The Revenge Playbook (29 page)

“We don't have much time, and I'm not losing to Chad MacAllistair. I will drag the two of you in if I need to.” Ana says it like she's joking, but I saw her face when she said his name. I didn't think it was possible to squeeze so much pure ferocity into five syllables.

When Melanie Jane starts to remove her skirt, Ana yells triumphantly, and I wolf whistle. She mumbles something about not being able to believe she's doing this, but I can see her smiling. She folds her skirt and top with perfect creases and daintily places them on top of her shoes, I'm assuming so they don't touch the ground. Then she sashays to the edge of the water and gracefully hops in with pointed toes and an almost imperceptible splash. I frolic around and try, unsuccessfully, to engage Ana in a splash fight.

“Peyton, are you coming in?” she asks.

“It really does feel amazing,” chimes in Melanie Jane. “As long as you ignore the smell.”

Peyton hovers at the edge of the pond like a skittish cat. “What if we get caught?”

I pause mid-flail. “By who? There's no one around. Don't worry.”

“Just jump in and jump right back out.” Ana wades over to the edge where Peyton is standing. “It'll only take a second, and then we'll be done with everything.”

She hesitates and looks in every direction.

“C'mon,” I say. “You can keep your clothes on if that's what you're worried about. You can even do the thing where you inch in by degrees. We won't judge.”

A faux tough look settles on her face. “No. If I'm doing this, I'm doing it right.”

After a moment where she appears to be having a silent argument with herself, she strips down to her underwear and jumps in after us.

I fling handfuls of water into the air like I'm throwing confetti. “Woo-hoo! We did it! We are the champions of the universe! We are golden goddesses of success! We are untouchable and amazing and
2,000 percent BADASS!”

The other girls laugh, but Ana frowns. “I just hope it's enough.”

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I
know more than I've ever wanted to about Chad MacAllistair. That he looks both ways before eating his boogers. That he thinks butt scratching is an Olympic sport, and he's going for the gold. That he will not, for the love of all that is holy, leave his freaking house and pick up the Football of '76 already. We have been staking him out for two hours, but it feels like several lifetimes. Even Liv looks dejected—she gave up cataloguing his questionable hygiene practices using my video camera and her best Animal Planet reporter voice forty-five minutes ago. Melanie Jane's binoculars sit on the floorboard of my car. We don't really need to watch him through his window. We just need to know when he leaves the house.

Which is apparently going to be
never
.

Liv cracks first. “I can't take this anymore!” she almost yells, effectively spiking everyone's blood pressure. “I am literally going to die of boredom. We're playing the questions game.”

“What's that?” asks Peyton.

“It's where someone asks a question, and everyone else has to answer honestly.” No one argues. It's not like we have anything better to do. “I'll start. If you could hook up with anyone—regular person, movie star, whatever, who would it be?”

“Austin Butler,” says Melanie Jane without missing a beat. “He is six feet tall, and he is yummy.”

Peyton turns pink. “Taylor Lautner. Or maybe that British diver. Chris Mears? Somebody with lots of muscles.”

“I'd pick Hunter Hayes. I'm a sucker for musicians,” says Liv. “What about you, Ana?”

I consider my options. “Anyone at all?”

“Anyone at all,” says Liv.

That settles it. “Legolas.”

Peyton giggles. “I think you mean Orlando Bloom.”

“No, I'm pretty sure she means Legolas,” says Melanie Jane.

I nod. “Yes. Only as Legolas.”

“They are the same person,” says Liv.

And then I have to explain to her how they aren't at all the same because long, blond hair and bow skills and
elf ears
, hello!

We get through almost an entire round before Chad's front door opens and we all have to duck.

Liv peeks up from the backseat. “There he is! Follow him! Follow him!”

“Try to keep at least a couple cars in between you,” says Melanie Jane. “And don't turn on your lights.”

I raise my eyebrows. “It's daytime, champ.”

“Oh, yeah.”

We tail him to school, but that's where things get tricky. The parking lot is almost empty because it's a Saturday, and I can't risk him recognizing my car. We have to wait around the corner near the entrance for several agonizing minutes and hope when we see his car again that the football is inside it. We follow him to the highway, and he heads in the direction of Nashville. A very good sign. I try to keep a couple cars between us while also keeping him in viewing range and ignoring “helpful” advice from the peanut gallery.

He eventually turns off at an exit that seems to have a truck stop and not much else. We pass by eighteen-wheelers, buildings with peeling paint and rust stains, dirt roads leading to nowhere. Even the trees out here look sad. Finally, at the top of a hill, shining like a beacon, is a tired neon sign that says
CATCALLS
. Chad pulls into the parking lot. I turn into the Wendy's next door, the only establishment nearby. Because nothing says strippers like a junior bacon cheeseburger. I park by the Dumpster and wait.

“He has it! He has the football! I can see it under his arm!” yells Liv.

Peyton claps a hand over her mouth and tackles her in the backseat, the two of them erupting in giggles. Melanie Jane and I exchange a glance that says “children.”

Liv whips out the camera again and begins narrating. “Chad MacAllistair has just entered Catcalls with the Football of '76. Will he return? Will he stop to get a lap dance first? Will Liv's undeniable craving for a Frosty keep her from finishing this video?”

It only takes her a couple minutes to get bored and turn off the camera.

“My turn for questions!” She taps a finger to her face like she's pondering one of life's great
mysteries. “I know! Let's have the virgin talk. Who's had sex before?”

“I'm waiting till I'm married,” says Melanie Jane primly. You can almost hear the judgment in every word.

Peyton fidgets in the backseat. “I had sex for the first time a few months ago.”

I glance at her in the rearview mirror. Her eyes are on the floor. Liv wants to say something to her, I can tell, but she seems to change her mind.

“I've had sex with Trevor,” she says. “And only Trevor.”

She glares at the door of the strip club like she's trying to laser beam Chad with her eyes from the outside.

I can't answer this question. I don't know. I'll never know. I feel like someone tore away a piece of me without my permission. Does that mean I'm not a virgin? Maybe if I sit very quietly and don't make any sudden movements—

“Ana didn't answer! Spill! Spill!” Liv's squeals from the backseat are gleeful. She has no idea what this question is doing to me.

I open my mouth, but nothing comes out. What am I supposed to say? Maybe? I can't say that because then I'd have to explain why I don't know, and I can't do that right now. I could just say no. Refuse to give any details. Yeah, that's what I'll do. It's just a one-syllable word, only two letters, but I can't make myself say it.

“She's a virgin too,” says Melanie Jane in a voice that says end of discussion.

“Um, okay, cool,” says Liv. And half a second later, “Oh! There he goes!”

All talk of virginity is forgotten. I mouth the word
thanks
at Melanie Jane.

Chad doesn't have the football with him this time. We all know what that means, and we're pinging with excitement as we watch him drive away. I make everyone wait ten extra minutes, during which I think Liv will spontaneously combust, before we exit the car. Peyton stares up at the building like it will eat her alive. Melanie Jane's nose wrinkles like she can smell something the rest of us can't.

I throw out an arm between them and the front door. “Hold up. This isn't going to work. You.” I nod to Peyton. “You look terrified. They're strippers, not vampires. And you.” I turn to Melanie Jane. “If you go in there with your face twisted up all judgey-like, they're going to throw us out on our asses without helping us at all. Maybe Liv and I should go in by ourselves.”

“What? No way. We're in this together. We all go.” Melanie Jane's green eyes are hard, and I know from experience she won't budge.

I sigh. “Fine. But try to smile or something—isn't that what they teach you in pageants? And for heaven's sake, let me do the talking.”

The girls adjust their faces, though to be honest, Peyton still looks pretty damn scared, and we enter the cement building with the painted-out windows. It's so dark inside, we have to stop to let our eyes adjust. Clusters of chairs and tables and two stages with poles start to take shape through the dim lighting and haze of smoke. A few men in trucker hats watch a half-naked woman gyrate to Def
Leppard. I begin to think the strategic lighting is a good idea. Not being able to see the years of carpet stains is a good thing. Not being able to see their faces is even better. There's an all-day breakfast buffet. The bacon and eggs look and smell surprisingly good, and I've always been a big fan of brunch, but something about the combination of naked sweaty bodies and French toast seems unwise.

I squint across the room at the older woman wiping down the bar. I don't mean old like playing bridge in the nursing home, but she's definitely over forty. Which means she's like 250 in stripper years. I think she's who we're here to see. I lead the way across the room. A man at the back takes apart our bodies with his eyes, and I wish I had on a parka. The woman eyes us as we stop in front of the bar.

“Are you here for an audition?” Her washrag never stops moving. “You don't look old enough.”

“We're not,” I say. “We're actually here for something else.”

I take in the lines around her tired eyes, the leathery skin of her arms. It's impossible to say how old she is. Whether time or sun damage or life or too many cigarettes has done this to her. I wonder if men were partly responsible. I wonder if that means she'll help us.

“We're looking for a football. We think a guy we go to school with just dropped one off.”

I feel like a complete and total fool until she says, “Maybe he did.”

“We'd—well, the thing is he—we were hoping—” I'm having trouble saying this in a way that sounds normal.

“We'd like you to give it to us,” blurts Liv.

The rag stops. “Why would I do that?”

Melanie Jane steps up to the bar. To her credit, any trace of judgment has vanished from her face. “Because the football team is a bunch of jerks.”

The girls fall all over each other, spouting off a list of injustices a mile long.

“They deserve to have to walk on that field naked at Homecoming. We just want a little revenge,” says Melanie Jane.

She seems very proud of herself. And the girls were really very convincing. They wait, certain she'll pull the football from under the bar at any second and hand it over.

“No,” she says.

They step backward in disbelief.

“The Ranburne team's been coming here for years. I ain't gonna risk all that business to help y'all out, even if that boy that just came in here is a snotty little pissant.”

The other girls are fading into the background. Muttering thanks and turning around and giving up.

I lean across the bar, lowering my voice to where it's almost a whisper. “Ma'am, what's your name?”

Surprise flickers on her face. “Destiny.”

“Destiny, that boy did something to me last year. Something you can't erase.” I swallow down the
tears building in the back of my throat. “And he didn't give me a choice. Do you know what it's like to have someone use you up and then discard you like a tissue?”

Her weathered eyes soften. She knows.

“Please.” I'm begging, and I don't care. “I need this.”

She watches me for a moment before letting out the longest, saddest sigh I've ever heard. I swear I can read her whole life in that sigh the way fortune-tellers read palms. “Tell you what.” She reaches under the bar and pulls out not a football but a sheet of paper. “I've been paid to give the football to whoever finishes that list, so if you can finish it before they do, you can have it.”

I stare at the paper in front of me. The Ranburne Panther Scavenger Hunt. The other girls crowd around me now.

“We do everything on the list . . . and you'll give it to us? You'll give us the football?” asks Liv.

“
If
you beat the boys,” she says. She goes back to wiping down the bar like it makes no difference to her either way.

“Oh, don't worry. We'll beat them.” I clench the list tight in my fingers, and there is fire in my eyes.

She smiles for the first time since we entered the club. “I think you just might.”

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HarperCollins Publishers

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1.
  
   
Fill a condom up with water. Draw a face on it. Put it on Principal Corso's doormat, and ding-dong ditch. (One person)

2.
  
   
The egg-on-a-string trick. Hang an egg from a power line by a string and watch a car run into it. (Everyone)