Envy

“Rand-,” Harper helplessly tried again.

“Who, by the way, turned my hair green!” She grabbed some clothes and went back into the bathroom, slamming the door behind her. “So, lunch,” she said. “I’m thinking pizza? Or Chinese food?”

“Stop acting like a baby, Miranda. I have to take a rain check. It’s an emergency.”

Harper waited in silence for several minutes, until finally a fully dressed-though still dripping-Miranda emerged from the bathroom.

“What kind of emergency?” she asked suspiciously.

“Well, not an emergency exactly-I mean, it’s not life threatening,” Harper hedged, thinking fast. “It’s just, you remember that tooth problem I was having? That was the dentist on the phone-he says he can fit me in for a follow-up, but only if I come right away. Some kind of last-minute cancellation.”

“Follow-up?”

“Yeah, my tooth is still killing me.” Harper brought one hand to her jaw, hoping that Miranda wouldn’t remember which side of her mouth the fake toothache was supposed to be on, since Harper no longer had any idea. “Of course, if you really need me, I guess I could just suffer through the pain…”

Miranda heaved an exaggerated sigh.

“No, I can take a shower-or thirty of them-all by myself. I’m a big girl, after all.”

“I’ll come over tonight and we’ll do final damage control, I promise.”

“I can’t wait to see the look on my mother’s face when she sees this one,” Miranda said with a sudden smile. “You know, it’ll almost be worth it.”

“You see? There’s a silver lining after all.”

Miranda shot Harper her patented Look of Death. “I said, almost.”

“It’s such a beautiful day,” Kane had mused. “Why don’t we do this study thing outside?”

Beth had reluctantly agreed. It’s not that she didn’t want to go outside-in fact, on a day like this, with a light breeze blowing and only a few wispy clouds in the sky, the last thing she wanted to do was sit inside and stare at fractions. But they had a lot to get through, and not much time. Being outside would be a distraction.

It was just so hard to say no to him.

They ended up in the playground of their old elementary school, stretched out on a picnic blanket between the swings and the jungle gym. The playground served as a park on the weekends, and laughing children swarmed all around them.

Still, Kane stayed focused. More focused even than Beth, who kept looking around at the playground equipment with something akin to longing. She came here by herself sometimes, at dusk, to sit on the swings and watch the sunset. It was a good place to think-surrounded by memories of a simpler time, all those games of tag and four square, the races she’d run, the games she’d lost and won, the swings she’d been on constantly, whooshing through the air as if she could fly.

She’d be going to college in a year, and there were very few parts of the town that she’d be sorry to see go. She’d been born here, grown up here, knew it inside and out. There were a few people she never wanted to leave behind-Adam, of course, her family, and-she looked at Kane-new friends too, the ones she’d missed getting to know all these years. But the town itself? She was ready to leave Grace in the past, never to be seen again. All except the playground. It was a special place. Her place.

And really, it was all that remained of her childhood.

Kane yawned and stretched himself out on the picnic blanket, preening in the sun like a lazy and self-satisfied cat.

“Late night last night?” Beth asked sarcastically, trying her best not to admire his impeccable physique.

“I know, I know, Heather’s a little-”

“Hilary,” Beth corrected him.

“What?”

“Her name was Hilary,” she reminded him with a reproachful glare.

Kane at least had the grace to blush.

“Ah, yeah. Hilary’s a little-well, she’s not like you. She’s just… fun.”

“So I’m not fun?” Why do I even care what he thinks of me? she asked herself.

“You’re fun and so much more, Manning,” he said languidly.

“And that means what, exactly?”

“It means you’re cute when you’re mad-anyone ever tell you that?”

“You’re changing the subject,” she pointed out, ignoring the compliment. That was just the kind of thing Kane said, after all, she reminded herself. Just the kind of guy he was. It didn’t mean anything.

Kane sighed. “It means that you’re fun, but that’s not all there is. Girls like Heather-”

“Hilary.”

“Whatever-they’re a dime a dozen,” he explained. “Girls like you? There aren’t so many.”

Now it was Beth who blushed. “I just hate to see you wasting your time, Kane. You deserve so much more.”

“I can’t believe this is coming from you, of all people.”

“Why me, ‘of all people’?”

“Come on, Beth,” he said, looking away. “I know how girls like you see me. You think I’m a sleazy flirt. Not worth your time. Girls like you think I’m worthless.”

“Not all of us,” she murmured.

“What?”

She was suddenly struck by the unusual sincerity, the urgency in his voice. And she didn’t like it.

“Let’s just-uh-let’s get back to work,” she suggested, bending back over her notebook. “So, when the exponent is in the denominator, you want to…”

The problem was, she didn’t know how she saw him anymore-but she suspected it was time to stop looking.

Adam had been surprised when Harper called suggesting they take a walk down to the old playground. Reminiscing about the past wasn’t usually her thing-Harper was all about living in the moment.

But neither of them had anything better to do, and it couldn’t hurt to go visit the site of some of their best exploits. Just because Beth was off somewhere studying with Kane, again, didn’t mean he needed to sit around the house all day sulking. He needed to take his mind off of things-and no one did that better than Harper.

“Why do you keep checking your cell every five minutes?” he asked her, just after pointing out the spot where Danny Burger, fifth-grade stud, had wet his pants. In fear of ruining his too-cool-for-school rep, he’d promised the witnesses three packs of baseball cards each in return for their eternal silence-and then run the whole two miles back to his house. “Are you expecting a call?”

“No, I left my watch at home and I just want to see what time it is-I have a dentist appointment later. Let’s walk a little faster,” she suggested.

As they reached the gate of the small playground, Harper pointed toward a couple by the swings.

“Isn’t that Beth? And Kane?” she asked.

Adam squinted at the couple-it was them, all right. Kane was pushing Beth higher and higher, and he could imagine the exuberant look on her face as she stretched her toes closer and closer to the sky. He’d seen it enough times himself.

Harper raised a hand to wave, but he grabbed it and stopped her.

“No, let’s just-just wait, okay?”

She gave him a cryptic look, but shrugged in agreement. So they just stood at the fence and watched.

“What are they doing here, anyway?” Harper asked. “I thought they were studying.”

Adam’s stomach clenched. “Yeah, so did I.”

“We should really get back to work now,” Beth complained, breathless with exertion.

Kane checked his watch. One thirty-five.

Harper had better be out there somewhere, he thought.

It was the perfect setup-the picnic, the romantic frolicking on the swings. And that whole heart-to-heart on his