Richard shakes his head. "Is this supposed to convince me that my generalities about rich people are wrong?"
"No. Just let me finish." I scan the beach for Richard's beer can and spot it rolling along the shore, almost submerged in the tide. "The final blow came when Cliff was sixteen. He had girlfriends in school, off and on, but then one night he went to the movies with some friends and he met this girl who was working at the snack counter. Julie. She shoveled some greasy, artery-clogging popcorn into a bucket for him and he fell madly in love.
"Of course, his parents weren't happy about him dating someone whose parents qualified for welfare. They kept accusing her of being a golddigger, going after the family fortune. Cliff's mom was convinced Julie wanted to get knocked up so Cliff would be stuck paying out to her for eighteen years.
"I honestly don't think they were right about her. I met her once, and I really think she just liked Cliff. She obviously wasn't into clothes or fashion - she wore Keds for crying out loud. And no makeup. And I've never met a sixteen-year-old girl, poor or rich, who had any desire to get pregnant, get fat, get stretch marks and be tied down with a kid.
"Plus, all she talked about was this comic book she and Cliff were designing together, and she was always talking about how brilliant his drawings were and crap like that. I mean, the guy couldn't draw a stick figure. A golddigger would have been encouraging him to apply to business school like his father wanted. Julie thought he should be a freelance graphic artist. That would be like digging for gold in a kid's sandbox. At any rate, it was just another reason Cliff's parents didn't like her."
"So what happened to them?" Richard asks.
"All I know is that Julie's father got a great job offer in another state. He was some sort of construction worker, and the offer didn't exactly make him rich, but it was a big enough raise that he couldn't turn it down - not if he wanted to send Julie to college.
"Cliff tried to keep in contact with Julie, but she shut him out for some reason. He never figured out exactly why, but he figured his mother had something to do with it. And he found out the company that made Julie's dad such a good offer was owned by some friends of his parents'."
"What does this have to do with me?" Richard asks.
I drum my fingers on the granite railing. "Here's the thing about Cliff," I say softly, turning to look at Richard. The dimples are twitching again. I think that's his tell - he's hiding something. Or trying to. "For all those reasons, Cliff hated everything about being rich. So when he went away to college, he decided to become...not rich."
"He refused his parents' money?"
I laugh. "No. He wasn't a fanatic about it. He let them pay for his tuition and board and everything. And he never turned down the checks they sent every month."
Richard rolls his eyes. "Sounds like he didn't hate the money that much, after all."
"Well, even Cliff was smart enough to see that the money itself wasn't the problem. He just decided the problem was how money made other people see him. So he went around acting poor, telling people he was there on a scholarship, bitching and moaning about how much everything cost, hanging out with other kids from middle-class families." I look Richard straight in the eye as I say this, or at least, I try to. He jerks his eyes away as if he just saw Honey Boo Boo's mom wearing a thong.
"He got caught after only about a month," I continue. "See, he did an okay job of pretending to be poor, but unfortunately he failed to inherit the wicked-good liar gene that most of the rest of us have." I smile, still trying to catch Richard's eye. He's still ducking me.
"You know what did him in?" I ask.
Richard shrugs, staring at his shoes as if he's never seen Nikes before. "What?"
I shove off the railing and get up close to Richard, taking his arm and tugging him around to face me. "I told you he bitched and moaned about the price of everything, and that was precisely the problem - he bitched and moaned about the price of everything, not just things that were truly high-priced.
"He complained about prices that were genuinely higher than the audience at a Willie Nelson concert. He complained about prices that were just average. And he complained about prices that were really fucking great. Well, one day he and his roommate decided to pool their money and get a pizza. The pizza place was having a five-dollar special on medium, one-topping pizzas, and they still let his roommate use a two-dollar off coupon. His roommate honestly thought the guy took a coupon he shouldn't have, but he took the discount.
"So, they got a pizza for three dollars. And Cliff started right in, complaining about how high the prices were, and how awful the pizza place was for screwing over poor students like that. And that's when his roommate figured it out.
"Why? Because he was a cheapskate?" Richard gives a hunch-shouldered shrug. "That doesn't mean anything. Some people get to be millionaires because they're cheap. Have you ever read the book-"
"Yes, I have read that book," I say. "And you're absolutely right - not all rich people are oblivious to prices. But, by necessity, all people who are oblivious to price are rich."
Richard rakes a hand through his hair, like he's hoping he can wipe it all off and look like Bruce Willis. "But he wasn't-"
"When I say oblivious, I don't mean that he didn't care," I explain. "I mean, he was unable to discern the difference between a good price and a bad price, so he just complained about every price he encountered. Sometimes he was right, but sometimes he was ridiculously wrong. And eventually, he was so wrong that someone noticed and figured it out. You see, there's only one reason that a person gets to the age of eighteen without being able to tell the difference between high, reasonable and low prices - and that's because they never needed that skill. And the only explanation for someone not needing that skill is always having a generous supply of cash to pay for things."
Richard takes a step back from me. "I still don't see what that has to do with me."
I follow him, backing him into the balcony corner. "The other day, you complained bitterly about the price of coffee, which was three bucks for one and get one free. Before you complained about that price, I heard four other people in line say what a great deal it was. I didn't hear one other person in that coffeeshop say the prices were anything but great in the whole half-hour we were there."
Richard hitches one shoulder up, as if trying to shake off what I'm saying. "That doesn't prove anything."
"You're wearing a Tommy Hilfiger shirt." I point to the flag logo. "Why did you choose it?"
"My shirt?" He looks down, his brow wrinkling with confusion. "I've had this for months. I bought it at a clearance sale."
"That's what I figured," I said. "If you're pretending to be poor, of course you only shop clearance sales, right? But why Tommy Hilfiger?"
"Poor people wear cheap clothes," he says through gritted teeth.
"How much did you pay for the shirt?"
He frowns. "I don't remember."
"Well, what do you usually pay for a shirt at a clearance sale?"
He shrugs. "I don't know, forty or fifty bucks?"
I nod. "How much does a rich person pay for shirts?"
"A hundred, hundred-fifty? Maybe more, depending how rich they are."
"Cliff did that too," I say. "His roommate informed him that poor people usually don't pay more than ten or fifteen bucks for a shirt. They either get them at an eighty-percent-off sale - as opposed to a fifty or twenty-five percent one - or they buy them at a thrift store, slightly used."
He rolls his eyes. "That doesn't make me rich. That just makes me slightly less poor than your cousin's roommate."
"Well, coffee prices are on a much smaller scale." I lean close to him and stand up on my toes, so we're face to face. "Being unable to tell that a dollar-fifty is a good price for flavored coffee does make you rich, Richie Rich. And now I know why you hate that nickname."
With that, I turn around and walk off the balcony, leaving Richard standing in stunned silence behind me. I'm at the door to
his suite when I hear him yelling, "Wait! What are you going to do?"
I open the door and walk out. Richard is still yelling panicky questions as the door closes behind me.
Chapter Eighteen
This time, I'm telling the editor of Maxim that I couldn't stand to be objectified in a bikini on the magazine's cover for any less than ten million dollars when Tiffany wakes me up screaming.
"Shade, wake up, we have to help Morgan! She's threatening that guy with a gun!"
I sit up, the harsh reality of my cash-starved existence coming back to me with a snap. I see the shaggy carpet that looks like it's been in the room since the seventies, the mysterious stain by the door, the lampshade that's starting to escape the metal ring that holds it to the lamp. And then I see Tiffany, dressed in Dior pajamas that she found at a thrift store before our trip. They're monogrammed with the letter R, but she only paid five bucks for the set.
I glance at the bedside clock. "Tiffany, if you're still pissed at me, four-forty in the morning really isn't the time to repair our relationship, okay?"
"This is not about me being pissed at you! This is about helping our friend!" Tiffany grabs me by the arm and pulls me toward the door. I stumble on legs that can run three miles on a treadmill but can't seem to work right when my brain is still in a semi-conscious state.
"Did you say something about a gun?" I ask, letting her pull me out the door. It's easier than trying to walk. Or think.
"You know that guy she had the one-night stand with, the one who tried to blackmail her with the sex tape?" Tiffany runs down the hallway and starts stabbing the elevator button repeatedly, as if that will make it arrive faster. She hits the button for the first floor so hard that she breaks a nail. "Shit!"
"Aren't you grateful to the universe that you broke a nail? Maybe it'll prevent you from poking someone's eye out later or something, right?"
"Would you shut up?" Tiffany screams at me.
"Fine, just tell me, as succinctly as possible, what's going on with Morgan and Biff and who has the gun again?"
Tiffany stares at me, her forehead knotting in confusion, and I realize she might not know the word "succinctly". "Sucks? Sucks what?"
"Who has the gun?" I ask as we pass over floor two. Hey, at least we don't have to stop at every floor to let people on at four-forty in the morning.
"Morgan." Tiffany looks at me like I'm the idiot. "It's her gun."
"And she's..." I lower my voice as the doors pop open and we walk out into the lobby. "Pointing it at Biff?"
"Sort of. You'll see." Tiffany dashes across the lobby and I follow, my legs finally waking up.
We round the corner of the building, into the overflow parking lot. The first thing I see is Biff's ridiculous truck with a black eye. Well, one of the headlights is out. It looks like-
“You shot my fucking truck!” Biff yells.
The first thing I do is look around the parking lot for witnesses. Fortunately, the parking lot of the Motel One is deserted at four-forty in the morning. I spin around, looking at curtained windows for signs of movement. Nothing. The people who frequent this dump are either hard of hearing, super sound sleepers, super drunk sleepers or disinclined to get involved with the problems of others. Or maybe no one else wanted to sleep in this dump. Who knows, it appears we're getting lucky.
“Morgan, what's going on here?” I ask, approaching slowly. “I thought we had the situation with this asshole under control.”
“We did.” Morgan keeps the gun trained on Biff's truck. “But now this dickhead wants more.”
“More what?”
“I just told her if she doesn't turn over that blackmail tape she has on me, I'm going to tell everyone her secret,” Biff says, folding his arms and leaning against his truck. Then he frowns and bounces off the truck like it's radioactive. Yeah, he just realized leaning on a target is a bad idea.
“You want her to release that embarrassing tape of you?” Tiffany asks.
Biff raises his eyebrows. “You mean that sex tape that you girls made without my permission after you rufied me?”
“We did no such thing!” I yell, in case he's secretly recording this. He could have a camera phone anywhere, trust me.
“I thought about it,” Morgan says. “But I was afraid you'd be one of those people who has a bad reaction and dies. Especially considering how much you drink. So I figured it'd be better just to let you get drunk on your own, the same way you do every night.”
“Morgan, keep a lid on that, you never know who might overhear,” I say, stepping closer to her. I'm standing right behind her and just a bit off to the side, facing the angle between Biff and the gun so I can keep an eye on them both.
“So you admit that you made a sex tape of me without my knowledge or permission?” Biff asks, increasing my concern that he's recording this conversation.
“We did no such thing!” I yell, shooting Morgan a please-shut-up look. I look closely at her, and I can see that she's really upset. Her normally-perfect eye makeup is smeared, the shimmery baby blue of her sweater now swirled up into her eyebrows. Waterproof or not, her mascara is smudged down her face. And the hand holding the Barbie Gun is shaking and white-knuckled, like a guy about to get serious with Taylor Swift.
But as panicked as she is, Morgan is still able to have one rational thought – she sees that I'm right. “We don't know what you're talking about,” she says.
Biff is looking back and forth from her, to me, to Tiffany and back again. “Your friends don't know, do they?”
Tiffany's brow furrows, and I know she's going to make some lucky Botox doctor very rich one day. “What is he talking about, Morgan?”
“I know,” I say, and Morgan whips her head around to look at me. Biff takes that opportunity to lunge for the gun, but I see him coming. He's not as drunk as he was the other night, but his reflexes are still no match for mine, and I haven't taken my eyes off either him or the gun this whole time. The second I see the barest flicker of movement from his direction, I grab the gun from Morgan, shooting her an I'm-on-your-side look.
Unfortunately, she is too upset to discern the meaning of that one, and she tries to pull the gun away from me. This gives Biff the opportunity to get close enough to throw his hand in the mix, and now Morgan sees why I was trying to go after the gun. She lets go, but her fingers get stuck in whatever you call that space between the trigger and the rest of the gun. (Sorry, I don't read Hooker and Handgun much.) Why she had two fingers on the trigger, I have no fucking clue. You'd think a Texas native would know more about guns.
“Ow!” she yells, startling Biff so much that he momentarily lets go of my wrist. That's when her fingers finally slip free of the trigger...by triggering it. The gun seems to explode in my hand and I can't help but jump.
Chapter Nineteen
“Oh my God!” Tiffany screams. I guess she can't think of a reason to be grateful to the universe at this particular point in time.
I don't get flustered much, but I've never found myself holding a smoking gun before. Okay, so it isn't smoking, but it did just go off and I am holding it now and I have no fucking clue why.
“Holy fucking Christ, you shot me!” Biff shrieks like a little girl. I look at him, trying to see where he got shot, and I see a tiny trickle of blood on his hand, across the back of his knuckles. Well, at least it doesn't look like the bullet hit a vital organ. On the other hand, this will still look awful in court, and the thought of going to some filthy jail cell and being questioned by the cops is enough to make me break out in hives. Holy fuck, how am I ever going to explain this-
“No, she didn't,” Tiffany says behind me, and her arm is going around me, pointing at Biff's truck. “She shot the antlers.”
I follow her finger, and see that she's right – the bullet is lodged in one of the ugly antlers.
“Then why am I bleeding?” Biff asks, cradling his right hand in his left like he's been mortally wounded.
“That's my blood!” Morgan
yells, looking at her own hand. Sure enough, getting her fingers lodged in the gun caused her to lose a chunk of skin when she finally let go of it.
Biff wipes at his hand with his shirtsleeve, which probably hasn't been washed in a week. “Oh...uh, yeah, I guess you're right. Still, you could have killed me!” His head pops up and I see that he's going to go for the gun again, so I jump back, put the safety on and shove the gun in my purse.
“I don't think you want to take another step closer to me,” I say.
“Why not? You can't get that gun out of your purse that fast.” He runs at me then, and I show him why he really didn't want to do that: I slam my knee into his crotch just as soon as he's close enough to grab me.
“You bitch!” he yells, grabbing for my purse as he doubles over. That's when Morgan grabs him by his hair and jerks his head back. Unable to keep his balance while clutching his balls, he topples backwards, taking her with him.
I kick him in the side, not hard enough to really hurt him (I hope), but hard enough to make him jerk in the other direction. Tiffany helps me shove him over onto his stomach and Morgan grabs him by the hair again. I place a cheap high heel in the center of his back. “Move the wrong way, and I'll snap your spine like a potato chip, bitch,” I say to him.
Tiffany's brow furrows in confusion again, and Morgan raises an eyebrow, but neither of them say anything. They're right, of course – I have no idea how to do that. But I heard it in a movie once and it sure sounded badass.
Morgan hangs onto his hair and twists his head around to look at her. “Let me make something clear,” she says, very quietly. “I am going to med school. I got an A+ in AP Anatomy, AP Biology and AP Chemistry. If I wanted to kill you, I wouldn't use a gun. I save that for non-sentient, inanimate objects like your truck. Or your brain. Whatever. The point is, if I wanted to kill you I could and would do it in such a way that no one could ever trace it to me. And you would suffer terribly. Do you understand?”
Biff groans something that might be “Mmm-hmmm”. Or it might be “motherfucker”. I'm not really sure at this point.
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