Revenge of the Homecoming Queen

by Stephanie Hale

  “Why, Aspen! I was hoping you’d stop by. Won’t you come in?” she asks, shuffling to the side to allow me access.

  “Hello, Miss Hott,” I say, sliding inside her front door.

  * * * *

  It’s funny. This doesn’t look like a psycho’s house. I mean, not like I’ve ever seen any shows about Ted Bundy’s or Charles Manson’s houses or anything. Although, that would be pretty cool. They could call it Cribs of the Criminally Insane, or something like that. The parts of the house I can see are all decorated like a seaside cottage. She has all kinds of homemade picture frames with seashells glued to them. It’s quite adorable. Aside from Miss Hott being so obviously insane, she does have good taste.

  I trail a good foot behind her as she leads the way through the house. I’m still clutching the box of candy as if it were a coveted Kelly bag or something. Miss Hott is decked out in a muumuu adorned with large flowers. Her ass is the hugest hibiscus I’ve ever seen. She’s got an awesome pair of stilettos on. I’m guessing Jimmy Choos. I bet she lives for shoes and purses since you don’t have to have a great bod for those. Her blonde hair is swept up in the most fabulous updo. I can’t help but admire her for staying as chic as is humanly possible in a stressful situation.

  “Can I get you a cup of coffee?” she asks, leaning against a countertop where a bar separates the kitchen from the living room.

  “No, thanks. I’m not a coffee drinker.” Does she think I was born yesterday? God only knows what she would put into my drink. Puhlease! She has me totally underestimated.

  “I’m really sorry about your mom. How are you holding up?” she asks, looking genuinely concerned.

  “I miss her,” I hear myself saying. I lay the box of chocolate down on the bar.

  “Of course you do. They’ll find her soon,” she adds, matter-of-factly. She is so easy to talk to and for some reason I find myself opening up to her.

  “I realized this week that I take a lot of people who love me for granted. I don’t want to do that anymore.” Tears stream down my cheeks.

  “Your mother knows that you love her, Aspen.” She slowly waddles toward me. I’m frozen in place quaking in my UGGs. This is it. This is the part of the movie where she drives a knife right through my chest. Instead, she throws her meaty arms around me and envelopes me in a bear hug. I wait for the knife to be plunged into my back. She just hugs me tighter. Maybe I was wrong. Maybe Miss Hott isn’t the psycho.

  “I know what would cheer you up.” She takes my hand pulling me down a hallway toward a bedroom. I take one last glimpse at the box of chocolates, then disappear around a corner.

  Miss Hott takes me into the biggest walk-in closet I’ve ever seen. I’ve died and gone to heaven! She has custom-built shelves that are filled to capacity with hundreds of shoeboxes screaming names like Gucci, Choo, Blahnik, Jacobs, and Prada. Off to the side of the shoe shelves are large metal hooks holding a priceless purse collection. Kate Spade, Coach, Prada bags call to me from their hooks. She doesn’t have any Dooneys, but it’s still an awesome collection. I run my fingers along their smooth skins. I take a deep breath and fill my nose with the crisp leather smell. Just as I breathe in I feel Miss Hott’s sausage fingers clamp down across my face. She’s holding a monogrammed handkerchief across my mouth and nose. It smells funny. The initial L stares back at me as the closet begins to spin. So, I was right after all. Miss Hott is a few rhinestones short of a tiara. I can’t believe she tricked me. Damn you, Jimmy Choo!

  * * * *

  My feet are freezing. I look down at them and see my Gold toes staring back at me. The bitch stole my UGGs. If she has my UGGs, that means she has my phone. Now it’s really on.

  I’m tied to a chair, a freakishly small chair, like the wooden ones from elementary school. I can’t believe Miss Hott is so cheap she had to gank chairs from the elementary school. If you’re going to kidnap and murder people, you would think she could at least put a little bit of money into it and do it with style. My legs have nowhere to go except straight out in front of me. I try to move my arms, but Miss Hott duct taped them to the back of the chair. I wiggle as hard as I can, but I’m not going anywhere. I could tip myself over, but then I’d just be lying on the freezing-cold cement floor. Not a good plan.

  I must be in her basement. The smell of rotten meat permeates the air. At least I hope its rotten meat. The only light comes from a few strands of clear lights wound around two fake palm trees. My eyes search every inch of the basement. I’m alone. The walls are padded with the mats we use in gym class. I’m guessing to make it more soundproof. Not a good thing. A long wooden bench with craft equipment sits along one of the walls. This must be where she makes all of her seashell crafts, in her free time, when she’s not kidnapping people. Why didn’t I just call Harry? Now I’m going to rot in crazy Miss Hott’s basement. They probably won’t find me for a couple of years, and by then everyone will have moved on with their lives and forgotten all about me. Except Rand, he’d never forget about me. At least he better not. A grieving period of anything less than ten years would just not be acceptable.

  A giant deep freeze catches my eye. The smell. What if it’s not rotting meat? That freezer is definitely big enough to fit a couple of people in. Miss Hott is probably on her way down to stuff me in the freezer with Mom and Angel right now. My breathing is starting to get heavy. I close my eyes and demand control of my respiratory system. I am not going to allow myself to shut down, at least not until I find out for sure what happened to Mom.

  A door above me flies open and a burst of light fills the room. I hear footsteps on a creaky staircase. As the footsteps get closer I start hearing muffled noises. I turn my head toward the sounds. Mom comes into focus. Then Angel. Then Amy? I’m back in a corner and none of them see me. I want to yell for Mom, but I don’t want to provoke Miss Hott. The crazy bitch herself brings up the rear. And what a huge rear it is!

  “Get over there and sit down. Don’t even think about trying anything!” Miss Hott shouts at them.

  All three of them have duct tape over their mouths and their hands are tied behind their backs. Miss Hott leads them to three wooden chairs identical to mine. She binds all of their chairs together using two whole rolls of duct tape.

  “I don’t think they’re going anywhere,” I comment on her overly excessive use of duct tape.

  Mom hears my voice and immediately starts trying to yell through her duct tape. Angel and Amy look less than impressed to see me. How did I not know that Amy was missing?

  “Don’t start with me, Brooks, or you’ll be the next one getting tape over your mouth.”

  “Why are you doing this?” I demand.

  She waddles over and gets right into my face. The caring, fashion-savvy principal known for her fabulous updo’s is long gone. Taking her place is a seriously disturbed, muumuu-wearing freak show that looks like she could use a serious dose of lithium right about now.

  “I don’t know, smarty-pants. Why don’t you tell me why I’m doing this?” she mimics me.

  Amy and Angel look bored. I guess they aren’t interested in knowing why a total lunatic has kidnapped them and is planning their demise. That’s understandable. If you’re a nitwit! I can already see that even if I manage to figure out a way out of this, those two are going to be absolutely no help. I make eye contact with Mom. I can tell she’s warning me. Miss Hott must be a ticking time bomb.

  I take a deep breath before answering, and pray my intro psych classes will pay off a little bit. “I would say that you have deep insecurities about your weight. I think you miss being beautiful so much that you hate anyone who is beautiful. I have a feeling you weren’t too jazzed about being dumped for my mom either.”

  Miss Hott starts clapping her chunky hands together. “Bravo, Miss Freud. You’ve got me all figured out.”

  I shrug like it was nothing, but I actually feel pretty proud of myself for figuring it out before Harry. Not that it’s going to do me a whole lot of good once she kills me
, but at least when Harry finds me he’ll know that I knew before him. That should haunt him for a while.

  “You did get one thing wrong though.” She glares at me.

  “What?” I ask, confused.

  “I don’t hate all beautiful people. Just you.” Jeez, nothing like sugarcoating it a little.

  “So why did you kidnap them?” I ask, nodding toward Mom, Angel, and Amy.

  She laughs a sadistic little laugh. “You were the only one I was ever out to get. Perfect little Aspen Brooks. With your perfect blonde highlights and Elizabeth Taylor eyes, and all of your adorable size-six outfits. Every time I saw you I was reminded of your dad dumping me the day of the dance. Do you have any idea how humiliating it would have been to go to the dance alone?”

  Elizabeth Who? Oh, wait. She’s that chick who makes that stinky perfume Mom wears. Before I can answer she continues her tirade.

  “That was supposed to be my night, but I wasn’t about to show up alone. I would have been turned into a laughingstock. Queens don’t go stag.”

  “Dad never meant to ruin your life. He just fell in love.”

  She screams at the top of her lungs, “He was supposed to love me!”

  “If there is one thing I’ve learned this week, it’s that you can’t help who you love.”

  “Well, don’t you sound like a freaking Hallmark card?”

  Okay, this conversation isn’t going very well. I think my psychology book would say that I need to empathize with the psychopath. I make eye contact with Mom and wink at her so that she will know everything that is about to come out of my mouth is total BS. She winks back; I’m good to go.

  “Miss Hott, that was a terrible thing they did to you. No one should ever have to go through something like that. But you showed them. Look at you now. You’re a respected school official. You own your own home. Which is beautiful, by the way. I really love your seashell art.”

  She smiles and glances toward her workbench looking proud. For a second I think I’m making serious progress, but then she whips her head back around and sets her Satan eyes on me.

  “I see you actually paid attention in psychology class, Aspen. Too bad I’m not dumb enough to fall for it.”

  Damn. What now? Maybe I’ll just try a direct approach.

  “So are you going to kill us or what?” I ask. Muffled screams come from the duct tape trio. Miss Hott starts laughing.

  “The only thing I ever wanted to do was scare your parents a little bit.” She glances toward Mom. “To take something precious away from them the way they took it away from me.”

  “So why involve everybody else?”

  “They have you to thank for that. All week I’ve been trying to get a hold of you and all week you slipped away.”

  I do remember several times that she tried to get me alone. Wow! To think how close I came to be abducted. Wait, I am abducted. Well, I guess I am, even though technically I came to her.

  “I thought I had you the night of the bonfire. I saw Lucas making out with someone in the industrial arts building. I thought it was you.”

  I turn to Angel and mouth, “slut.” Her eyes smile. My hands are itching to get out of this duct tape and knock that smile right off her face.

  “Imagine my surprise when I accost my victim in the dark parking lot, drag her into my car, and get her home only to find out that I accidentally kidnapped the dumbest member of the human race.”

  I can’t help but laugh. Miss Hott’s definition of Angel is so right on. I suppose I should feel bad that she got kidnapped instead of me, but I guess she shouldn’t have hijacked my boyfriend.

  “She had already seen my face so I couldn’t throw her back. Besides, I figure the world isn’t going to miss one idiot cheerleader. I got up my nerve to try again a few days later. I followed your car as you were leaving some old folks’ home. I saw you pull into the mall parking lot, which just happened to be deserted. I crept up behind your car and when you came out I gave you a face full of chloroform. You didn’t give up easily. You sprayed me in the eyes with some hideous smelling perfume. But I finally dragged you back to my car and threw you in the backseat. Only guess what?” she asks.

  “Um, you need glasses?” I joke. Good for Mom getting in a shot of perfume to the eyes. No wonder Miss Hott reeked like White Diamonds at the dance and her eyes were all bloodshot.

  “Keep right on joking, Aspen. How funny will it be when your mom is six feet under and it’s all your fault?”

  “You better not lay a finger on my mom,” I warn.

  She ignores me and continues. “That’s when I got desperate. I had two victims and neither were the one I wanted. So I cornered you at the dance and tried to lure you to the teacher’s conference room. But you decided to send that little bimbo instead,” she says, pointing at Amy. Amy sends a wicked look my way.

  I try not to laugh because it really isn’t funny. I just wonder how Amy will feel when she finds out that no one has even reported her missing yet. She probably won’t care since she still has her prized tiara on top of her greasy-haired head. I mouth, “sorry,” to her because I really kind of am. I’m still glad it was her and not me because then I wouldn’t have won Rand over, but I do feel a little bad about setting her up.

  “Then just when I’m about to give up and sell these three to the Aruban sex-slave trade, you just show up at my doorstep. Like a gift from the depths of hell.”

  “Why do you hate me so much?” I’m done trying to empathize, but I really do want to know.

  “Aspen, you have everything. You’re beautiful and smart. People worship the ground you walk on. You just walk around living this charmed life never realizing how you crush people in your wake.”

  “Excuse me? Everything you just said could have described how you were twenty years ago. So what’s the real problem? That you used to be beautiful and just let yourself go and now you want to blame everyone else.” This would have been a whole lot easier if Miss Hott had just blamed Bachrach Chocolates for getting her fat and filed a lawsuit against them.

  “You’re a bitch!” she screams.

  “Takes one to know one. What’s the matter, Miss Hott? Did I hit a nerve?”

  “I’m nothing like you. I’ve struggled my whole life. People judge me everyday because of my weight,” she says looking sad.

  “But it wasn’t always like that. I’ve seen my parents’ yearbook. You were the most popular girl in school. You could have had any guy. I bet you didn’t even like my dad that much. You’re just trying to blame him for what you let happen to your life.”

  I look over to see Mom’s reaction. She raises her eyebrows and I can tell she’s impressed that I dug so deep into Miss Hott’s psyche. I look back to Miss Hott and she’s softly crying. She’s a complete maniac, but I really feel sorry for her. I can’t believe how much I’ve grown as a person this week.

  “No one has ever loved me,” she whispers.

  “What about your parents?”

  “I just got in their way. I moved out when I graduated from high school and I’ve never talked to them again.”

  How sad. I can’t imagine not ever talking to my parents again.

  “Do you have any brothers or sisters?”

  “No.”

  “Grandma and grandpa?” I ask, grasping for straws.

  “They all died before I was even born.”

  Great. How am I supposed to reassure her that someone loves her when it is pretty obvious that no one does? Think, Aspen, think. Before I can come up with some lame-ass speech about the importance of loving yourself, Miss Hott snaps out of her sad/mopey mode and jumps full force back into psycho mode.

  “It doesn’t matter. This is my life now. Making sure that you,” She points at Mom, “or you,” she points back at me, “don’t ruin anyone else’s life.”

  “We are going to start by calling your little boyfriend. Rand is too special to spend the rest of his life pining for you. I want you to call him and let him know what a little bitc
h you can really be. By the time he gets done talking to you I want him to be thanking you for breaking up with him.”

  Rand will never fall for that. He knows how much I love him. Especially after the message I just left him. But what if he just thinks I’m bipolar and doesn’t want to deal with it? No! He knows I love him. Doesn’t he?

  Miss Hott pulls my phone from her muumuu pocket and looks up Rand’s number in the directory.

  She yanks my hair so hard that the back of my head smacks against the chair. “This better be an Academy Award winning performance,” She says, hitting send. She looks at Angel, Amy, and Mom and puts her finger to her lips. Just when I think she is going to be stupid enough to put the phone to my ear she hits speakerphone. He answers on the first ring.

  “It’s about time. I was starting to get worried about you,” says Rand’s sexy voice.

  I have been relatively calm until this point, but the sound of his voice makes my stomach turn. When I think that I may never see, touch, or kiss Rand again, I just can’t handle it. I have to make this good because if I don’t, Miss Hott might go after him next. If there was just some way I could say something in code to make him understand.

  I take a deep breath and begin the hardest breakup of my entire life. “Hi, Rand. I’m fine. Listen, we need to talk.”

  “Is it about your mom? Did you find something out?”

  “Mom’s fine.” This gets me a swift kick in the shin from Miss Hott’s left Choo. Ow, shit. “I mean, no, we haven’t heard anything yet. I want to talk about us.”

  “Why don’t I come over there?”

  “No, I don’t want you coming over here ever again.”

  “Aspen, what the hell is going on?” he asks, his tone getting worried.

  “I’m really sorry, Rand. I just don’t think this thing with us is going to work out.”

  He is screaming now. “Aspen, what are you talking about?”

  “I think you were right before. About you only being a challenge. Now that I have you I’m just not that into you anymore.” Miss Hott is nodding her head yes, pleased with my choice of words.