Lust - 1 (22 page)

But Harper was nothing if not persistent—and Miranda was nothing if not loyal, and so, final y, she hung up the phone and answered the cal .

As far as their parents were concerned, Harper was sleeping at Miranda’s house and Miranda was sleeping at Harper’s. Al thanks to a supposed late-night cram session for an imaginary chem test. (Harper’s parents foolishly thought that Miranda was a good influence, and as far as Miranda’s mother was concerned, Harper was the golden child. It was almost too easy.) Later they’d sneak into Harper’s house to get some sleep, knowing that her parents, always up and out by five a.m., would never know they’d been there.

As for the night’s
real
entertainment, they settled on the Barnstormer, a seedy ribs joint on the north side of town that attracted a reliable clientele of truckers, motorcyclists, and a few regulars, who, by the time they passed through the red wooden doors, were already too drunk to pass along any information about their station in life (or possibly even to remember it themselves).

It was dark, smoky, and crowded, the perfect place to lose yourself and your problems. A sober observer would have spotted Harper and Miranda immediately—the two young girls, dressed to kil , were several decades younger and several layers of dirt cleaner than the majority of patrons. But by eleven p.m. on Rodeo Night, the only sober observers available were the waitresses, who, spending most of their time fending off wandering hands and cleaning up patches of vomit, had little inclination to bother the two girls from the slightly less wrong side of the tracks.

Feeling cloaked by a powerful haze of invisibility, they grabbed a smal table in the dark recesses of the bar and, careful y avoiding any sticky spots, flagged down a waitress.

Their order:

Two baskets of chicken wings.

One basket of ribs.

Two pitchers of beer.

It was going to be that kind of night.

As the twangs of country-and-western music blared in the background, Harper and Miranda spil ed out their problems to each other, becoming increasingly incoherent and increasingly convinced that their problems could be easily solved by the elimination of al men from the face of the Earth. But, it seemed, nothing short of that would help.

A few years ago, the owner of the Barnstormer—a quietly practical middle-aged woman who had moved to Grace after the sudden death of her husband and concluded that the only money to be found in a town like this was in providing its population with food, drinks, or women (she’d hit the trifecta)—had hung a large piece of driftwood over the inside entrance. The red paint scrawled across it offered a legend to al who passed beneath: EAT TILL IT HURTS, DRINK TILL IT FEELS BETTER.

By midnight Harper and Miranda had done both.

Long years of practice had taught Harper and Miranda that the quickest way to feel better was to remind themselves that other people were so much worse. And Rodeo Night at the Barnstormer provided them plenty of opportunity.

“Check out the guy in the cowboy boots,” Miranda crowed, almost spitting out her mouthful of beer.

“Which one?” Harper asked, rol ing her eyes. “They’re
all
wearing cowboy boots.”

“Yeah, but most of them are wearing a little bit more than that,” Miranda pointed out, nodding her head to the right, where an overweight, middle-aged guy had stripped off his shirt and climbed atop the bar, gyrating and bouncing in time to the Garth Brooks jukebox beat and the hoots of the crowd.

They dissolved into laughter. This town was fil ed with enough losers to cheer them up wel into the next decade.

“How about the Lone Ranger over there?” Harper snorted, pointing in the direction of an old man decked out in a fifties cowboy costume, complete with mask and capgun.

“God, we have got to get out of this town before we turn into one of them,” Miranda declared. She grabbed the last barbecue wing and stuffed it into her mouth, then downed the rest of her beer.

“Tel me about it,” Harper agreed, finishing her own. They poured themselves more from the pitcher and sloppily toasted, clinking their overflowing glasses.

“To us!” Miranda crowed.

“To getting the hel out of this place!” Harper added.

“Tb living fabulous lives—”

“Without shitty guys dragging us down!”

“To being wild and crazy—”

“And independent, on our own—”

“Together!” Miranda finished triumphantly.

And they drank up.

Beth had stayed home from school that day. She’d told her mother she was sick, and her mother had no reason not to believe her. For why would Bethie lie?

She’d spent the day in bed, and it was almost as if she were sick—she was immobilized. Normal y unable to sit stil for more than a few minutes at a time, her mind always on fire thinking of the next task to be done, the next mission to accomplish, she’d spent the day tucked neatly under her covers staring aimlessly at the TV and flipping between channels.

Talk show.

Soap opera.

Dora the Explorer.

Soap opera.

It was al the same to her.

She knew she couldn’t hide in her room forever, battering herself with accusations and regrets, if only’s and what if’s.

If only I hadn’t gone to the meeting
.

If only I hadn’t flirted with him
.

If only I’d known what he wanted from me
.

What if I wanted it too?

She’d have to leave her sanctuary someday. She’d have to face her life, face him, and soon.

Just not today.

There was a knock on her door.

“Beth? Honey?” Without waiting for Beth to respond, her mother opened the door a few inches and poked her head through the gap. “How are you feeling, sweetheart?” Her face was fil ed with concern, and Beth felt a momentary stab of guilt for lying, but beneath that, a warm glow of pleasure—her mother was usual y too busy to remember that Beth existed, much less worry about how she was doing. In fact, Beth realized, this was the first time in months that her mother had even set foot inside her room.

“I’m okay, I guess,” she said listlessly, not bothering to look away from the TV.

“Are you feeling up for a visitor?” her mother asked, glancing over her shoulder into the hal way.

Beth sat up in bed and looked over at the clock. It was almost eleven—who would be visiting her? Usual y she wasn’t even al owed to have guests in the house this late—her parents were afraid it would wake up the twins.

“I know it’s late,” her mother added, “but he says he brought you your homework, so I thought just this once it would be okay.” He?

Beth nodded weakly, and her mother swung open the door al the way—revealing Adam, standing in the hal way with his hands behind his back and an adorable smile on his face.

As her mother disappeared and Adam came into the room, Beth panicked briefly, running her hands through her tangled hair and looking down at her ragged pajamas—she’d been in bed al day, hadn’t brushed her teeth in hours or brushed her hair since yesterday. She was a total mess, and for a second, she was tempted to hide under the covers until he went away, but then he came and sat down on the bed next to her and al she could think was: He came. For me.

“Claire already cal ed to give me al the homework,” she told him—and then realized that she hadn’t even thanked him for coming. She’d only just gotten him back, and now, if her scarecrow appearance didn’t send him screaming in the other direction, her rudeness probably would.

“I know she did,” he said, before she could say anything else.

“Then why—?”

“I wanted to give you something,” he told her, brushing a lock of hair off her forehead. “Wel , two things, actual y. First, this.” He leaned down and kissed her softly on the lips—and if her parents hadn’t been on the other side of the paperthin wal s, Beth would have been tempted to wrap her arms around him and throw him down onto the bed beside her. But instead, she just kissed him back gently, breathing deeply. He tasted like cinnamon, and she knew it was probably because he’d just finished a pack of the cinnamonflavored gum he was addicted to. And she loved that she knew things like that about him. No matter how bad things got, she stil knew him. And he knew her, better than anyone else.

“That’s not al ,” he said, pul ing away. She wrapped her fingers through his, and he squeezed her hand gently, and with his other hand unzipped his backpack, pul ed something out, and presented it to her.

It was a red rose, beautiful and perfect. And it was threaded through a pink plastic flower ring—an exact match to the one he’d given her so long ago, just before their first date.

Beth laughed, and it felt like the first time she’d laughed in years.

“I’m stil not marrying you, idiot,” she giggled. But she took the giant ring and slipped it onto her finger.

“I thought we’d start slow,” he said, just as he had al those months ago.’One date.”

“What are you talking about?” she asked, inhaling the sweet fragrance of the rose. It was almost overpowering.

“Come to the formal with me,” he asked.

Beth shook her head in confusion. “I’m already going with you,” she reminded him. “You asked me weeks ago.” She’d been saving up to buy a new dress, actual y, but then they’d been fighting so much and had stopped speaking and eventual y wasting al that money on a dress she might not get to wear hadn’t seemed like such a great idea. But now, looking into his earnest blue eyes, now she couldn’t think of anything she wanted to do more than look beautiful for him. To turn back time and forget about everything that had happened this month—
everything
. This weekend, this dance, it would be just the fresh start they needed.

“A lot’s happened since then,” Adam explained. “I’ve been an asshole since then,” he added.

“No, it wasn’t you, it was just—”

“Let me finish,” he interrupted quietly. “I’ve been a jerk, and now I know it, and I just want us to start over again, fresh. Just pretend the last few weeks never happened. So, Ms.

Manning, wil you do me the great honor of going to the dance with me?” He pul ed the rose from her fingers and played its petals gently across her lips.

“Wel , I’l have to think about it for a second,” she began with a frown. His face crumpled, and she rewarded him with a bright grin. “Of course I’l go with you.” She moved the rose out of the way and put her arms around him, cradling his face in her hands. She pul ed his face toward her and kissed him, wishing that she could freeze this moment, that they real y could pretend that the last few weeks had never happened and that the future would never come. That there would be no more arguments, that the tension that crackled between them would just disappear and things would be sweet and easy again, like they were tonight. And, she realized, she knew how to make that happen.

“I love you, Adam,” she whispered, her lips stil just barely touching his.

“You too, Beth. Only you.”

And even though it was late and her mother could burst into the room at any minute, Beth kissed him again. The moment couldn’t last forever—but she wasn’t ready to let it end.

Miranda wasn’t fat.

She knew that much, at least.

After al , she wasn’t
crazy
, she told herself, looking in the mirror. No double chins or rol s of fat—she certainly wasn’t one of those girls who looked like a skeleton but imagined a blimp. She knew what she saw.

And what she saw wasn’t much.

Short—an inch above freakish but only barely within the “cute” zone. Dul reddish hair. Pale, washed-out skin. Thick ankles (which she hadn’t even noticed until her mother had oh-so-kindly pointed them out to her and helpful y suggested she steer clear of skirts). Bulky thighs. Somehow, sometime, the lithe, slim body she’d had when she was younger—the one she’d never noticed until one of her mother’s friends commented in envious awe on how she could “eat like an elephant and look like a giraffe”—had disappeared.

Now, she was just—medium. Bland. She knew that under other circumstances, in other, bigger towns, she wouldn’t be best friends with the school’s alpha girl; the A list wouldn’t notice her.

But in this life, in this town, she was best friends with Harper—which is why she’d gone along with the drunken suggestion that they ditch their dates for the stupid formal and go on their own. Prove to the world that they didn’t need guys, that they’d have more fun without some testosterone-charged idiots pawing at them al night.

She twirled once more in front of the mirror, her gauzy black dress flaring out as she spun.

The other night at the Barnstormer, fil ed with alcoholic courage, spending the dance on the sidelines with Harper, watching a roomful of glamorous, dewy-eyed couples spin around the auditorium had sounded perfect.

Funny—in the sober light of day (or rather, in the sober half-light of twilight, awaiting her ride)—it was starting to sound slightly less than perfect. Asinine. Insane. Pretty much the worst idea she’d ever heard.

But unless she wanted to take her father as a date, it was too late to do anything about it. She ran a brush through her hair one last time and quickly put on another layer of lip gloss. Her ride wasn’t due for another twenty minutes, but she was done getting ready. Her parents—who had no idea there even was a dance—were out for the night. Miranda hadn’t wanted to suffer through them fawning al over her, pinching her cheeks and taking pictures—or even worse, suffer through them ignoring the whole thing and going out anyway. Better not to risk it. So the house was empty, she had plenty of time to kil —and there was a bottle of gin in the cabinet next to the sink that had her name on it.