The Debs Read online

  What she meant instead was I want every girl at Pine Forest Prep to know we’re a couple again. Particularly the Bimbo Cartel, if only to prove to Jo Lynn Bitchwell that she couldn’t manipulate people’s lives, no matter how godlike she pretended to be. It was because of Jo Lynn that Avery had broken up with Laura a year ago. Jo might have been Avery’s first girlfriend, but she didn’t own him—at least, not anymore. She had Dillon Masters dancing to her tune now, and Laura hated that Avery still listened to a word Jo Lynn said, much less let her dictate his love life. What was up with that anyway?

  “I want to go out, Avery,” she said, point-blank, “on a real date, or something close to it.” Laura set her hands on her hips, waiting. “So what’ve you got to say about that?”

  Avery stared at her for a long moment before he rose from the bed, plucked his muscle shirt from the floor and shrugged it on. He picked his keys up from the silver tray atop her mirrored French dresser. He palmed them and headed for the door.

  Just when Laura was about to scream, I knew it, you jerk, he paused and turned, lifting a hand in the air.

  “Oh, I almost forgot. There’s a party goin’ on at the Bidwell’s guesthouse tonight. If you want to drop by, I’ll be there around ten.”

  “Jo Lynn’s having a party?” Laura repeated, hoping she’d heard wrong.

  “You remember the address, don’t ya, babe? And you know that the guesthouse is by the pool, right?”

  “Uh-huh.” He knew she did.

  “Great. I’ll see you there, if you’re brave enough to be seen with me in public.”

  He gave a quick wave, a mischievous grin on his lips, before he sauntered from the room and down the stairs. Laura made her way over to the bay window that overlooked the front drive. The sky was beginning to soften to pink, and gauzy clouds filtered the sunlight.

  She pushed back the sheers and waited until she saw Avery get in his car. The Corvette peeled out of the street in a vroom of engine and a screech of tires, and Laura realized her pulse was screeching too.

  Jo Lynn was having a party tonight and Avery expected her to crash it?

  She gnawed on her lower lip, trying to figure out what to do. That wasn’t exactly the dream date she’d imagined, not by a long shot.

  Avery was testing her, wasn’t he? She’d given him a kind of ultimatum, and he was throwing one back at her. Was there a way to meet him at the party without Jo Lynn seeing her? Because the witch would relish kicking Laura’s ass out if she caught her. The last time she’d been at the Bidwells for a party, Jo Lynn had humiliated her, and Laura didn’t want to give her the chance to do it again.

  Oh, well. She’d figure something out. She always did.

  Laura padded into the bathroom to brush her hair. As she primped, she stared at the picture she’d stuck to the mirror months ago. Its edges were beginning to curl. She’d Photoshopped her head onto the body of a luscious model in a white Vera Wang gown. She’d written ROSEBUD!!! and GODDESS!!! all over it so she could fully envision her dream, not just think it.

  “It will happen,” she promised aloud, nodding at her reflection. She made herself repeat the phrase several more times, until her BlackBerry chimed, and she raced back into the bedroom to fish it out of her D&G tote. On it, she found a text message from Ginger.

  Where R U???

  The clock on her nightstand glowed 7:35.

  Shiz!

  How could the afternoon have gone by that fast? Now she had less than three hours until Avery expected her to show up at the Bidwells’ guesthouse, and she hadn’t even packed for Ginger’s sleepover yet.

  Quickly, she texted back: B there N 15. Miss U.

  A message came back: Miss U 2. Hurry!!! Pizza on its way!!!

  Laura ignored the unmade bed and raced around the room, throwing things in her Vuitton weekend bag, rushing downstairs and through the kitchen, and setting the alarm before exiting into the garage. She tossed the satchel into the tiny trunk of her Mercedes Roadster and backed out, leaving an empty spot between her daddy’s Bentley and her mother’s Lexus SUV.

  As she backed into the driveway and closed the garage door, her cell rang, and her heart leapt, thinking it was Avery. No such luck. It was Tincy, checking up on her from Telluride: “Laura, honey! Did you get home safely? Did you see Mac and Ginger? I know they missed you terribly.”

  Idling at the end of the drive, Laura did a brief back and forth, mostly saying things like “Yes, I’m fine” and “Yeah, I saw Ginger and Mac at the airport,” though she left out the part about Avery driving her home and coming in for a spell. What Tincy and Harry Bell didn’t know wouldn’t hurt them. Besides, they didn’t like Avery any more than Laura’s two best friends did.

  “See you soon, sweetie. Daddy sends his love. Kisses!”

  Laura said goodbye; then she was off and running.

  A Gwen Stefani CD blasting on the car stereo, she drove her Mercedes into the twilight as the timer-set lamps popped on one by one and the windows of the Bells’ empty mansion glowed pale against the faded sky.

  * * *

  The trouble with trouble is it starts out as fun.

  —Naomi Judd

  What if I woke up one morning and wasn’t the good girl anymore?

  Who’d keep everyone else out of trouble?

  —Mac Mackenzie

  * * *

  Six

  “She texted that she’d be here in fifteen, and that was fifteen minutes ago,” Ginger said, her words starting to slur at the edges. “I wonder who’ll get here first, Laura or the guy from Palazzo’s?”

  “My bet’s on the pizza,” Mac replied, and plopped down on the plush pink-and-green-polka-dot loveseat with last year’s PFP yearbook in her lap.

  She was feeling pretty good at the moment, having Laura and Ginger back in town and having received a call on her cell from Alex Bishop on her way over to the Castle. Alex was back after a three-week stint at computer camp in Düsseldorf, and he’d mentioned possibly getting together the next day so she could see the new quad-core Opteron system he’d built. She’d told him yes, of course, not that she really cared about the computer. But she couldn’t wait to see Alex again.

  “Ah, so you’ve pulled out the Pine Cone,” Ginger remarked after putting on her favorite Fall Out Boy CD. She had a thing for Pete Wentz, which Mac didn’t understand, because guys who wore eyeliner made her cringe. “Ooo, so are we going to be catty?”

  “I figure we need to get some practice in before school starts,” Mac said, only half-serious.

  Ginger dropped down beside her. “Well, I’m in the perfect mood for it, starved and buzzed.” With that, she took another swig of the bottle of chilled Veuve Clicquot they’d swiped from Mrs. Fore’s wine fridge, which was always kept stocked to celebrate big closings. Ginger swore one bottle wouldn’t be missed.

  They passed it back and forth, though it was mostly going forth, to Ginger, while Mac flipped through the pages of the annual, picking out photos of the girls they most wished had moved to Uzbekistan over the summer.

  In between the champagne and wondering what had happened between Avery and Laura—though Mac could make a highly educated guess—they talked smack about their mortal enemies, the Bimbo Cartel of Pine Forest Prep. Well, okay, the girls in the Bimbo Cartel were everyone’s mortal enemies.

  “Ohmigawd, take a look at this!” Ginger slapped her hand down on a page. “Is it Jessica Simpson? Or is it Jo-L Bidwell? Hmm, hard to say. Maybe they were separated at birth, though it’s too bad they had to share one brain, huh?”

  Mac loved when Ginger let go of her “can’t we all just get along” attitude, which usually happened when she had alcohol in her system, loosening up her tongue.

  She liked it too when Ginger wasn’t on her high horse about depleted rain forests or conservation, saying things like “You should brush your teeth and bathe at the same time, and only shower for three minutes or else you’re using as much water as a whole African village uses in a day!”

 
; Not that Mac could sit in judgment, since she had her own quirks. Still, sometimes Ginger’s ever-changing passions made Mac’s head hurt. Last year, Ginger’s walls had been covered with posters of rock bands, and she’d been all about black eyeliner and blue fingernail polish. She’d kept her red hair long and straight, like Avril Lavigne’s.

  Now her hair was cropped short—the rest of it donated to Locks of Love—and her walls were full of Ansel Adams black-and-whites and downloaded photos of that Butterfly woman who’d holed up in a tree; and every bedsheet and stick of furniture in Ginger’s enormous bedroom was made from recycled materials, organic cotton, or hemp.

  Mac couldn’t help but wonder what was next: Retro-prep? Disco-glam?

  “Look here! See that tiny nose?” Ginger said, and stabbed a finger at a photograph of Jo Lynn Bidwell striking a pose as class president during a student council meeting. “You really think she was born with that perfect snout? I’ll bet her daddy bought it for her, just like he buys her everything else, including those ginormous girls she likes to show off whenever she gets a chance.”

  “‘Ginormous girls’?” Mac wrinkled her brow, wondering if the sips of champagne she’d swallowed had turned her brain to mush, because she didn’t know what the heck Ginger was talking about. “You mean Camie and Trisha? They’re practically anorexic.”

  “Not those girls, silly.” Ginger slapped Mac’s shoulder and let out an indelicate snort. “These girls,” she explained, shoving the bottle between her thighs so she could cup her hands in front of her chest, like she was clutching a pair of melons.

  Mac watched the overblown pantomime and could hardly stop giggling to ask, “You think Camie’s are fake too?”

  “Is the Pope Catholic? Is Tom Cruise an alien?” the redhead cracked before taking a long swig of bubbly. “Is Justin Timberlake black?”

  Mac eyed her friend closely, wondering if she’d had enough to drink already.

  “Yes, yes, and, no, Justin Timberlake isn’t black.”

  “He’s not? Well, damn, someone should tell him!” Ginger grinned, spilling champagne on Jo Lynn Bidwell’s photograph and then smudging the drops with her fingertips. “Oops, my bad.”

  Mac reached over and wrestled the bottle from Ginger’s hand. “Girl, you need some food in your system, or you’ll be passed out and snoring by nine o’clock.”

  “I’m fine,” her friend insisted, grabbing back the bubbly and taking a generous pull.

  “Go easy, why don’t you, at least until after we’ve eaten.”

  Ginger wiped her damp lips. “Did I ever tell you that you’re bossy?”

  “Only every day.”

  “Well, you are.” Ginger’s gaze fell back on the yearbook.

  “Oh, hey, there’s a shot of Alex Bishop playing at PFP in a chess tournament.” She cocked her head, closing one eye as she studied the photograph. “He’s really kinda cute, Mac.”

  “I guess.” Mac shrugged.

  “Where’s he been this summer?”

  “He was in Germany for computer camp. He just got back a few days ago.” Mac tried to act nonchalant as she said, “He wants me to come over tomorrow and hang out.”

  She left out the part about checking out the tower he’d built, as it would undoubtedly trigger a “geek next door” remark.

  Ginger arched a slim red eyebrow. “You ever think about, you know, getting together with him?”

  If she did—and maybe she had, once or twice, fleetingly—Mac wouldn’t have told Ginger, not even with their “no secrets” rule. Alex had been Mac’s best guy friend since they were kids, and speculating about anything beyond that was…well, weird enough to make her palms sweat.

  “Wow, would you look at that,” Mac said, and quickly flipped to another page. “It’s Señor Hernandez and the Spanish Club. You totally lusted after him the whole spring semester.”

  “Well, I’m not lusting after him now.” Ginger’s eyelids flickered, and she clutched at Mac’s arm. “Want to know a secret?” she whispered. “One I’m not supposed to tell?”

  Mac saw champagne slop onto Ginger’s thigh and figured she should’ve taken away the bottle a half hour ago. But it was too late now: the Veuve Clicquot was three-quarters gone, and most of it had gone down Ginger’s throat. Oh, well, it wasn’t like they were driving anywhere.

  “What kind of secret?” she asked, thinking it could be anything.

  Ginger spilled some pretty heavy things when she got the least bit tipsy. Like tales of her parents’ nasty divorce and how they’d fought over everything, down to who got the dog (Ginger’s dad) and who got custody of Ginger (her mom). Mac only hoped it was something less weighty than that.

  Her friend leaned in and hissed in Mac’s ear, “I’m meeting Javier tomorrow night at the Sam Houston Oak, only I’m having dinner with Deena at my grandmother’s house. So you’re gonna have to help me escape.”

  “Who’s Javier?”

  “He’s been painting the mural of Provence in the dining room—”

  “And he wants to meet you at a tree?”

  “We’re going to save it,” Ginger asserted, “so the greedy bastards can’t get it to make a parking lot.”

  Okay, so Javier, the mural painter, wanted Ginger to help him save a tree from some greedy bastards?

  Whoa, Mac thought. This secret was beginning to sound like a bad episode of One Tree Hill. Wait a minute—they were all bad episodes.

  Enough was enough.

  “Give me that.” Mac lunged for the champagne, wresting it out of Ginger’s hands and setting it well out of reach, on the other side of the loveseat.

  Ginger pouted for all of five seconds before pouncing on a page in the annual.

  “Ooo, check it out.” She pointed at a picture of Camie Lindell and Trisha Hunt, saying, “Jo Lynn’s toadies du jour. You think Bootsie the Stage Mother from Hell has enough clout to make those two Rosebuds too? Ya know, good ol’ Boots is chair of the selection committee this year.”

  “Camie and Trisha are in,” Mac agreed, “unless they do something in the next few days to piss Jo Lynn off.”

  “Like sleep with Dillon Masters?” Ginger stared off into space, tapping her chin. “Hmm, not a bad idea. There are times when I wouldn’t mind getting a piece of that myself.”

  “Which might just get you killed”—Mac nudged her with an elbow—“skewered with a flaming baton leftover from her pageant days. Something else the Jo-bot and Honey Potts have in common, besides being made of plastic.”

  “A flaming baton, huh? Think you could roast marshmallows on those things? Maybe we should’ve asked Honey to join our little sleepover tonight and show us how to do it, unless you wore her out shopping and getting facials this afternoon. You two sheep, with your Prada heels and Stila lip gloss…”

  “Shut up!” Mac grabbed a throw pillow and smacked her friend soundly.

  “You asked for this!” Ginger armed herself and took a whack at Mac.

  The doorbell rang.

  As fast as the pillow fight had started, it ended.

  Mac glanced at her friend, and they both mouthed, Pizza.

  Instantly, they dropped their down-filled weapons and sprinted from the bedroom, bare feet running up the carpeted hallway and down the wide front staircase, in a race to see who could get to the door first.

  Even half-drunk, Ginger won, while Mac dropped onto the polished teak floor, panting like an out-of-breath dog. Man, I should at least try to get in shape sometime, she thought.

  On her tiptoes, Ginger peered through the peephole and let out an excited “Ohmigawd!” Which didn’t give Mac a clue as to who was out there: the pizza man or Laura.

  Ginger unlocked the door and flung it open wide, revealing a tousle-haired Laura in a chic Lilly Pulitzer sundress, smiling and clutching a Louis Vuitton weekend bag in one hand. In the other, she balanced a large cardboard box from Palazzo’s that reeked deliciously of cheese and garlic.

  “Yeah, yeah, I know I’m seriously late, but I inte
rcepted the pizza dude, so the grub’s on me,” the tall blonde declared, her cheeks flushed a most telling shade of “I just did it with Avery Dorman” pink. “So what do you say we get this party started? Anyone up for a game of Truth or Deb?”

  * * *

  Laugh and the world laughs with you. Cry and you cry with your girlfriends.

  —Laurie Kuslansky

  If I ever need an honest opinion, I ask my BFFs. My mom always tells me what’s “best” for me. But my friends will give it to me straight.

  —Ginger Fore

  * * *

  Seven

  “Come on, pull harder. It has to fit.”

  “For God’s sake, I’m doing the best I can,” Laura shot back, fumbling with the tiny pearl buttons on the back of the white full-skirted dress Ginger had shimmied into moments before. “Your grandmother must’ve been a twig to wear this, and even then she must’ve had to put on one of those things you lace up and squeeze until your waist is, like, twelve inches around—”

  “A corset,” Mac tossed out from halfway across the room where she sat cross-legged on Ginger’s bed. The trio’s resident bookworm had a copy of Jane Eyre in hand.

  Like she hasn’t read it twice already, Ginger mused. It was on Mrs. Godfrey’s Literature for Senior Girls list, sent in the mail with the “Welcome back to Pine Forest Prep” letters delivered the week before.

  “Maybe you could have a couple ribs removed,” Laura suggested. “Then I might get the last fifty buttons done.”

  Frustrated, Ginger sighed and stared at her reflection in the full-length mirror. “Maybe I just need Spanx.”

  “Ging, you’re a size nothing. You don’t need Spanx,” Laura muttered, and tugged so hard at the material that Ginger was afraid it might rip. “What you do need is a shoehorn. Was your grandma a midget or something?”