Dying To Marry

by Janelle Taylor

  Arianna had fumed. “I’m more classically beautiful than you are, Pru. I’m the one who finaled in the beauty pageant. Not you.”

  The beauty of the courtyard, with its manicured grass plots and low stone wall, just the right height for jumping up onto it for a seat, and the rows of blooming flowers and tall trees, seemed marred by the ugliness Pru and Arianna brought to it. Back and forth, they’d snipped and snapped, until they noticed Holly.

  “Hey, look, Arianna,” Pru had shouted. “It’s the winner of Biggest Slut!”

  “And Trashiest,” Arianna added.

  “Where’d you get your prom dress?” Pru asked. “The Dumpster? Hey, Arianna, Dumpster chic—maybe it’ll be the next big thing.”

  “I’ll bet Scar Girl made it,” Arianna put in. “Fleabag’s always walking around with her needle and thread and pathetic little pieces of cheap fabric!”

  “How dare you,” Holly bit out. “How dare you refer to my friend that way!”

  “Well, you knew who we were talking about, didn’t you?” Pru asked, examining her nails.

  They were so mean, so unbelievably mean, that Holly was always too shocked to defend herself, defend her friends. It infuriated her that she could only think of blistering responses later, when it was too late.

  “Look at Holly the Whore, standing there with her mouth open,” Pru said. “There’s no guy around here, Holly, so you might as well close it.”

  “Actually, there is,” said a deep male voice. “And if there were a prize for Most Vile Human Beings On the Planet, you two would win.”

  The three girls whirled around, and there stood Jake Boone, scowling fiercely in his tuxedo.

  Pru stared at him, and for a moment, Holly thought the girl might burst into tears, but Arianna put her arm around her and muttered, “Like your opinion means anything, Jake.” Then the girls walked away.

  Jake glared after them and shook his head. “If there was a prize for Most Everything, Holly Morrow, you’d win,” he said. “You’re the most beautiful, most intelligent, most creative, most interesting, most everything girl in this stupid school.”

  Holly had burst into tears, and Jake wrapped his arms around her. “Don’t listen to those witches, Holly!” he said fiercely. “Don’t let them get to you. They’re nothing. They’re the trash!”

  “I can’t wait to get out of this town!” Holly muttered, tears running down her cheeks. She’d secured a summer job as a day camp counselor and then she was headed to a good college an hour away on a scholarship. “Once I leave I’m never coming back.”

  “So, they win?” Jake asked.

  “I’m not like you, Jake,” she said. “What they say doesn’t roll off my back like it does yours.”

  “Well, how about I convince you to stay here for the five minutes it’ll take me to go get us two cups of punch?”

  Holly had smiled. That was Jake, able to change a heated subject and draw a smile at the same time.

  “And by the way,” he added, turning around. “I think your dress is beautiful.”

  With a wink, he disappeared into the gym, and Holly leaned against the stone wall. She wouldn’t let Pru and Arianna get to her. She would enjoy this night, her last in Troutville, and spend it with her friends. She hopped up onto the stone wall and gazed at the stars.

  And then Pru had come back. If only she hadn’t.

  “Where’s Jake?” Pru demanded, hands on her hips, and Holly wondered how someone so angelic-looking could be such a monster. Pru wore one of the prettiest dresses Holly had ever seen, pink and floaty and feminine, with pink strappy sandals.

  “He went inside to get us punch,” Holly answered.

  “You’re a slut!” Pru hissed. “The only reason Jake trails after you like a puppy is because you have sex with him. You’re nothing but a trashy whore! No wonder he chose you over me as his prom da—”

  “You shut up, Pru Dunhill!” came Flea’s voice. Half visible in the dim light from the windows of the gym, Flea stood in her lovely black dress, which she’d made herself, clutching the beaded purse she’d also sewed herself. Flea, like Gayle, didn’t have a date to the prom, so they’d come together. “You just shut up.”

  Pru smiled. “Oh, look, it’s the Fleabag. The only reason you’re not a slut is because no guy will even touch you.”

  Holly had sucked in her breath in shock at Pru’s viciousness. Flea’s lower lip was trembling, but she neither cried nor spoke, just stared at the ground.

  “Pru, c’mon, they’re playing our favorite song,” called a girl’s voice from the gym’s doorway.

  “You both make me sick!” Pru snapped to Holly and Flea, and then stormed away.

  Holly let out the breath she’d been holding. “I know I’m not supposed to hate anyone. I know it does no good. But I hate her. I really hate her.”

  “She’s not worth it,” Flea said, adjusting the black scarf around her neck.

  “Jake and I haven’t so much as kissed,” Holly said. “How dare she! How dare she!”

  Flea put her arm around Holly’s shoulder. “Forget it, Holly. She’s in love with Jake, that’s why she’s always picking on you. She’s crazy about him and she hates that she can’t have him and you can.”

  “Jake and I are just friends!” Holly said. “Just friends, and that’s all we’ll ever be.”

  “I’ve never understood that,” Flea responded. “He’s so good-looking and kind and he adores you. And you’re best friends. Your best friend is who you’re supposed to marry, Holly!”

  “Marry Jake Boone? Don’t be stupid Flea,” Holly snapped. “I’ll probably never see him again after I leave Troutville and that’s fine by me. He represents everything I’m leaving ... everything I hate here. He’s the last man on earth I’d ever marry!” Her voice broke with emotion.

  She didn’t really mean it, but the whole evening was just too much.

  Holly’s response had ended her friendship with Jake. If only she’d turned around, if only she’d known he was behind her, holding two cups of punch in his trembling hands.

  She would never forget the look on his face, what he’d said to her, how he’d put down the cups and turned and walked away.

  She never saw Jake Boone again. He’d skipped the graduation ceremony the next day. And all calls and visits to his house had gone unanswered. She’d tried his and their favorite places to hang out, but she never found him. A few months later, when she’d worked up the courage to try calling again, she’d choked up at the sound of his voice when he picked up. Hello? Hello? he’d said, and Holly had broken down into sobs. A few weeks later, she’d tried again, but when she said, Jake, it’s me, Holly, he’d hung up on her.

  She hadn’t tried again.

  “Final call for Troutville station,” called the conductor, jolting Holly out of her memories. “Doors will close in exactly thirty seconds.”

  Holly started and realized there was fifty feet between her and the passenger who’d been ahead of her. She hurried up to the doors. A glance out revealed Pru Dunhill pressing provocatively against a very good-looking man, one of her legs kicked coyly up behind her. Arianna Miller stood beside them, and she yanked on Pru’s hair with the same supposedly playful passive-aggressiveness that had always underscored their relationship. The man stepped away from Pru and then headed down the platform, and Pru and Arianna seemed to engage in their usual whisper-fight.

  So much for thinking that they might have changed, Holly thought, shaking her head.

  With a deep breath, Holly stepped off the train.

  CHAPTER THREE

  The platform was very crowded. Homecoming and the class reunion was next weekend, Holly realized. During the hot, lazy days of August, people tended to take vacations, and it seemed everyone who’d ever lived in Troutville had returned for homecoming and the reunion. Her chin raised, Holly clutched her bag as she weaved her way through the crowd. As she neared her friends, she noticed the way women stared at them, up and down, with disgust. And men leere
d, as they always did. Ten years or not, nothing had changed.

  “I’ll bet she’s blackmailing him into marrying her,” said a female voice behind Holly.

  “She has to be,” another voice said. “There’s no way Dylan Dunhill would go for someone like Lizzie Morrow unless she was holding something over him.”

  “Ten to one she’s pregnant,” the first woman said.

  Holly stiffened, then turned around. “Sorry, but you lose,” she said to the women. “She’s not pregnant. And even if she were, it would be none of your business.”

  “We were having a private conversation,” one of the women replied. “So I suggest you mind your business.”

  “I am,” Holly said. “That’s my cousin you’re gossiping about.”

  The women peered closely at Holly. “Omigod, it’s Holly the Whore!” exclaimed the other woman.

  Holly was too stunned to speak for a moment. She’d been in Troutville for exactly one minute, and already it was high school all over again.

  As the two women continued walking as though nothing out of the ordinary had just happened, Holly heard one say, “She looks good. Very elegant. Maybe she’s a high-priced prostitute now.”

  Unbelievable.

  “Holly-Molly!”

  Holly whirled around at the sound of Lizzie’s voice. Her cousin grinned from ear to ear and held out her arms. Holly dropped her suitcase and grabbed her cousin tight against her.

  “Oh, Lizzie, it is so good to see you,” Holly said, breathing in Lizzie’s familiar rose-scented perfume. She pulled back and looked into Lizzie’s hazel eyes, tucking a stray blond curl behind her ear. Lizzie’s trademark huge, dangling earrings hit her finger.

  When the train had first pulled into the Troutville station, a blond woman in a dressy black pantsuit, her hair twisted up into a neat chignon, had caught Holly’s eye, and for a split second she wondered if the woman were Lizzie, made over to fit in with the Dunhills and their crowd. And then Holly had spotted her cousin, unmistakable in her short, flouncy colorful skirt and giant dangly flower earrings, and she’d breathed a sigh of relief. Lizzie was still Lizzie.

  And Troutville was still Troutville.

  “You look great, Holly,” Lizzie exclaimed. “Your hair looks real pretty that way.”

  Holly had her curly hair professionally straightened at a salon every six months; though she loved Lizzie’s wild curls, Holly couldn’t stand her own.

  “Sickening—hardly a stitch of makeup and absolutely beautiful!” mock-complained Gayle as she squeezed Holly into a hug. Gayle’s side job was selling cosmetics door to door, and she loved testing on herself. “C’mere, you, and give me a big hug.”

  Holly laughed and complied.

  “You do look terrific, Holly,” said Flea. “It’s so good to see you!”

  Holly squeezed her oldest and dearest friends into at least three hugs.

  “Hey, let’s go to the diner for lunch,” Lizzie suggested. “I’m dying for a bacon double cheeseburger and fries buried in barbecue sauce.”

  Holly laughed and breathed another sigh of relief. If that was still Lizzie’s lunch of choice, her cousin definitely hadn’t changed a bit.

  As the group headed the half block to the Troutville diner, the stares and leers continued.

  “Just ignore it, Holly-Molly,” Lizzie whispered. “If you pay it no mind, it can’t bother you.”

  Why are you all still living in this town! Holly wanted to shout. Why should they have to be treated this way?

  “Could her skirt be any shorter?” Holly heard a woman sneer.

  “She must have a pound of makeup on her face.”

  “Well, she should share it with whatshername—the little one with the black scarf around her neck. She could use some makeup.”

  “Is that Holly Morrow? She looks good.”

  “Yeah, good for trash.”

  Laughter.

  The laughter was always followed by a change of subject, about the weather or a television show, and Holly was always amazed that people could verbally attack someone so viciously, so openly, then just discuss the particular hue of blue of the sky, or a movie, as though they hadn’t just done serious damage.

  Holly glanced at Lizzie; she was deep in animated conversation with Gayle and Flea about the wedding dress she favored at Bettina’s Bridal. Did they not hear it? she wondered. Did they block it out? Were they treated like this on a daily basis?

  “Here we are,” Lizzie said, opening the door to the Troutville Café, a glorified diner that they had never entered as teenagers. They wouldn’t have been welcome.

  When the hostess led them to a small table near the kitchen, despite two empty tables for four near windows, Holly coughed loudly. “Excuse me, but we’d prefer one of those tables.” She gestured to the empty tables.

  The hostess glanced at Holly, then slid her snotty gaze up and down the length of Lizzie. “We have a dress code—no shorts. And your skirt”—she gave Lizzie’s micromini a dirty look—“is so short that it could be counted as shorts.”

  “Does your dress code note hem lengths?” Holly asked the hostess.

  “Well, no, but—” the hostess began.

  “And is she wearing shorts?” Holly interrupted.

  “No, but—” the hostess began again.

  “Holly,” Lizzie said, gently touching her arm. “It’s not worth it. Let’s just go somewhere else.”

  “No,” Flea said. “Holly’s absolutely right. We would like one of those tables,” she added. “The dress code says nothing about hem lengths.”

  The hostess snatched the menus off the small table and led the way to one of the empty tables. “Enjoy your lunch,” she snapped.

  “Oh, we will,” Gayle said, flashing her a megawatt smile.

  Before they’d walked into the restaurant, Holly had been starving. Now her appetite was all but gone. She’d been in Troutville for six minutes and had been insulted countless times. How did Lizzie, Gayle and Flea live with this every day? Why did they?

  “Maybe we should have the fries checked for poison,” Gayle said with a chuckle as they sat and perused their menus.

  “And the chair cushions for tacks,” Flea added.

  “Guys ...” Lizzie warned, shooting a shut up look at Gayle and Flea.

  “What?” Holly asked. She’d assumed Gayle and Flea were joking about the hostess’s attitude, but now she had the feeling they were talking about something else entirely.

  “Nothing,” Lizzie said, closing her menu. “They’re just joking. I’m going to have the chicken salad. Holly, have you decided?”

  All right—something was definitely going on here. “There’s something funny about poisoned fries and tacks on chairs?” Holly asked.

  “It’s no big deal,” Lizzie said, “Nothing to worry about. We’ve been the target of a few incidents. Stupid pranks.”

  “Incidents?” Holly repeated. “Lizzie, what are you talking about?”

  Lizzie gnawed her lower lip and remained silent. “It’s nothing, really, Holly. Nothing at all. Let’s just forget it and enjoy our lunch. I say we order onion rings and fries!”

  “If I were the one getting married in three weeks,” Gayle said, flipping her long red hair behind her shoulder, “I’d have to forgo all food. Lizzie, you’re so lucky that you can eat whatever you want and not gain an ounce.”

  As Lizzie, Gayle and Flea began discussing diets, workouts, the reunion, and then moved on to what Lizzie and Dylan planned to serve for dinner at the wedding reception, Holly felt like she’d fallen into the Twilight Zone. How could her friends so blithely—so happily!—chatter on about color schemes and party favors while enduring the hatred and cruelty of most of the town? Luckily, their waitress came over at just that moment to take their order.

  “Guys, I don’t mean to harp,” Holly said once their waitress had come and gone. “I really don’t. But can someone please tell me what’s going on in this godforsaken town?”

  “I gained four
pounds even though—” Gayle began.

  Holly had to smile—Gayle was obsessed with dieting. “No, sweetie—the pranks. The incidents.”

  “Oh, just the usual jealousy,” Gayle put in. “We could either let it get to us, or we can ignore it. And if we ignore it, I’m sure whoever’s behind it will get bored and quit. So we don’t want to even waste time discussing it.”

  “Quit what?” Holly asked. “Exactly what has been happening?”

  No one said anything. Holly looked at Lizzie, but her cousin was busy biting her lower lip and glancing away. Flea was staring down at the napkin on her lap. And Gayle was twirling a tendril of hair around her finger, which she always did when she was uncomfortable.

  “Okay, someone tell me what’s going on here,” Holly insisted, “or I’ll—I don’t know what I’ll do, but I’ll do something.”

  Gayle looked at Lizzie, and Lizzie nodded. “Okay, Hol,” Gayle said, “but it’s not pretty. In the past week, someone locked Flea in the back room of her dress shop, someone keyed up my car door, someone threw a stink bomb in Lizzie’s bedroom window and left a couple of nasty notes in her mailbox.”

  A chill ran up Holly’s spine. “What kind of nasty notes?”

  “Look, let’s just forget it,” Lizzie said. “Hol, you didn’t come all this way to Troutville for the first time in ten years to hear about some silly pranks. Let’s change the subject.”

  Flea sipped her water. “I don’t think they are silly pranks, Liz. And I think you need to take them more seriously than you’ve been.”

  “Oh, hell,” Gayle said. “Flea’s right. It’s been bothering me more than I’ve been letting on.”

  “Seems to me that someone’s trying to scare Lizzie into canceling the wedding,” Flea said. “One of the notes she got said that the wedding would never happen.”

  “What!” Holly shouted, alarm coursing through her. Diners around their table glanced at her, and she lowered her voice. “That sounds like a threat to me.”

  “Not a threat, just someone being mean,” Lizzie said. “It’s just the same old crap, nothing to take seriously.”