The Betrayal of Natalie Hargrove

At the round eight-top table closest to the cobblestone street, the student council kids — who never took a break— struggled to make room for their bagels amid all their bulging Ball-planning binders. Near the water, Tracy Lampert and her junior-class coterie formed an amorphous cluster, swinging their bare feet over the boardwalk and tying dogwood blossoms in one another’s hair. And at my usual table in the back corner of the patio, a crew of senior girls sat side by side in one long row, looking out at the ocean as they finished their egg-white quiches.

“Facials at five, Nat?” Jenny Inman asked as the girls filed past me toward the parking lot.

“I’ll call you,” I smiled, trying to assuage the hint of confusion as to why I hadn’t filled in my usual MacB’s seat next to her this morning.

The girls knew Kate was one of my favorite pet projects. This morning, I’d agreed to offer her a second opinion picking out a Mardi Gras costume from the thrift store down the street. But as I watched her simultaneously slurp up her cappuccino, check the tail of her long ponytail for split ends, and try to flag down our slip of a waitress for the bill, I wondered whether Kate needed help with more than just her costume. So much unnecessary multitasking — and Kate was usually really composed. When I realized she was still waiting for an answer to her question, I decided not to mention the fact that frantic people had a strangely mellowing effect on my mood.

“I’m calm,” I suggested instead, “because I’ve already got a costume for tonight. You’re panicking,” I said, taking in the throngs of Mardi Gras-crazed Palmetto kids all around us, “because you’re just giving into the vibe.”

Just then, a table of Bambies brushed past our table, wailing over the limited stock of size-one fishnets at the costume store around the corner.

“You’re right,” Kate met my eyes and laughed. She flipped her amber hair over her shoulder. “Screw the vibe!”

I offered her a stick of gum and cocked my head at the sea of departing Bambies. “I take it you’re opting out of the sophomore-class costume this year?” I asked. “I heard something about. . brothel-chic?”

Kate snorted, signing the credit-card slip the waitress had finally brought over. We stood up and pushed in our wicker chairs.

“Please,” Kate said, “and become another Bambi blend-in?” She shuddered, making her long hair shimmer in the sun. “I’d rather join the church choir.”

I grinned at the image of Kate on the pulpit with a bunch of youth-group kids and threw down a couple of extra dollars on the table before we left. Though my mother would never willingly admit it these days, she’d been a waitress the first fourteen years of my life, so I was well-versed in the injustices of under-tipping.

Kate looked around and lowered her voice to a husky whisper. “Tonight is my night to seal the deal with Baxter — who still hasn’t asked me to the Ball.”

“That’s why you’re freaking out,” I teased. Baxter Quinn was Palmetto’s most legendary drunk and the dealer for most of our school’s after parties. He was tall and light-haired and sexy in a lanky deadbeat sort of way. Even though he often couldn’t hold himself upright, somehow he was never at a loss for girls.

“And that’s why you’re so calm,” Kate said, tugging me over a series of puddles on the clapboard promenade — and out of the earshot of the rest of Palmetto. “You have the state’s greatest built-in date. I bet you can’t even remember what it’s like to stress over a guy.”

For just a second, my feet dragged on the boardwalk. Stressing over one guy in particular was exactly what I’d been trying not to do — ever since that unsettling text from my dad last night. Suffice it to say, Dad being “a free man again” was not exactly the good news he claimed it was.

Already, I could feel myself overexerting my jaw on the stick of gum I’d just unwrapped. Whenever the Juicy Fruit lost its flavor in less than five minutes, I knew I needed to find another way to chill out.

Kate stopped in front of a three-story southern-style bright-green row house with a wraparound purple- painted porch. A wooden sign swung on its hinges from the rafters overhead: Weird Sister’s Closet.

Kate pulled open the stained-glass door and stepped inside. Like most of the mansion-turned-lingerie boutiques on Catfish Row, the Weird Sister’s Closet was brimming with all things cleavage-enhancing. Posters of busty movie stars papered the walls, and strapless bras of all shapes and sizes filled the racks. But since it was on a cobblestone side street of the beaten path of the boardwalk strip, Kate had already assured me that the Weird Sister was the one place in Charleston’s gentrified red-light district that would be Bambie-free today.

“What’s with the puckered-up puss,” Kate said, looking at me. “Where’s your brink-of-royalty smile?”

Banishing thoughts of my father, at least for the time being, I conceded with a small, involuntary grin. Kate was right. Being on the brink of royalty was something to smile about, especially after all of our planning. In just a few days, fingers crossed, Mike and I would be happily crowned.

All the campaigning would be over, and the two of us could just bask in the success of our mutual hard work. We’d stay up late, editing our coronation speeches and practicing our waltz for the Ball. Yes, we had a waltz. And after the Ball, we’d pack a bottle of champagne, head straight for our spot at the secret waterfall near Mount Pleasant, and not come home until sunrise.

It’d be just the two of us, just like we’d always planned.

“That’s what I’m talking about,” Kate nodded, taking in the change in my demeanor. “Now, let’s address my main issue, which is feathers on a spandex butt.” She held up a red-sequined catsuit, flipping over the hanger to show off the tuft of red feathers right over the butt. “Do we love it or leave it?”

“Um, is that a tail?” I asked, half-appalled, half-intrigued.

“Just so you know,” said the wild redheaded shop owner, clearing her throat behind the cash register, “we also have that in purple.”

“Only certain women can wear purple.” Kate grinned at me. “Like Nat.” Then she clutched the red catsuit to her chest and gave me a devilish wink. “I think I’ll take this baby for a test drive.”

When she ducked into the dressing room, I laughed and shook my head. As the daughter of the wealthiest litigator in Charleston, Kate had a certain leg up on a lot of the other girls at Palmetto — the girls who just had “enough” money.

Kate’s mother was certifiably insane (if those country club walls could talk), but because of her husband’s untouchable bank balance, everyone called her “eccentric” instead of “crazy.” Like there were just certain words that didn’t apply to billionaires. So Kate, unlike most girls, could get away with piercing her tongue, adding a new tattoo to her arsenal every year. . and wearing sequined, feathered spandex — all without ever risking being called a tramp. Maybe that was why I liked her: She lived like someone with no fear.

Having climbed up from the opposite end of the money spectrum, I ran my hand along a row of leather bustiers and felt renewed pride that my own costume was the opposite of everything in this store. I was just dipping into a fantasy of Mike and I, all dressed up and gliding through the party tonight, when someone stepped around the corner and held out the skanky catsuit in purple.

“Thought you might want to try this on,” Justin Balmer purred.

The woodsy notes of his aftershave overtook me. And I thought nothing could out-stink the sensual jasmine aroma-therapy candle that the Weird Sister was burning by the cash register. Eau de J.B. wasn’t an empirically bad smell; maybe it was the proximity to him that turned my stomach.

I was trying not to look at the catsuit — or the way his blond hair fell over his eyes — so I focused on his sweatshirt. It was the same Palmetto varsity football sweatshirt that Mike lent me for the games.

“What do you say?” J.B asked, fingering the feathers on the back of the catsuit. A surprising shivery feeling spread through my chest.

“But you saw it first,” I said coolly. “I couldn’t deprive you of the perfect Mardi Gras costume.”

“Who’s said anything about a costume?” he said. “I just think this might accentuate some of your best features.”

“You mean my growing boredom with your advances?” I said, sidling past him in the lingerie-cramped aisle.

J.B. put his hands on my shoulders, masseur-style, and breathed into my neck. “So what does the Princess have up her sleeve for tonight’s costume?” he whispered.

I spun around. “That’s for the Prince to know, and you to obsess over.”

A frustrated grunt from Kate in the dressing room made both of us jump back. I’d completely forgotten she was still back there trying on the catsuit.