“Low carb diets are evil. They were invented by a man to make women crazy.”
“I'm not recording this conversation.” Richard smiles. “Neither one of us wants it heard by anyone else. And you know we're both vulnerable here.”
He's right, and I know it. He could track down my family, find out where I went to school, look up old friends. “What do want, Richard?”
He shrugs. “You were right about something else: I'm not the best liar, and I'm definitely not as good as you.”
I smile, relief flooding my brain. “You want me to help you keep your secret, even if your parents show up or something unforeseen goes wrong.”
“Or if this show really takes off, and someone who used to know me sees it...I know you could think of a way to fix it.” He's implying that I'm good at blackmailing people, which is true. I'm also good at alternative explanations for things that look bad. “And in exchange, I'll never cause problems for you.”
“I still don't know what you're talking about,” I say, resolute to the end. The best liars are. Sometimes the worst are, as well, but that's not my concern right now. “But my skills are at your service, and you can trust me to act with discretion in this matter of your secret.”
He nods and walks away. I'm about to do the same when he stops and turns around. “Can I ask you one question?”
“Sure.” I don't say I'll answer.
He strides back toward me, stopping where he was before. His sleeve brushes my bare shoulder, and I think that under different circumstances, I might have been very attracted to him right now.
“Did you just make up that story about your cousin Cliff?”
I stare him down, my eyes burning into his. He doesn't blink. “That story was true, Richie Rich.” I turn and walk away.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
When I get back to my room, Morgan is gone and a text message says she and Tiff went to the nearest bar and I'm welcome to join them. I text her back that I'm tired and want to wash the smell of that awful ranch off and go to bed, but the truth is that I want to be alone.
No, what I really want is to be in a real hotel with a fucking hot tub where I can relax and think about how to protect myself. Now that Richard has leverage on me, my leverage on him is worthless. Even assuming we win the bet, I'll always have to worry that he can extort me. Now, what could he get out of me?
Lacking access to a hot tub, I ponder this problem as I take a hot shower, which lasts as long as the hot water – about ten minutes. I get out of the shower, wrap myself in a threadbare, bleach-harshened cheap motel towel, and stare at myself in the mirror. I see a short blonde with boobs that everyone thinks are fake. The joke is that I could never have afforded fakes if I'd been naturally flat-chested. I take a cheap motel washcloth and wipe the steam off the mirror, and then I do something I never do in front of other people: No, not that sort of thing. This is something so shocking I could never let anyone see it: I smile, not a small, tight, fake smile like I occasionally flash at people whose asses I'm kissing as a last resort, but a big, open-mouthed, smile.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not the least bit happy right now. I'm just looking at my teeth. They're not the only reason I don't smile – being generally pissed off at the world is the main reason. But even when I fake happiness for personal gain, I can't let anyone see a big, wide smile on my face, because if they did they'd noticed that my top and bottom teeth have a gap the size of the Grand Canyon between them. I stick out my tongue at the mirror and it slides easily between the top and bottom rows of teeth. None of my friends from the sorority house or their usual party guests can do this. If my parents had had several thousand extra dollars when I was a teenager, I wouldn't be able to either.
I allow my mouth to relax into a nice, comfortable frown and the image in the mirror goes back to being unflawed.
My phone is playing my ringtone, Good Charlotte's “Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous”. I walk into the shitty motel room that represents everything I've tried to distance myself from since the day I went to college and pretended my old, real life didn't exist. I pick up the cell phone that I bought on Feebay at a ridiculous discount, even though it's exactly like the ones Morgan and Tiffany paid $300 for at the local cell store. “Hello?”
“Shade Stevenson?” The voice sounds vaguely familiar. “This is Harry Harmon from Channel Eight News.”
“Oh...yeah, I saw your piece on the homeless problem,” I say. “But I thought you were going to actually interview the homeless?”
“It's a three-part series, remember?” Harry clears his throat. “The interviews with the homeless aired on tonight's show.”
“Oh...right. I'll be sure to watch it online.” What the fuck does Harry want right now? Oh, crap, what if he wants a date? Normally I'd probably say yes, but the guy's a reporter for fuck's sake, and there's no way I can date someone that nosy right now. “Something I can help you with? Did you have more questions for your story on the party tomorrow night?”
“Oh, I'll have plenty of questions for you and the other guests - and Richard, of course,” Harry says. “But I'm interested in doing another story about you and this B Green 2 Save Green mission of yours. The response to last night's piece was great – it was one of the most-clicked stories on our website. Plus I see that your GluedToYou channel is gaining viewers by the hour. Your last video had 4,200 hits already!”
“That's great.” It's really not, compared to the average viral video with millions of hits, but at least it's a step in the right direction.
“I'd like to interview all of you about your mission. I know you're hoping to get an internship with a cause dear to your hearts, but I'd like to know what inspired you to do this particular project,” Harry yammers. “I just talked to your friend Morgan, and she said you'd love the publicity.”
“Well...yes, I would.” Well, I would if Richard hadn't just figured out my secret. After all, none of us self-identified as rich or poor in the videos. But Richard's hosting of an expensive party sort of identifies him as rich, and he hadn't planned on getting that much publicity for a fifty-thousand-dollar party (according to the last numbers from Matt). That wouldn't matter if he wasn't expecting me to protect his secret, in order to protect his own.
But what else can I do? If I turn down Harry Harmon, Morgan's going to wonder why, and so will everyone else.
I look at the disastrous green shag carpet, which looks a lot like the spoiled-latte colored shag nightmare we had in the house where I grew up. The only way I can permanently live in the world I love, not the world I belong in, is to make this mess work for both Richard and me.
“I'd be thrilled to talk to you about our mission,” I say. “But I'm afraid we're going to be very busy between now and the party.”
“Of course, and ordinarily I'd schedule an interview for next week,” Harry says agreeably. “But you're going to be busy publicizing the event, right? And if you can find time to do the interview before the party, it'll help get you more publicity. I was hoping to shadow you guys on Saturday, watch you work and ask a few questions. I promise not to take up too much of your time – I want to get you guys in your element, working on your project.”
“Great,” I say, as another part of my brain screams, “No, it's fucking not!” in the back of my mind. “We'll see you then.”
Chapter Thirty
Friday morning, Richard and I meet on neutral territory, in a room of a suite he rented just for this occasion. We sit opposite each other at the table, phones propped up on kickstands with their backs to the wall so we can both see both of them. The purpose is so we can both watch the live feeds from our GluedToYou channel, so we know neither of us is broadcasting right now and the devices are not recording.
The concern about recording devices, however, is at an all-time high,and why wouldn't it be?
“You wanna get naked?” Richard asks, hiking an eyebrow at me.
“I don't think either of us wants a recording of this conversation,” I s
ay, flinging my purse on the bed in the second room. “But if you want to strip down to our underwear, I'm fine with that.” I pull off my shirt and shimmy out of my skinny jeans (no easy task) and toss them on top of my purse, thus muffling any audio a recording device in my purse would get.
Richard shrugs and pulls off his own shirt and pants, not spending half as much time on it as I did. The whole skinny-jeans thing hasn't caught on as well with men, it seems.
“You're welcome to examine my briefs if you want to make sure I don't have anything hidden there,” he offers, closing the door to the room with our clothes and taking a seat at the table by his phone.
“That won't be necessary.” I sit across from him and sip the overpriced soy white mocha I ordered from room service. “I maintain that it's in both our best interests not to record this conversation. And I assume you'll be staring directly at my boobs the entire time, so you can be assured there's no recording device there.”
“Looks okay to me.” Richard smacks his cup of African-blend, one-sugar-no-cream coffee onto the table.
“Let's get down to business.” I like Richard distracted by my boobs, but not totally stupid. “Tell me everything about your past.”
Richard stares down at the table. “You know Lila's Lingerie?”
I point at my boobs. “I'm wearing it, can't you tell?”
He blinks at my cleavage. “What was the question?”
I sigh. “You mean to say your parents are executives at Lila's Lingerie?”
“My mom owns it.” Richard sighs. “And she was one of those weird rich people who insist on sending their children to a regular public school. Said she wanted me to have a 'normal' childhood.”
“Did you start lying to your friends all the way back in grade school?” I've never met anyone who was such a lying prodigy as me at such a young age.
He shakes his head. “No, not until I left for college and realized it was my opportunity to start over.”
“Me too. So, the other kids at school knew you were rich and kicked your ass?”
He rubs at the side of his face. “I still don't understand my mom's train of thought. She wanted me to go to school like a normal kid, but then she'd pick me up in her Rolls Royce. And if she couldn't make it, she'd send her driver – in the Rolls Royce. She brought pastries from the most expensive bakery in town to PTA meetings and after-school things, instead of bringing cheap crap from a mart store like all the other parents.”
“So, they kicked your ass.”
He shakes his head. “I didn't get beaten up on the playground, no. I was a pretty tough kid and my mom taught me not to take shit from anyone.”
“But they treated you differently.”
“It was how they looked at me, how they all kept their distance.” He stares at the phones, at the feed of Tiffany sleeping and Morgan pacing the floor and Charlie and Matt picking out the cheapest beer at a mart store. “Sometimes they teased me, but mostly they just kept their distance. Until a couple of them got smart and started trying to be friendly.”
“They wanted money?” I ask.
He leans forward, looks to the side, does that hair-smoothing gesture guys do when they're embarrassed. “You know how it starts. They ask for something small first, a Twinkie or an eraser or something. Then they want to borrow money for lunch. They never get around to paying you back.
“They always want to go over to your house. They never want to have you over to theirs. They want to hang out at your place, with the X-Box and the big-screen T.V. and the swimming pool.”
“That doesn't mean they don't like you,” I say.
He rolls his eyes. “Of course it does.”
I shake my head. “No, it really doesn't. Trust me, if a person is annoying enough or smells bad enough, you're not going to hang out with them no matter how much cool stuff they have.”
“So I wasn't the most annoying kid in school and I didn't smell that bad. That doesn't mean everyone really liked me.” He leans over the desk, hunching his shoulders. “The point is, I felt like my friends liked my stuff more than me.”
“Did your first girlfriend ask for free lingerie?”
He rolls his eyes again. “No, but the first girl I ever got a bra off of was wearing Lila's Lingerie. I saw the label as I was pulling it off her.” He's starting to turn red. “That kind of killed the mood, if you know what I mean.”
“Did you see the tape of Biff?”
“Well, it seems like Biff has that problem a lot. It only ever happens to me when, um, when a girl's wearing that.”
“You mean we can't consummate this unholy alliance?” I feign horror. “That's just awful!”
“Well, we could have if you hadn't told me what brand those things are.” He ducks his head and stares down at the table like it's more fascinating than a magazine article about Kim and Kanye's relationship. “I've learned to look at anything but lingerie labels. Or, better yet, ask the girl if she minds having the lights off.”
“I'm sure that works well with some of the girls you date.”
He clears his throat. “Why don't we talk about you?”
I shrug. “That's not really a priority. You're more vulnerable in this situation since you're funding the party.”
He leans back in his chair and looks me in the eye. “We're partners here. Don't you trust me?”
“It's nothing personal. I don't trust anyone.” That's the truth, whether he believes it or not.
Richard gives me a cut-the-bullshit look. “This is where you tell me it's the result of growing up poor, right?”
“Wrong!” I snap. “Believe it or not, I grew up with a lot of poor, trusting morons. Actually, that's how a lot of people get poor. And some of them don't even learn from that.”
“You mean your parents?”
I look at him, at the slack dimples and blue eyes and twelve-dollar-front-of-the-mart-store haircut, and I remember all the conversations we've had when he thought he could talk to me. He might not have told me the truth about his financial background, but he's sure told me stuff that left him vulnerable.
“My parents learned from their mistakes, but it was too late,” I say. “There was a rich aunt on my dad's side of the family, and his own sister screwed him out of his inheritance.”
“How?” Richard's brow knots quizzically.
“My great aunt, Rosie, she didn't like my dad's sister, my aunt Etta.” I stare at the phones, at the boring feeds of my friends, and think that this story is more interesting than anything they're doing, but it'll never see the light of day. “I was too young to remember, but apparently she called Etta a cheating whore at Thanksgiving dinner one year.”
Richard raises an eyebrow. “Was it true?”
“From what I've heard, yes.” I stare out the window at the beachfront view. Still no sign of trash. “Also, her husband apparently doesn't know he's not the biological father of their son. I don't know how aunt Rosie got the four-one-one on that, but she knew Etta was screwing more than one guy at a time, and Rosie was all old and religious and super-judgey about stuff like that, so...”
“So there's no way she'd have left Etta anything in her will?”
“Exactly.” I take another swig of coffee. “So she dies, and all of a sudden there's this handwritten will with a barely legible signature in which she leaves everything to aunt Etta. And just six months before that, she'd had a real will drawn up by a lawyer, with witnesses and crap.”
Richard frowns. “How could something like that possibly have held up in court?”
I shrug. “No one contested it, that's how. If you're ever looking to further your education on being poor by pursuing a life of crime, I recommend will-forging. It's surprisingly easy to get away with that shit.”
Richard rolls his eyes. “First of all, rich people steal all the time. Look at Bernie Madoff. And second, why didn't your dad just contest the will ?”
“Society is more likely to forgive poor people who steal. Robin Hood and all that crap.�
�� I shake my coffee cup, trying to redistribute all the white mocha sauce that usually sinks to the bottom. “For one thing, legal battles like that cost money, which he would have still owed if he lost. That's a big consideration for a poor person, Richard.
“Second, the lawyer he consulted wasn't all that optimistic that they'd win, since they had no proof. Third, it would cause a big rift in the family, and he was worried some of his other relatives would take Etta's side and disown him.”
“So?”
I shake my head. “I know, I know, they probably weren't worth being close to in the first place if they'd take the will-forger's side. Actually, I think a couple of them were in on it with her. But the bottom line is, he never had the balls to take his stupid sister on.
“I think that's one of the reasons he was so unhappy when I was a kid. He was always starting fights with my mom over nothing, always criticizing me. I was never good enough at anything – sports, dance lessons, school. It was always, 'you need to work harder', 'you'd be doing so much better if you just listened to me', crap like that.”
“That must have been tough,” Richard says. For once he doesn't sound sarcastic.
I shrug. “Yeah. And the lack of money made it worse, you know? I know he felt bad when he and my mom couldn't pay their bills. They had their own business, and they just could never make it profitable. And keep in mind, this was back in the nineties, when the economy was fucking awesome.”
I drain my coffee cup and toss it at the trash can. No one's more surprised than me when it makes it into the basket. “You know, today you see stories about millionaires selling their shit in yard sales on their front lawns. GM would have gone under without a government bailout. Everybody's broke. Everyone's living off Uncle Sam. I guess it's less embarrassing now. But back then, the economy was rocking and I guess it was embarrassing for my parents to be the only people around who couldn't make a buck.”
“So they taught you to lie about it?”
“No.” I shake my head. “I learned to lie from my extended family, the will-forgers. And when I say learned to lie, I mean that I learned what not to do so I'd be better at it.
Sorority Girls With Guns Page 20