Truth or Dare (35 page)

“I made it all the way back!” she yelled, and suddenly laughter was tearing through her, huge, wracking laughs. She kept laughing as she rolled onto the wet sand, gasping for air.

“Looks like someone enjoyed her first date with a board,” Tim said, climbing out of the water behind her. He came over, smiling down at her in amusement.

“It was amazing,” she said when her laughter finally died down. She looked up at him, at his dark blue eyes, the same color as the ocean. “Thank you.”

“Ready to go again?” he asked.

Caitlin sat up, glancing at her watch. “Eight thirty?” she gasped when she saw the time. “How did almost an hour pass?”

Tim scrunched up his nose, looking disappointed. “Does that mean there won’t be a second date? The board’s going to be so disappointed.”

Caitlin stood up, thinking about the booth waiting for her at the Festival. “No,” she said suddenly. She grabbed the surfboard, looking out at the ocean. The waves kept rolling in, stopping for no one. “You can tell the board I’m not going anywhere.”

Let Eric Hyland deal with the booth. She was going to surf.

Saturday, 1
PM

TENLEY PACED ALONG THE WATER, HER FEET SINKING
lightly into the damp sand. Her stomach was protesting loudly against the turkey sandwich she’d had for lunch, and her palms had an annoyingly clammy sheen to them. It was ridiculous. She was
not
supposed to be nervous before a pageant. It wasn’t her MO. But apparently her body hadn’t been advised of that today.

Out on the water, a small sailboat rocked in the distance, the words
Fall Festival
splashed across the sail in orange. Tenley knew that down on Echo Boulevard, the FESTivities—as the signs all said—would be in full swing. She couldn’t help wishing, for just a second, that she could be there, riding the carousel and sucking on a whale pop and trying to guess how many lobsters were in the aquarium-sized tank.

When her dad was still alive, they always used to do the lobster guess together. He was always
so
sure they’d guessed right, even though they never did. The person who guessed closest won a fishshake—a milk shake with gummy fish in it—from the Crooked Cat Diner, so
every year at the end of the Festival, her dad would buy them two fishshakes and say, “See, I knew we’d win!”

Tenley kicked at the sand. What she needed to focus on right now was her routine. She’d practiced for hours last night, and it was
finally
looking the way it should, the ribbons rippling and coiling gracefully around her as she leaped and spun. Tenley smiled. As long as she kept her mind on her ribbons, she was going to kick Tricia’s cello-playing ass today. And then she was going to throw the party of the year to celebrate.

She pulled her phone out of her pocket as she headed back to the house to get ready. The screen was blank—no new calls or texts. Tenley sighed. She’d called Caitlin about a million times since Thursday night, but Caitlin was clearly avoiding her. She’d done an even better job of it in school yesterday, practically sprinting in the opposite direction every time she saw Tenley coming. Tenley missed her friend, but it was more than that, too. She was worried about Caitlin. That campaign speech she’d given yesterday had sounded all too much like the Caitlin from sixth grade—the scared little girl who used to call Tenley sobbing in the middle of the night.

Tenley headed to her room, gathering up everything she needed for the pageant: shoes and dresses and makeup and hairspray. If only she could have explained to Caitlin why she was in her room! Then maybe she’d know if her best friend was coming to watch her perform today. But in spite of it all, she was glad Caitlin had found her before she could take that underwear. Screw Sydney. She could hang her own Walmart-brand underwear on the Byrne Theater flagpole. Tenley was done messing with her best friend. She dialed Caitlin’s number one more time, but the phone went straight to voice mail. “Fine,” Tenley muttered, stuffing everything into her bag. “Silent treatment it is.”

“What’s that, Tiny?” Guinness asked, sticking his head into her room.

“Nothing that would interest you,” Tenley said as she grabbed her ribbons off her desk. She wasn’t in the mood for Guinness’s games today. “You know, little-girl stuff.”

“Well, I was just coming to tell you good luck,” Guinness said, ignoring her snippy tone. “Or should I say break a leg?”

Tenley looked down. Before every gymnastics meet, her dad used to say,
Go out-Tenner everyone, my little Tenner
. It was the only thing that could calm her nerves before she competed. She’d tried saying it to herself before her first few pageants, but it just wasn’t the same. “You know what they say about good luck,” Tenley said breezily, zipping up her bag. “You only need it when you’re not good.”

“Well, I’m glad I’ll get to see all this goodness in person, then,” Guinness said.

Tenley stared at him. “You’re coming to the pageant?”

“Someone’s got to represent the fam, right?” Guinness said. “And clearly it’s not going to be our jet-setting parents. The only reason Lanson came to my high school graduation was because a business meeting got canceled.”

“Sounds a lot like my mom,” Tenley said grudgingly. “Except instead of a business meeting, it’s usually a salon appointment.” She couldn’t help but smile as she slung her bag over her shoulder. Every time she started to give up on Guinness, he went and did something like this. “See you in the winner’s circle,” she sang out. She winked as she went out past him. “Just so you know, my favorite flowers are hydrangeas. Purple.”

As Tenley drove to the theater, she finally started to get pumped. It had been months since she’d competed in a pageant, and she was ready to be back out there—center stage, with the spotlight hot on her skin.
This was
her
moment. Her chance to remind Echo Bay exactly who she was.

The theater was just starting to fill up when Tenley got there. People had obviously arrived early to get the best seats; it was going to be a full house. She groaned as she pushed her way past several hollering kids. She hated when pageants allowed children in the audience. When you were cascading across a stage in an evening gown, the last thing you wanted to hear was a shrieking toddler.

As she stepped into the theater, familiar sounds zoomed at her, one after another: pattering feet and lecturing parents and the spritz and sizzle and hiss of hairspray and straightening irons and blow-dryers, all blending together into some kind of melody. Tenley felt a rush of adrenaline.

As she made her way to the backstage area, the first person she saw was Tricia. She was standing with her back to Tenley, getting a last-minute pep talk from her mom. “Just make sure to smile when you’re up there,” her mom was saying. In her size 20 jumper, it was clear
she
still lived up to the Fatty Patty family name. “No matter how focused you are on your cello.”

“She’s right,” Tenley offered graciously. She paused next to them, flashing them her best trophy-winning smile. “Smiles have been a sticking point in all the pageants I’ve been in before.” She gave Tricia a pat on the arm. “Good luck out there, Tricia. May the best girl win, right?” She didn’t bother waiting for a response. Flicking her hair over her shoulder, she sauntered backstage. “And I think we both know who that is,” she added happily under her breath.

The backstage area had been partitioned off into sections, separated by room dividers and thick red curtains. There was a makeup section, a hair section, and of course a curtained-off dressing area, for
competitors only. There were also mirrors everywhere. Some of the pageant entrants had even brought their own, their moms dragging them around behind them. The setup was nothing compared to the Miss Teen Nevada pageant, but for a local scholarship pageant, it wasn’t bad.

“What do you think, Mom?” Tenley heard a girl ask over in the makeup section. “Risqué Raspberry or Pretty Plum?” The girl, the brunette who’d done the tap number in the run-through, held out two tubes of lipstick in her hands. Her mother bent down, studying the tubes as if they were amoebas under a microscope. She couldn’t remember the last time her mom had thought that much about anything she’d asked her. Not that Tenley needed her to.
She
already knew her color palette. This wasn’t her first rodeo.

On the other side of the stage, Tenley noticed several girls staring at her as the red-haired yodeler whispered something to them. Tenley stood up a little taller. Apparently her reputation had preceded her. Competing against Miss Teen Nevada herself clearly had these girls quaking in their stilettos.

Someone tapped Tenley on the shoulder from behind. “Miss Tenley Reed?” an official-sounding voice asked.

“Interviews aren’t allowed before the pageant,” Tenley said briskly, turning around to give a woman in a puke-green suit a disapproving glare. “You’ll just have to wait until after I win, like everyone else.”

The woman narrowed her steely gray eyes at her. “I am not here for an interview, Miss Reed,” she said. “But I
am
here to discuss things that aren’t allowed before the pageant.” She placed a flawlessly manicured hand on Tenley’s wrist. “Would you come with me for a moment?”

Tenley shook the woman’s hand off. “I have to get ready for the pageant. Can’t this wait until afterward?”

“No, Miss Reed. I’m afraid it can’t.” She nodded sharply toward a small private office behind the changing area. “This way.”

Tenley let out an impatient sigh as she followed the woman there. “Can you at least tell me what’s going on?”

The woman waited until she’d closed the door to the office behind them before replying. “What’s going on is this.” She pulled a thin packet out of a scaly alligator-skin purse and thrust it into Tenley’s hands. “If you take a look at item R2 on our bylaws, you will find that the Susan K. Miller Scholarship Pageant expressly forbids any kind of elective plastic surgery.”

Tenley’s jaw came unhinged as she stared at the woman. “But where…” she stammered. “I mean what… what are you talking about?”

“I do believe, Miss Reed, that breast augmentation is considered an elective plastic surgery. Which means I’m going to have to ask you to forfeit the Susan K. Miller Scholarship Pageant.”

Fury raged inside Tenley. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said angrily. “This… this is character defamation! I’m going to have my lawyer contact you immediately.” So what if she didn’t have a lawyer? She could find one. And if anyone deserved a long battle in court, it was this smug, condescending, fashion disaster of a woman. “Who are you, anyway?” Tenley continued, shoving the woman’s precious bylaws back at her.

The woman smiled tightly at Tenley. “I’m Susan K. Miller,” she informed her. “And I don’t appreciate leaving my house to find
this
waiting for me on my stoop.” She pulled something else out of her purse. Tenley recognized it immediately. It was the flyer Sydney had given her copies of at the pier last weekend: the before-and-after shots of Tenley’s altered chest.

Tenley felt suddenly burning hot.

“Now, I’m going to have to ask you to leave the premises, Miss Reed, so our legitimate competitors can begin their pageant.”

“I…” Tenley whispered. But there was nothing left to say. Tears blurred her vision. She spun around, bursting out of the office. Out in the audience, she could hear people laughing and talking, the steady buzz of noise and anticipation that made the theater feel electric. She thought she heard someone call out her name from backstage, but she ignored it, tears sliding down her cheeks as she sprinted outside. She shivered as she cut through the throng of Audis and Mercedes and BMWs in the parking lot. How could this have happened?

How could Sydney
do
this to her?

She was only halfway across the parking lot when she saw the flowers. A huge bouquet of purple hydrangeas, sitting on the hood of her car. Something sharp stabbed at her heart. She couldn’t believe Guinness would do something so sweet. And worse, she couldn’t believe she’d have to face him after what had happened. Her tears came faster and she wiped them away as she plucked a card out of the bouquet.

But as she opened up the card, the whole world seemed to stop. Because the flowers weren’t from Guinness.

Look what happens when you ignore my dares. Guess you’re not Daddy’s little Tenner anymore. Better listen to me this time. Come unlock Stepdaddy’s yacht at midnight on Monday. Or the whole school will see your
true
assets, just like Susan K. Miller did….

Saturday, 9:08
PM

CAITLIN INHALED THE COOL, SALTY NIGHT AIR AS
she made her way down Dune Way toward Tenley’s house. She’d spent several hours there earlier, helping Tenley set up for the party and talking—and talking and talking. Only when Caitlin realized it was getting dark out did she finally run home to change.

But now she took her time as she walked the four ocean blocks back to Tenley’s place, trying to digest everything they’d discussed.

The truth was plain and simple: The darer had done what Caitlin couldn’t.

It wasn’t that Caitlin hadn’t considered sabotaging Tenley. For a little while, when she was out on the water with Tim, letting the surfboard rise and fall beneath her, she’d really thought about it. If that picture of her and Joey got out, it would ruin her. For as long as Caitlin could remember, she’d been the angel, the good girl. If she wasn’t that person anymore, who would she be? But every time she’d tried to think
through a plan (Ruin Tenley’s costume? Steal her brand-new ribbons?), pain began to pulse in her head.

Whoever Caitlin might be, she wasn’t that.

So she’d ignored the dare and had gone to watch Tenley perform instead. Except Tenley had never gotten up onstage.

As Caitlin watched girl after girl perform, she’d felt a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach. Something wasn’t right. She’d cheered along with the rest of the crowd when Tricia was crowned Miss Susan K. Miller, but the second the pageant let out, she’d bolted out of the theater and gone straight to Tenley’s house. She’d found her curled up in bed with one of her Steiff teddy bears, her face red and tear-stained.