Privilege

by Kate Brian

  "Your extra towels, Miss Covington."

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  Ariana's heart skipped a beat. She turned to the left to locate the voice and saw a valet handing three thick pool towels to a girl who had just emerged from the water. She was tall and curvy, her breasts barely contained by a sparkling pink string bikini. Her teased auburn hair was up in a high ponytail, and Ariana noted with interest that the color was very similar to the boxed shade she had chosen for herself. Huge Gucci aviators practically covered the girl's face, and as she approached the valet she shoved her too-tan feet into a pair of high-heeled gold lame sandals. Ariana's nose wrinkled in distaste. If her plan was going to work, Ariana was going to need another makeover. A big, gaudy makeover.

  The girl snatched the towels from the valet and flicked each of them open in turn, then threw two of them back in his face.

  "These are too worn. Get me new ones," she snapped, settling into a chair two seats over from Ariana.

  Ariana's eyes narrowed. This was definitely "the bitch." No doubt about it. Ariana had a habit of calling people out on their impoliteness. It was a quirk Noelle had often complained about. With this girl she had a feeling she was going to be biting her tongue. Often.

  Still, her heart pounded with excitement. She was here. It was all happening. "Did that guy say, 'Miss Covington'?" Ariana asked as soon as the valet had scurried off. She sat up straight and placed her iced tea down on the table next to her. The girl looked over at Ariana, lifting her sunglasses and squinting. "Not the Briana Leigh Covington?" Ariana said. The Southern accent was gone again.

  Briana Leigh's brow knit. "Do I know you?"

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  "No!" Ariana forced herself to laugh. "But you did know my friend Dana Dover. From Camp Potowamac?"

  Ariana saw the recognition in Briana Leigh's eyes, but her expression was still one of annoyance.

  "I'm Emma Walsh," Ariana said, placing her hand on her chest. "Dana and I have been in school together since kindergarten. She must have mentioned me."

  Briana Leigh's blue eyes flicked over Ariana. "Sounds vaguely familiar. She may have mentioned you."

  She put her sunglasses back on and leaned back in her chair again, clearly dismissing the intruder. Ariana's skin itched with annoyance.

  "Well, she talked about you all the time," she gushed. "The fabulous Briana Leigh Covington from Dallas, Texas. I cannot believe I'm finally meeting you. She always said you were the most stylish girl at camp, but she didn't even do you justice!"

  Slowly, Briana Leigh turned toward Ariana. She seemed to be mulling something over as she looked at her, then finally gave in.

  "Well, Dana was always jealous of me. She probably held back on purpose," she said with a hint of a smile. She lifted her hand and snapped her fingers at a passing waiter. "Come have a drink," she said to Ariana. "You can tell me exactly what Dana said about me."

  "Sounds perfect," Ariana said with a smile. She'd known she could crack her. Briana Leigh was just another Noelle--in bad clothing. Ariana stood up and, ankle miraculously recovered, walked over to join her new friend.

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  BEST SUMMER EVER

  "Two more martinis. And tell the bartender to at least try to make mine dirty this time," Briana Leigh demanded, adjusting her bikini strap.She slapped a fifty into the waiter's hand, ostensibly to keep him from pointing out that she and her guest were obviously underage. It was the third fifty-dollar bill this kid had pocketed since Briana Leigh's binge fest had begun an hour ago. Ariana stared longingly at his back pocket. She couldn't believe she had been reduced to lusting after a mere hundred and fifty dollars, but all she had left in her backpack was a twenty, two singles, and a handful of change.

  Just be patient. All in due time... all in due time...She refocused on Briana Leigh. If this went well, she would have all the money she could handle by the end of the week--the money this girl had earned by murdering her own father. The money she did not deserve.

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  Ariana applauded herself for having listened so carefully to all of Kaitlynn's stories. That diligence was going to set her up for life. And Kaitlynn as well, as soon as Ariana could safely make that happen. She shifted closer to the end of her lounge chair and wondered if she could possibly get away with tipping yet another martini into the pool without Briana Leigh noticing.

  "God. How long does it take to pour vodka into a glass?" Briana Leigh added, snorting a laugh.

  Ariana shot the waiter an apologetic smile as he collected Briana Leigh's empty glass yet again. Kaitlynn had not been joking when it came to Briana Leigh's champion drinking. The girl had downed more alcohol in the past sixty minutes than Ariana had ever consumed in a single outing--including the Legacy, where everyone indulged beyond what was normal. Briana Leigh's intake was excessive, especially for a random Friday afternoon. The plus side, though, was that drinking seemed to make her more chatty. Ariana was learning more about the girl with each empty glass.

  "So why aren't you wearing your bathing suit?" Briana Leigh asked. She leaned over the arm of her chair and almost fell forward, catching herself at the last minute. "Bad wax?" she asked, lowering her voice to a confidential whisper.

  "No. Nothing like that," Ariana replied. "I'm not much of a swimmer, actually." She couldn't exactly tell Briana Leigh that she didn't own one.

  Briana Leigh nodded. "I had a bad wax this one time," she said, as if Ariana hadn't even spoken. She faced the pool again and let her arms hang lazily over the sides of her chair. "Told the girl to give me a

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  landing strip and she did it at a total diagonal. I looked like a retarded streetwalker. So of course I had her fired."

  Ariana bit down on her tongue. Hard. She could not criticize this small-minded girl. She simply could not. Not if she was going to get what she needed out of her.

  "Don't you just hate when you have to have people fired?" Briana Leigh asked. "They get so whiny about it. Like my dog trainer. He swore to me he had house-trained my corgi, but the little bitch kept right on pooping in the house, so I had to have her put to sleep. And he acted as if I had done something wrong. Hello? It was his fault! If he'd done his job, I'd still have a dog."

  Ariana felt like she was going to vomit. What was wrong with this girl? Putting a dog to sleep because of an inconvenience? How had Kaitlynn ever been friends with her?

  Their drinks arrived and Ariana made a move for her bag. "Here. Let me pay for this round," she offered.

  "Oh, please." Briana Leigh waved a hand before picking up her drink. "It all goes on my grandmother's membership account."

  Ariana tried not to smirk at the mention of Briana Leigh's grandmother. After the fond way in which Kaitlynn had spoken about her, Ariana could hardly wait to meet the old broad.

  But she was getting ahead of herself.

  "You're sure? I can pay for lunch...."

  An order that they had placed twenty minutes ago. Ariana was so hungry it took all her willpower to keep from checking over her shoulder every two seconds to see if the waiter was coming yet.

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  "Shut up about it already," Briana Leigh said with a smile.

  "Thanks, Briana. I promise I'll--"

  "Do not call me Briana," Briana Leigh snapped, quickly shifting moods. "My name is Briana Leigh. That is the name my parents gave me, and I would appreciate it if you would use it."

  Briana Leigh's blue eyes flashed dangerously and Ariana remembered that she was dealing with a murderer here. A quick-tempered, cold-blooded murderer. Her skin flashed hot with both fear and embarrassment as the girls to her right all stopped talking and turned to stare. She dug her fingernails into her arm and forced an apologetic smile.

  "I'm sorry, Briana Leigh."

  "Well, don't let it happen again, Em" Briana Leigh snapped with a laugh. As if shortening Ariana's "name" was somehow hilarious. When she finally stopped giggling at her own joke, she looked Ariana up and down. "You know, Dana always said her friend Emma was fat. You're not fat
at all."

  Ariana's heart skipped a beat, feeling snagged. So Briana Leigh did remember Dana talking about Emma. Had she just been pretending before, or had she just now remembered Emma Walsh?

  She had to answer this accusation casually. If Briana Leigh got suspicious, it was all over.

  "Yes, well, it's all about self-control," she said smoothly.

  "Huh. I guess." Briana Leigh's eyes narrowed. "And you're from Chicago?"

  Ariana's mouth was dry. Did Briana Leigh suspect something? "Yes."

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  "Which part?" Briana Leigh asked.

  "The Gold Coast," Ariana answered instantly.

  "You don't have a Chicago accent," Briana Leigh observed.

  "I go to school back east, so I've gotten good at masking it," Ariana said, pretending to take a sip of her drink. Her fingers shook.

  For a long moment Briana Leigh said nothing. Ariana's skin burned hotter and hotter, but she gazed out at the pool as if nothing was amiss. Was Briana Leigh suspicious, or just interested? Ariana couldn't be sure--which annoyed her. What had happened to her perceptiveness? Why couldn't she get a read on her? Finally, Briana Leigh leaned back in her chair and Ariana let herself breathe. She quickly, surreptitiously, removed the toothpick-speared-olives from her glass and tipped it over at the edge of the pool, dumping the alcohol into the water.

  "So what're you doing in Dallas?" Briana Leigh asked, pushing her sunglasses over her eyes.

  Stealing your money, Ariana answered silently. Heart in her throat, she quickly brought the glass to her lips, pretending she was finishing it off. She sucked an olive off the toothpick and her stomach growled, anticipating food--something it hadn't had nearly enough of lately. But if she could just pass Briana Leigh's little test, if she could just answer this question perfectly, that was all about to change.

  "It's been a nightmare, actually," Ariana said, praying that Briana Leigh had a long enough attention span to listen to a story that wasn't about her. "My cousin invited me down for the summer to stay at her new ranch. She and her husband had it custom-built and said I'd

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  have my own suite with private access to the pool. But I get there and the ranch isn't even finished. Instead of a suite, I'm sleeping in what's going to be the maid's quarters, and I have a blue tarp for a wall. Plus she keeps asking me to watch her kids, two terrors under the age of three. I mean, hello? I'm not a zookeeper."

  Briana Leigh stared at Ariana from behind her sunglasses, her mouth hanging slightly open. For a long moment there was total silence and Ariana thought she had failed for sure. Briana Leigh could see right through her.

  But then, suddenly, her mouth snapped closed.

  "That is so wrong!" she said. "Your cousin should be taken out back and shot."

  Ariana blinked. Was that an expression around here or what?

  "I just don't know how I'm going to live like this another day," Ariana said wearily.

  "Well, you're not," Briana Leigh told her.

  "Excuse me?" Ariana raised her eyebrows.

  "No one should have to live like that," Briana Leigh said firmly, looking Ariana in the eye. "You're going to come stay with me."

  Yes, Ariana thought. She had done it.

  "With you? I couldn't," Ariana said as she placed her empty glass on the table. "I mean... what about my cousin?"

  "Screw your cousin!" Briana Leigh blurted, her expression incredulous. "All she wanted out of you was free day care. Skip the bitch and come stay with me. Seriously. I have this tremendous house all to myself and I am so bored."

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  "Really? You live alone?" Ariana asked, even though she knew this already.

  "Well, there's my grandmother. But she lives in the guesthouse, so I'm practically alone," Briana Leigh said, swinging her legs over the side of her chair. "Come on! We will have so much fun!"

  Ariana bit her lip, pretending to agonize over the decision--pretending that she hadn't been looking forward to this exact moment for months on end. It was all she could do to keep from grinning. Part one of her plan had gone perfectly, but it was just the beginning. She couldn't get ahead of herself.

  "Well, if you insist," she said finally.

  "I absolutely insist," Briana Leigh said with a nod. Then her whole face lit up with the first genuine smile Ariana had seen since they had met. "I'm so glad I bumped into you! This is going to be so much fun. I haven't had a friend stay over since..." Briana Leigh paused and put her hand over her mouth, swallowing with some effort. As if some bile had just risen up in her throat and needed to be put back in its place. "Well, it's been a long time," she finished quickly.

  Ariana narrowed her eyes as Briana Leigh sat back again. She had been about to mention Kaitlynn. Ariana was sure of it. What had stopped her? For a moment the girl looked genuinely upset, but then she downed the rest of her drink and the indifferent expression returned.

  "Your lunches, ladies."

  The waiter placed two heaping plates of sandwiches down on the table and Ariana's mouth watered. She thanked the waiter and forced

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  herself to count to ten Mississippis before she reached for her club sandwich. She took a slightly larger than polite-size bite and tried not to groan in ecstasy as she chewed.

  Food. Real food. For as long as she lived, Ariana would never take it for granted again.

  "I can't believe you eat roast beef," Briana Leigh said, biting into her own grilled chicken wrap. "I thought you were all about self-control."

  "Well, I'll admit I haven't had it in a long time," Ariana mused.

  "So why start now? Aren't you worried about regaining the weight?" Briana Leigh asked.

  Ariana smiled. "Not at all," she said. "Roast beef has always been good to me."

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  SLUMMING

  Saturday morning Ariana sat in the backseat of the black town car Briana Leigh had sent for her and stared at the thick trees outside the window. The driver had turned off the main road and onto Briana Leigh's driveway at least ten minutes ago. Ten minutes of winding drive through a forest of evergreens. The private road had to be at least a couple of miles long. Briana Leigh owned a lot of property."Are you a friend of the family, miss?" the middle-aged driver asked, glancing in the rearview mirror.

  "A new friend," Ariana replied.

  She wondered if he was the type of servant who would tip Briana Leigh off to the fact that he had picked Ariana up on the side of the road, rather than at the door of the huge under-construction ranch home she'd been standing in front of. She had found the house the day before, after she parted ways with Briana Leigh, knowing she would need to look authentic. At the end of the day at the country club, she

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  had told Briana Leigh that she should at least go back to her cousin's to thank her and say good-bye to the kids--all so that she wouldn't look too eager. She didn't want to go straight home with the girl, lest she start suspecting that Ariana had planned to take advantage of her all along. Living above Briana Leigh's suspicion was key.

  Ariana shuddered just thinking about the motel she'd stayed in--the motel she'd stiffed on the bill. She was sick and tired of slinking around, stealing, dodging checks. It was so distasteful. She was an Osgood, for goodness' sake. She shouldn't have to slum around like some kind of homeless person.

  The car eased its way around one last curve and Briana Leigh's home came into view. Ariana nearly gasped in delight. Clearly, her slumming days were over. The modern ranch home sprawled out in front of her like a presidential compound, with huge plate-glass windows and slanted rooftops jutting toward the sky. There were three outer buildings and a stable surrounded by a huge paddock where a ranch hand was tending to half a dozen horses. Off to the right Ariana spotted two tennis courts and a huge swimming pool. To the left of the house, the property stretched out toward the horizon--fields full of wildflowers and stately trees.

  In all Ariana's travels she had never seen such a beautiful private home. Not even Noe
lle's Upper East Side mansion compared. It looked more like a resort than a house. Briana Leigh clearly had money to burn. For the second time that day Ariana found herself salivating. Somewhere inside this ridiculously huge home was the information she needed to get her hands on Briana Leigh's millions.

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  Somewhere inside this house was the answer to all of her prayers. To her freedom.

  Briana Leigh emerged from the front door as Ariana stepped out of the car, pulling her backpack with her. She shouldered the bag and took a deep breath as she looked around. Keeping up with Briana Leigh was going to be tough, especially with no money to her name. At least her new friend had sent the car, so Ariana hadn't been forced to spend the last of her cash on a cab. She had long since ditched her bar buddy's credit card, figuring he must have reported it stolen fairly quickly, but she had swiped another from some old lady's wallet on her way out of the country club that afternoon. Ariana would have to use this one wisely as well. One use and the woman would probably realize it was missing. A second use and the authorities would track her down.

  More important, she had to find the information she needed fast or Briana Leigh was going to realize that Emma Walsh wasn't quite what she seemed.

  "Hey, Emma! Get your butt inside!" Briana Leigh shouted. "That pasty skin of yours cannot handle our Texas sun, and I am not going to this party tonight with some red-faced freak."

  The girl turned and sashayed back inside, leaving the huge door yawning open behind her. Ariana bit down on her tongue and followed.

  This is all for a good cause, she reminded herself as she stepped into the airy entryway to Briana Leigh's exquisite home. All for a very good cause.95

  "Briana Leigh! Where have you been all day?"

  Ariana paused in the center of the tiled foyer as an elderly woman in an automatic wheelchair zoomed in from the open archway to the south. Her heart fluttered as if she had just bumped into someone famous. It was Kaitlynn's beloved Grandma C. The woman looked tiny in her chair, but somehow not at all frail. She stared up at Briana Leigh through thick glasses, her pointy chin to the sky. Her white hair was pulled into the tightest bun Ariana had ever seen.