” A painful pull on my arm yanked me back to the present.

“Oh, what? Did I breathe wrong again? Look, we’re never going to be friends; that’s a given,” Caleb said, “but if we’re going to be shackled together for the foreseeable future, we might as well try to get along, at least until I can find something to bust open these cuffs.”

“Caleb’s right,” said Ariel. “You two really need to kiss and make up already.”

“Never,” I said, practically sputtering.

“It was just an expression, Miranda. Jeez,” said my coworker.

“I’m pretty sure Tim Burton couldn’t even think up this guy.” I glared at the offending creature, who scowled before answering in turn.

“Some of the other kids may think you walk on water, her included.” He pointed his thumb in the direction of Ariel, my arm flapping helplessly along for the ride. “But I see right through you. You’re just a private school princess with an inflated ego. You can rule as demiurge over your little island of misfit toys, but you won’t stand a chance in the real world.”

“Socially inept
and
bitter,” I said. “A winning combination you have there.”

Looking over at Ariel, I saw that the expression on her face resembled that of a child told on Christmas morning that Santa hadn’t made it this year because he and Mrs. Claus were embroiled in a messy divorce. No matter what I thought about Caleb (or what he thought about me), it wasn’t worth raining on Ariel’s parade. If the little sylph wanted to have some fun at the expense of my mortal enemies, I wasn’t about to stand in her way. And if it proved cathartic for me in the process, well, what was the harm in that?

“Alrighty then,” I said, turning to Caleb and holding out my free hand. “For the purposes of this evening’s entertainment, I’ll promise to be civil, if you will.”

“Agreed,” he said, sounding almost human, for once. “Besides, I’m a huge Tim Burton fan. I took that as a compliment.” Of course he did.

“Great!” Ariel said, instantly cheerful once again. “Let the games begin!”

Just then Troy and Derek rounded the corner at full speed, nearly running into us, their arms loaded down with supplies.

“Hey, what’s the big hurry?” Caleb wondered as they skidded to a halt.

“It’s a full-on militia,” Derek said, panting. “The Eastern Prep kids have dug in and set up a perimeter with BB guns.”

“Can they do that?” said Ariel.

“Looks like they’re doing whatever they want,” answered Caleb, as Troy and Derek took their leave.

The news that Brian’s posse had taken such ludicrously extreme—and potentially violent—measures to stake their so-called turf furthered my resolve to wreak a little havoc on them. They’d have to arm themselves with something more substantial than a BB gun to keep Miranda Prospero at bay. Their false bravado didn’t scare me. Given what I had up my sleeve, they were the ones who should be nervous, I thought.

“Listen up,” I said. “It’s payback time.” I gave Caleb and Ariel a cursory outline of my planned course of action, which, if I do say so myself, had the potential for restoring my legendary status.

“Wow,” said Ariel, when I’d finished my spiel. “You just came up with that?”

“It’s what I do,” I said with what was probably a poor attempt at modesty. “Any questions?”

“Yeah, I have one,” Caleb said. “You actually think these lame-brained plans are going to work?”

“Miranda knows what she’s doing, Caleb. She’s a mastermind. You’ll see.”

“This isn’t
Unicorn Fantasy
, Ariel,” he said.

“It’s not like we have anything else to do,” I said.

He sighed. “You do have a point there. Fine, I’ll go along with this, but only out of curiosity. And, well….” He glanced at our wrists, “because I’d have to gnaw my own arm off if I wanted to object.”

“On the bright side, it couldn’t taste any worse than your options at the food court.” I noted a barely perceptible uptick in the corners of his mouth. Behold! The beast could smile! Speaking of beasts, I turned the corner and headed toward our first stop in this sojourn: the pet store.

“But I still don’t understand,” Ariel said a few minutes later. “It just seems cruel.”

“Don’t be such a softie. This is the same girl that started an anonymous group called ‘Chub Club’ and encouraged people to upload photos of any girls in our class who were perceived to be the least bit heavy. And let’s not forget how she treated you a few hours ago at your party.”

“I didn’t mean cruel to
Rachel
,” my coworker said. “I’m totally on board with that. I just don’t understand why an itty bitty furball has to be exploited for the purpose.”

“No animals will be harmed in the making of this poetic justice. It’s PETA-approved, I assure you.”

Caleb scoffed, but I refrained from putting him in his place since we had just entered the pet shop and had business to attend to. The store mostly dealt in small critters—fish, hamsters, newts, and the like. The place had that slightly off odor, a mixture of aquarium chemicals and gerbil pellets. Past the register, a mynah bird named Myrtle eyed us suspiciously from her spacious cage.

“Was
sup
!!!” she trilled. Poor bird. Who taught her to talk like a drunk frat boy
?

“Okay, Ariel,” I said, ignoring Myrtle and walking toward a glass pen near the back of the store. “That white one with the wonky ear is perfect. Can you hold it for me until we’re ready?”

Ariel’s smile was so exuberant it looked poised to leap off her face.

“Can I name it?”

“Good lord.” I knew it would be fruitless to talk her out of it. “Just make it snappy.”

“No, not Snappy. She doesn’t look like a Snappy. Awwww … hello, my sweet baby girl.” She lifted the bunny tenderly from its pen and kissed it gently on its nose. She pondered its frankly creepy pinkish eyes before turning it upside down to cradle it in her arms like a baby. “Oh! Or should I say ‘baby boy!’ Well, now, you have an important mission, little guy, so you need a distinguished name. Nothing too obvious like Peter or Roger, but nothing
too
pretentious or hard to pronounce either, because—”

“Hurry up, Ariel.”

“A name is important, Miranda! You can’t rush me!”

“Yes I can. We don’t have all night.”

“Actually, we sort of do,” Caleb said.

“Thank you, peanut gallery. Let’s just get a move on it.”

“Oh gosh,” Ariel said, fretting. “I don’t do my best work under pressure, but let’s see … um, okay, how about Sebastian?”

“Sebastian? As in Johan?”

“No, as in
The Little Mermaid
.” She turned to Caleb. “He was Ariel’s sidekick, this funny little crab with a Jamaican accent. He almost gets boiled alive at one point and—”

“Super. Great. Fantastic,” I said. “We now baptize thee Sebastian, blah-blah-blah,” I made the sign of the cross over the powder puff in Ariel’s arms. “Okay, the bunny’s in business. Oh my god, this plan is the kind of stuff Stephen King dreams up.”

“Stephen who?” Ariel looked at me, confused.

“You really think she reads horror novels?” Caleb chided me. “Don’t worry about it, Ariel. You just stick to the Disney stuff.”

“Never mind, both of you,” I snapped. “We’ve got to figure out where Rachel is. She could be anywhere in the mall, though it’s a safe bet she’s still attached at the hip to Brian.”

“You’re one to talk,” Caleb pointed out.

Ariel wandered off with Sebastian, cooing something about finding him some rabbit treats. I noticed Myrtle bobbing her neck forward and backward and sidestepping along her perch.

“Was
sup
! Was
sup
!” she chirped. Why did that sound so familiar?