All Night Long (9 page)

With that declaration, Lydia nodded politely and then started walking away, to applause from the crowd. No one was objecting; no one was imploring Lydia to run track because the whole school would be oh-so-proud. Clearly, athletics here at Bel Air High School were nothing like at La Crosse, where the guy athletes were venerated and even the girls got a lot of attention, especially if they were swimmers or volleyball players. Getting another big championship banner up in the gym, or a trophy for the trophy case, was a reason for a school assembly. Here in Bel Air, it seemed like an anti-achievement.

“Come on, Kiley,” Lydia told her. “Walk with me. We can't leave until we're officially dismissed, I think. Lord, they've got some dumb-ass rules.”

Kiley stepped alongside her friend; they headed across the track and toward the bleachers. These seats were padded, just
like the ones in the basketball arena, and had the additional benefit of an overhang that protected fans from the sun. It was a remarkably pleasant place to hang out, so different from the harsh cold steel bleachers in the football stadium at La Crosse East High School. Kiley remembered how, one year, the annual Thanksgiving Day football game against Eau Claire was played in fifteen-below weather and several fans were taken to the hospital with frostbite. “That was amazing. How you ran before.”

Lydia brushed off the accolades with a wave of her hand. “What I said about the wild boar? This one time, one of them got so close I could feel him breathing on me. I jumped up, grabbed a vine, and swung into a tree.”

“How Tarzan of you,” Kiley remarked. “So then what happened?”

“Eventually Snout Boy lumbered away. But it took quite a while. I'd read an article that week in
Complete Woman
about how running makes your butt real perky—it was the only magazine I had. The Amas liked to steal them. And then there was that pesky problem with no toilet paper, and pages of magazines work real well, so—”

“The wild boar?” Kiley prompted.

“Right, the boar. Like I said, the boar got bored. But right then, I decided I'd have to be a complete woman without running around some little track. Running to save your life from a rabid boar—that's a different story. And I like my ass just the way it is.”

Kiley laughed. That was just so Lydia.

Lydia blocked the sun with a hand to her forehead and peered around the field. “Have you seen Esme?”

Kiley motioned toward the far end of the field. Though many of the hundreds of seniors who'd come to the high school this
morning for their athletics pretesting—the school grouped its physical education classes by ability—had drifted away into little knots, or had plopped down on the grass to sun themselves, there were still a few groups at the other end doing strength testing. Kiley had already been through that station. It involved sit-ups, push-ups, and a softball throw. She hadn't been very good at any of it.

“I saw her down there. She didn't look very happy.”

“Now see, that I do not understand,” Lydia said. “She's got the hot guy and the hot gig. Plus the rich and famous are throwin' major bucks at her to ink little designs into their skin. That's a danged sweet situation if you ask me.” She twirled a lock of pale blond hair absentmindedly. “Speaking of major bucks, have you made up your mind?”

Kiley knew Lydia was referring to the tell-all offer from the
Universe
. She scratched some kind of bug bite on her forearm. “No.”

“No?” Lydia echoed. “Did you drop about fifty IQ points while I was hightailing my perky butt around that track?”

Kiley put her red-checkered hightops up on the bleacher step below her. “It's just not ethical.”

Lydia nodded slowly. “Hmmmm. I see your point. You don't want to profit from Platinum's problem.”

“Exactly,” Kiley agreed, pleased that Lydia understood.

“So do the story and give
me
the money,” Lydia concluded sweetly.

Kiley laughed. “I should have known you had an angle.”

Lydia elbowed her in the ribs. “Heads up. Here comes my fan club.”

Kiley did a mental eye-roll as Staci and Zona bounded toward
them. Staci's dark locks were pushed back off her face with a slender headband, while Zona's blond curls were noticeably sweaty.

“You were fantastic!” Staci gushed to Lydia, pretty much ignoring Kiley's existence. “No one tells Coach Bucky to go to hell.”

“Mr. Shelton, you mean?”

“That's what everyone calls him,” Zona explained. “Only after what you said, we should call him Shell-shocked Shelton.” She giggled. “I took a photo of him on my phone right after you told him to go screw himself.” She held her phone out to Lydia.

Kiley leaned in to look at it. Coach Bucky's mouth was hanging open like a beached carp on the shore of the Mississippi. It really
was
funny.

“Watch out,” Zona warned. “Coach Bucky will probably handcuff you to a locker until you agree to run track for him.”

“If a guy is going to cuff me, it's going to be for fun,” Lydia commented, “which lets ole Bucky-Boy out. Plus, he'll be younger, hotter, and up all night,” Lydia drawled. She looked thoughtful. “What a fun idea. I'll have to tell Billy, my boyfriend. Where do you actually buy handcuffs—anyone know?”

The Bel Air girls' jaws dropped.

“I'm into whips and chains, myself,” Kiley managed to say without blushing. She truly disliked these girls. It was fun to shock them.

Staci arched a brow. “You?” she asked dubiously.

“Oh, she's much wilder than she looks,” Lydia put in.

“Where did you say you grew up again?” Zona asked. “Michigan?”

“Wisconsin.”

“Whatever.” Staci flipped her dark hair. “Aren't people from Wisconsin called cheeseheads?”

Zona laughed. “What a great nickname for you!” she told Kiley. “Cheesehead!”

Kiley's face burned. But what burned her even more was the fact that she was letting these two mean little bitches get to her.

“I was in Wisconsin last summer,” Staci added. “My dad runs Uprising Studios. I was a production assistant on Julia Roberts's last movie—we shot in Green Bay. Frankly, I think she's toast since she became a mother.”

“Totally,” Zona agreed. “Zero sex appeal.” She cut her eyes at Kiley. “Kind of like you, Cheesehead.”

“I don't think you want to go around dissing my friend,” Lydia said, her tone sweet and conversational. “Because that would make me mad. And trust me, you don't want to make me mad.”

Kiley's face burned. “I can stick up for myself.”

“We were only joking,” Staci insisted. She stood. “We just wanted to say you kicked ass with Coach Bucky. You're going to fit in really well.”

Zona stood, too. “Tell her about the football game.”

Staci glared at her friend. “I was just about to do that. Lydia, there's a home game on Friday night. Our team is playing Echo Park—total lowlife greaseball gangbangers. I know it's before school actually starts, but they get going early. A lot of us go to the games and then go party. You should come and hang out with us and our friends.”

Football games. Kiley never would have expected them to be social events here in California. Back in Wisconsin, Friday night football was huge. Huh. At least one thing was the same. Of
course, at home she went to football games with her friends. She could not imagine becoming friends with these two toxic twits.

“That sounds like fun, y'all,” Lydia replied. “Kiley and I would love to come. And our friend Esme, too. Wouldn't we, Kiley?” Lydia batted her lashes.

“Not really,” Kiley replied honestly. She knew the batting-the-eyelashes thing had been added as a joke, to josh Kiley into saying yes.

“Oh, you'll change your mind,” Lydia insisted.

“Lucky us,” Staci mumbled. She tossed her hair, then spoke to Lydia again. “Remember, we're going out afterward, so dress to impress.” The toxic twits started down the bleachers.

“My first high school football game!” Lydia exclaimed. “How fun is that gonna be?”

“I would rather gnaw off my arm than go with those two,” Kiley said, cocking her chin in the direction of the departing girls.

“Oh sure, they're snobs and all,” Lydia agreed easily. “But not to worry. A clique is just a tribal thing. They don't want to admit new girls into their tribe. Dissing you is a rite-of-passage kind of thing. At least you don't have to drink sheep piss.” She stood and yanked Kiley to her feet. “Come on. Let's tell Esme about the game.”

Lydia started down the bleachers, but Kiley hung back. She'd just realized something. Hadn't Staci just said that Bel Air High was playing Echo Park? Echo Park was Esme's old school.

Esme had never been so thankful to see the gate to the Goldhagens' Bel Air estate come into view. She punched in the security code, watched as the wrought-iron doors groaned open, and engaged all eight cylinders of the Goldhagens' Jaguar for the seemingly endless climb up the driveway—more like a private road, really—to the ginormous mansion.

After the field-day tryouts at school, her legs felt like Jell-O, each pulse of the crankshaft reminding her of the wind sprints she'd suffered, and the sit-ups she could barely do. She was hardly a wimp. In fact, she felt certain she could—and would, if the occasion called for it—kick the ass of any of those overprivileged brats she'd met on the field today. But sports were not her thing.

She pulled up in front of the garage, between Diane's new Mercedes and the red Jensen Interceptor that Steven had been driving lately. There were a half dozen more spotless, shiny
vehicles in the garage, she knew. By the time she got out, Easton and Weston were trotting up to her. They each wore shorts and tennis shirts—Easton's outfit was pink, Weston's was yellow— and their grins were covered with barbecue sauce, like two stubby clowns who had run out of makeup.

“Esme! Esme! Come to eat chicken!” Weston implored, taking hold of one of Esme's hands with hers, which, Esme saw, were also covered in barbecue sauce, meaning that now so was she.

“Tarshea makes jerk!” Easton was practically jumping up and down with joy and excitement. She took Esme's other hand. “Come on.”

Esme could certainly smell the cooking. But
Tarshea makes jerk
? Well, Esme was rapidly deciding that perhaps Tarshea
was
a jerk. Maybe the twins had come around to realizing it.

“Okay,” Esme told them. “Let's go check out the jerk.”

With the twins still holding her hands in their own sticky, barbecue-sauced fingers, Esme made her way down the path toward the tennis court. It was only a hundred feet from her guesthouse. Mental correction: the guesthouse she now shared with a most unwelcome guest named Tarshea.

Esme thought she'd take home-field advantage and speak a little Spanish with the girls. She asked them, in Spanish, if they missed her when she was away for the morning.

“Tarshea say we speak English. No Spanish.” Easton was adamant.

Weston nodded. “English. Mom say do what Tarshea say.”

“Tarshea is my teacher,” Easton intoned. “Tarshea is a good teacher.”

“We learn to say this,” Weston explained. “We say good?”

“Very good!” Esme assured them, though inwardly she was
more than irritated. She'd been working on the kids' English for weeks, and now Diane was giving all the credit to the new girl? Aargh. It was just so annoying. Well, Diane and Steven would see her with the twins now, and maybe that would remind Diane that—

Esme stopped suddenly, even as the twins jerked her forward. There had been some construction done that morning. Next to the tennis court, as if it had been there for months, stood a twenty-foot-tall mahogany outdoor pavilion, complete with shingled roof, bench seating for twelve, and an accompanying Jamaican-style open fire pit. Sitting in the pavilion were Diane and Steven. Each of them was holding a Red Stripe beer, casually chatting with their guests. With them was Hilary Swank—Esme recognized her, but not her date—and a half dozen other guests. She squinted. Was that Carlos Santana? Esme was pretty sure it was. Her heart flip-flopped. Santana was her parents' favorite musician. Did her parents know? Had they met him?

She didn't see Jonathan, but over by the jerk barbecue pit, beaming beneath a chef's hat and apron and hailing Esme with a pair of tongs, was Tarshea. She wore khaki shorts and a simple white T-shirt, and she looked gorgeous.

“Come turn the jerk, children!” Tarshea beckoned to the twins, who wriggled from Esme's hands and sprinted toward the pavilion. As they did, Diane gave Esme a little wave.

“Esme! Good to see you. I'm sure the day at your high school was a nice break,” Diane cooed.

Hardly. Esme just clenched a grin in response as Diane introduced her friends. “And this is one of our wonder nannies, Esme.”

“Nice to meet you, Esme,” Carlos said, offering her a handshake.

Diane laughed. “Our children are a handful. But between Esme and Tarshea, we've got the girls covered.”

“Hold it, hold it. You're
the
Esme Castaneda?” the guy with Hilary—Buzz something or other—asked. “The tattoo artist?” He was medium height with an inky black Mohawk.

Esme shot a quick look at Diane to see how her employer was reacting. “Oh, it's just something I do in my spare time,” she said, hoping Diane would be reassured that the tattoo thing was not interfering with the nanny thing.