Escape (3 page)

“Well, you really have to go to the Isle of Capri to get the best capri pants. . . .”

Hang on, Tatiana,
Gaia thought as she tuned out the tragic sounds of elitist teen culture, scanning every cushy chair and wooden table for a sign of her quasi sister. She pictured Tatiana huddling somewhere on the outskirts of the room, cursing Starbucks and the state of American youth as
the icy winds of popularity beat her fragile frame deep into the frozen tundra.
Just hang on. I'll save you. . . .

But when Gaia finally did find Tatiana. . . she wasn't huddling in the least. And she certainly wasn't on the outskirts of the room, shivering in the winds of idiocy. No. When Gaia found Tatiana, she was, in fact, seated comfortably in the warm and sunny
center
of a ring of queen idiots. . . .

Gaia froze in her tracks and blinked twice, hoping her vision would clear. But the disturbing image remained the same.

Tatiana was dressed with her usual display of annoyingly perfect casual elegance. A formfitting black knit shirt and a lavender print skirt. Her hair was in its usual perfectly coiffed dancer's bun. But there was simply nothing usual about the seating. What was she doing on “the Platform”? The platform that was practically reserved for the FOHs? She wasn't grimacing with fear and loathing. . . she was
smiling
politely. She wasn't buried in the hard frozen tundra; she was sitting in one of the biggest cushy chairs, right next to Ed,
surrounded
by a giant circle of attentive rich girls from hell. Okay, Tatiana and Ed was a normal sight. Ed and the FOHs was not an entirely abnormal sight. He had, after all, gone out with Heather for quite some time back in another life. But
Tatiana and the FOHs?

Shake it off, Gaia. You're seeing things.
Either she was hallucinating, or else she was just experiencing
an explosive attack of misperception.
She stepped closer to try and correct her skewed vision. But stepping closer only made it worse. Seeing this bizarre congregation of individuals was one thing. But actually hearing what they were all discussing was a whole other level of disturbing.

“So, like. . . how blind is she?” Megan Stein asked, scrunching her face into her best approximation of
seriousness. She had probably learned the expression by studying her favorite model-turned-news reporters on TV. “I mean, is she, like,
sort
of blind, or is she, like,
totally
blind?”

Heather.
They were quizzing Ed and Tatiana about Heather. No, not just quizzing.
Grilling.

“She's completely blind,” Ed explained patiently.

“But I mean, what did it to her?” Tammie Deegan followed up, keeping her head tilted to the left to accentuate the swoop in her hair. “Was she taking drugs?”

“No,” Ed replied.

“Was it some kind of symptom of bulimia or something?”

“No,”
Ed puffed with frustration.

“Well, can she put on her own clothes and makeup?” Tammie's brown eyes filled with concern. “I mean, how does she pick her
clothes
now?”

“I, uh. . .” Ed shrugged slightly and shook his head, most likely as awed as Gaia by the
inane and hopeless priorities
of the Friends of Heather. The question was not how Heather was coping. The question was what Heather was wearing.

On one hand, Gaia supposed it made sense for them to be asking all these rapid-fire questions. After all, they really hadn't gotten any real time with Heather before she'd headed off for her semester of training at a school for the blind. But the truth was, Heather hadn't really wanted to make that time for her
“friends.” She'd known that all her loyal subjects would react to her blindness the exact way they were right now. Like it was another sensational piece of juicy gossip to sink their teeth into and devour.

Watching it all go down was making Gaia queasy. She could tell that Ed was just trying to be kind and informative, but what the hell was Tatiana doing there? Gaia had told Tatiana a fair amount about what had happened with Heather, but did she have to share it so shamelessly with the gossip-hungry hordes? Had she ever even
spoken
to these people before?

“I really don't think you need to worry about her,” Tatiana assured them.

How did
she
know whether or not they needed to worry?

“Yeah,” Ed agreed. “In fact, Heather has been so strong through this whole thing, I wouldn't be surprised if she bounced right back from—”

“Oh my God!”
Megan suddenly leapt out of her chair like she'd just discovered the cure for cancer. “I just had the
best
idea.”

“What?” the FOHs sang, seemingly in unison.

“I totally know how we can help Heather,” Megan announced, nearly falling forward with enthusiasm. She scanned the faces of the entire group, peering at them like she was about to impart the secrets of life. Her entire posse froze with anticipation.

Megan slid the professionally shaggy strands of her
three-hundred-dollar blond hair
behind her ears and brought her voice down to a near whisper as a smile spread across her proud face. “A
benefit,”
she whispered loudly.

Gaia watched as a reverent hush fell over all their Stila-glossed lips.

Carrie Longman was the first to finally speak, though she could only muster one word:
“Totally,”
she agreed, nodding in slow motion.

“Yes,”
Megan squeaked, basking in the glow of self-congratulation. “A
benefit.
Whenever people are suffering, my mom
always
throws a benefit. We should throw a
huge
party at some totally swank establishment. We charge at the door, and we donate all the proceeds to finding a cure for Heather's
blindness.”

Gaia could no longer watch this madness from afar. Her mouth could not possibly stay shut at this point. She plowed through the two kids in front of her and stepped up onto the platform, searching Megan's sparkling eyes for the remotest indication of intelligence. “Heather is not a Cambodian refugee,” Gaia announced flatly. “She doesn't need a
benefit.
She just can't
see.
And that's probably only temporary—”

“Excuse
me, Gaia,” Melanie Young interrupted. “But
one,
who asked you? and
two,
there's no need for you to worry: You're not invited.”

“I think it's a brilliant idea,” Laura Stafford announced, standing up from her chair.

“Genius, Meegs,” Tammie agreed. “You are a
genius.”

Gaia dropped her head into her hands. A
benefit
for Heather? Could they possibly have come up with a more offensive excuse to throw themselves a big party? Just the thought of it was enough to snap Gaia's priorities back in order. She had not come to Starbucks to eavesdrop on this confederacy of dunces. She had come here to find Tatiana and tell her about her father's situation. And that was what she was going to do.

She turned to Tatiana to pull her off the platform and deliver her from this nightmare, but before she'd even reached for her arm,
Tatiana's words froze Gaia's entire body in place.

“I think this is an
excellent
idea,” Tatiana stated with a smile. “A benefit for Heather? I'd love to help plan it.”

Gaia couldn't even be sure if her jaw had dropped open or not. She was too stunned to check.

like some biker trying to start a fight over who had the biggest Harley

Starbucks Nightmare

“ARE YOU KIDDING?” GAIA COUGHED
out, staring dumbfounded at Tatiana. “You're kidding, right?”

Tatiana shrugged mildly at Gaia. “What? It's a
gesture.”
She turned to Megan. “This is a very nice gesture for Heather.”

“Well,
thank you.”
Megan smiled, turning to Gaia and firing
a ballistic
missile of sarcasm
at her face. “
I
thought so,
too. . . .”

“A
gesture?”
Gaia scoffed. “Heather's blind, so let's have a swanky party?
That's
your gesture?”

“Gaia, come on.” Ed smiled, too. “It's not that big a deal—”

Gaia cut Ed off with a harsh glance. If he thought being her boyfriend meant undermining her in public, then they would have to have a long discussion about the terms of this relationship.

“I think I know where we could do it,” Tatiana announced. “Have you heard of this club Pravda? It has sort of a Russian flavor. Many different vodkas, Russian food—”

“No, it's totally impossible to book Pravda,” Melanie explained. “We'll have to find—”

“Wait,” Tatiana interrupted. “It is not
totally
impossible. I have a friend from Russia. She is friends with the owner. I think I could get us the place for sure. If I
call her now, maybe even for tomorrow night.”

Us?
What the hell did Tatiana mean, she could book
us
the place? Were she and the FOHs an
“us”
now? Was this absurd dream ever going to end?

“Tatiana,” Gaia grunted, stepping closer to her. “I need to
talk
to you—”

“No way!”
Tammie squeaked, staring admiringly at Tatiana. Suddenly they all seemed to be staring at Tatiana with the same reverent bug eyes. “Wait. . . you could seriously get them to close down Pravda for our party? Tomorrow night?”

“I think so, yes.” Tatiana smiled.

“Oh my God,
yes!”
Tammie howled at a ridiculously unnecessary volume. “This party is going to be
awesome.
Tatiana, this is so cool. This will be the kind of party Heather would have totally loved. I'm going to start inviting the right people ASAP! No, even better, I'm going to
make
invitations.”

“I'll start thinking about decorations,” Tatiana offered.

“Perfect!”

Gaia was beginning to feel faint. The entire scene was so sickening, she was actually feeling woozy.
There was apparently very little oxygen on the Platform.
The girls began to converge on Tatiana, quizzing her on her Pravda connection and her entire Russian history. Gaia quickly realized that her words would no longer suffice to maintain Tatiana's
attention. She clamped her hand around Tatiana's wrist and simply dragged her off the Platform before she could offer the ladies yet another smile.

“What is wrong with you?” Tatiana complained, ripping her arm from Gaia's grip once they'd stepped down. “Why are you being so totally bitchy today?”

“Bitchy?”

“Yes,
bitchy.
What is your problem today?”

“What's my problem?” Gaia suddenly became very aware of being watched by the FOHs. Not to mention a rather disgruntled-looking boyfriend. She tugged Tatiana farther into the swarm of coffee-swilling penguins and lowered her voice, looking Tatiana deep in the eyes and trying to get down to business.

“What's my problem?” she whispered intensely. “My problem is that Dad is
missing. That's
my problem.”

“What do you mean, missing?”

Gaia gave Tatiana a quick rundown of her visit to the hospital, informing her of Natasha's unfortunately lackluster reaction. Once she'd managed to maintain Tatiana's attention long enough to give her all the information, she let out a
long, cathartic breath.

“That's
what I've been trying to tell you since I walked into this godforsaken place.” Gaia moaned. “So what are we going to do? How do you want to deal with this? Should we split up and research, or do you want to stick together? I don't want to waste any more time. I
can't
waste any more time.”

Tatiana seemed to mull it all over for a moment, rolling her eyes up to the ceiling as she thought.

“I don't know,” she said finally. “I don't really know what we
can
do, Gaia. If my mother thinks we should wait, then I think we just have to wait, don't you?”

Gaia felt her heart sink down to her toes.
This
was the best she could get from Tatiana?
Waiting?
She sounded just like her goddamn mother! Gaia had seen Tatiana fight her way out of almost every crisis they'd been through. How could she choose
now
to wimp out completely? Gaia stared deeper into Tatiana's eyes, wondering how she could possibly stay so calm and composed. But the answer was rather obvious, wasn't it? Of course she could stay calm. After all, it wasn't
Tatiana's
father who was quite possibly lying dead on some stretcher in God knew where. No, he wasn't really anything
close
to her father, was he?

“Why are you looking at me like that?” Tatiana asked. Her face began to fill up with regret. “I'm sorry, Gaia, I don't know what else to say. I don't know what we could do for him. . . .”

Gaia tried to force a false expression of acceptance on her face, just to let Tatiana off the hook, but she couldn't. She knew why she was looking at Tatiana “like that”; she just didn't feel the need to put it into words. She was looking at her “like that” because she had already realized, in only the last hour, that this “new family” of hers left a whole lot to be desired. Tatiana would probably
come around in a few hours, maybe even a few minutes, but right now she felt about as much like a sister as all those rich bitches up on the Platform.

“Gaia?” Tatiana urged. “Can you talk to me, please? I'm not trying to be insensitive, you know? I just don't know how we—”