Gluttony

Chapter 5

“We’re going to die.” Harper gripped the bar until her knuckles turned white. One loose screw was all it would take to send her plummeting. She looked down-despite every instinct in her body screaming not to. The people were the size of pinheads. She wondered which one she would land on. “We are so going to die.”

“It’s just a ride,” Adam pointed out, stretching back in the roller-coaster seat as if it were a lounge chair and grinning up at the sky. (The clouds seemed-to Harper, at least-unnaturally close.) “Enjoy it.”

“I was enjoying standing flat on the ground,” Harper snapped, as the car continued its slow, terrifying creep up the track. They were tilted back at nearly a right angle, and the ascent seemed to last forever. Which would have been okay with Harper, except for one little problem: What goes up, must come down. Fast. “I was enjoying the view from nine hundred feet up without feeling the asinine desire to get on a roller coaster that some idiot thought it would be neat to build on top of a building.” She closed her eyes.

“You’re the one who wanted to suck up to the girl at the controls,” Adam pointed out.

“How are we supposed to suck up to her from here?” Harper shot back. “How are we supposed to enjoy a concert when we’re splattered on the ground a thousand feet down?”

“Why do you always have to look on the dark side of everything?” Adam complained.

“Why do you have to act like everything’s a game? Some things aren’t fun.”

“I’m having fun,” Adam countered.

“And that’s all that counts?” Harper asked.

“You’re going to lecture me about being self-centered?”

“I’m-” Harper’s next words flew out of her mouth and her mind as the cars rolled over the peak of the incline and…

“Aaaaaaaaaah!” she shrieked as they whipped through the air, the wind slicing her cheeks and her head pressed back flat against the seat. They zoomed down the track, up a hill, around a loop, the sky beneath her and the ground above, her hair flying everywhere and her stomach knocking around, banging her intestines, crushing her lungs. She kept her eyes squeezed shut and screamed and screamed, waiting for the nightmare to end until, with a heart-stopping jolt, it did.

Harper took a deep breath, then another. “Are we alive?” she whispered, her eyes still shut tight.

“You were really scared, weren’t you?” Adam said, and she could hear the surprise in his voice. She would have shot back some snide comment about how he might have picked up on that from the hundred times she’d said it, back when he was dragging her into the seat. But she didn’t have the energy. She was too relieved that it was over, and they were still alive.

There was nothing fun about screaming metal, uncontrollable speed, spinning and plunging and waiting for the crash.

At least, not when you’d been through the real thing.

Harper realized that her hands were still gripping the thin metal bar, and they weren’t alone. Adam’s left hand was wrapped over the top of her right one, his grip warm and firm, as if he’d meant to keep her safe.

He let go first.

“Here at Heavenly Helpers, it’s all about you,” the attendant had chirped. “What you want, what you need, whatever makes you happy.”

It had, in fact, sounded a bit like heaven to Miranda, whose life was usually all about anyone and everyone else. But the spa’s slogan soon proved more fiction than fact, since whatever made Miranda happy most definitely did not include the Heavenly Peace Floral Skin Resurfacing and Pore Varnish facial.

“For your skin, dear,” the woman had chirped as she slapped and pulled Miranda’s face, then rubbed on a layer of acidic slime, ignoring Miranda’s protestations. “Those pores are enormous, and caked with bacteria-when was your last facial?”

How about never?

Nor would she have chosen the Warming Stone Mint Massage with Body Wrap.

“It’s a must!” The burly male masseur said, bustling her off to the steam room after a painful and slightly embarrassing hour of rubbing, pinching, and moisturizing. “The heat and the aromatherapy will fuse together in a blessed blend of healing vapors. It’s unforgettable!”

But as far as Miranda was concerned, it was just hot and boring. And when she emerged, still covered in a thin film of all-organic mint-infused mud and smelling like a bag of potpourri, she felt neither relaxed nor rejuvenated. She just felt slimy.

“Isn’t this heavenly?” the woman to her left asked, as they lay back on over-padded chairs, cucumbers covering their eyes and gauzy netting draped down over their bodies as if to protect them from mosquito sized bad karma.

“Mmm-hmmm,” Miranda mumbled, trying not to seem ungrateful for her birthday present, even though the stranger in the next chair obviously had no idea who Harper was or why it would matter that Miranda feigned gratitude. “It’s great.” She couldn’t help but wonder what Harper was thinking. Didn’t her best friend know her at all? Maybe, just maybe, if they’d done this together, they could have laughed at the manicurist’s beehive hairdo and tag-team flirted with the hot masseur. But Harper apparently preferred to spend the day without her, and Miranda was left to spend her last day as a seventeen-year-old alone, getting scolded.

The manicurist scolded her for biting her nails; the facialist scolded her for poor skin hygiene; the masseur scolded her for letting stress build up in her muscles and tie knots in her back.

Try living my life, she’d wanted to tell him. And then talk to me about stress management.

“My sister and I come here every year,” the woman confided. “Our husbands go off and gamble or”-she tittered-“at least that’s what they tell us we’re doing. And we come here. It’s a tradition-we’ve been doing it for years.”

“Mmm-hmmm,” Miranda mumbled again, wondering how she was supposed to relax when they stuck her in the relaxation room with someone who wouldn’t leave her alone.

“Who are you here with, dear?” the woman asked.

The door opened before Miranda was forced to admit the truth: She was alone.

“Miranda Stevens?” a scratchy voice called out. “Time for your wax.”

Miranda sat up and peeled the cucumber slices off her eyes, delighted to be leaving the so-called soothing sounds of the rain forest and her Chatty Cathy meditation-mate. Delighted, that is, until the woman’s words sunk in. She’d seen “bikini wax” on the schedule the spa had handed her when she first walked in. But she’d elected to ignore it. She’d never had one before, and would have been more than happy to leave it at that.

But that wasn’t the kind of happiness the Heavenly Helpers were shooting for.

“Nonsense,” the attendant told Miranda when she tried to talk her way out of the appointment. “It’s very freeing. And your boyfriend will love it.”

Miranda was all for the “if you build it, he will come” theory of boyfriend hunting, but as far as she was concerned, that applied to things like chic hairstyles and sexy miniskirts. A freshly waxed bikini line wouldn’t turn her into much of an irresistible draw unless she started parading around town in a bikini… in which case, unwanted hair would be the least of her concerns.

Still, she lay down on the table, as the waxer insisted, wearing only her bra and underwear and feeling strangely like she was at the doctor: chilly, exposed, vulnerable, and slightly bored.

The attendant approached carrying a long strip and a brush dripping with wax, then stared down at Miranda with disdain. “You’ll have to take those off,” she said.

“Take what off?” There wasn’t much to choose from. She pointed at her bra. “You mean…”

“No.” The attendant scowled, as if she had better things to do than waste her time with wax neophytes who didn’t know the dress code. She pointed down at Miranda’s pale blue bikini briefs. “You’re blocking my access.”

“But they’re bikini,” Miranda protested. “So it should be-”

“We do Brazilian waxes here,” the woman informed her. In the midst of her confusion, Miranda noted that the waxer could use some wax herself on her upper lip; she decided not to mention it.

“I don’t… is that some special type of…?”

The woman rolled her eyes. “We wax it all, honey. We leave you completely bare.”

“Completely… bare?” Miranda repeated, understanding dawning over her, swiftly followed by horror.

“Completely bare. Down there.”

And that’s when Miranda got the hell out.

“You guys have a fun ride?” Carl’s friend Esther gave her replacement a quick wave and laced her arms through Harper’s and Adam’s, leading them to the opposite end of the roof.

“I did,” Adam began, “but I think Harper-”

“It was great,” Harper cut in. “Thanks so much for the free ride. Adam was just-”

“Thought his name was Kane?” Esther cut in.

“It is,” Harper said quickly. “Adam’s just his middle name. I call him that to bug him. Uh… anyway, he was just telling me how grateful he was for the free ride. Weren’t you?” She glared at him, as if he was failing to get the message.

Which, apparently, he was, because Adam had no idea what he was supposed to say next. “Um, yeah, thanks. It was great.”

“Cool.” Esther pulled out a pack of cigarettes. She took one out, then tipped the pack toward Harper and Adam, who both shook their heads. Shrugging, she hunched over, trying to protect her lighter from the wind. “I hate it up here,” she complained. “It takes the whole damn break to light the thing up,” she complained.

“Adam can help you,” Harper said quickly.

I can? Adam mouthed. Harper just grabbed the lighter and tossed it to him and, with luck, he got the flame lit and held it to Esther’s cigarette.

She leaned against the railing, tipped her head back, and sucked in one long drag, then another. Finally, she seemed to remember she wasn’t alone. “So, Carl sent you?” Esther asked. She gave Adam an appraising look, then grinned. “Lucky me.”

Adam had been off the dating market for a while, but he knew flirting when he saw it. Harper’s expression remained neutral, as if she hadn’t noticed-or didn’t care.

“So what can I do for you?” Esther asked.

Adam waited for Harper to speak, but when she didn’t, he stepped in. “Well, this is a little awkward, but-”

“Just tell her,” Harper said quickly. She gave Esther a half smile. “He can be a little shy, especially around cute girls.”

What? Before he could say anything, Harper gave him the signal they’d used when they were kids whenever an intruder had walked in on one of their clubhouse meetings (membership was exclusive, limited to Harper and Adam). She made a fist with her right hand and, tucking her fingers under her chin, pressed her thumb to her lips. Meaning: Shut the hell up. Now.

Esther fluffed her hair out and tipped her head to one side. “So you think I’m cute?” She ran her hand lightly across Adam’s bicep. “You’re not too bad yourself.”

Adam got the plan: Flirt with her, charm her, then get the tickets out of her. And given Esther’s long, tan legs peeking out from beneath her short sundress, her pert nose, big brown eyes, and full lips, the mission shouldn’t have been much of a burden.

But it still felt like one. Not because he wasn’t attracted to her, and not because he felt guilty-just because he didn’t feel like flirting.

He would do it, anyway, for Harper.

“Esther’s a great name,” he said, the best he could come up with on short notice. “It’s unusual. But really pretty.”

She shrugged. “It’s my grandmother’s,” she said. “Most of my friends call me Estie.”

Adam flashed a grin. “Okay, Estie. So, say I just got into town and I’m looking for something fun to do-any recommendations?”

“Why recommend when I could show?” she asked, stepping forward and looping an arm around Adam’s shoulder. “Where should we go first?”

“Uh, don’t you have to work?” Harper asked, sounding a little cranky.

“I can switch shifts,” Estie said. “It’s not every day that a guy this cute walks into my life.” She tousled Adam’s hair, and he squirmed away. “Aw, he is shy, just like you said. So adorable!”

“Yeah. Adorable,” Harper muttered. “The thing is, we’ve got stuff to do-”

“We’re on vacation,” Adam pointed out. “We’ve got plenty of time. So, Estie, where shall we go?”

“The gondola rides at the Venetian are über-romantic,” she told him, then frowned at Harper. “They only seat two, though, so you should probably stay here. It was nice to meet you, though. Come on, Adam-Kane-whoever you are.”

Estie grabbed Adam’s hand and began tugging him toward the elevator doors. He gave Harper a helpless look, then followed.

Harper didn’t look in the mood to help; she looked in the mood to attack. “No!” Estie and Adam froze. “He can’t go with you.”

“He can’t?”

“I can’t?”

“And why not?” Estie asked.

“Because he’s-we’re-he was just-you just can’t,” she sputtered, slapping the railing for emphasis. “Just tell her you have to go.”

Estie burst into laughter. “That took longer than I thought,” she exclaimed.

“What?” Harper and Adam asked together, completely confused.

“Carl called me to tell me you guys were coming over here, and that you were looking for Crash Burners tickets,” Estie admitted. “Trying to flirt them out of me?” She shook her head at Adam. “That’s low.”

Harper sagged back against the railing, looking half relieved and half humiliated. Adam was still just confused. “How did you know that’s what I was trying to do?” His flirting skills had never let him down in the past-but maybe it wasn’t like riding a bicycle, after all.

“Come on, you guys are obviously together.”

Adam and Harper just looked at each other, then back at Estie. “Us?” Adam asked incredulously. “Did Carl tell you that?”

“No, it’s just obvious,” Estie said. “You are, aren’t you?”

Adam wondered which part of the hostile, nonstop bickering, no-touching interactions between him and Harper could have screamed “relationship.”

“Definitely not,” he said firmly. “No way.”

“Seriously?” Estie looked back and forth between the two of them. “Well, then, you should be.”

Adam laughed-and then, too late, caught the look on Harper’s face. He wanted to apologize; he hadn’t been laughing at the idea of the two of them together. It was just the whole awkward, painful, utterly ridiculous situation. But he couldn’t say any of that in front of a stranger. And even if he’d been alone, he suspected he couldn’t have explained it, anyway. He wouldn’t have known how.

“Man, I was so sure there was something between you guys,” Estie said.

Harper looked over the railing, out at the sprawling strip of lights and people far beneath them. “Trust me,” she said in a flat voice. “You couldn’t be more wrong.”

“That’s my final offer,” Kane said firmly. “Take it or-”

“I’ll take it.” Jackson, who’d proved a shrewder negotiator than Kane had expected, extended his hand, then whipped it away again just as Kane was about to shake. “On one condition.”

“Try me.” The price was right, the wrappers were flawless, and there was no way Kane was going to screw up his first big deal.

“Hook me up with your hot, blond friend.”

Kane let out a whoosh of air. He wanted to say yes. He would have loved to say yes, for more reasons than one. But…

“No can do.” Kane slumped down on one of the lobby chairs. “In case you didn’t notice, she hates me.”

Jackson nodded and raised his eyebrows. “That’s what made her so hot. Spicy food and spicy women-that’s what it’s all about, am I right?”

Being so close to a black hole of classlessness made Kane’s skin crawl. But his facade-smooth, polite, mildly bored, and immune to shock-was well worn and impossible to shake. “You know it,” he agreed, baring his teeth in the imitation of a smile. “But Beth’s about as spicy as vanilla pudding. You wouldn’t be interested. Trust me.”

“And you know this because…?”

“Let’s just say, been there, done that.” Kane winced at the sleaze, but pushed on. “If you know what I mean.”

“Really?” Jackson’s eyes widened, and he held out his palm for Kane to slap. “Nice.”

“Not really,” Kane said wryly. “So do we have a deal?”

“I don’t know.” Jackson laced his fingers together and stretched his arms out in front of him, a yawn contorting his face. “I was really counting on Barbie to sweeten the pot. Now, I don’t know…”

“Wait. You say you like bitter, argumentative girls?” He was getting an idea. He didn’t much like it, but that didn’t keep him from recognizing its genius.

“You know it,” Jackson said eagerly, leaning forward. “You got someone else?”

“How do you feel about sarcasm?”

“Love it.”

“How about pessimism?” Kane continued.

“Hot.”

“Insults? Arguments? The burning need to always get the last word?”

Jackson rubbed his palms together. “Bring it on. So what’s she look like?”

Kane wasn’t the type to grapple with indecision. He usually knocked it out in a single punch and vaulted right over it. But this time, something made him pause, at least for a moment.

But it was no more than that.

“Well, let me ask you this,” he finally said, a plan coalescing. “How do you feel about redheads?”

“Excrement.”

“Simply awful.”

“The worst I’ve ever seen.”

“You should sue your guitar teacher for criminal incompetence.”

Beth cringed at every word out of the judges’ mouths. Reed, Fish, and Hale, on the other hand, stood lined up at the edge of the stage, taking it all without a single change in facial expression. Beth knew that, were she up there, listening to a panel of so-called experts bash her talent and smash her dreams, she’d be a wreck. In tears, inconsolable; but Reed looked as if he was barely listening, and the other two followed his cue.

The All-American Band Battle had introduced a new judging tactic this year-if you could call a total rip-off of a played-out reality TV show “new.” The organizers had assembled a team of experts-the Gee Whiz Kids, a pop foursome with pseudo-indie cred and a cult following, in town to open for the Crash Burners-and given them free reign to bash the bands in front of the audience. Beth had been watching for an hour and she had yet to see the panel give anyone a thumbs up. That said, she’d also not seen a single band come in for the beating that the Blind Monkeys were taking. Not even close.

“Can you even call that music?” asked one of the Gee Whiz Kids who-certainly to the delight of the organizers-had a possibly authentic British accent. “Because I call it noise, plain and simple.”

“And the song? What was that?” another asked. “No, really, I’m asking-you, lead singer guy, where the hell did you get that?”

Reed leaned into the mic. “I wrote it,” he said, looking out into the audience and meeting Beth’s eyes. She knew the lyrics by heart:

I don’t know where you are,

but I’m there with you.

Your lips, your tongue, your fire

It’s all I wanna do…

She’d often wondered whether he had written it about her-for her-but she’d never had the nerve to ask. Still, the song was one of her favorites.

“It’s rubbish,” the vaguely British guy snapped, dismissing it with a wave of his hand. “Pointless lyrics, bad rhymes, sappy sentiment. This isn’t nursery school.”

“And it’s not a karaoke bar!” one of the other judges chimed in; he’d used the same line on almost every band. Apparently, he thought it quite clever. So did Beth… or at least she had, the first time she’d heard it, back before Simon Cowell had stopped recycling put-downs. A million times later, with the phrase spilling from the mouth of an already washed-up wannabe, and aimed at her boyfriend, she was less than amused.

“Judges?” British guy asked, turning to face the panel. “What do you say?” By the rules of the competition, the four of them would now vote on whether to pass the Blind Monkeys on to the next round or eject them from the competition. Beth wasn’t waiting on the edge of her seat.

Judge #1: “They’re out.”

Judge #2: “So far out, they’re almost in again… but, not.”

Hilarious, Beth thought. Somebody get this guy on Letterman.

Judge #3: “Out. Go find a karaoke bar and leave us alone.”

Judge #4, with a smart British lilt that gave Beth a serious case of déjà vu: “Out. Best of luck, fellows. You’re going to need it.”

As the guys filed offstage, Beth rushed out of the auditorium and hurried to meet them at the stage door. Her heart ached for Reed. She just wanted to find him, comfort him, fix him. Strong as he was, he couldn’t have escaped something like that without breaking. He had comforted her so many times, mostly without even knowing why, and without asking. He would just let her cry in his arms, clinging to him, unable to tell him the reason for fear it would drive him away.

He never seemed to need her, not the way she needed him. But maybe now she could pay him back.

Not that she was glad, she told herself. Not that she would ever want him to fail. She just wanted her chance to prove how much she cared about him-and this was it. She would reassure him that she knew he was amazing, no matter what anyone else thought.

And they would both remember that he needed her too.

“I’m so sorry!” she cried, as soon as he emerged from backstage. Fish and Hale followed behind, laughing-Beth wasn’t surprised. They had no ambition; there was nothing to be crushed. But Reed looked even paler than usual, drawn into himself. “You were so amazing. I don’t know what they were talking about.”

She tried to hug him, but he neatly sidestepped her. “They were right,” he said in a hollow, wooden voice. “We played like ass. And the song-”

“I love that song,” she assured him, compromising by stepping behind him and putting her arms around his waist, pressing her head against his shoulder blades.

“It’s crap.”

“No-”

“Beth. Just-” He pulled her arms apart and stepped away. “Just let it go. It’s fine. They were right. I’m over it.”

“Reed…” She wanted to touch him again, to remind him that she was there-that he wanted her there-but forced herself not to push. “It’s just one opinion.”

“Actually, it’s four.” His laugh was short and off-key.

“Maybe it was just-”

“Yo, tough break.” Star la rounded the corner and gave Reed a sympathetic punch on the shoulder. She waved at the guys, but didn’t acknowledge Beth.

“You were watching?” Reed’s voice shot to a higher octave and, though it might have been Beth’s imagination, he seemed to stand slightly straighter. Taller. “We were playing like shit today.”

Beth put her hand on his shoulder. “No you-”

“Yeah,” Star la interrupted. “It happens. But the song’s not bad-ever think about switching it up in the bridge, have your drummer shift to 4/4 and then maybe jumping a key?”

To Beth, it all sounded like a foreign language. But Reed suddenly brightened up. “That’s not bad,” he mused. “Fish, you get that?”

“Yeah, I heard. Could work.”

“And I was thinking, maybe in that first verse…”

Beth tuned out. She stared at the floor. Counted the lights in the ceiling. Tried not to notice that Reed and Star la looked like a matching pair in their vintage tees and black denim, while Beth looked like a refugee from a J. Crew clearance sale. She’d always thought that belly button piercings looked kind of slutty, but on Star la… well, slutty, yes. But she couldn’t help notice that Reed’s eyes kept dropping down to the glint of silver that poked out above her low-riding jeans. Stop worrying, she told herself. Reed isn’t Adam. He would never…

She didn’t even want to put it into words, because that might make it real.

“Beth, sound okay to you?”

“What?” He was looking at her again, waiting for an answer. But to what?

“Star la’s done here and she says she can show us some bar downtown where all the locals hang out. You want to?” Reed had never expected anything from her before, but now it was clear: He expected an answer, and he expected it to be a yes.

“I don’t have my ID on me,” she said hesitantly, thankful that it was true.

“No problem.” Star la grinned. “This isn’t an ID kind of place. You’ll see.”

“Beth?” Reed curled his arm around her waist and tugged her toward him. “If you don’t want to, we don’t have to, but…”

“No. Sounds great,” she said, hoping she seemed sincere. She’d wanted to help him, and if this is what it took to cheer him up-if Starla cheered him up, with her stupid piercings and her tattoos and her oh-so-happening bar scene-then that’s what it took. Tonight wasn’t about Beth; it was about Reed. She had no reason to feel threatened, she reminded herself. And even if she did, she wasn’t going to let that stand in his way.