Sleeping with Beauty (4 page)

It was time she took matters into her own hands.

Chapter
2
                                                                                                                                       

H
ow is it that Debbie Markham still manages to come across petite and blonde on an e-mail loop?” Lucy straightened from her hunched position behind her friend’s shoulder. She didn’t want to read any more reunion posts.

“You’re just projecting,” Jana told her, stuffing the last of her Sun Chips in her mouth. “For all you know, she’s turned into a leather-skinned tanning-bed junkie with overprocessed highlights, saggy tits, a flabby ass, and married to a balding, nearsighted CPA who likes it when she wears that leopard-print nightie he bought her at Marshall’s for Mother’s Day.”

Lucy’s smile was decidedly unkind as she clasped her hands beneath her chin. “Do you think?” Then her shoulders drooped. “Nah. My karma would never be that good.” She sighed and balled up her sandwich wrapper. “But I appreciate the visual, so thanks for that.”

“I live to serve.”

“I still say you should consider writing fiction. You’re a natural.”

“Right. Then you’d give it to your mother, who would delight in desecrating it with her beloved red pen.”

“My mother loves you.”

“Me, yes. My work, not so much. I get enough of that kind of love from my editor, thanks.”

Jana was probably right. But then her mother, much like the rest of the Harper clan, really wasn’t a sports person. Lucy brushed crumbs off her shirt and slid from her perch on the computer-lab table. Instead of reading about the exaggerated exploits of a group of people she’d once loathed and had long since ceased to care about, she should be using her remaining summer break time to put her classroom in order. “I guess I’m just not a loop person.”

“Truer words,” Jana agreed, having been the first one to point that out two weeks earlier when Lucy had signed up on a whim after they’d received their invitations from the reunion committee, complete with information on how to join the reunion group on Yahoo! Thankfully she didn’t rub it in. But then, the look on her face precluded that necessity. “You’ve become a first-class lurker, I’ll give you that. Most entertaining lunch breaks I’ve had in years. Of course, anything beats the hell out of listening to that insufferable asshole Frank belch out his latest know-it-all opinions on the Redskins, the Wizards, the Capitals, the effect of the Cold War on American sports, the dawn of the solar system—”

“You’re just pissed because his column got picked up for syndication.”

“Damn straight I am. His columns are pompous and arrogant, not to mention out of step and uninformed. And I don’t care if his father once played for the Senators. It’s not like he’s an effing sports guru just because his dad had a .341 career batting average and came within one season of tying DiMaggio’s record.” She lobbed her wadded-up trash at the small wastebasket beside Lucy’s desk, missing by a wide margin, despite being less than two feet away. It was a good thing Jana only wrote about sports.

“Yeah,” Lucy said, “but can he consistently miss an easy two-pointer with his fanny wedged in a third-grade desk? I think not.”

Jana sighed and let the front legs of her chair
thump
back on the tile floor. “True. My wrist action sucks and my release is all wrong. I shoot like a girl.”

Lucy lowered her chin and shot Jana a look. “Please don’t tell me you bribed Dave into trying to teach you how to play hoops again.”

She shouldn’t give her friend a hard time. It was sad, really. Jana was a die-hard jock, always had been. Maybe it was the very lack of any kind of continuous male influence in her life, but she’d been hooked on sports as long as Lucy had known her. From the time she could read, she devoured the sports section of the
Post
and every issue of
Sports Illustrated.
ESPN’s SportsCenter was her version of CNN.

Jana could tell you the starting lineup for any team, college or pro, in any of the major sports. She could whip out stats, debate the merits of the most complex coaching strategy, and pretty much wipe the floor with you in terms of predicting draft choices and win-loss records well before the season started. Any season. She worshiped sports. All sports.

She was just completely inept at actually playing any of them.

But it didn’t stop her from trying. Bless her heart.

Lucy, quite happy with her status as an avowed—and therefore injury-free—couch potato, said, “He’s a hockey player, Jana. How many times—”

“A hockey player with excellent eye-hand coordination. The man can routinely stop a puck flying at him over eighty miles an hour, while wearing skates
and
more pads than the Michelin Man. You’d think he’d be able to teach me how to sink a simple layup.” Jana frowned. “I tried hockey, remember? It’s too many things at once. Skating
and
trying to stay upright
and
trying to hit a ball with a stick? I can’t do any of that individually yet, much less combined. So I went for something more straightforward.” She pointed her Snapple bottle at Lucy. “And, more important, something that can be played in sneakers and shorts. Put the ball in the net. It just shouldn’t be that hard.”

After a “there, there” pat to Jana’s shoulder, Lucy went back to unpacking school supplies. One thing she loved about her best friend was that, while Jana might be quick to boil—a much-hated redhead cliché that she nevertheless owned up to—she simmered down just as fast. “I agree with you, if it makes any difference,” Lucy offered. “About the syndication thing. I like your columns. You’re not condescending, and you have the kind of style and energy in your writing that can make even fellow uncoordinated losers like me read the sports page. Well, a column of it, anyway.” She glanced over her shoulder at Jana, who’d turned back to the computer terminal. “Of course, you’re no Christine Brennan, but—”

“I have deadly aim and a whole box of Crayolas within easy reach,” Jana reminded Lucy, never looking away from the screen as she casually clicked through posts.

Lucy snorted. “Deadly aim. Right.”

“All I have to do is aim for the chalkboard and I could nail you in the back of the head with no problem. Trust me.”

Lucy grinned and went back to stocking tempera paint and brushes in the locking overhead cabinet, well away from the ever-questing fingers of her next batch of heathens. She’d given up on the honor system last year after coming back from a quick hallway consultation with the principal to find Billy Cantrell drinking Sunshine Yellow, straight up, no twist. Fellow classmate Doug “The Instigator” Blackwell had convinced him it would make him fly. Doug was her prime candidate for the first student ever busted in Meadow Lane Elementary for selling a controlled substance. Billy would probably be his first customer.

“So, should we unsubscribe?” Jana’s finger hovered over the
DELETE
button.

“No!” Lucy almost dumped a whole carton of Sky Blue in her efforts to get to Jana before she could act.

“Whoa there, hoss,” Jana said, laughing. “What’s up with that? Did we not just agree that reestablishing any kind of umbilical relationship with these people is detrimental to our psychological health? Not to mention our hard-won self-esteem?”

Lucy vainly attempted to reclaim what was left of her dignity. “That doesn’t mean we have to stop anonymously enjoying ourselves at their expense, right? I mean, they did that to us for years, right to our faces. Come on, Grady’ll be here soon. You know he’ll make you laugh. Besides, it’s only for a few more weeks.”

“Six,” Jana corrected, then her gaze narrowed. “You are
not
still considering actually going to the stupid reunion, are you?”

Lucy waited a beat too long in answering. She hadn’t quite gotten around to telling Jana about the appointment she’d already set up at Glass Slipper, Inc. She needed to do that. The last two-week session of their special miracle camp started this weekend. Someone had to water her plants.

Jana swore beneath her breath. “Didn’t we take enough abuse at the hands of these people? Are we such gluttons for punishment that, ten years later, we want to give them another shot? Why would you even consider putting yourself in that position?”

“Maybe I’m holding out hope that Debbie Markham really does have flabby tits.”

“Ass. Saggy tits.”

“Works either way.”

“Don’t jump off topic here.”

“Why are you drilling me about this? What are you writing, an article or something?”

“Hmm, maybe I should,” Jana said, tapping a finger to her chin. “How about: ‘Gearing Up for Your High School Reunion: A Full-Contact Psychological Sport, Not for the Timid.’ ”

Lucy squeezed herself into the seat next to Jana. “Maybe the whole point of going back is to prove we’ve progressed beyond allowing others to define ourselves.” That sounded pretty good, she thought. She almost believed it herself.

“There is nothing wrong with mocking our pretentious, overzealous, label-conscious classmates in the sanctity of your empty classroom. Considering it’s like a million degrees outside, this is the best lunchtime sport going. But why ruin the fun by giving them a chance to reciprocate?” Jana clicked through the messages posted since their last lunch get-together, skimming for something juicy they could pounce on. “You know, I thought we were on the same team here. Unified in our conviction to let the overbearing assholes inflict themselves on one another while we go out and do something less painful, like getting matching root canals. Why the sudden change of heart?” Then her fingers paused on the keys, before quickly clicking back to the previous message. “What in the
what
what?” Jana pushed her glasses up and leaned closer to the screen. Then turned an accusing glare at Lucy.

Who suddenly pretended a great interest in the last dregs of her Diet Coke. Dammit, why hadn’t she just let Jana unsubscribe when she had the chance?

Redheads, as it happened, made the best glarers. They’d known each other for over twenty years now and Lucy still was not immune.

Lucy fidgeted, which was hard to do, wedged as she was in the tiny desk/chair combo. “What?” she finally asked, feigning complete innocence even though she knew she was already busted. She set her empty can on the desk. Where was a good stiff belt of Sunshine Yellow when you needed it?

“Jason Prescott, is what. And you damn well know it. Did you think I wouldn’t find out? My God, I’m surprised every other freaking post isn’t about the golden boy coming home. Fatted calves are probably being slaughtered as we speak.”

“It’s been ten years. I’m pretty sure ‘the golden boy’ statute runs out somewhere by sophomore year of college.”

“Maybe for mere mortals.”

“My wanting to go has nothing to do with Jason,” she said, making a valiant effort. Then failing miserably by adding, “Not specifically, anyway.”

“Ah-hah!”

“Don’t
ah-hah
me.” Lucy fished the rolled-up magazine from her shoulder bag and smoothed it open. “If blame must be placed, focus your derision and scorn here.”

Jana adjusted her glasses and picked up the magazine, folding it back to the article Lucy had dog-eared. She read silently. Well, mostly silently. There was the occasional snort, punctuated with an intermittent eye roll or sigh of disgust. Finally she dropped the magazine back on the computer station like a piece of contaminated sewage, then lowered her glasses and looked at Lucy over the skinny black rims. Another thing redheads were good at, it turned out. “So, you’re honestly considering going to Beauty Queen Boot Camp? Have you completely lost your mind?”

“See why I didn’t tell you?” Lucy snatched the magazine back and stuffed it in her purse. “I knew you’d be judgmental.”

Jana just laughed. “Ch-yeah. And with good reason. Ten years of maintaining absolute distance from those jerks, a decade of proving to yourself that you’re everything they claimed you’d never be.” She ticked them off on her fingers. “Successful. Happy.”

“Alone.” Lucy hadn’t meant to say that out loud, it just popped out.

Jana goggled. “And?” She waved Lucy silent. “First off, you’re single. Hardly alone. And hardly a curse, I might add.”

“Says the happily married woman who found someone who adores her.” Lucy’s tone turned dust-dry. “Frizzy hair, obnoxious attitude and all.”

“Yeah. A guy who gets hit in the head with flying pieces of rubber for a living. Obviously he’s an anomaly of the species.” But she had that smile. That smile she always got when the subject of Dave came up. Jana might be all harsh talk and frizzy edges, but mention her husband, and something in her demeanor softened in a way Lucy had never seen before.

Was it so wrong that she envied her best friend that telltale softening moment?

“But being single has nothing to do with this,” Lucy said, determined to get control of this conversation. She just wished she’d thought out her defense a little bit better before revealing her decision. “I’m not going for the makeover so I can go to the reunion to meet men.”

“Maybe not
men,
plural. But are you telling me that finding out Prescott is single and RSVP’d, didn’t seal the deal?” She waved her nail-bitten fingers in Lucy’s face. “Hello? I was at the prom, too, remember? And I was also by your side that whole summer, listening to you moon and moan over that jerk until we finally got to Georgetown and got your head out of your ass.”