Love, Lies and Texas Dips (24 page)

“But that can’t be …. It’s not possible,” Laura sputtered. “The only person in the world who knows about Dillon besides y’all is”—she winced—“Avery.”

“You told Avery?” Mac grabbed her dark curls, looking like she wanted to tear them out. “What are you, mental?”

Laura glanced down at her lap, her pale hair falling like curtains on either side of her face. “Sorry, y’all, but it just popped out the other day when I bumped into him at the club. I screwed up, okay?”

God, what else could go wrong, huh?

Ginger covered her face with her hands. This was beyond catastrophic. Not that she was surprised by Mac losing it and taking a crack at Camie Lindell. A huge part of Mac would probably feel relieved if she got dumped from the deb list. But Ginger knew Laura was a different story entirely. The girl had dreamed of becoming a Rosebud since they were kids playing dress-up in Tincy Bell’s closet, with Laura striking poses in the three-way mirror with Tincy’s tiara on her head. She of all people shouldn’t be acting so recklessly and putting her deb status at stake. It made no sense.

What’s the matter with you?
Ginger wanted to scream. If either of her BFFs forced the GSC’s hand, and Ginger had to go through the next eight months until the Ball alone, she would kick them both to the curb for ruining everything.

A flash of anger swept through Ginger’s body, and she sat up straight, turning on Laura first. “You need to stop thinking with your heart and start using your brains unless
you want to blow your coming out. And you”—she faced Mac next—“need to find a better way to release all that pent-up frustration than taking potshots at foulmouthed Bimbos.”

“Hey, none of this is my fault,” Mac replied stiffly, glaring at Laura. “She’s the one who keeps starting the fires.”

“Me?” Laura stared back, openmouthed. “Are you saying I asked for this, is that it? I’ve had to shut off my BlackBerry because of all the rude calls and e-mails I’m getting. It’s like a feeding frenzy.” Tears welled in her eyes as she pushed away from the table, her chair scraping against the floor as she stood. “That’s it. I’ve heard enough Laura-bashing in the last twenty-four hours to last me a lifetime.” She grabbed her red tote and started for the door, snapping over her shoulder, “I’m out of here.”

Ginger made no move to stop her. It wouldn’t hurt Laura to stew for a while and consider how she sabotaged herself by striking back at Jo Lynn Bidwell all the time. Sometimes it went beyond frustrating, watching her friend make the same mistakes over and over again. Not that Ginger hadn’t made some bad choices, but she’d learned from them, right? Wasn’t that the whole purpose of screwing up?

“Um, Ginger?” Mac stood, glancing at the doorway. “Should she be driving when she’s so upset like that? No matter what, I don’t want her putting the Merc in a ditch.”

“Don’t worry. She’ll be back.” Ginger counted to three before she heard Laura’s returning footsteps.

“Jesus, Ging, are you coming or not?” Laura said, pouting like a petulant child, before she spun on a heel and disappeared again.

Mac plopped back down. “You drove, didn’t you?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Hey, would you smack her for me before you drop her off?”

Ginger retrieved her hemp bag from where she’d slung it over the back of her chair, looking Mac squarely in the eyes as she said, “Personally, I’d like to smack you both.”

Ginger left Mac staring after her, openmouthed, and braced herself for the cold shoulder she’d doubtless receive the moment she got in the Prius with Laura.

All for one and one for all, huh?
she thought with a sigh.

I’m extraordinarily patient
provided I get my own way in the end.

—Margaret Thatcher

The only way to get things done
is to do them yourself.

—Jo Lynn Bidwell

Thirteen

On the Thursday afternoon following a very interesting curtsy practice, Jo Lynn sat between Camie and Trisha on a stone bench in the courtyard at Pine Forest Prep with ten minutes left on their lunch break. The sky above them looked thick with gray clouds, and the air smelled ripe, like rain. The humidity made it feel warmer than it really was, and Jo had rolled up her sleeves as far as they’d go and had unbuttoned her shirt as much as she could without getting called into Dr. Percy’s office for a wardrobe malfunction. She had her legs outstretched, her orange velvet Marc Jacobs ballet flats half off her feet, and her face tipped up toward where the sun should have been, as did Cam and Trisha, seated on either side of her.

“I can’t believe she showed her face at school this morning,” Camie said with a frown. Even though the September sun hid behind the blanket of clouds, her Roberto Cavalli shades were perched on her nose. “She’s got to feel like a total outcast. Everyone’s talking about her, and she’s walking around like a zombie.”

“Well, she was a zombie last night, for sure,” Trisha
remarked, sliding her Gucci frames low so Jo could glimpse the malicious glint in her eyes. “I think she must’ve popped some of Mommy’s little helpers. Too bad she didn’t share them with that Mouse Mackenzie. That girl needed a sedative, for sure. I can’t believe she went after you like that, Cam!”

“That loser bruised my elbow,” Camie complained, shoving her sleeve up so she could show the purple mark on her arm. “I wish like hell we could blab to the GSC about her attacking me.”

“Only, Mouse Mackenzie’s obnoxious new mom threatened to squeal on us for trash-talking Laura.” Trisha turned to Jo Lynn, who’d been quiet until then. “Can’t you just let it slip to Bootsie?”

“Yeah, like, accidentally on purpose?” Camie added, and Trisha giggled.

“No,” Jo told them coolly. “I can’t.”

Her two BFFS glanced at each other, but Jo Lynn didn’t explain. Her mother had already warned her once about staying clean during deb season, and she fully intended to do just that, at least on the surface. What she did behind the scenes was a different story entirely.

“You’re not letting the Randoms off the hook, are you?” Camie asked, pushing dark hair off her shoulders and fingering a diamond-studded gold hoop dangling from her ear. “I mean, you still want Laura Bell out of the Rosebuds, right?”

“Like, she’s going to stay in much longer after all that stuff up on MySpace,” Trisha added, pulling her strawberry-blond hair off her face and twisting it into a makeshift pony-tail. “If we ever find out who started that one, we owe ’em a big ol’ favor.” She gave Jo Lynn a look, like, “It was you, wasn’t it?”

But Jo didn’t bite. She didn’t say anything for a while. She just dug deep into her bright orange MJ hobo bag, looking for her lip gloss with the tiny mirror on the side so she could check her teeth for pieces of green from her salad.

“Yes, I still want Laura out of the Rosebuds,” she said, ignoring Trish’s comment about MySpace altogether. “More than you know.” She glanced up at the stubborn gray sky as the wind played in her hair and tugged at the ivy climbing up the school’s brick walls. “And I have a really good feeling it’ll happen soon. We just have to be careful.”

Her heartbeat raced, but she projected a calm she didn’t quite feel. Deep inside, she wasn’t as confident that Plan C to get Laura ousted was working fast enough, especially with Avery and Dillon complicating the matter.

“But we’ve got more work to do,” she told them. “We’re not done yet.”

“What kind of work, Jo?” Camie asked as Trisha leaned in to listen. “You saw her last night. Laura’s a train wreck. She can’t last in the Rosebuds much longer. The GSC must have already heard the talk about the baby. You know they’ll be all over her to prove she isn’t preggers.”

Just having the GSC on Laura’s case wasn’t enough for Jo anymore. She wanted to take Laura down
all
the way.

“I need to know just what she’s up to,” Jo Lynn told her friends. “Is she just after Avery, or is she trying to poach Dillon from me?” Even saying the words made Jo’s mouth taste sour, like she needed to rinse and spit.

“So what’s really going on with you and Big D?” Camie asked, then lowered her voice as a group of younger girls walked past. “I thought you planned to invite him to be your escort to the ball?”

“I still do,” Jo replied with an impatient sniff. “But you know how the Glass Slipper Club likes its debs to wait until a few months before the ball to invite peer escorts, just in case.”

Cam and Trisha nodded, heads bobbing like pigeons on a power line.

Every deb understood that the GSC didn’t even like Rosebuds inviting boyfriends to be their escorts at the ball, because that could end up being, well, messy.
As if my relationship with Dillon isn’t messy enough right now
, Jo mused.

She brushed at the tan and black plaid of her skirt, pushing it back down to her knees. She slid her feet back into her flats. “I’m not saying I think Dill would ever cheat on me. Still …” She weighed exactly how much to confide, finally forcing herself to just say it. “I didn’t tell y’all this before, but I found Laura’s number on Dillon’s cell phone.”

“No way!” Camie’s plucked eyebrows shot up.

“Omigod,” Trisha breathed.

“And that’s not all,” Jo went on, making herself forge ahead, because it was time to fess up, whether she wanted to or not. She needed her friends firmly on her side, or else they might not be so willing to stick out their necks for her. She wet her lips. “Dillon called Laura on Labor Day morning, sometime around when y’all saw her at the club.”

“What?” both her friends said at once.

“I couldn’t ask Dillon about it, or he’d know I’d been snooping in his phone.” She stopped, not going into it further. She couldn’t. It made her too crazed to think about it, particularly after she’d gotten a text from Dillon this morning, saying: I heard the rumor abt LB. I hope U didn’t have anything 2 do with it. All of a sudden he cared what happened
with Laura Bell? It was like her nightmare about the Ball coming true, and it positively made her sick!

Jo Lynn took a deep breath to settle down her racing pulse; then she told Camie and Trisha, “You asked what we needed to do next, so here’s my idea.” She paused for effect before letting it rip. “I think we should follow her, just for a few days. See where she goes, who she hooks up with. I want to catch her in the act, so there’s no way she can squirm free this time. Then I’m going to make her sorry she ever messed with me, because she obviously hasn’t learned her lesson.”

“You want us to tail her? Like on cop shows?” Trisha repeated, gawking. She dangled her sunglasses from her fingers, and her big-lashed eyes kept blinking, like she didn’t believe it.

“Yes, just like that,” Jo said icily, and started rolling down her sleeves so just the cuffs were turned up.

“And just how’re we supposed to do that?” Camie asked. “It’s not like we can track her on your GPS.”

“No, but she drives a cherry red Mercedes Roadster, and she’s like six freaking feet tall, so she’s not easy to miss,” Jo Lynn snapped, her shoulders so tense it felt like her head was connected to her neck by taut rubber bands. “I figure one of us can follow her when she leaves school and then another one of us can take over, like, a couple hours later.”

“Wow.” Camie pulled her shades off and squinted at Jo Lynn. “You’re totally serious, aren’t you?”

“Totally,” Jo assured them, surprised she was being second-guessed by her BFFs.

They always went along with all her ideas. It was just the way things worked.

“Tailing Laura Bell. Could we get in trouble for that?”
Trisha asked. “Like, for harassment or stalking or something?”

Jo Lynn looked hard at them both.
Could we get in trouble?
What was up with them? Whatever it was, it was pissing her off.

“Will you do it or not?” she asked, her drawl sounding clipped.

Either they were with her or they were against her, and they knew it. That was the unwritten code. If they abandoned her, she’d pick up two new BFFs who’d follow her blindly.

Camie and Trisha glanced at each other, and one of them mewled, “Jo, I’m just not sure it’s—”

The bell rang, and Jo Lynn started at the sound.

The few other girls who’d braved the clouds and cloying air in the courtyard began gathering up their books and purses, tossing their detritus from lunch, and heading back toward the building. Their chatter filled Jo Lynn’s ears, fighting for attention with the noisy thoughts in her head. She felt the dull beginnings of a headache.

Jo Lynn rose from the bench, slinging her purse over her shoulder, textbooks clutched to her chest. She raised her chin, refusing to show pain. How many pageants had she entered where it was her against the world? (Well, more like her and Bootsie against the world.) Like,
all
of them. If she had to finish taking Laura down by herself, then she would.

“Forget it,” she said to no one in particular, and started to walk. She had cut across the grass toward the stone path that crisscrossed the courtyard when Camie and Trisha caught up with her.

“Hey, Jo-L, wait up!” Trisha said, sounding a little breathless.