Lust

half, with a few alterna-females thrown in for good measure, or so she’d been told). And tonight, she could use all the reminders she could get.

Miranda was still babbling on about a test, and some bio lab that needed to be written up.

“Miranda, listen to me,” Harper cut in impatiently. “SOS. Seriously, drop what you’re doing-were going out.”

It took some persuading, some wheedling, and eventually a promise from Harper that she would treat Miranda to a manicure in time for the formal that weekend and would finish burning all the CDs for the after party on her own. Still, Miranda hedged-it was late, she was tired, she was in her pajamas, her parents would be suspicious…

But Harper was nothing if not persistent-and Miranda was nothing if not loyal, and so, finally, she hung up the phone and answered the call.

As far as their parents were concerned, Harper was sleeping at Miranda’s house and Miranda was sleeping at Harper’s. All thanks to a supposed late-night cram session for an imaginary chem test. (Harper’s parents foolishly thought that Miranda was a good influence, and as far as Miranda’s mother was concerned, Harper was the golden child. It was almost too easy.) Later they’d sneak into Harper’s house to get some sleep, knowing that her parents, always up and out by five a.m., would never know they’d been there.

As for the night’s real entertainment, they settled on the Barnstormer, a seedy ribs joint on the north side of town that attracted a reliable clientele of truckers, motorcyclists, and a few regulars, who, by the time they passed through the red wooden doors, were already too drunk to pass along any information about their station in life (or possibly even to remember it themselves).

It was dark, smoky, and crowded, the perfect place to lose yourself and your problems. A sober observer would have spotted Harper and Miranda immediately-the two young girls, dressed to kill, were several decades younger and several layers of dirt cleaner than the majority of patrons. But by eleven p.m. on Rodeo Night, the only sober observers available were the waitresses, who, spending most of their time fending off wandering hands and cleaning up patches of vomit, had little inclination to bother the two girls from the slightly less wrong side of the tracks.

Feeling cloaked by a powerful haze of invisibility, they grabbed a small table in the dark recesses of the bar and, carefully avoiding any sticky spots, flagged down a waitress. Their order:

Two baskets of chicken wings.

One basket of ribs.

Two pitchers of beer.

It was going to be that kind of night.

As the twangs of country-and-western music blared in the background, Harper and Miranda spilled out their problems to each other, becoming increasingly incoherent and increasingly convinced that their problems could be easily solved by the elimination of all men from the face of the Earth. But, it seemed, nothing short of that would help.

A few years ago, the owner of the Barnstormer-a quietly practical middle-aged woman who had moved to Grace after the sudden death of her husband and concluded that the only money to be found in a town like this was in providing its population with food, drinks, or women (she’d hit the trifecta)-had hung a large piece of driftwood over the inside entrance. The red paint scrawled across it offered a legend to all who passed beneath: EAT TILL IT HURTS, DRINK TILL IT FEELS BETTER.

By midnight Harper and Miranda had done both.

Long years of practice had taught Harper and Miranda that the quickest way to feel better was to remind themselves that other people were so much worse. And Rodeo Night at the Barnstormer provided them plenty of opportunity.

“Check out the guy in the cowboy boots,” Miranda crowed, almost spitting out her mouthful of beer.

“Which one?” Harper asked, rolling her eyes. “They’re all wearing cowboy boots.”

“Yeah, but most of them are wearing a little bit more than that,” Miranda pointed out, nodding her head to the right, where an overweight, middle-aged guy had stripped off his shirt and climbed atop the bar, gyrating and bouncing in time to the Garth Brooks jukebox beat and the hoots of the crowd.

They dissolved into laughter. This town was filled with enough losers to cheer them up well into the next decade.

“How about the Lone Ranger over there?” Harper snorted, pointing in the direction of an old man decked out in a fifties cowboy costume, complete with mask and capgun.

“God, we have got to get out of this town before we turn into one of them,” Miranda declared. She grabbed the last barbecue wing and stuffed it into her mouth, then downed the rest of her beer.

“Tell me about it,” Harper agreed, finishing her own. They poured themselves more from the pitcher and sloppily toasted, clinking their overflowing glasses.

“To us!” Miranda crowed.

“To getting the hell out of this place!” Harper added.

“Tb living fabulous lives-”

“Without shitty guys dragging us down!”

“To being wild and crazy-”

“And independent, on our own-”

“Together!” Miranda finished triumphantly.

And they drank up.

Beth had stayed home from school that day. She’d told her mother she was sick, and her mother had no reason not to believe her. For why would Bethie lie?

She’d spent the day in bed, and it was almost as if she were sick-she was immobilized. Normally unable to sit still for more than a few minutes at a time, her mind always on fire thinking of the next task to be done, the next mission to accomplish, she’d spent the day tucked neatly under her covers staring aimlessly at the TV and flipping between channels.

Talk show.

Soap opera.

Dora the Explorer.

Soap opera.

It was all the same to her.

She knew she couldn’t hide in her room forever, battering herself with accusations and regrets, if only’s and what if’s.

If only I hadn’t gone to the meeting.

If only I hadn’t flirted with him.

If only I’d known what he wanted from me.

What if I wanted it too?

She’d have to leave her sanctuary someday. She’d have to face her life, face him, and soon.

Just not today.

There was a knock on her door.

“Beth? Honey?” Without waiting for Beth to respond, her mother opened the door a few inches and poked her head through the gap. “How are you feeling, sweetheart?” Her face was filled with concern, and Beth felt a momentary stab of guilt for lying, but beneath that, a warm glow of pleasure-her mother was usually too busy to remember that Beth existed, much less worry about how she was doing. In fact, Beth realized, this was the first time in months that her mother had even set foot inside her room.

“I’m okay, I guess,” she said listlessly, not bothering to look away from the TV.

“Are you feeling up for a visitor?” her mother asked, glancing over her shoulder into the hallway.

Beth sat up in bed and looked over at the clock. It was almost eleven-who would be visiting her? Usually she wasn’t even allowed to have guests in the house this late-her parents were afraid it would wake up the twins.

“I know it’s late,” her mother added, “but he says he brought you your homework, so I thought just this once it would be okay.”

He?