Sorority Girls With Guns (9 page)

 
But we don't. We meet a few more sorority girls, including some who remember our dear friend Biff.  These two, blondes with identical hairstyles and very similar pink two-piece bikinis, are from a house that hates Morgan's house, so I do most of the talking as we lounge by the hotel pool.

Barbie One, ponytail bobbing up and down inches above the water as she floats in an orange plastic raft in the pool, admits she remembers the bastard. "Um...Biff. Let me think...ooh, I remember. Ridiculously tricked-out truck, practically screams 'This is my surrogate set of balls!'?"

I flash her a thumbs-up. "That's the one."

Barbie One scrunches up her face. "I vaguely remember him. Don't remember the sex much at all. Either it's as forgettable as his truck would suggest, or I was just really trashed."

"It was forgettable." Barbie Two mutters, her face still buried in a magazine promising, for the milionth time, the inside scoop on Kim and Kanye's relationship this nanosecond.

Barbie One sits up in her raft, nearly capsizing in the pool. Which would be a disaster for her, because she obviously wouldn't want to mess up her hair by doing something fun like swimming. "What? You had sex with him, too?"

"No." Barbie Two's face is flaming red, despite the smears of sunblock crusting around her eyebrows. "I just... ."

Barbie One rips the magazine from Barbie Two's hands. "You slut! You slept with him, too!"

Barbie Two glares at her. "Do you think I like the idea of us both sleeping with the same guy two nights apart? I didn't know he slept with you first until he accidentally called me Crystal!"

Morgan and I take this opportunity to quietly slip away, leaving the two squabbling in the pool.

"I don't think we're going to find anyone ugly," Morgan says, kicking an empty beer can out of the way.

"Yeah, I forgot that with so many students in town for the week, there'd be more than enough attractive women to go around," I admit.

"I really don't want to concede the bet." Morgan tosses back the last of her mai-tai and slides the glass unobtrusively onto a nearby pool table.

"Who said anything about you conceding?" I check the time on my phone. "Let's meet the others for lunch and regroup. If nothing else, we found two girls who are probably mad at Biff. Even if they're not ugly, I think we can find another way to embarrass him."

"Okay." Morgan taps away at her phone. "I texted the others to meet us at The Tiki Hut in twenty minutes. That gives us time to strategize before Richard shows up.""

It hadn't occurred to me that Richard might be a problem. "You think he'd disapprove? After all, he's the one who said we should think outside the box."

Morgan makes a face. "He's so judgmental. He probably sits around all day thinking up reasons to disapprove of other people."

"I don't know. He seems pretty hung up on money, more than anything." I pull open the door to the Tiki Hut and Tiffany follows me in.

 
I recognize our waitress from last night, and she sure recognizes us, judging by the way her face twists in annoyance when she sees us. She quickly chases the expression away with a smile that's faker than Tiffany's double-Ds.

After she takes our drink orders and promises to be back with six menus, Morgan and I return to the problem at hand. "You know, I have a better idea than just getting a sex tape of Biff with someone poor and ugly," I say. "After all, there's no point in embarrassing some poor girl who probably already feels used by Biff."

"I guess you're right," Morgan says. "Although we'd only be doing it with her cooperation."

"And why would someone ugly and broke want to further embarrass herself after she already slept with Biff?"

"To get back at him, just like us." Morgan plays with a straw, twirling it around in her fingers. "But I guess someone who's had to deal with being ugly and poor her whole life might not have the guts to go after someone like Biff, especially since it would ultimately be just as embarrassing for her.."

"That's kind of what I'm thinking." I drum my fingers on the tabletop. "But I think we're looking at this the wrong way. We're trying to make the setup about the girl, when we should be focusing on showing what an asshole Biff is."

As Charlie and Matt sit down, the door tinkles again and Richard walks in. He casually reaches up and removes his sunglasses, sliding into the booth next to me. "How's it going?" he asks, surveying the table with that smug smile of his, the one that just barely tweaks a single dimple. There's a part of my brain that finds the guy really fucking annoying, but there's another part of my brain that finds him really fucking sexy. Well, maybe that isn't part of my brain, but still.

"We had to cancel our float trip because it was too expensive." Charlie glares at Richard as if this is somehow his fault, which it technically is.

"I had a girl get mad at me for not offering to buy her drink," Matt says, scratching his head. "There I was, talking to her and trying to actually listen to what she had to say, and all she wanted was my money. Said I wasn't being a gentleman!"

I groan. "I know this is the backwards south and all, but I don't understand girls who think  guys should pay for everything in 2014."

"Thank you!" Matt flashes me what I guess he thinks is a flirtacious grin. "Do you want to get some drinks later?"

"No, I still find you repulsive. It just isn't because you don't want to buy me a drink." I turn my attention back to Richard, who's smiling like a cat with a yellow feather hanging out of his mouth. "Hey, don't look too happy. It's not over until we all fold, you know."

"I didn't say anything." Richard picks up his menu and moves the smirk behind enemy lines. "Jesus Christ! $2.99 for a cafe mocha? And it's only buy one, get one half off? At those ripoff prices, they could at least do buy one, get one free."

"That's really not bad," Charlie says, scrutinizing the menu.
He nudges Tiffany. "Want some coffee? I'll buy you one."

Tiffany wrinkles her nose at him like he just suggested she stop shaving her legs and wearing deodorant. "Oh, that's big of you. You're happy to buy me coffee when you're getting it half-off. So that's all I'm worth to you? A dollar-fifty?"

"
Of course not!" Charlie sighs. "Tiffany, how much money I'm willing to spend on you has nothing to do with what you're worth to me. Don't you get that?"

She shrugs. “I get that if you really cared about me, you wouldn't care how much money it took to make me happy."

"Oh, not this again." Matt groans and rubs his temple. "Anyone got an aspirin? This argument always gives me a headache."

"Okay, fine. How much do you care about me?" Charlie demands.

Tiffany looks at him like she looks at a pledge asking to borrow her best Louboutins
. "
What are you talking about?"

Charlie shrugs and leans back in his booth, arms crossed over his chest. "Well, you haven't offered to buy me anything. Tell you what, why don't I buy our lunches and you buy me dinner at a restaurant of my choice." I think he threw in that last part because he wants her to pay for an expensive dinner at a five-star restaurant.

Tiffany flings down her menu. “Are you kidding me? You want me to buy you dinner when you won’t even buy me a full-priced cup of coffee?”

Charlie’s usually a pretty even-tempered guy, but it looks to me like Tiff is finally getting the best of him. He’s one of those people who get very quiet when you make them really mad, and he is very quiet right now. Without saying a word, he closes his menu and places it on the table next to his sloppy silverware bundle. Then he folds his arms across his chest, leans back in his chair and stares down Tiffany, who’s sitting across from him.

“
Let’s get something straight,” he says, his voice low but loud enough to get the attention of everyone at the table. “You just said that if
I
cared about
you
, I wouldn’t care how much money it took to make you happy. The other day you said that if I cared about you I’d pay more for your dinner than mine. You obviously believe that there is a direct correlation between how much money I spend on you and how much I care about you.

“
So, the same must be true of you, right? If
you
really care about
me
, you won’t care how much money you have to spend to make
me
happy, and you should be happy to pay for whatever dinner I want. It should work both ways, right?”

Every now and then, the big brain has a good idea for Charlie!

Tiffany sighs. “But we’re going to be here a whole week on $500! Do you know how expensive everything is? I had to pay almost ten bucks for a bottle of tanning lotion! And this afternoon I had a mai-tai that cost almost five. Then I had an ice cream bar that was almost as much!”

Charlie rolls his eyes. “You know, I’ve been doing some reading about budgeting and couponing. Remember that report Shade did for our Econ class last year?”

That was an extra-credit thing I had to do to climb my way back up to a C in that miserable class. Someone actually remembered that? And it was
Charlie
?

Tiffany stares at him blankly.

“
Well, I paid attention, and I remembered some of that stuff about couponing,” Charlie says. “And as soon as we got here and I realized how expensive stuff is, I started visiting those sites on my phone and downloading coupons. You probably could have gotten a dozen box of ice cream bars at a local store for a dollar or two with coupons, instead of spending five bucks on one bar.”

Tiffany looks at me. “Is that what you’ve been doing?”

I was wondering how long it would take the rest of them to arrive at the brilliant idea I had before we even got here. “Paying with coupons is only embarrassing the first ten or twenty times you do it. And it
does
save you money.” I hold up my phone and press a button. “See that bar code? I got that for joining The Tiki Hut’s mailing list! Half off whatever I order.”

“
And you’re still only getting the salad,” Matt grumbles.

“
Dude, she’s giving you good advice,” Charlie says. “Use your phone and sign up for their mailing list, too.”

Tiffany’s pink-glitter-lacquered nails are already hammering away at her phone. “Okay, I’ll buy you dinner. But if I’m paying, I’m going to pick the restaurant.”

“
Fine. But I’m ordering whatever I want.” Charlie picks up his menu. “Order whatever you want here.”

“
Well…I guess that’s fair,” Tiffany says, picking up her menu with a confused look on her face. She’s trying to figure out what Charlie’s game is.

Meanwhile, something is bothering me about this conversation, but I don’t know what it is. Something Tiffany said? No, that doesn’t seem right. Something Charlie said? No….

I’ll figure it out later. Right now I need to figure out a few of the finer points of my plan for Biff – assuming Tiffany helps us. “If you have a minute later, Morgan and I need your help with something,” I tell Tiffany. “Don't worry, it won't cost you a dime.”

“
Okay!” She shuts her menu and looks at both of us. “I have an appointment with the afternoon sun right after lunch, but how about if I meet you for coffee afterward?”

Morgan and I nod. “No problem,” I say. “We'll, ah, split the cost of your Ice-a-cino.”

Tiffany flashes us a toothpaste-commercial smile. “As long as it doesn't cost me money, I'm always happy to help my friends!”

I hope so, for the sake of my vlog and Morgan’s reputation.

Chapter Eleven

“
So what are we doing to Biff?” Tiffany asks, the minute she slides into a seat across from us at the Tenbuck’s Coffee across from our hotel.

I take a sip of ice water, the only free item on the menu at Tenbuck’s. “We have an idea how we can get him back for being such a bastard.” We filled Tiffany in on the situation over lunch.

“
I’m all for getting back at him.” Tiffany folds her arms over her chest and slumps back in her chair. “But does your plan include getting back the video?”

“
Let’s just say that when we’re through, he’ll be happy to hand them over voluntarily,” Morgan says with a shrug.

I lean over the table and say, in a loud whisper, “We’re going to make our own sex tape.”

Tiffany recoils, her eyebrows jerking together until they look like a caterpillar crawling over her forehead. “Oh, hell no. I though you wanted to get rid of the current sex tape, not make another! You two are just as sick as Biff!“

"Wait! We don't mean a real one!" I hiss as she starts to get up. "Please just hear us out.  You said you'd help your friends, and all we want to do is teach this rich bitch of a frat boy a lesson."
" And it's not a real sex tape?"
I relax a little. Apparently , I really
am
the talented actress no one believes I am. "Not a real one, no. And not embarrassing to you. In fact, we can make sure no one sees your face."

Tiffany plays with the zipper pull on her hoodie.  “Okay. What do you want to do?”