Sorority Girls With Guns (17 page)

“
I am not perfect!” Morgan screams. “I am a fucking twenty-two-year-old virgin who hasn't been kissed since freshman year!”

“
Well, technically-” I start, and Morgan bursts out laughing, which is what I hoped would happen. I was kind of worried she'd start crying instead.

“
No one thinks you are perfect,” Tiffany says. “But you can seem that way to other people, both guys and girls. I mean, you get all A's, you usually finish first in every class-”

“
That's because I study all the time, and most people don't!”

“
Yeah, and we're probably all a little jealous that you get to spend so much time reading those exciting textbooks,” I say.

Morgan rolls her eyes.

“
And you're the best tennis player in the school, and your hair always looks perfect and your outfits always match precisely....” Tiffany continues.

Morgan nods. “I get it, I get it. But I don't like the idea of acting stupid just so a guy will like me.”

“
You're right, you shouldn't do that.” I push back the covers, get up and go sit beside her and Tiffany. “What you should do is find a guy who isn't intimidated by you. And I bet when you get to med school and you're surrounded by other geniuses, it'll be a lot easier.”

“
Maybe you're right.” Morgan sighs. “But it's still really important to me that no one ever finds out I'm a virgin, okay?”

“
We won't tell anyone,” Tiffany says. “And if you need us to start a fake rumor about your sex tape, you know I'm all over that!”

Morgan looks at me. “Can I count on your support?”

“
Of course,” I say. “No one will hear the
real
scandalous story about you from me.”

And I intend to keep that promise – well, at least until I need leverage with Morgan. Then, well, we'll see.

                                                                                     
***

By the time Morgan went back to her room, the sun was peeking through the thin, gray curtains and it was far too late to go back to sleep, so I'm trying to catch a nap on the beach, under my sun umbrella. The empty beer cans and condom wrappers don't look as ugly when I have my eyes closed.

“
Shade, Shade, guess what?” That would be the dulcet tones of Tiffany I hear.

“
What?” I growl.

“
Richard's throwing another party tonight! And it starts at nine, so we need to go shopping!”

Reluctantly, I open my eyes. “He just had a party last night, and we don't have any money to go shopping with, remember?”

Tiffany is wearing her two-for-one-sale Aero bikini and a smile that could light up a black hole. “That's not true! We have money, we just only have a few hundred in cash instead of our credit cards.”

“
That money has to last the rest of the week, Tiff, and it's only Monday. And even when we eat that crap at Denny's it costs five bucks a meal.” I roll over and snuggle back into my beach towel, which I sort of lifted from Richard's hotel. Fortunately, they're not quite swanky enough to brand their name on their towels.

  “
Actually, I've been doing some reading on the internet,” Tiffany says. I hear her scrambling on the sand as she leaps over me so she can talk to my face again. Or my hand, depending on how I feel about the message. “And I discovered that it's so much cheaper to do your own cooking than  to eat out for all your meals. Who knew?”

I flop over on my back, defeated, and open my eyes. “Not me. You know my motto, Tiffany: I don't cook, I don't clean and I don't care.”

“
Yeah, and that last part is why you haven't had a boyfriend in three whole weeks!” Tiffany pushes her knock-off Ray-Bans up onto her forehead. “But that's okay, I'll help you. We can learn to cook together! Doesn't that sound like fun?”

“
Sounds as fun as a root canal.”

Tiffany purses her lips. “My dentist gave me some really nice pain pills for my root canal. I felt like I could just lie there in the chair and be totally happy while he drilled into my tooth.”

It becomes clear to me that I am done sleeping for the day. “Okay, Tiffany,” I say, sitting up and collecting my crap from under the umbrella. Cell phone, sunglasses, lip balm, hairbrush. Well, hell, a girl has to be prepared. “Where are we going shopping?”

“
At this place I heard about called an outlet mall,” Tiff says, and she actually claps her hands with excitement like a little girl. “Supposedly they have real designer clothes for cheap prices! I read about it on Thrifty Trudy's blog today.Then we're going to a mart store for food, which should be super cheap, so we don't need to hold back on our clothes spending!”

“
I see Tiffany's told you about this cockamaimie cooking plan,” Morgan says, walking up to us. She couldn't have gotten any more sleep than I did, but she's back to looking perfect. She's even painted her nails the exact sane shade of pale pink as her tennis dress and her lipstick.

“
Where are we even going to cook crap?” I ask, feeling a sudden burst of hope. “There's no stove in our cheap crap hotel room, Tiffany.”

“
Thrifty Trudy has thirty cheap recipes that you can make in a microwave!” Tiffany says. “Now let's hurry up and get to the mall. I want to buy something really sensational. Matt says he and Charlie have a huge surprise for Richard tonight.”

“
Did he say what it is?” Morgan asks as we walk back to our rented Toyota.

“
No, just that this was bound to be a viral video and we'd all want to be there if we wanted to be in it,” Tiffany says.

Well, why didn't she just lead with that?

“
I'm so grateful for this wonderful opportunity,” Tiffany says, and I wonder how grateful she'll be if I smack her in the mouth the next time she says that.

                                                            
***

  “
Well...these are real designer clothes, as far as I can tell,” Morgan admits, fingering a Tory Burch jacket. “Or else they're the best fakes I've ever seen.”

“
Label looks real,” I say, scrutinizing a t-shirt from the same line, the logo stamped across the front in gold glitter. “This would look great on my boobs...if only they had it in my size.”

“
Yeah...I think that may be a problem,” Tiffany says, fingers flying over shirts on a rack. “Everything they have is either a size 0 or a size 18, with nothing in between. What are you supposed to do if you're a size 4?”

“
Shop in a real store, I'm guessing,” Morgan mumbles.

“
Wait, here's something in a 4.” I snag a pair of Rock Revival jeans in my size and flip over the tag. Did I really just score the perfect pair of jeans for only $39.99? “Ooh, look at the bling on the butt pockets. Hey, what does IR mean?”

“
Um...” Tiffany fishes her phone out of her purse and consults whatever blog recommended this place. “It means it may not fit like a size 4. It might be too big or too small, or something is wrong with the cut.”

“
Guess it won't hurt to try it on and see.” I look around the store until I see someone wearing a nametag. “Excuse me, where are your dressing rooms?”

The salesperson, who is about my age and has more pimples than Bill Gates has dollars, looks at me like I just asked a stupid question. “We don't have dressing rooms. This is an outlet store. Take it or leave it.”

Tiffany blinks at the sales clerk, her mouth forming an “O”, then she quickly mumbles something about being grateful. Morgan puts back the size 0 skirt she was holding. “Guess there's no point in trying to see if I can suck it in and squeeze myself into that.”

“
Hey, um, what's your return policy?” I ask the salesperson.

“
All sales final.” She points to a sign over the register.

“
What if the item is defective or something?” Tiffany asks, poking at a rack of Tory Burch flip-flops. “Like, what if I got home and the crystal fell off one of these?”

“
This is an outlet store,” the clerk says, louder this time since she apparently thinks we're hard of hearing. “If we just let people return stuff, all the Feebayers would return everything that didn't sell. We're not in the rental business. You want a warm and fuzzy return policy, go shop at Target.”

“
You know, that's a good idea,” I say to Morgan and Tiffany. “Since it doesn't look like this place is going to work out, let's just go buy our food for the week, and then see how much money we have left over. Then maybe we can just go to a real store and buy something for tonight.”

“
Can you give us directions to Target?” Tiffany asks the clerk.

                                                                    
***

“
Is three-fifty a pound a good price for ground beef?” Morgan asks me.

I give her my best how-long-have-you-been-taking-stupid-lessons look. “You're asking a vegetarian? I've never bought ground beef in my life.”

“
We could drive over to Wal-Mart and see how much it is there,” Tiffany suggests.

“
Why don't you ask your phone how far the nearest Wal-Mart is,” I suggest, heading for the frozen foods section.

“
The nearest Wal-Mart is ten miles away,” Morgan says, consulting her phone.

“
That's not bad. It won't take us long to get there and back,” Tiffany says.

“
Yeah, but how much gas will we use?” I ask. “Especially if we sit in traffic for a while? Just buy the ground beef here. Now, where are you going to keep it? In that ice bucket in our room?”

Morgan shakes her head. “No, we brought a cooler with us, remember? It's the one we usually keep the beer – I mean, soda – in.”

“
Oh, yeah.” I stop in front of the veggie burgers, which I've been eating for years, mostly because the slop they serve up in the cafeteria and call “vegetarian” always oozes the noxious smell of onions. “Hey, I can get four veggie burgers for two dollars with this coupon I found online. Is there one for your ground beef?”

“
Um...no.” Tiffany frowns at her phone. “How many burgers will a pound of ground beef make?”

Apparently, Target keeps crickets in their store, because I can hear them chirping right now.

“
You know, maybe we should try the veggie burgers like Shade, here,” Morgan says, tapping something into the calculator app on her phone. “I mean, messing with raw hamburger in a motel room just sounds like a bad idea. There's no space to use as a cutting board, so we'd probably just spread e.coli all over the place. And we'd have to buy a meat thermometer to make sure the beef was cooked well enough to kill it. And that'd take another chunk out of our shoe-buying budget. Besides, veggie burgers are better for your cholesterol, even if they do taste like crap.”

Up until that last part, I was starting to think all that studying had really helped Morgan.

“
Yeah, be grateful to the universe for helping you stave off a heart attack twenty years from now.” I swing open the freezer door and grab two boxes of veggie burgers, handing one to Morgan. “Not only are the veggie burgers cheaper, they're much better for the environment. Why don't you guys split that one? That way if you don't like them, you'll only be out a dollar each.”

. “Well, that does save us money for our shoe budget,” Tiffany says, although her crinkled nose suggests her taste buds are somewhat less concerned with the shoe budget.

“
I'm just bummed that we didn't get any good deals on clothes,” Morgan says as we go off in search of the hamburger buns. “That outlet mall sounded so good on Thrifty Trudie's blog.”

“
I looked at that blog,” I tell her. “Did you see the picture of Thrifty Trudie? She's a perfect size 18. Of course that stuff's a good deal for her.”

“
Yeah.” Tiffany rolls her eyes. “She probably pays a penny a piece for Ding-Dongs buying them by the case.”

We reach the bread aisle, and I start looking for the buns I usually buy. “Hey, these are only $1.29!” Tiffany exclaims triumphantly, holding up a bag of the house brand buns. “And there's eight in a pack. We could split them.”

“
Yeah, but these are better for you,” I say, grabbing a bag of my favorite brand.

“
Those are almost $3!” Morgan yelps.

“
They're whole grain, and they're not full of chemical preservatives,” I point out. “Read the ingredients on the dollar-twenty-nine crap.”

Tiffany turns over the package and squints at it. “Enriched white flour, thiamin mononitrate, high fructose corn syrup, mono-and di-glycerides, sugar, calcium sulfate-”

“
I've heard enough.” Morgan sighs. “Okay, let's get the three dollar ones. Oh, no!” She smacks her forehead.