Lust - 1 (9 page)

“Whoa, whoa,” Powel cut in, laughing. “You’re preaching to the choir here. Aren’t I ordering us some food so we can get to work and stay at work on this thing? Trust me, you’ve sold me.”

“Sorry,” Beth said, blushing. It was easy to get carried away—she’d never had a teacher like Mr. Powel , so young and energetic and—wel , she didn’t even know that they
made
teachers like Mr. Powel .

“I hope I’m not keeping
you
from something important,” she said, suddenly realizing that a guy—man—like that probably had a number of better things to do.

He laughed again and began ticking off Grace’s social limitations on his fingers. “Let’s see. I’m new in town, don’t know anyone, and from what I’ve been able to tel , tonight’s social options range from Wet T-Shirt Night at the local bar to Bingo Night at the local church.”

Beth sighed quietly in relief and tried her best not to picture Mr. Powel parading across a makeshift stage wearing only a clingy wet T-shirt and a pair of boxers. Her best was far from good enough.

“I suppose you should be very honored I’m wil ing to pass it al up for you,” he continued. “So, what’l it be? Chinese? Indian? Thai?” Beth rol ed her eyes.

“You
are
new in town,” she scoffed. “The only place that delivers around here is Guido’s Pizza Shoppe—where the pizza’s guaranteed to come in fifteen minutes or ‘whenever the hel Guido feels like bringing it.’”

“Sounds like a real customer-friendly operation,” he said. “I’l take it. A medium cheese should cover us, I think—do you know the number?”

“Yeah, it’s in my phone.” Beth pul ed it out and made the cal . “Thanks again for working with me on this, Mr. Powel ,” she told him once Guido had answered and, with a surly growl, put her on hold.

“It’s just wonderful to have a student who’s so engaged,” he told her, briefly placing a hand on her shoulder. “I’m here for whatever you need.” Beth flushed with pleasure. “Thanks, Mr. Powel ,” she mumbled, dipping her head and tucking her hair behind her ears.

“I should be thanking
you
—you’re saving me from Wet T-Shirt night, after al .” He winked at her, then turned back to their stack of work, al business once again. “Oh, and Beth?” he asked, after they’d spent a quiet moment sorting through the papers.

“Yes?” she looked up and, despite the temptation to dart her eyes around the room lest he read her expression and the embarrassing thoughts that lay behind it, met his gaze.

“It seems like we’re going to be spending a lot of time together this year, working pretty closely and al —so at least when we’re out of the classroom, why don’t you just cal me Jack.”

“Remind me again why I ever agree to drive you anywhere?” Adam asked, bemused, as Harper flung herself into the car, stil bleary from sleep and clutching a cup of coffee as if it were a life preserver. Two weeks into the school year, and dragging herself out of bed each morning stil took every ounce of wil power she had. Some mornings—the ones where she showed up at school two hours late with a forged note about a lingering migraine or unavoidable dentist appointment—it took more.

“Because you love me?” she suggested sweetly, buckling herself in. “Because you can’t get enough of me?”

“Because I’m an idiot who keeps forgetting that you’re incapable of being on time?”

Harper gave Adam an affectionate slug on the shoulder.

“Just drive, Jeeves,” she instructed him. “Or do you want us to be late?”

Adam shifted the car into gear and took off toward the school, while Harper played absentmindedly with the radio. It only got AM stations—but given the overal state of the car, with its clanging exhaust, its nonexistent suspension system, the front doors that would never open, and the back doors that would never quite close, Harper was always pleasantly surprised when the pile of junk managed to make it from point A to point B. A ful y functioning radio seemed too much to ask.

Not that she would ever insult Bertha (the car was named after a golden retriever that Adam had been forced to abandon when he and his mother moved here from South Carolina so many years ago)—at least not in front of Adam. He was just a little … sensitive when it came to the car, which he had lovingly restored. (It was now only half as much of a piece of shit as it had been, which was saying very little.) But, ugly as the Chevy was, it got her where she needed to go, which was more than she could say for her family’s Volvo. Her parents’ car never broke down, it had an FM radio and an untarnished paint job—and she wasn’t al owed to touch it.

Adam had been giving her rides to school ever since tenth grade, when, courtesy of an early birthday and a generous mother, he’d gotten both a license and a car long before Harper had been able to even imagine a life liberated from parental chauffeuring and bicycles. Now that she didn’t get to spend much one-on-one time with him anymore, she’d come to look forward to these rides to a ludicrous degree. (Especial y now that she was waging her thus-far-unsuccessful campaign for his affections, a depressing thought she preferred not to dwel on this early in the morning.)

“So, any exciting plans for tonight?” she asked, as they sped through the streets of Grace and al the sepia-toned hot spots whizzed by—bar, pool hal , gas station, liquor shop, bar. Any quaintness the main drag may have had in the past had leached out over the decades. It was hard to be quaint when al you had to work with was neon, bankruptcy, and decay.

“Hot date?”

Adam shook his head rueful y.

“Yeah, hot date with my TV. Beth has another newspaper meeting this afternoon, and tonight she’s got some job interview.” He sighed and rol ed open his window, letting a rush of arid air sweep into the stuffy car. “Dating someone lazier might have been a little less brutal on my social life.”
Tell me about it
, Harper thought. Once he kicked Little Miss Do-It-Al to the curb, Harper (Little Miss Have-It-Al ?) would be only too happy to remind him of the joys of slacking off.

But al she said aloud was, “I’m sure if she loves you, she’l make time for you.” Sweetly. If not sincerely.

Adam had always been the one guy in her life who didn’t real y appreciate the Harper Grace Bitch on Wheels show—maybe because he was also the only one who saw it for the act it was. Or at least that was his take on things, and she was perfectly happy to keep him in the dark about the “real” Harper Grace. If he wanted to think the hard shel covered a soft center of sugar and spice and everything nice, so much the better.

“Yeah, wel , in the meantime, I’m in for the night,” he complained.

Harper was about to suggest an alternative, when—

“Or maybe I’l give Kaia a cal . She’s been wanting to go take a look at some spots for the party. Could be fun.” Harper gritted her teeth. She’d remained silent on the subject for a week now, saying nothing when Adam invited Kaia to come sit with them at lunch, forcing a smile when he had driven her off on a tour of the “sights,” grinning and bearing it every time Kaia accidental y-on-purpose brushed up against him with her fingers, her shoulder, or, increasingly often, her chest. She’d waited for Beth to do her dirty work for her—but Beth was apparently too busy to notice that her careful y trained lapdog was sniffing around someone else’s yard, so maybe she’d waited long enough.

“Adam, don’t you think Beth might get a little jealous of you taking some other girl out for the night?” she suggested hesitantly.

“Who, Kaia?” he glanced at her briefly in surprise, then turned his eyes back to the road. “It’s not like that. Beth knows that—besides, don’t you want us to find a place? It’s your party, I’d think you would be a little grateful.”

So defensive—what was the deal with that?

“It’s not that,” she protested. “I just don’t want you getting too involved with her. I …”

Hate her?

Despise her?

Loathe her with every fiber of existence?

“… don’t trust her.”

“You don’t even know her!” Adam exploded. “People always do that, and it’s not like they know what the hel they’re talking about.”

“What people? Always do what? What the hel are
you
talking about?”

Adam tightened his lips into a thin and narrow line and, although they were stopped at a light, refused to turn his head and face her. He stared straight ahead, his shoulders tense, his voice hard. “I just—I think you should give someone the benefit of the doubt for once, Harper.”

“And what’s that supposed to mean?”

“You can be kind of hard on people,” he stammered. “And Kaia—I just think Kaia could use a break.”

“Oh, please!” Harper burst into harsh laughter. “That girl’s entire life has been a break.”

“What do you know about it?” he retorted.

“More than you, apparently.” She threw up her hands in disgust, then brought one down to rest lightly on his shoulder. “Adam, are you real y this naive?”

“Apparently I am,” he said stonily, shrugging her off. He turned up the radio, the pounding rock beat drowning out whatever Harper might have said in response.

They drove the rest of the way in very loud, very angry silence.

“I don’t know what his problem is,” Harper complained. “It’s bad enough having to watch him tag along after Beth like a lonely puppy, but if that bitch gets her claws into him …”

“Jesus, Harper, dial it down a notch,” Miranda said, lighting her friend’s cigarette. “Do I have to start making catfight hisses or something?”

“I just can’t stand her,” Harper growled. She raised the cigarette to her mouth and inhaled deeply, then flopped back onto the freshly cut grass, breathing in the summery smel and enjoying the cool touch of the tiny stalks against her bare neck. She closed her eyes and took a few deep breaths, watching her chest rise and fal , and tried to find somewhere to bury al of her anger toward Kaia, toward Beth, toward everything. When that didn’t work, she ripped a few clumps of grass out of the ground, pretending they were strands of Kaia’s glossy hair. “This year isn’t starting out the way I expected it to,” she sighed.

“Yeah, yeah, tel me about it.” Miranda let herself fal back onto the grass next to her friend and stared up at the wide expanse of cloudless sky. It was a warm day, not—as was usual y the case—blisteringly hot, just warm. If you closed your eyes and held perfectly stil , you could almost feel a cool breeze brushing past, the air smel ing crisp and clean—a nice change from the traditional Grace bouquet: smog and asphalt. It felt almost like rain, although Miranda knew that the desert rain, if it came at al this year, would arrive as a dirty gray drizzle for a few days in January. Stil , there was something sweet and fresh in the air, something that felt almost like fal . Or what she imagined fal might be like. Weather like this should be enough to make you forget everything—the bitchy new girl, the math class they were cutting, the SATs, col ege applications, and their many, many guy problems.

But maybe that was asking too much of the weather.

“Harper?” she began hesitantly, hoping that her friend wouldn’t laugh when she heard why Miranda had coaxed her into spending this period smoking in the footbal field rather than sitting blankly through a lecture on binomials. “I’ve got a secret.”

Harper shifted onto her side to face Miranda. “Spil it—you know I must know
everything
,” she ordered eagerly.

“It’s Kane,” Miranda told her, avoiding Harper’s eyes and instead looking over her shoulder into the distance; she could just barely make out a few smal figures scurrying back and forth through the glass corridor that joined the classroom building with the cafeteria and gym. She took a deep breath, forcing herself to continue, trying to convince herself that Harper would understand. “I kind of, I mean, I think I …”

Trying to get the words out made her realize how stupid the thought was. What would
he
ever want with
her
? But if you can’t tel your best friend your most embarrassing secrets, who can you tel … right?

“Wel , do you think he might ever want to go out some time?” Miranda final y spit out, al in one breath. “I mean, with me?” she clarified quietly.

Harper sat straight up and peered down at Miranda incredulously.

“
That’s
your big secret?You have a crush on Kane? Duh.” She flopped back down again. “I thought you had something
interesting
to tel me.”

“You knew?” Miranda froze, a cavernous hole opening in the pit of her stomach, her heart beating wildly in her ears.