Envy

Too late.

A bucket overturned over Miranda’s head, unleashing a flood of icy water.

“What the hell!” she screamed, looking down at herself, post-tidal wave. Her clothes were soaked and sticking to her body, marred by a few light green streaks-apparently her hair was still water soluble.

“Language, language,” water boy cautioned her with a smirk, pointing toward Stacy. “There are children here, you know.” He grabbed a giant stuffed bear off the rack and handed it to the girl.

“Here you go, sweetie. Good job.” He turned to Miranda. “And you.”

“I get a prize too?” she asked, holding her arms out from her sides in a pathetic attempt to air dry. “I think you’ve already given me enough.”

“You get the best prize of all.” He scrawled something on a piece of paper and handed it to her.

She uncrumpled it and looked uncomprehendingly at what he’d written: “Greg-555-6733.”

“My phone number,” he explained, a bright red blush spreading across his face and out to the tips of his oversize ears.

“Wha-?”

“I think your hair’s cute,” he spit out, eyes darting away in embarrassment. “And so are you.”

Kaia shut off the TV in frustration. There were only so many hours of nothing on that she could take. But what else was she supposed to do? She’d read a book, read the latest issue of InStyle-twice- even done her homework (truly a move of last resort). And it was still only Saturday night. She’d pretty much burned her bridges for what passed as A list social life around here, and she didn’t have much interest in palling around with social climbers who thought that hanging with someone who used to be at the top of a social ladder was the next best thing to ever being there themselves. And what did that leave? Kaia, alone and bored in her father’s palatial monstrosity of a midlife crisis (complete with pool table, hot tub, giant flat screen TV). After a few weeks trapped in small-town hell, even the luxury oasis wasn’t cutting it.

She wondered what was going on back at the home front. Kaia got an e-mail or two a week from members of her old crowd (even, once in a while, a note from her mother, complaining about the decorator’s incompetence or her dermatologist’s too frequent vacations). But that was about it.

Principle dictated that she wait for them to call her and describe how empty life was without Kaia. Boredom dictated that she call them and torture herself with the knowledge of the life she should be living.

Boredom-and masochism-won out.

“Kaia, we miss you so much!” Alexa fawned. (They had all fawned over her, back in New York, jockeying for favor as if hoping her light would shine down on them and redeem their pitiful lives. It was a horrible way to think about your friends-but then, Alexa and the rest weren’t really friends, were they? So what did it matter?) “K, you missed the sale of the season yesterday. Bergdorf’s-you would not believe the scene.”

“Oh, I can imagine.”

“I should have snagged you something, but it was just too crazy.”

“Well, not much call for Marc Jacobs out here in the sticks, anyway,” Kaia admitted.

“Oh, that’s right,” Alexa said, her voice dripping with pity. “Burlap sack is maybe more your speed these days, right?” A beat. “Just kidding, of course.”

“Of course,” Kaia said drily.

“How are the hotties out there? You climbed into bed with any cowboys yet?”

“A few. It’s slim pickings, though. Like Presley Prep on a Monday morning.” Showing up in homeroom at eight a.m. on a Monday, sans hangover, was basically admitting to the world that you’d spent the weekend poring over your stamp collection. Or, Kaia thought, looking around in self-pity, forming a permanent body-size lump in your couch, flipping aimlessly through the TV channels 24/7.

“Tell me about it,” Alexa drawled. “But by Tuesday-totally yummy. Tyler was getting so jealous the other day when-”

“Tyler?” Her Tyler? Six-feet-two Kenneth Cole addict with a nasty sense of humor and a silver Ferrari?

“Uh, yeah,” Alexa mumbled. “You know we’ve been seeing each other. You know, nothing serious.”

“I don’t know,” Kaia corrected her coolly. “Maybe you should enlighten me.”

“Oh, I already told you all about it. I’m sure of it. You remember-you said you didn’t care?”

It was an utter lie. But pointing that out would violate the code, the code that forbade you to ever admit to caring. Not when you were with a guy, not when the guy moved on to someone else, not when your supposed friends stabbed you in the back.

Kaia didn’t really care about the code-but then again, she didn’t much care about Tyler or Alexa, either. So she let it pass.

“Actually, he’s here right now,” Alexa finally remembered to mention. “Want to say hello? Ooh, Tyler, quit it. I’m on the phone.” There was a series of giggles, then a disconcerting pause during which Alexa and her Harvardbound hottie were doing who knows what, then, “Sorry, I’m back, what were you saying?”

Before Kaia could answer, the doorbell rang-it was like a gift from the gods.

Or possibly the delivery guy, waiting outside with the pizza she’d ordered. Either way, it was a sign.

“I was saying I have to go-hot party to get to,” Kaia lied easily.

“Sure, sure-awesome to talk to you, K, we miss you so much here. Oh, Tyler, for fuck’s sake, quit it. We think about you all the time. No,Tyler, I’m not talking to you, I’m talking to Kaia. Kaia. Tyler, stop it! I mean it!”

“Yeah, miss you, too,” Kaia said dully, her voice drowned out by giggles. She shook her head in disgust and hung up the phone.

Think about her all the time? Yeah, right.

She hated them all for a moment-her parents for forcing her into exile, the friends who’d left her behind even though she was the one who’d left, Harper and her cronies here, who had all the social capital that Kaia had worked so hard to accumulate in her old life. You can’t take it with you, they say.

Ain’t it the truth.

She shuffled down to the front door to collect her pizza and got another unpleasant surprise.

“It’s you,” the scruffy delivery guy grunted when she opened the door.

“Do I know you?” It seemed a highly unlikely-and highly disturbing-prospect.

“We’ve met. I rescued you?” He spoke slowly, his words spaced out as if he were in danger of forgetting which one came next. It was the kind of voice that you imagined saying “yo” or “dude” every other word-so much so that the words almost didn’t need to be said. They were just implied.

Still, it was true, they’d met before. Under the dweebish Guido’s hat and apron was the same grody guy she and Harper had blown off in the Cactus Cantina. And now my night is officially complete, she thought in disgust.

“Oh yeah,” she grudgingly admitted. “What was your name? Weed? Seed?”

“Reed,” he corrected her, glowering. “Hopefully next time you’ll get it right.”

Weed would have been more appropriate, she decided, judging from the smell hovering around him and the glassy look in his eyes. He reeked of pot.

“Hopefully there won’t be a next time,” she retorted.

“Fine with me, princess.”

“I hope you don’t treat all the people you serve in this manner,” Kaia said haughtily.

“Not too many people home to serve on a Saturday night,” he said with a sly smile.

Was he actually criticizing her social life? Or would that be giving him too much credit? Veiled insults take brain power, and Kaia was sure this guy was running on empty. She knew she should just shut the door and go back to her night, lame as it was-but there was something about this guy that held her in place. Maybe it was his deep, dark, intense gaze, or the way his soft lips curled up into a knowing smile-

She shuddered. Surely she hadn’t sunk low enough to be attracted to a guy like this. Raw sex appeal notwithstanding, he was still a delinquent pothead. A delivery boy, she reminded herself. That was it.