Envy

Chapter 3

“How about this?” Miranda crept out of the dressing room and timidly spun around to display the newest ensemble-bright red capri pants that looked like they’d been painted on, paired with a black lace corset whose tackiness quotient would have made Christina Aguilera cringe.

Uh, no.

Harper sighed. Three hours into the total transformation shopping trip (step one on the road to a new and improved Miranda, whatever that was supposed to mean) and she was bored out of her mind. Shopping in Grace was never the most thrilling of experiences since the options consisted of three or four sorry stores in a local excuse for a strip mall, a large thrift shop (useless, since the middle-aged Grace matrons who made up its pool of suppliers couldn’t really be counted on to supply the type of “vintage” threads recommended in last month’s Vogue), and, of course, the Wal-Mart out on Route 53 (the less said about that, the better).

No, Harper preferred to buy most of her clothes online-and Harper’s parents preferred her not to buy clothes at all, as the meager profits from the family dry cleaning business rarely seemed to justify that kind of supposedly wasteful expenditure. Harper failed to see how a fur-lined J Crew raincoat or tan suede boots could be deemed wasteful-so what if the temperature never dipped below sixty degrees and it rained only eight inches a year? Sometimes fashion was its own excuse. Regardless, Harper had managed-just barely-to put together a wardrobe befitting her position in Haven High’s social strata. It didn’t mean that she wanted to spend a Sunday afternoon watching Miranda fork over daddy’s credit card in return for an armful of clothes she didn’t need and would never wear-especially when phase one of Operation Anti-Cupid was in full effect and Adam was, even now, sitting home alone, ripe for the picking.

But Harper was still feeling nagging guilt about helping the love of Miranda’s life pursue someone else. So here she was, figuring the least she could do was save her ever faithful sidekick from making a serious fashion faux pas.

After all, what are friends for?

“Well… I suppose Halloween is coming up,” Harper finally said, and gave her a thumbs down.

Miranda studied herself in the mirror from a number of angles before wrinkling her nose and sighing. “You’re right, as usual.” She disappeared back inside the dressing room. “Just a couple more things,” she called out.

Harper checked her watch and then leaned back against the wall, pressing her weight against it as she slumped to the floor. Was this going to drag on forever?

“What about this?” Miranda asked, popping out of the dressing room, a hesitant smile creeping across her face. She had slipped into a snugly fitting suede skirt, paired with a gauzy green shirt that laced up the front, offering a glimpse of cleavage and leaving just enough to the imagination.

It was stylish, edgy, slightly daring-it was, in other words, totally Harper.

It looked okay on Miranda, Harper judged, but she could almost feel that suede wrapping around her legs and knew that shade of green would light her auburn hair on fire.

Miranda had seen it first, true. And, more importantly, Miranda was the one with the credit card. She was also the one with the identity crisis, Harper reminded herself. Harper was just along for the ride-she was supposed to sit by and watch, do the loyal and supportive friend thing. But Harper wasn’t very good at being the sidekick-it was one of the reasons she and Miranda worked so well together. Their friendship only had room for one star, and usually Miranda was more than willing to let Harper bask in the spotlight while she waited in the wings.

“It’s… it’s not really you, Rand,” Harper pointed out. And that much was true, at least. Miranda’s fashion choices usually ran to white V-necked T-shirts and jeans, with the occasional brightly colored tank thrown in on days she was feeling a little wild.

“That’s the idea,” Miranda pointed out, her smile widening. She turned slowly in front of the mirror, craning her neck to try to get a glimpse of what she looked like from behind.

It was a contortion that Harper knew well, and she knew exactly what Miranda was looking for-or, rather, looking at.

“Is that the right size?” Harper asked innocently. “It looks a little tight across your… hips.”

“You think?” Miranda asked, twisting herself around even farther. “It feels okay, but-oh God, it’s my ass, isn’t it? You can say it. All this brown just makes it look huge.”

Harper bit her lip. “It’s not huge, exactly.”

That was also strictly the truth, Harper told herself. Though it’s possible the message could have been delivered in a more confident tone. Miranda was only a few pounds beyond stick thin, but for some reason, when she looked in the mirror, all she saw was flab and cellulite. Harper hated to encourage her, but how could she just sit there and watch an outfit like that walk out of the store in someone else’s bag?

“It’s just…” She let her voice trail off and gave Miranda an apologetic smile.

“Ugh, I knew it,” Miranda cried. “Look at me-I look like a tree! She flicked the low, loose green top with her index finger. “Big, thick trunk and a slutty green top. Great.”

“You do not look like a tree,” Harper assured her, half laughing and half kicking herself for getting Miranda started down this road. “It looks good, really,” she insisted.

Too little, too late.

Miranda was already back inside the dressing room, and soon Harper saw the shirt and skirt drop to the floor. She looked at them longingly. She could always save up some money, come back in a few weeks-if they were still there…

“I don’t know what I was thinking,” Miranda’s disembodied voice complained from behind the curtain. “Sorry I wasted your time with this stupid trip.”

She came out, in her own clothes, and extended a hand to Harper, hoisting her up off the ground. “Let’s just get out of here.”

“You’re not getting anything?” Harper asked in disbelief. There went three hours of her life she’d never get back-and with nothing to show for it.

“Just this,” Miranda sighed, holding up a shirt that was almost identical to the one she was wearing.

So-nothing to show for it except a pain in her ass from sitting on the floor and a white V-necked T-shirt that she didn’t even get to take home with her. Not that she would have wanted it.

Miranda slung an arm around Harper’s shoulder.

“Screw the shopping,” she said, leading her friend out of the fitting area. “Let’s go get some coffee. My treat.”

Harper took one last longing glance at the pile of clothes dumped in the corner of her best friend’s dressing room. Too bad she and Miranda couldn’t be combined into a single person-with her body and Miranda’s wallet, they’d be looking pretty damn good.

Harper slipped a hand into the pocket of her fake Diesel jeans, just in case a few crisp twenty-dollar bills had decided to magically appear.

Nope.

“Coffee it is,” she agreed. “Definitely your treat.”

Grace wasn’t a Starbucks kind of town. Big shock. If you wanted coffee, you had two choices. You could drink the black sludge they dished out at the diner, or you could step inside an unassuming and unnamed hole in the wall in the center of town and drink the finest blends this side of the Mississippi. The neon sign out front said only HOT COFFEE. (Or rather, it read HO CO FE.) But if you were a local-and in Grace, who wasn’t a local?-you knew it as Bourquins, after its owner, an angry, rotund woman who went by Auntie Bourquin. No one knew her first name-and no one had the nerve to ask. Auntie Bourquin was slow and surly, and her establishment was cramped and not too clean-but the coffee was delicious, and the fresh baked goods that appeared every morning tasted like chocolate heaven.

Miranda, who was feeling worn, deflated, and ugly after her unsuccessful bout with the shopping gods, had every reason to hope that a steaming diet mochaccino and an oversize chocolate chip cookie (it was the constant and bitter irony of her life that feeling fat and ugly made her want to run for the cookie jar) would cheer her up.