Tempestuous (11 page)

I turned to Ariel and gave her a single nod. She solemnly nodded in return before taking the back staircase from the mezzanine down to where the Itneys were pulling on their knee-high leather boots. My coworker, smiling beatifically, acted as though she’d stumbled on them completely by accident. Her acting—hardly the stuff of Meryl Streep—made me cackle, but Caleb gently elbowed me and I managed to stifle it.

“What are
you
doing here?” Whitney asked, her expression more befitting someone who’d just sniffed a carton of sour milk. “You work with Miranda at that nauseating hot dog stand, don’t you?”

“Um, yeah, that would be me,” she said, looking appropriately cowed, like we’d practiced.

“What do you want?” asked Britney.

“Well, I heard that people from your school were glam-camping on this end of the mall, with actual cots and gourmet coffee and stuff,” Ariel said, talking too fast. “The food court is like a trailer park after a tornado, and Miss Know-It-All Miranda thinks she’s running the place. I’m totally sick of her ordering me around. I’m looking to defect.”

The Itneys didn’t respond. I glanced nervously at Caleb, but Ariel had already taken a different tack. “Gorgeous dresses, huh?” she said, surveying the scene. “How much did they pay you?”

“Huh?” Britney looked confused.

“Well, you’re models, aren’t you? From the mini fashion show they put on here this afternoon? I mean, you’re both skinny and gorgeous, so I just put two and two together….” Ariel followed this up with a winning smile. Nicely done. The Itneys loved a sycophant, as I’d explained to her earlier. They would eat this up.

“You know, without that stupid hot dog hat, you’re actually less of a dorkus than I originally thought,” Britney said, tact never being her strong suit. “Your eye makeup actually looks, like, pretty professional closeup.”

“Oh, this?” Ariel gave a modest smile. “I experimented a little with it earlier tonight since there was nothing better to do.”

“Huh,” Whitney said. “It’s amazing the miracles makeup can achieve.”

Ariel changed the subject, all cherubic innocence.

“So, which one of you is dating that hottie, Brian?”

“Uh … neither of us,” said Britney, giving her counterpart a sideways glance. “He and Rachel are together.”

“No way,” Ariel said, aghast. “But I thought he’d be with one of you, for sure!”

“That’s just what we were saying!” Whitney looked put out. “What does she have that we don’t? We’re cuter, thinner, and we dress better.”

“It’s never going to work out between them,” added Britney.

“Why, does he like someone else?” asked Ariel.

Whitney got a knowing smirk on her face—what did
that
mean? More importantly, when was Ariel going to get on with it and make her move already?

“Speaking of models,” said my coworker. “Did you guys hear about that app called CopperPhone? It emits an ultraviolet laser from your cell phone that actually gives you a tan if you wave it over your skin.” Caleb and I exchanged defeated glances. This wasn’t the plan! Not even the Itneys were dumb enough to buy that load of crap.

“For real?!” Whitney said. Britney dug into her huge leather satchel and pulled out her phone in its pink bejewelled case. She swiped her forefinger across the screen frantically.

“Still no connection. Damn.”

“Oh here,” Ariel said. “I can show you on mine.” She pulled her own cell phone from the front pocket of her smock and poked around at the screen while Whitney sniveled about being trapped all night without her full retinue of beauty products.

“God, I need my bedtime detox mask, or my face will be, like, an oil slick in the morning,” she said, simpering.

“Tell me about it,” said Britney. “I was hoping to touch up my roots before we leave for Aspen tomorrow.
If
we even get to go, that is.”

Ariel handed her phone to Britney. “See. Just push this button here to activate the UV laser. Then you glide it over your skin like so.”

“Shut the front door!” Britney slid the phone over her arms and neck like it was a bar of soap before glancing skeptically at Ariel. “But wait … you’re like, an albino.”

“I know, stupid Germanic genes. Isn’t it, like,
tragic?
” Hearing Ariel mimic their snobby patois was cracking me up. “Why do you think I downloaded it this morning? It’s supposed to take, like, a few days before you really start to see the effects.”

“Fake-and-bake on the go? This is, like, effing brilliant!” Whitney said. Caleb turned to me, slackjawed. I nodded, equally astonished. It was obvious (to us, at least) that Ariel’s “UV laser” was just a run-of-the-mill flashlight app. But this wasn’t part of our game plan, and time was of the essence, especially now that Britney had hoisted her handbag over her shoulder, clearly ready to shove off.

“Thanks for the tip, kid. Hey, Whit, let’s go troll Main Street for a while.” They were about to walk out on Ariel with nary a backward glance when my colleague called after them. This was her last chance to springload the trap.

“You know, I could get you into Blissworks Body if you wanted, for a couple of spa treatments.”

Both girls spun around faster than the Tasmanian Devil. Britney eyed her suspiciously.

“But how? Everyone there went home early on account of the snow. The gate’s already down.”

“Oh, I thought you knew! I’m in the Blissworks trainee program,” Ariel explained. “A girl can’t sell hot dogs for the rest of her life, you know. I’ve been taking beauty classes over there on my days off.”

“You?!” said Whitney in disbelief.

“Actually, I was just over there fixing myself up. I don’t think they’d mind if I used you as practice clients. I could touch up your highlights, too, Britney.”

Naturally, all this was a lie. The reality was, the Blissworks stockroom door opened onto the same utility corridor that led to our back hallway at the food court. Ariel and I frequently ran free Diet Cokes down to the Blissworks staff, so they’d given us their door code to get in through the back when they were busy with clients. From there, all Ariel had to do was grab the key from their front counter to open up the front gate.

None the wiser, the Itneys briefly conferred before noddingly accepting her servitude.

“Okay, then!” Ariel said. “I’ve got a few things I need to take care of first, so why don’t you meet me out in front of Blissworks in, like, an hour? Toodles!”

By the time Caleb and I descended from the mezzanine, Ariel looked like a Golden Retriever who’d just fetched us a pair of slippers.

“Boy were they clueless,” she said.

“
CopperPhone?!?
” I said.

“I know, it was off-the-cuff,” Ariel said. “But I could tell they weren’t biting. I needed to think of something.”

“Okay, okay. You’ve certainly proved you can handle Dumb and Dumber, so I’ll let you take the lead on this one. Go ahead and get down to the spa. We’ll meet back at home base when you’re done with them. In the meantime, I’ve got one more fish to fry.” I yanked on Caleb’s wrist. “
Vamanos
.”

While Ariel departed toward Blissworks, Caleb and I started out on our own.

“So he dumped you and then took up with your best friend?” He was trying to get up to speed on the facts as we traipsed as a pair back down the mall. “I get the whole ‘scorned woman’ thing, but isn’t this a little much? And what did those two girls do to you, anyway?”

“There’s a lot more to it. I know it seems a little petty, but trust me when I say that Ariel and I are doing a service to mankind tonight. And I haven’t even settled the big score yet.”

“Ever heard the phrase ‘Let bygones be bygones?’”

“Ever heard the phrase ‘Mind your own business?’”

“I’ve been trying to, believe me,” Caleb said with a sigh. “But you’re not making it easy dragging me on your special-ops missions. I’d like nothing better than to just be chilling out at the food court. Besides which, I’m starving.”

“You’re hungry?”

“Well, yeah. I’ve only eaten a piece of birthday cake in the last twelve hours.”

“I’m hungry, too,” I conceded. “Okay, we’ll take a quick food break. But that
doesn’t
mean I’m letting Brian off the hook.”

“I believe you.”

“C’mon then. I know where you can get a mean corn dog.”

Back at ground zero, the tables and chairs of the food court had all been stacked against the perimeters, leaving a wide open expanse of floor. Chad and Dex, appropriately attired in their Cleat Locker uniforms, were officiating a bizarre sporting match of sorts. A maze of plastic “wet floor” sandwich signs were arrayed as obstacles on the playing field while team members stood in empty yellow mop buckets on caster wheels. (Every stall in the food court had their own.) Troy whizzed past us in his bucket.

“Hey, Miranda!” He propelled himself forward with the business end of a cotton rope mop. The objective, from what I could tell, involved using the self-same mops to bat a ten-pound bag of ice across the floor into the opposing team’s goal. These were demarcated by the red velvet ropes and chrome stanchions with which the movie theater managed lines.

Caleb and I must have looked absolutely stupified, because Dex offered up a quick tutorial as he trotted past with his ref’s whistle. “Inverted ice hockey meets polo meets quidditch. The team that scores the most before the ice melts wins.” Boy, these people really
were
bored.

As Caleb took in the action, I noticed Quinn a few feet away lying on the counter at Paisano’s. Her casual comportment aside, she looked stricken.

“What’s wrong, Red?” I asked. “Don’t you feel well?” Her titian ponytail hung off the side of the counter glumly.

“I’m just worried. Mike’s been missing all night and I
know
something’s wrong. No one seems to care!”

“We do care, I promise! Like I told you before, I’m sure he just went home early. I know you haven’t spoken to him, but once phones are up and running, you’ll find out he’s been vegging on the couch watching some Will Ferrell movie marathon or something.”

“But he didn’t leave! I can see from the mall entrance that his Jeep Cherokee is still in the lot.”

“The roads are gnarly; he probably caught a ride with someone.”

“His Jeep can get through snow better than most cars. Besides, he would have told me he was taking off.”

I’d been acquainted with Mike only in passing during my brief tenure as a mall employee. I barely knew the guy, which left me at a loss for any real words of encouragement.

“Grady was down here about a half-hour ago checking in on us,” Quinn said. “There’s been no sign of Mike on the security monitors in his office, but he said he’d keep looking while he’s making the rounds.”

“Speaking of MIAs,” said Derek, interrupting, “Troy and I got separated from Colin on our supply run and I don’t think he’s been back this way since.”

“Hell,” said Troy, “those Eastern Prep kids have all the good stuff, including Teasers’ ‘sub-prime’ rib. Maybe he decided to switch teams.”

“You mean in the gay sense?” Alfredo shook his head in disagreement. “No way. Though that clown costume does suggest he’s at least bi-curious.”

“Let’s not start slamming people’s uniforms,” I said. “Anyway, I’m sure it’s nothing. Knowing Colin he’s just back at Cheeze Monkey trying to claim the all-time highest score in Skee-Ball.”

“I don’t know, man.” Troy returned us to the subject at hand. “This is beginning to seem like one of those godawful teen horror movies where one by one everyone disappears … and
dies
.”

“Oh, come on.”

“No, I’m serious! People are missing, and that computer store thief is probably still out there somewhere.”

Caleb inched a step closer to me. “He’s right,” he whispered for my ears only. “And Ariel’s out there, too.”

There seemed to be a nervous undercurrent rippling through the food court crowd. To subdue my keyed-up minions, I suggested a cook-off competition for anyone interested and divvied workers into teams and a panel of judges.

“The first challenge? Invent a new frozen yogurt flavor using only ingredients available at any of the food stalls,” I said. Teams set to work crumbling fortune cookies from Wok ’Dis Way and experimenting with a less-than-promising barbecue-chocolate flavor combo. This was going to create even more of a mess than we’d already managed, but
c’est la vie
.

While I cast a weary eye over my surroundings, I felt the faintest urge, one that sent shivers of dread down my spine: I needed to pee. I mentally commanded my bladder to stand down, having no other option at present.

“Dude, we would have killed it tonight,” Chad said, banging his hand against the wall Caleb was leaning against. “You would have totally blown minds with your sweep picking.”

“Sold out show, too. Though I guess it doesn’t matter now.”

I glanced over at the guys. Curious? Yes. Willing to admit it? No.

“Wonder if that cougar superfan would have been front-and-center again,” Chad said, chuckling. “Are you curating her thong collection?”

“Who said she was aiming for me?” Caleb replied.