Envy

Chapter 6

It had taken Harper about twenty-four hours to notice that Miranda wasn’t speaking to her-unanswered calls, unreturned messages, a cold shoulder in the hallway and an empty seat in the cafeteria. By Tuesday night it had become pretty clear to Harper that she’d somehow screwed up. She knew it would take less than ten minutes to get Miranda-the ultimate pushover, at least when it came to Harper-to forgive her for it. Too bad she didn’t have the slightest clue what “it” was.

But maybe she could bluff it out.

After countless unreturned messages (“Rand, come on, call me back-I’m sorry, I totally screwed up. Call me!”), the phone finally rang.

“Do you even know what you’re apologizing for?” Miranda asked as soon as Harper picked up the phone.

Harper squirmed. Sometimes she was sorry Miranda knew her so well.

“Of course I do,” she said indignantly. “And I’m sorry-I swear, I’ll never do it again.”

“What?”

“I said, I’ll never do it again, I promise.”

Miranda sucked in a sharp, exasperated breath. “No, I heard you. I mean, what will you never do again?”

Harper paused. “Well, I’ll never do anything like this again, I’ll tell you that much.”

Miranda snorted. “You’re unbelievable-you really have no idea, do you?”

Harper crumbled under the pressure. “Okay, you got me. No, I don’t. But I’m sorry, I swear-just tell me what I’m supposed to be sorry about.”

“Well, if you only had a brain, maybe you could figure it out,” Miranda said cryptically.

“If I only had a-oh God, The Wizard of Oz. Shit, Miranda, I totally forgot!”

“Uh, yeah.”

“I really 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 really liked the movie. “I totally 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 totally 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 totally 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 really 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 still 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 sympathetically. “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 all 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 equally 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 really 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 Will Survive,” the karaoke machine had finally 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 Halloween), a two-gallon bottle of Diet Coke and another of Hawaiian Punch (mixers), a six-pack of Jell-O pudding (because, well, 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 full 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 finally 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.”

“Well 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 still 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 followed the directions. I think.” She ducked unsuccessfully as Miranda threw a pillow at her head.

“Look what you’ve done to me!” Miranda yelled. She slumped down on the bed and burst into-well, Harper couldn’t tell 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, all 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 fell 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 kill 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 still looked like a Muppet. Things might not seem so jolly in the light of day.

After all, 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 all week-though she wasn’t even sure what would classify as “weird” these days. Stand-offish? Short-tempered? Irritable? How was that any different, really, 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 really 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, all 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). Really 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 finally 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 dollars trying to win her a prize-but the water gun target shoot, the whack-a-mole, even the basketball free throw game failed to cough up any booty. Finally Beth tried her hand at Skee-Ball, 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 call him over. That was before she noticed the buxom brunette on his arm. Kane waved eagerly and hurried over to say hello, his Kewpie doll following 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 hollow space in her head.

You can’t judge her before she even opens her mouth, Beth chided herself, appalled 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 pull 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’ll 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 called out from amid the tickle storm. He gestured to the small stuffed elephant Beth was holding in her arms; Hilary was toting a stuffed pink panda about four times as large.

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

“A true champion, eh?” Kane called jovially. 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.”

Beth tore her gaze away with difficulty.

“Let’s go,” she urged Adam again. “Now.”

Once they were a safe distance away, Adam began to shake with laughter.

“He’s a real piece of work,” he said, shaking his head.

“Him? What about her?” Beth asked as they wandered toward the Ferris wheel.

“Ah, she’s no different from any of the other girls he picks up. Smarter, maybe.”

“Smarter? You’ve got to be kidding me.” Beth rolled her eyes and climbed into a Ferris wheel cart after Adam. They began to swing upward toward the stars.

“No, it’s true-think about it, any girl with half a brain at our school is too smart to go near him.”

“That’s a nice way to talk about your best friend,” she scolded him.

“What? He’d admit it himself-the guy’s a player. Besides, you’re the one always calling him a sleaze.”

“That was before I got to know him.”

“Trust me, Beth, if you knew him the way I do, you’d believe me. I love the guy and all, but I gotta call it like I see it.” He put an arm around her shoulders and pulled her close to him, running a warm hand up and down her bare shoulders. Beth shivered, suddenly noticing the cool night air blowing past.

“How about we stop talking about Kane and his latest bimbo and just enjoy the view,” Adam suggested.

“It is beautiful,” Beth agreed, looking out over the glittering sprawl beneath them. A range of low-slung mountains loomed in the distance, silhouetted by the full moon.

They sat quietly for a moment until Beth couldn’t take it anymore-the words boiled up inside of her and finally leaked out.

“I just don’t see why he does it!” she exclaimed, flinging her arms up for emphasis.

“Who?”

“Kane-he’s so much better than these girls.”

“Why are you getting so angry?” Adam asked in frustrated confusion. “What do you care?”

“I just-I just want him to be happy. Don’t you? He’s your friend.”

“That’s right, he’s my friend,” he repeated. “And I can tell you that he is happy. I’m the one sitting up here while my girlfriend goes crazy over another guy. Too jealous of Kane to care whether I’m happy?”

“I am not jealous,” Beth protested indignantly.

“Whatever.”

“I just think he’s a great guy,” she insisted. “He deserves better.”

“Like who? You?”

“Stop it, Adam,” she said irritably. “If you don’t want to talk about him anymore, we won’t talk about him anymore. You don’t have to make such a big deal about it.”

He crossed his arms and peered out over the side, away from her. “Fine.”

“Fine.”

And so they didn’t talk at all.

Kaia knew things. It was second nature now, after her long years of training-part skill, part talent, whatever. Everyone needs a hobby. In New York, after all those years with the same people, the same streets, the same hangouts, it had been easy. You just had to listen, ask the right questions, be in the right place at the right time, learn how to be invisible. This last, for Kaia, had been the hardest lesson to learn, as she’d made a life out of being seen, being noticed-but it turned out that didn’t always serve her purposes. Knowledge was power, and when you were a teenager, held hostage by the arbitrary whims of adults who mistakenly thought they knew best, you needed all the power you could get.

After sifting through the skeletons in the closets of half of the Upper West Side, the denizens of Grace, California, didn’t really pose much trouble for Kaia’s investigative skills, especially since, at the moment, she had very little else to do. So even though she’d been in town for only a month, she knew things, big and small.

She knew that the servants played poker together in the room above the garage every Sunday night-and that their drink supplies always came courtesy of the Sellers family liquor cabinet. She knew that Alicia, the married maid, was screwing Howard, Kaia’s father’s driver. She knew that the Haven High principal was having an affair with her English teacher, that Adam’s mother was well deserving of her reputation as the town slut, that her gym teacher was an alcoholic kleptomaniac, that her middle-aged mailman was still emotionally debilitated by the tragic loss of his mother in 1987, and that the woman who ran the local post office was a thirty-seven-year-old virgin. Of course she knew about Harper’s and Kane’s little crushes-that was child’s play.

And she knew that every Friday night from eight p.m. to closing, the bar stool on the far left in the Prairie Dog Bar and Grill was occupied by one Mr. Jack Powell.

Yes, knowing things could come in handy.

It was a hole in the wall, with room for no more than ten customers at once (though crowding was never a problem). The grill, if it had ever truly existed, must have broken long ago, for the only food available was the stale peanut and pretzel mix filling the spotted beer mugs spread across the bar, and the moldy cheese left as bait in the mousetraps in the corners. Other than the bartender, a smiling old man with no hair and plenty of rounded edges, Jack Powell was the only one there.

She sidled up to the bar and hopped onto the stool next to him. He was hunched over a mug of beer, reading a book. No Exit, by Sartre. How appropriate.

“Kind of a bleak choice for Friday night,” she observed, peering over his shoulder at the tiny print.

He looked up in horror and practically fell off his stool at the sight of her.

“Are you stalking me now?” he asked drily, regaining his composure as she laughed in his face.

“Please-you should be so lucky. I’m here for a drink and some peace and quiet, just like you.”

“And until a moment ago I thought I’d found it,” he grumbled.

“Can I get a Corona?” she called to the bartender, ignoring Powell.

“Don’t serve her,” Powell instructed him. “She’s under age.”

The bartender winked. “Hey, buddy, I won’t tell if you won’t.” He slid a bottle down the bar toward Kaia. “On the house, beautiful.”

“You must be pretty used to getting exactly what you want,” Powell said in disgust.

“Pretty much,” she agreed.

“You’re fighting a losing battle this time.”

“You think this is me fighting?” She shook her head. He could be so cute when he was being clueless. “Please-this is me on low gear, getting a drink. It’s just good luck we two lonely hearts happened to run into each other.”

“And you just happened to be wearing… practically nothing?” he asked sardonically, gesturing toward her barely-there silk top.

“So you noticed,” she said with pleasure, running her fingers lightly along her bare breastbone. “And here I thought it was just my imagination, your staring at my chest all the time.”

“It’s a bit difficult not to, with your shoving it in my face like that.”

“Jack, Jack, Jack.” She shook her head ruefully. “You can insult me all you want. I’m not leaving.”

“No, but I am.” He closed his book and stood up, slapping a ten-dollar bill down on the bar. “Thanks, Joey,” he called to the bartender.

“And where will you go?” Kaia asked. “Home? To sit alone in your pathetic little bachelor pad until you can force yourself to go to sleep? Or maybe to the library-would that be more your speed?”

“I’ll be quite happy to go anywhere you’re not,” he informed her. “Thanks for ruining my night.”

“I’m the best part of your night, and you know it. Or were you having more fun a few minutes ago, sitting here alone in this cellar, mooning over your beer like a drunken poet?”

“Fun doesn’t seem to be in my vocabulary these days,” he admitted with a dispirited sigh. “This isn’t the town for it.”

“You’re just not looking hard enough, Mr. Powell.” She put her finger softly to his lips and raised her other hand to his temple-and for once, she noticed, he didn’t twist away. “Stop talking, for once, and open your eyes.”

He raised his hands and gently removed hers from his face. But he let them linger in his grasp for a moment too long, and it was she who broke contact first-but not before raising one of his hands to her lips and grazing his knuckles with a gentle kiss.

He pulled away quickly.

“I’m seeing things pretty clearly right now,” he said sharply. “And I can see that it’s time for me to go.” He slipped out of the bar and Kaia sat down again, sipping her Corona thoughtfully.

He could run-but he couldn’t hide.

Kaia would always know where to find him.

It seemed the farther they got from the festival-and from Kane-the better things were. By the time they got back to Adam’s house, Beth was smiling, a look of glazed contentedness on her face. Maybe it was just the slow descent from a cotton candy sugar high-but whatever the reason, Adam thought as she snuggled close to him, he’d take it.

“It’s such a nice night,” she said, taking his hand as she climbed out of the car. “I almost hate to go inside.”

He checked his watch. There was only an hour left before her curfew, not enough time to go anywhere, but…

“How about we go around back,” he suggested. He led her into the backyard and over to the large, flat rock that lay on the dividing line between his house and Harper’s. He and Harper had played there when they were little and always-even these days-considered it “their” place. He snuck a guilty glance up at Harper’s bedroom window, which overlooked the yard. She wouldn’t mind-she would, in fact, never know.

Beth clambered up atop the rock and lay back on it, spreading her arms and looking up at the clear, starry sky.

“You could lose yourself in the stars,” she sighed. “Out here, in the dark, you could forget the whole world, and just-be.”

“I know exactly what you mean,” Adam said, lying down next to her. “I could lose myself in you.” He took her face in his hands and turned it toward him gently, kissing her forehead, her nose, her cheeks, her soft, smooth lips. She brushed her blond hair away from her face and pulled him closer to her, tangling her legs in his. The smooth rock surface was cool beneath his skin, but she was so warm, throbbing with heat as she grazed the lines of his body and began to rub the bare skin beneath his shirt.

“I’m sorry I was so… I’m sorry about tonight,” she murmured.

“It was nothing. Forget it,” he assured her, cradling her in his arms.

“I’m just stressed-there’s so much to do, and no time, and-”

“Shh.” She was trembling in his arms, and he put his hand to her cheek, then ran his fingers across her lips. “It’s okay. I know. It’ll be okay.”

“I miss you,” she whispered.

“We just need to make it through the SATs,” he suggested. “And then maybe you can take a break for a while. We can take a break, focus on us. No stress, no SATs, no homework. Just us.”

“It sounds perfect,” Beth sighed. “I can’t wait.” She lay her head on his chest. “I could just lie here forever, listening to you breathe.”

He ran his fingers through her hair and began softly massaging her back, rubbing and kneading her taut muscles, her tender skin.

“I wish you could,” he whispered. “Next week. Just keep telling yourself that. You’ll make it until then. We’ll make it until then.”

“I hope so,” she whispered.

So did he.