The Debs

by Susan McBride

  “My heavens, did I knock into you? How clumsy of me. I guess I was just preoccupied watching your large friend run off like a frightened rabbit. Did she find something scary in her locker?”

  Mac stood stock-still, pressing her sweat-dampened palms against her thighs, but she said nothing, having learned long ago that it was far simpler to ignore than to engage a Bimbo.

  “Um, just a little tip, girl-to-girl, Mackenzie. You have some weird wrinkle goin’ up the back of your shirt,” Jo Lynn drawled, as Camie and Trisha stood behind her giggling.

  “What’s the problem, Bookworm? Can’t your new mom use an iron?”

  And just like that, the three of them glided off.

  Mac glared at their retreating backs, trying hard to breathe evenly and not go after them shouting, At least my daddy didn’t buy me boobs for my sixteenth birthday!

  Something about the three of them scared the hell out of her.

  And she had a very strong feeling the Bimbo Cartel had scared Laura, too.

  * * *

  Life’s a bitch and then they call you one.

  —Mary Frances Connelly

  It’s impossible to fight fair against someone who plays dirty.

  —Ginger Fore

  * * *

  Fifteen

  Ginger toyed with the salad she’d ordered, her appetite nonexistent. And it wasn’t the fault of La Fiesta, a favorite hole-in-the-wall Mexican restaurant at Bunker Hill and Katy Freeway that she, Mac, and Laura had slipped off to during their lunch break. Even Mac and Laura couldn’t seem to do more than pick at the gooey cheese enchiladas on their plates, and usually they demolished them in a few breathless minutes.

  Ginger thought her two best friends looked as wrung out as she felt after discussing all the gory details of her crush on Javier Garcia with them, from the moment she’d met him until the “tree fiasco,” as Mac called it.

  She abandoned any pretense at eating when her cell started ringing, and she snatched it from her bag only to realize it was Javier again. She sighed loudly, holding her Razr up. “So should I answer him or not?”

  “No,” Mac insisted, just as Laura barked, “Yes!”

  Ginger stared at the phone, letting it ring a second time and then a third, until Laura jumped up from her seat, muttered, “Oh, for God’s sake,” snatched the cell from Ginger’s hand, and answered it herself: “Javier? Yeah, Ginger’s here, and I’ll let you talk to her in a sec. But if you hurt her again, I will personally hunt you down and kill you, you got that?”

  “Give me that!” Ginger grabbed her Razr back and put it to her ear, hesitantly saying, “Hey, it’s me.”

  “Are you okay?” he asked, such worry in his voice that the icy wall she’d put up threatened to melt.

  “I’m fine,” she told him as Mac and Laura looked on, “but I can’t really talk.”

  “Su amigas…your friends are there?”

  “Yes.”

  “Can I see you later, then? We could meet—” he suggested, but Ginger cut him off.

  “No,” she said. Seeing him when she felt so confused by what he’d done would just make her feel worse. She needed time to sort things out, to decide whether what he’d done was pardonworthy. “I’m grounded,” she told him, “and Deena’s watching me like a hawk.”

  “Give me a chance to explain so you’ll understand,” he said, sounding almost desperate.

  Ginger turned a shoulder to her friends, who suddenly feigned interest in their food, though she knew they were listening to every word. “Maybe someday, if I ever stop being pissed at you.”

  She hung up then before he could confuse her further by trying to sweet-talk her out of being angry. She felt a nudge against her shin and realized it was Mac’s foot.

  “You did good,” Mac said. “You feeling all right?”

  Ginger sighed. “Remember that day in gym class when Coach Nadine made us do, like, fifty jumping jacks right after lunch and I threw up?”

  “Yeah”—Mac made a face—“you tossed your cookies on my brand-new Skechers.”

  “Well, I feel just like that right now,” Ginger said, then turned on Laura. “How could you do that? You knew I didn’t want to talk to him!”

  But Laura didn’t appear to hear. She seemed engrossed in pushing a spoon around the goo of melted cheese on her platter.

  “Laura?” Ginger tried again, suddenly feeling less angry and more worried. “Earth to Laura Bell!”

  Finally, Mac leaned over to poke Laura in the shoulder.

  “Huh?” Laura glanced up from her food, clearly a million miles away.

  “What the hell is up with you?” Ginger asked, noticing then how shiny with sweat Laura’s face was, and how her friend kept biting her bottom lip. “You look really freaked out about something. Is it Avery?” she asked.

  Laura shook her head. “It’s Jo Lynn Bidwell.”

  At the mention of Jo Lynn’s name, Mac practically leapt out of her seat. “Oh, my God, y’all,” she blurted out. “I completely forgot to tell you! Jo-L bumped smack into me while I was standing at my locker. She totally did it on purpose, I’m sure of it. That girl never does anything without an agenda.”

  Laura’s eyes went wide as quarters.

  Mac settled back in her chair, her cheeks an angry pink. “The witch asked if you’d found something scary in your locker, Laura, and then she made a snarky remark about the back of my shirt having a crease. Is it completely evil of me to imagine how nice it would be if someone ran over all three Bimbos with a Hummer? It’s disgusting how they get their kicks by putting other people down—”

  “Or going all-out to destroy them,” Ginger butted in, because ragging on the Bimbo Cartel was one of her favorite pastimes. “Remember the photos of Jennifer Howland they put up on Facebook? The ones from her New Year’s party where she was flashing her boobs and acting all lesbo with some girl from Stratford? Didn’t she end up moving or something, she was so humiliated?”

  “I think everyone in Texas saw those pics, so she had nowhere to run but out of the state,” Mac was saying when Laura bolted out of her seat, jarring the table so hard that the plates and utensils rattled. Water slopped out of Ginger’s glass onto the table in front of her.

  “Hey,” she said, “careful!”

  “I think I’m going to be sick.” Laura put a hand to her mouth and made a run for the ladies’ room.

  “Something’s seriously wrong,” Mac said as they watched Laura’s departing back, and Ginger couldn’t have agreed more.

  “I hope it’s nothing to do with her run-in with Avery this morning,” Ginger voiced her thoughts aloud.

  “What?” Mac looked ready to choke.

  “The Ratfink was dropping off Camie Lindell.”

  “Oh, God,” Mac moaned. “The dude needs to be shot.”

  “My thoughts exactly. C’mon, let’s go.”

  Their chairs noisily scraped the floor as they got up, Ginger leading the way to the bathroom, pushing open the door with a creak, and finding Laura standing at the mirror, hands braced on the edge of the sink. Her chest heaved, sobs catching in her throat, and she swiped at her eyes with her sleeve.

  “Laura,” Ginger called out, rushing to her side and putting a hand on her arm as Mac did the same. “What’s got you so messed up?”

  She nearly said No secrets, but she realized she’d broken that rule too many times already. It would have been hypocritical to chastise Laura for doing it too.

  “I’m totally screwed.” Laura sighed and tears slipped down her pale cheeks, even as she closed her eyes to stop them. “It’s starting all over again, just when I thought I’d gotten over it. That I’d cried enough. It’s like them turning on me a year ago, when they didn’t think I was good enough to be with Avery, and now they’re after me again, right before D-Day, so they can keep me off the Glass Slipper Club’s list.”

  “A year ago,” Ginger repeated, shaking her head. “Look, I don’t know what happened back then, or how they hurt you, but the
Bimbo Cartel can’t keep you from being a Rosebud. They don’t have the power. Your mother’s buds with Bootsie. Even Jo Lynn couldn’t make up a lie big enough to run you off.”

  “What if it’s not a lie?” Laura whispered, reaching up to wipe her cheeks, adding hoarsely, “What if Jo Lynn has pictures?”

  Ginger looked over at Mac, who shrugged.

  “Pictures of what?” she asked, wondering what Jo Lynn Bidwell could possibly be holding over Laura’s head.

  Laura exhaled, drying the tears from her cheeks with the white sleeve of her button-down. “You have to understand something first,” she slowly began. “Jo and Camie and Trisha…they pretended to be my friends, you know, even when something deep inside told me to watch out for them. But Avery hangs with that crowd, and he trusts them. I fell right into their trap. Stupid, stupid, stupid.” She leaned forward, gently knocking her forehead on the mirrored glass until Ginger stopped her. “Jo Lynn had a sleepover one night last summer. Her parents were gone, and I got really drunk. I passed out at some point, and when I woke up”—she hesitated, her chin trembling, and wet her lips—“my clothes were gone. Someone had written all over my body with a laundry marker. Slut, whore, pig, fat-ass, ugly things.” She sniffled, and Ginger snatched a paper towel from the dispenser, handing it over so Laura could wipe her nose. “The words were on my arms, my legs, my stomach, my breasts. It took a week for it all to wash off, and I was too horrified to tell anyone, so I kept it to myself and I prayed it would all go away. I thought it had.”

  “Well, hell, Laura,” Mac said angrily. “You should’ve told us. We could’ve helped you kick their asses, or called the cops. Isn’t that like assault or something? Was Avery involved in this?”

  Laura shook her head. “No, he wasn’t there. It was just the three of them, though I know Jo Lynn was behind it. It was her twisted way of telling me I wasn’t one of them and I never had been.”

  “What about the photos?” Ginger was hardly able to digest what Laura had been through and was unable to fathom how someone could treat another human being like that.

  “Jo Lynn took them,” Laura said, voice warbling, sounding ashamed all over again. “She e-mailed them the next day and told me to keep my fat mouth shut or I’d be sorry. She wanted me to stay away from Avery, and I know she said something to him, because he stopped coming around. I couldn’t have faced him anyway after that, but I’d hoped he’d…well, I was a fool.”

  “That flyer in your locker—” Mac started, but Laura ran right over her, obviously desperate to finally talk.

  “It wasn’t a flyer. It was one of the pictures, printed out on regular paper. But there was no warning this time, not a written one, anyway. Nothing. I couldn’t even prove it was Jo Lynn who put it there, but I know what it means. She’s going to use it to keep me from being a Rosebud, and not even Tincy’s friendship with Bootsie will be able to stop it. And she knows I can’t fight back.” Tears pooled on Laura’s dark lashes. “What if my mom sees those pictures, or my dad? Or the whole school, for that matter?” Laura turned to Ginger with a mascara-smeared face. “I’m dead, aren’t I? If only I’d stayed away from Avery…if I hadn’t crashed Jo Lynn’s party on Saturday night just to see him—”

  “That’s where you were?” Mac blurted out, looking ready to lecture, until Ginger said, “Not now.”

  Laura sniffed and glanced in the mirror again, using her pinky finger to try to repair her smudged eyes. “Too bad the Donald Trump of H-town can’t buy my way out of this mess, huh, Ging? Old Harry Bell could offer the Glass Slipper Club a huge honking donation, and it wouldn’t be the same. Running a company that sells plumbing parts to the whole freaking world might bring in the cash, but it doesn’t have the same cachet, if you know what I mean.”

  Ginger flinched as she took the jab, telling herself that Laura was too frightened and angry to realize what she was saying. Still, it stung, and she couldn’t help the sarcasm that slipped into her voice as she said, “Sorry my dad can’t come to your rescue, Laura, but if I can do anything, I will.”

  “Me too,” Mac offered. “There’s got to be some way to stop the Bimbo Cartel. Anyone know where I can buy Bimbo remover? Hey, I could use that at home to get rid of Honey, too.”

  “Bimbo remover…Honey…oh, God, wait a minute.” Laura paused, blinking rapidly, like a thousand lightbulbs were going off in her head. Without warning, she snagged Mac’s arm, asking her, “Wasn’t your stepmom a beauty queen? Didn’t she do the circuit for, like, most of her life until she met your dad?”

  “I guess she did, but what does that have to do with—” Mac wasn’t able to complete the sentence.

  “She’s not that much older than we are, is she?” Laura said, obviously thinking out loud. “Which means she may have known Jo Lynn on the pageant scene, and Jo Lynn was always bragging about how she took the front-runners down so she could get the crown. Maybe Honey knows some really ugly skeletons Jo Lynn has in her closet along with all those beaded dresses and sparkly tiaras. Or she could even make something up, for all I care. Whatever it takes to make the bitch back down.”

  Mac looked stone-faced. “What exactly are you suggesting?”

  “I have an idea that might work if you’ll do it,” Laura told her.

  “Do what?” Mac shifted on her feet.

  Laura cleared her throat, but it was still scratchy as she said quietly, “You have to ask Honey Potts to help me.”

  Behind her smart-girl glasses, Mac’s eyes seemed about to pop out. “You want me to ask for a favor from the Trophy Wife? Are you out of your frickin’ mind?”

  Ginger jumped on the idea. Anything was worth a shot. “C’mon, Mac, it’s not that big of a deal. You need to make nice with Honey sometime.”

  “Y’all are crazy.”

  Laura clasped her hands over her heart and pleaded. “I beg you, Mac. This can’t wait. You have to talk to her right after school. The invitations could be going out any minute. I don’t have time to waste.” She caught Mac’s hand on her left and Ginger’s on her right, and she squeezed. “Being debs together, it’s what we’ve talked about since we were kids. We’re the Three Amigas, right? We can’t let the Bimbo Cartel break that up. We just can’t.”

  “All right, all right, all right,” Mac agreed, “I’ll give it a try, but I can’t promise you anything. I have no clue what Honey knows about Jo Lynn, if anything. But I’m on your side, Laura, no matter what.”

  “Does that mean you’ll go for it, Mac? That you’ll do the deb thing?” Ginger pressed, figuring that the heat was on. It was do or die, now or never, and any other cliché that applied.

  Mac hesitated, first looking at Ginger and then at Laura. “Yeah, I’m in.”

  “All for one and one for all, isn’t that how it goes?” Ginger said, a strange mix of anxiety and excitement coursing through her.

  “Maybe our motto should be more like ‘Bomb the Bimbo Cartel,’” Laura suggested, and Mac remarked, “It’s got a nice ring to it.”

  “I’m in,” Ginger said.

  Mac added, “Ditto.”

  “That’s what I’m talkin’ ’bout!”

  Laura pulled them all together in a group hug, and they held on tight until Laura started giggling, her shoulders shaking contagiously, and pretty soon Ginger and Mac were laughing like idiots too. It was one of those spontaneous moments that bonded them stronger than glue, and Ginger found herself wishing it could last forever.

  * * *

  I hate to spread rumors—but what else can one do with them?

  —Amanda Lear

  Never turn your back on an enemy, even when you think you’ve got her crushed.

  —Jo Lynn Bidwell

  * * *

  Sixteen

  “Yes, yes, I’m horrified too!” Bootsie Bidwell exclaimed into her cell as she paced the marble-tiled foyer, unaware that Jo Lynn was eavesdropping from behind the banister on the curve of the stairwell. “I don’t know who’s behind that awful photo, but I agree that
we need to discuss it. I’ve called a special meeting of the selection committee for five o’clock, here at the house. All right, Millicent, I’ll see you soon.”

  Jo Lynn held her breath for an instant, hoping her mother wouldn’t head upstairs.

  “Nan, for heaven’s sake, where are you?” Bootsie called for the housekeeper, and the heels of her Marc Jacobs pumps clicked across the floor as she disappeared en route to the kitchen.

  Jo Lynn sighed and hugged her knees to her chest, smiling and feeling as if she owned the world, or at least her part of it. God, how she loved it when things went according to plan.

  I don’t know who’s behind that awful photo, her mother had proclaimed, but Jo Lynn knew who’d done it. Me, myself, and I, she thought. She’d known those revealing photos she’d taken of a passed-out-drunk Laura last summer would come in handy someday, and not just to put an end to Avery and Laura’s farce of a relationship. Jo hadn’t exactly planned to use the images ever again, except as a threat to keep Laura in her place. Until the party-crashing Miss Bell had shown up at the guesthouse on Saturday night. Jo Lynn realized then that it was time to play for keeps.

  So she’d arranged for the worst of the photographs to be privately couriered to each member of the Rosebud selection committee—in unmarked envelopes with no return address, of course—and she’d paid cash so there would be no way to trace her. When she’d arrived home from school, Bootsie had already been in a tizzy, fielding phone calls and returning others, scheduling the last-minute confab to decide Laura’s fate.

  “I thought we had the list settled too,” she’d heard her mother tell one of her GSC cronies. “But I guess we’ll have to reconsider. We can’t have obscene photos of a Rosebud floating around, now, can we?”

  Jo Lynn rose to her feet, sliding a hand down the banister as she descended to the first floor, thinking she’d done her mother proud, even if Bootsie was unaware of what she’d done, as Mommy Dearest had forever lectured her about knowing her competition and playing on their weaknesses. Jo Lynn had won more beauty pageants than she could count because of that advice. There was a lot to be said for striking first, and it had earned her more titles than she would’ve had if she’d sat back and twiddled her thumbs. Winning had been everything then. Hell, it still was.