Envy - 2 (11 page)

“Uh, yeah.”

“I real y am sorry.” And she was. Harper wasn’t a slave to tradition the way Miranda was, but she looked forward to their
Wizard of Oz
trip each year. It was a chance to blow off steam, to pretend they were kids again, to gorge themselves on candy. Plus, she had to admit … she real y liked the movie. “I total y suck,” she admitted. “Let’s go tomorrow, okay?”

“Harper, it closed,” Miranda said harshly. “That’s kind of the point, remember? We always go on the last day. We’ve only been doing it for like, five years?”

“Okay, I suck. I completely and total y suck. Is this it? Are you done with me? You are, aren’t you?” Harper affected a voice of exaggerated desperation. When in doubt, make

’em laugh. “You’re getting rid of me and finding a new best friend. Who is it, Katie? Eloise? You know she’s a shrew, so I’d advise against her. Tara? You always liked her better anyway, didn’t you? And why not? I’m a horrible, terrible person….”

“Quit the melodrama, Harper. You’re not funny.”

“Not even a little?”

She was rewarded by a muffled laugh on the other end of the phone—and Harper knew she’d got her.

“Not even a little,” Miranda confirmed, unconvincingly. “In fact, you’re right. You do total y suck. I should just find a new best friend.” But Miranda’s familiar playful sarcasm had replaced her tone of bitter anger.

“Yeah, it would probably be good for you—but when is something good for you ever any fun?” Harper asked.

“Point taken.”

“So we’re okay?” Harper abandoned the comedy for a second. Miranda had to know she was sincere. “I real y am sorry.”

“You should be—but yes, we’re okay.”

“I knew it. You can’t live without me!”

“Don’t press your luck,” Miranda cautioned her. “So where were you, anyway?”

There was a pause—since she hadn’t realized that she’d ditched Miranda, Harper hadn’t bothered to come up with a good excuse. But what was she supposed to say, “I was out with our worst enemy, plotting a way to set up the guy you’re crushing on with another girl”? In this case, it didn’t seem likely that honesty would be the best policy.

“I was … at the dentist. It was an emergency.”

“A
tooth
emergency?” Miranda asked dubiously.

“Yeah, I chipped a molar, and I managed to get the guy to see me right away. Thank God.”

“It hurt a lot, huh?”

“It stil does.” Why had she said that? Now she was going to have to fake a toothache for the rest of the week. First rule of successful lying: Keep it simple, and never offer more information than necessary. She’d had a lot of practice.

“Must have been horrible,” Miranda said sympathetical y. “We’re talking acute, throbbing, knives-digging-into-you pain?”

“Uh-huh.” It was sort of true, if you counted the pain of having to lie to Miranda 24/7—and having to rely on Kaia, of al people.

“Brutal, agonizing pain?”

“Yeah.”

Miranda laughed. “Good.”

Payback came on Friday night. As the wounded party, Miranda got to pick the activity, and after a few days of careful thought, she’d settled on the perfect punishment.

Karaoke. Both girls were equal y averse to the torture and public humiliation that Karaoke Night at the Lasso Lounge represented, but Miranda figured it was worth sitting through an hour of off-key crooning to see Harper make a fool of herself in public. She’d been right.

“You aren’t real y going to make me do this,” Harper complained, as a hefty man crooned Clay Aiken’s latest “hit” up on the makeshift stage.

“Oh, I so am,” Miranda replied with an evil laugh.

“This is cruel and unusual punishment, you know,” Harper pointed out.

Miranda smiled sweetly. “What are friends for?” She pointed to the short line of would-be American Idols who had assembled by the stage. “Now get over there and show ’em what you’re made of.”

Harper glared at her, gulped down the last of her drink, and stalked off toward the line. “I hate you,” she tossed over her shoulder.

Miranda just raised her drink in a one-sided toast. “Don’t forget to smile!”

Then she leaned back in her chair and waited for the fun to start. This was going to be good.

Too many hours and too many drinks later, Harper and Miranda stumbled out of the bar on a karaoke high. Midway through her Cyndi Lauper spectacular, Harper had abandoned her embarrassment and belted out “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun” at the top of her lungs. She’d scored a round of thunderous applause and returned to the table flushed and ready for more. And after another margarita, Miranda had conceded to go with her, kicking off a marathon sing-along that took them back to the endless afternoons they’d spent as kids, choreographing dance moves to the latest on MTV. The humiliation factor was through the roof—but there was no one there to see them, and by that point in the night, they didn’t even care. After a rousing, girl-power version of “I Wil Survive,” the karaoke machine had final y shut down, the lights went out, and Harper and Miranda were forced to seek a new adventure.

So phase two of the night was planned during the tail end of phase one, which meant that clear, sober thinking had been left far behind by the time Harper suggested they stop off for supplies.

The result of their giggly stumble through the twenty-four-hour convenience store?

A two-pound bag of Mike and Ikes (on sale for Hal oween), a two-gal on bottle of Diet Coke and another of Hawaiian Punch (mixers), a six-pack of Jel -O pudding (because, wel , just because—thanks to the two pitchers of margaritas back at the Lasso Lounge, they no longer needed a reason). And the pièce de résistance: a box of hair dye that promised to

“change your color—and your life—in three easy steps.” It was time for Miranda to become a bottle blonde.

“You said you wanted a change, right?” Harper asked, tossing the box into their shopping basket, despite Miranda’s halfhearted protests.

They stumbled back to Harper’s house with the goods—her parents were off in Ludlow for the weekend, visiting her great-uncle in his nursing home, a trip that Harper had easily resisted being guilted into. Great Uncle Horace had no idea who she was and last time had insisted on referring to her as Fanny, apparently the name of a British nurse who’d been “kind” to him during the war.

Harper’s parents didn’t mind her staying home alone, as long as she had “that responsible Miranda” around to keep an eye on things. If they only knew.

One very messy and wet shampoo later, Miranda’s hair was thoroughly coated with dye, and the two of them had nothing left to do but wait for it to dry. They fidgeted impatiently, leafing through magazines and flipping through the TV channels—Friday night was pretty much a home entertainment dead zone.

Miranda refused to look in a mirror until it was perfectly dry—she said she wanted to wait to get the ful effect. And, as Harper watched with horror as Miranda’s hair dried and the final color emerged, she concluded that postponing the inevitable could only be a good thing. But final y they could wait no longer.

“Okay, I can’t stand it anymore,” Miranda said. “How does it look?”

“Uh … it’s different,” Harper hedged. “It’s definitely different.”

“Wel I
know
that—but how does it look? Oh, forget it. I need to see for myself”

She bounded up, but Harper leaped ahead of her and jumped in front of the mirror.

“Before you look, I just want to remind you of what you said before, how I’m such a good friend to you.”

“Of course you are, Harper—this was your idea, wasn’t it? I’m not going to forget that.”

“That’s what I’m afraid of,” Harper murmured. But she stepped aside.

Miranda’s scream would have woken up Harper’s parents, had they been home—as it was, Harper suspected it might stil have woken them up a hundred miles away in Ludlow. It might even have woken up Great-uncle Horace—and he was deaf.

“Harper—what have you done to me?” Miranda cried, lunging toward her. Harper jumped away, searching for some large piece of furniture she could put between herself and the newly psychotic Miranda.

“Don’t blame me,” she protested. “I fol owed the directions. I think.” She ducked unsuccessful y as Miranda threw a pil ow at her head.

“Look what you’ve done to me!” Miranda yel ed. She slumped down on the bed and burst into—wel , Harper couldn’t tel whether it was sobs or hysterical laughter.

“Are you … okay?” Harper asked tentatively, sitting down beside her.

“Okay?” Miranda asked, tears of laughter streaming down her face. “How could I be okay? I look like Kermit the Frog!” Sad, but true.

Miranda’s rust-colored hair had been changed in three easy steps, al right—her head was now topped with a frizzy mass of bright green tendrils, the color of celery. Or of everyone’s favorite Muppet.

It was horrifying. Humiliating. And hilarious.

Unable to control herself any longer, Harper burst into giggles.

Miranda fel backward onto the bed, gasping for breath. “It’s not funny,” she complained.

“I know,” Harper said, trying to force a solemn and sober look.

“Except that it is,” Miranda admitted, breaking into laughter once more.

“I know,” Harper agreed, laughing again herself. She felt a rush of relief that Miranda didn’t want to kil her—but she worried about what would happen in the morning, when the alcoholic glee had washed out of her system and, sober and hungover, she stil looked like a Muppet. Things might not seem so jol y in the light of day.

After al , it’s not easy being green.

(Just ask Kermit.)

It was Friday night, date night, and things were going to be different. Beth was determined. Adam had been acting weird al week—though she wasn’t even sure what would classify as “weird” these days. Stand-offish? Short-tempered? Irritable? How was that any different, real y, from the way things were the rest of the time? When was the last time they’d been together—and
talked
—without it turning into a fight? It used to be so easy to talk to Adam, and now it was just easier not to.

But tonight real y would be different. Tonight would be an actual date. Not a half-rushed hookup in her bedroom before her parents got home, not a stolen few minutes between classes or a stale slice of pizza after work. Tonight it was just the two of them, al night long. And it would be fun, and easy, no matter how hard she had to work at it.

She’d suckered Adam into taking her to the Frontier Festival, an annual carnival that passed through town every October, ostensibly to celebrate the harvest (though Beth was unsure what kind of harvest a mining town, much less a defunct mining town, had to offer). Real y it was just an excuse for cotton candy, funnel cake, 4-H livestock contests, and a rickety Ferris wheel. Beth had loved it as a child, and had always dreamed of walking through the booths and crowds of squealing children on the arm of a handsome boy. Now she final y had one.

It started out just as she’d hoped. Hand in hand, they traipsed through the colorful booths, mocking the lame Wild West theme, squealing in fear and delight as the carnival rides swung them through the air, gorging themselves on cotton candy and corn dogs. Adam even spent ten dol ars trying to win her a prize—but the water gun target shoot, the whack-a-mole, even the basketbal free throw game failed to cough up any booty. Final y Beth tried her hand at Skee-Bal , and in about five minutes had succeeded in winning Adam a stuffed pink elephant, which he accepted with a rueful but gracious grin. It was relaxing, carefree, fun, sweet—and it couldn’t last.

Adam spotted him first, but Beth was the one to cal him over. That was before she noticed the buxom brunette on his arm. Kane waved eagerly and hurried over to say hel o, his Kewpie dol fol owing close on his heels. In a moment everyone was introduced.

Beth, meet Hilary, a brainless idiot with a twenty-three-inch waist and a six-inch hol ow space in her head.

You can’t judge her before she even opens her mouth
, Beth chided herself, appal ed by her nasty knee-jerk reaction. She smiled at Hilary and, as sweetly as she could to make up for the evil thoughts swarming around her head, asked, “So, Hilary, do you go to Haven High too? I don’t think I’ve ever seen you around.” Hilary giggled, and responded in a thin, airy voice. “Oh, no, I’m home schooled—my parents think public school teaches you to be immoral.” Beth and Adam both shifted uncomfortably in silence. What, exactly, was one supposed to say to that?

No matter—Hilary wasn’t waiting for an answer. She draped an arm around Kane’s waist.

“Of course,” she giggled again, “now I’ve got Kane for that. Right, sweetie?” She slapped him gently on the ass and he jumped in surprise, flashing Beth and Adam a bemused and slightly abashed look. At least, Beth read it as abashed—but maybe she was wrong, since the next thing he did was pul Hilary toward him and give her a long, hard kiss. How embarrassed by her could he be?

After a long moment he released Hilary, who looked up at him, flushed and adoring.

“I’m teaching her everything I know about bad behavior,” Kane explained.

Hilary put on a fake pout and a grating baby voice. “And now I’m a bad, bad girl, aren’t I?”

“You sure are,” Kane agreed, pinching her ass.

“Ooh!” she squealed. “I’l get you for that.” And she lunged toward him.

It was the obvious start of some kind of tickle slap fight that Beth was sure would soon end in another grope match—not something she needed to see.

“Come on, Adam,” she whispered, tugging at his shirt. “Let’s go.”

They waved hasty good-byes and began to back away from the squealing couple.

“Off to win your lady love a bigger prize?” Kane cal ed out from amid the tickle storm. He gestured to the smal stuffed elephant Beth was holding in her arms; Hilary was toting a stuffed pink panda about four times as large.

“Actual y, I won this for
him
,” Beth pointed out.

“A true champion, eh?” Kane cal ed jovial y. Then his voice grew serious and he locked eyes with Beth, ignoring the giggling and pawing going on around him. “I never had any doubt.”