Tempestuous Read online

  “How could we not have seen it?” Britney leaned her back abruptly against our stall, rattling the door in the process. “I feel so stupid.”

  “And poor Rach,” Whitney said. “You and I got played, sure, but she’s the one who’s hurting the most. I could see on her face how messed up she was. Her therapist’s going to be, like, back at square one.”

  “This will not go unpunished,” said Britney, clearly seething. “God, I need to be anesthetized. Give me another swig.”

  Wow. I knew my little bunny prank messed with Rachel’s head, but it never occurred to me that it would be as serious as the Itneys were implying. It had just been a harmless joke, hadn’t it? I glanced at Ariel, who looked as if she was a drug lord hiding out from the feds. If the Itneys were going this bitchcakes about the incidents we’d pulled earlier, I needed to run some interference for her sake. After all, they hopefully still had no idea that I was the puppetmaster who’d pulled Ariel’s strings. I flashed my coworker the universal gesture for “Stay put!”—and reached past Caleb’s right hip to unlock the stall door. Nudging him from behind, he and I stumbled out of the stall as if quite by accident, leaving Ariel behind.

  I was about to feign surprise at seeing them, only I didn’t have to. Seeing the number Ariel had done on them back at the salon made my jaw fly open. They both looked like they’d been hosed down with carrot juice, and their coiffes resembled frightful “mall hair” circa 1992. I tried my best to keep from staring at their depraved transformation, but needn’t have worried. The Itneys were far too distracted by the shock of seeing yours truly—manacled to Caleb—stumbling out of a bathroom stall.

  “What are you doing here?” they both said. I glanced guiltily at Caleb and rubbed my hand over my lips. Thankfully, he evinced his usual demeanor—stonefaced—and let me do all the talking.

  “Sorry, girls. I guess we just got a little … worked up.” (Desperate times called for desperate measures.)

  “Really, Miranda? With him? And handcuffs? Ew. That’s, like, totally gross.”

  The implied insult of Caleb rubbed me the wrong way. I was the only one allowed to express any feelings of repulsion for him, dammit! My defensive instincts kicked in.

  “Wow, you guys look … different.”

  “Huh?” Britney said, as if completely unaware of how hideous she looked. “Oh, right. Your coworker—Ariel, is it?” I nodded.

  “I mean, she’sssweet girl and all,” Britney said, tripping through her consonants, “but somebody really ought to tell her she’s not cut out to work in the personal beauty industry. I wouldn’t hire her to groom my dog.”

  “Yeah,” Whitney said, nodding. “I don’t know how long she’s been in the trainee program at Blissworks, but, like, I think she needs a lot more practice. I mean, god help her first bikini wax client! It’s a shame, because the poor thing seemed so passionate about it. I really hope she’s got a Plan B. Maybe computers or something … she told us about some really cool app.”

  This wasn’t adding up. A minute ago these two were foaming at the mouth about Ariel’s pranks, but now they acted only mildly put-out by the whole experience. They frankly seemed oblivious that they’d even been the butt of any joke. As I mentally tried to work out what in the name of sweet baby Jesus was going on, Whitney changed the subject.

  “Good to see there’s life after Brian, at least,” she said, pointing a limp arm in the direction of Caleb, whom, truth be told, we were all treating like a potted plant. “I mean, you’ve clearly moved on.”

  “Yeah … I guess all’s well that ends well,” I said with a shrug. I was certain they were setting me up for some scathing insult and considered preempting them with a caustic remark of my own. Instead, I opted to play it chill until I could figure out why they were being so uncharacteristically approachable. I’d heard of friendly drunks before, but I never imagined the Itneys would fall under that category.

  “Ends swellll?!” Britney half-slurred and half-huffed. “Not for Brian, if I have any slay in the matter.”

  “You don’t like him?” I asked. Now I was completely lost. “He’s a total man whore.”

  I wasn’t about to argue her point, cryptic as it was.

  “But I swear, Brit” Whitney said, “I had no clue he was playing you, too. He promised me that he was ending things with Rachel as soon as all the dust had settled on the SAT crap—I took him at his word.”

  “Yeah, well he must have been working off a script, because he basically was feeding me those same freakin’ lines,” said her pal. “He didn’t tell you that his love for you was, like, ‘deep as the sea,’ did he?”

  “Oh, he is unbelievable. Yeah, I think it was ‘boundless as the sea.’ God, he probably ripped that off some hack on Google!” (Come to think of it, that line sounded vaguely familiar to me, too.) “I think I was just vulnerable, with Nate being away and all,” Whitney said. “But it’s inexcusable. I won’t blame Rachel if she never speaks to me again.”

  “Don’t beat yourself up, Whit. I feel guilty, too, but he was the one who had all three of us snowed.”

  “You mean, Brian was cheating on Rachel with both of you?” I said. “And neither of you knew?”

  “Not until tonight,” Whitney moped. “We, like, literally put two-and-two together—”

  “It equals four. As in, two chicks too many. What would you call that, a love quadrangle?” Britney got lost in her drunken muse.

  “Whatever,” Whitney said. “Rachel is totally hulking out right now. God, the look on her face. And you,” she looked at Britney before hurling herself emotionally into her arms. “You’ve got to know, girl, I would NEVER betray you like that! I mean, I know it looks like I would because I was basically doing it to Rachel and that makes me look like a backstabbing skank, but I never meant it that way. I love you like a sister—that’s not just yearbook lip service!”

  “It’s okay, sweetie, I know. It wasn’t our fault. I think there’s a name for it. Like Sherlock Holmes syndrome or something. It’s where you start believing all the bullshit that psychopaths tell you. I saw a show about it once on TV.” She meant Stockholm Syndrome, and I’m pretty sure that she was way off base using it to describe their situation, but whatever. Britney was sobbing now, too, and I chalked up this exaggerated three-hankie display to the fact that they were by now fairly blitzed.

  “No guy should ever cost us our friendship,” Whitney said. “I mean, we’ve known each other, like, forevs. We can’t let some total asshat drive a wedge between us. God, I can’t wait to see how he tries to backpedal through this shit storm when we bust him on it.”

  “He’s not even that cute.”

  “No kidding. I always thought he resembled one of those Mexican hairless dogs.”

  Caleb leaned in to me during their tirade and whispered, “Is this what people mean by righteous indignation?”

  Smirking, I motioned for him to hush up. I found myself more fascinated by the Itneys’ evaluation of their plight than empathetic. Each of them had gladly adopted the mantle of “the other woman” when he’d offered them the chance. True, their opinion of Brian as a regular rat bastard got no qualms from me. But they were the ones stupid enough to fall for him and his bogus charms! Okay, maybe I fell for those charms, too, but I didn’t know he was the cheating type, and it behooved him to stay on my good side while he was turning my little side business into the scam of the century. My rose-colored glasses had been smashed weeks ago as far as that was concerned. Damn, it wasn’t easy to be the outsider looking in on the demimonde I once thoughtlessly inhabited. And seeing it through Caleb and Ariel’s eyes—that was even worse.

  The bathroom door swung open again, and in walked Rachel, flush-faced with black rivulets of melted mascara tears on her cheeks. The second she saw us, she spun on her heel and tried to scurry back through the still-open door, but the Itneys each grabbed her by one elbow and hauled her back in.

  “Rachel, don’t leave,” Whitney said “Give us a chance to expla
in!”

  “What’s to explain? That you stole my boyfriend?”

  “Rach, it definitely wasn’t like that.”

  “Yeah, well, my apologies for not believing a word you lying bitches have to say.” She glanced at me. “What’s with Princess Leia and the Wookie?”

  “Shhh….” Britney said in a loud whisper, “It’s Miranda’s NEWWWW LOVAHHH.”

  “He’s not exactly—” I protested, elbowing a smirking Caleb before deciding there was no point in clarifying our relationship.

  “C’mon, Rach, are we really going to let a man, like, come between us? Even one as rich and popular as Brian?” Whitney asked.

  “You’re damp shtraight we won’t! Shisterhood. That’s what I’m talking about.”

  “Britney, you’re drunk.”

  “Am not—”

  “And, Whitney, you must be high if you think I’m going to just forgive and forget. Newsflash: Without me, you two are going to be about as popular as Miss Tube Steak USA here.”

  “Shut it. I would never—no offense, Miranda—work in food service, especially not a freakin’ hot dog stand.”

  “Or wear primary-colored polyeshter!”

  “That’s not the point. You’re going to be so friendless, you’ll wish you worked at Hot-Dog Kabob. One word from me and you two are social pariahs. And just try to keep me quiet.”

  “Why do you always have to be such a bitch?” Whitney said.

  “You might as well enroll in public school tomorrow and get it over with!”

  I’d been soaking up this train wreck triumvirate with a combination of detached amusement and growing annoyance. Clearly I wasn’t the only one, because Caleb finally cleared his throat to bring Rachel and the Itneys’ shouting match to a halt.

  “I’m an innocent bystander here, but I gotta ask something.” All four of us looked at him expectantly. “Rachel, right?” Rachel nodded. “Didn’t you do the same thing to Miranda that,” he pointed to the Itneys, “those two did to you?”

  “Yep,” Whitney said, nodding overeagerly. “She did.”

  “Uh huh,” Britney said, before hiccuping.

  “So,” Rachel said with a shrug.

  “So, you really don’t have much ‘victim’ cred on this one. What goes around, comes around. My recommendation? Forgive them or you’re screwed, karmically speaking.” Caleb was giving off this total wiseman vibe, like he’d just exited the sacred confines of a Buddhist ashram. Rachel looked thoughtful.

  “I suppose Sasquatch has a point. The person we should really be mad at is Brian. He is a flaming ball of poo. An emotional terrorist.”

  “Yeah, he basically, like, threw a dirty bomb at our friendship.”

  “That bashtard.”

  “Don’t get me wrong—what you guys did was really not cool,” Rachel said. “But let’s go ahead and chalk it up to the fact that you were both probably jealous of me, in which case I forgive you. Besides, you’re both drunk and look like roadkill right now. I imagine we’ve probably all been through enough today.”

  “Aw, really? I always knew you were the bigger person!” Instead of picking up on Britney’s thinly veiled insult (even I couldn’t tell if it had been deliberate or not), Rachel embraced her in a tight squeeze. Not one to be outdone, Whitney glommed on, too.

  “Love you, guys.”

  “Love you more.” Their meeting of the Mutual Adoration Society had officially commenced. Caleb looked flabbergasted by it all, but I was unfazed, having witnessed their love-hate histrionics plenty of times in the past.

  “Brian is going to be wishing he wore ironclad boxers tonight,” Rachel said, breaking free from the hug huddle and reaching for Britney’s flask, “because it’s time for us to go collectively rip him a new one.”

  “First we’ve got to find him,” Whitney pointed out. “I didn’t see him at the poor man’s prom out there.”

  “He took off with Prince Harry to go get the glue off. Their eyelids were starting to stick shut,” Britney said. “He told me if I met him down at Lane’s Diamonds later we could do some window shopping. Claimed he needed hints for my birthday present next month, ’tho I think he was just angling to hook up.”

  “Perfect. Let’s go corner and verbally fillet that bastard.” Rachel turned to me uncertainly. “Do you wanna come?” Perhaps she was trying to extend the olive branch, or maybe she was just hoping I might do the heavy lifting for them and take charge, the way I always used to. Either way, it dawned on me that wasting one more second on my ex no longer sounded like a productive way to pass the time.

  “You go ahead,” I said with all the bonhomie I could muster. “It’s really not my battle anymore.”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  A Thousand Twangling Instruments Will Hum about Mine Ears

  While we’d been holed up in the ladies’ room, the impromptu dance party had apparently ground to a halt as quickly as it began, leaving as its detritus shoe prints of gluey glitter, the lingering scent of sweaty bodies, and Chad, who appeared about as energized as a basset hound on a hot afternoon. A look of consternation flitted over Ariel’s winsome features. I’d selfishly interrupted what could have been the penultimate moment of her teenage years. Although I knew she didn’t bear me any ill will, I was even more determined after our recent time in the trenches to see her through the waning hours of her birthday. This had been a wild night; why not end it on an even crazier note? It was time to come out of my self-imposed retirement in order to orchestrate one more incredible feat. Only this time my coercive prowess would be for something far nobler than vengeance; this time it would be for love.

  “Okay, guys,” I said to my weary compatriots. “Move your gams—we’re going on a shopping spree.”

  “Not on your life,” said Caleb. “That’s the absolute worst idea you’ve had all night. And that’s saying something.”

  “Calm down, Dr. Killjoy.” I pulled his arm encouragingly. “See where we’re going first before you unleash your hissy fit on the world.”

  “I think we should go back to the food court and wait it out,” Chad said.

  “Overruled, counselor. No way. It’s still Ariel’s birthday. C’mon, we have to rally. We can rest when we’re old.”

  “But where are we going?” Ariel asked with a resigned expression.

  “Doesn’t anybody trust me?” I said, pretending to be offended.

  “You know she won’t stop bullying us until we go with her, right?” Chad said to Caleb.

  “I guess so. She’ll pull me along like an obstinate mule if I object, so I might as well do it the easy way.” He gave an exaggerated sigh.

  “Your enthusiasm is simply overwhelming,” I said to him, throwing a grateful smile over my shoulder at Chad. I remembered my first conversation with the jock earlier in the evening and couldn’t believe how wrong I’d pegged him. He was a total sweetheart.

  I commandeered Raj and another mall employee, Seth, to join us, but refused to give any indication of where, exactly, we were going.

  After catching the elevator to the second floor and hanging a right at the mall’s central intersection, there we were, standing like weary pilgrims outside the gates of Mecca. I glanced at Chad and Caleb who stared in catatonic rapture as if listening to a chorus of heavenly angels. I could only hope they didn’t start drooling.

  “The Guitar Center,” Ariel said, quite unnecessarily as the sign loomed large above our heads. “But I thought we were going shopping.”

  “Exactly. Can you roll up the gate, Seth?” With tousled shoulder-length hair and a Kurt Cobain slouch, Seth was a frequent visitor to Hot-Dog Kabob, as he suffered from what seemed to be an interminable case of “the munchies.” He was also, incidentally, a sales clerk at this rock-lovers’ Valhalla. Eternally grateful to me for being his alibi a few weeks ago when he turned up thirty-five minutes late to work (I’d sworn he was helping me change a flat tire … all my idea, of course), I hadn’t chosen him to accompany our little assemblage by accident.
r />   “So here’s the thing,” I said as we entered the store, “I think you guys should do your show.”

  “What do you mean?” Caleb said. “Here in the store? Not to be a jackass or anything, but this would be our smallest audience. Like, ever.”

  “No, not here, wise guy. In the food court. For everyone.”

  “Oh man, that could be cool,” Seth said. “Like U2 performing ‘Where the Streets Have No Name’ on top of that building in downtown LA.”

  “Cool?” Ariel’s eyes widened. “It will be like our very own Woodstock!”

  “But we don’t have Jake,” Chad said from behind a drum set.

  “I play bass,” Seth said, picking one off the wall display and strumming it for emphasis. “I’m no Jake, but I know all your tunes. I’m a huge Butlers fan.”

  Chad looked expectantly at Caleb.

  “Why not?” he said. “We don’t have anything better to do.” Caleb had by this point reached down to pick up a guitar from its stand on the floor.

  “I’ve been hearing that excuse all night,” he said absently, gazing awestruck at the instrument as if it might unlock the secrets of the universe. “We’ve got the equipment, but I don’t know….”

  It was around this time that I realized there was one teensy, tiny flaw in my otherwise brilliant plan. If The Drunk Butlers played a show in the food court, I’d have to be on stage with them. And not just jangling a tambourine or answering the call for more cowbell. No matter how legendarily talented he supposedly was, even Caleb couldn’t play a guitar with only one hand.

  “It’s okay,” I said anticipating Caleb’s argument. “You’ll just have to strum with my arm attached. I can keep up. You won’t even notice I’m there.”

  “Riiighht. Because you’re such a ‘blend into the woodwork’ kind of girl. Well, if we don’t want to look like utter fools, we’d better start practicing.” Ariel let out an exuberant squeal. “And, for the record,” Caleb said, “I’m only doing this for the half-pint here, as a birthday favor. Not because I think it’s a good idea.”