Pride (5 page)

“You can count on me.”

And she was beginning to wonder if it might just be true.

www.matchmadeinhaven.com

username: Spitfire

password: MStevens88

Friday’s entrée at the Haven High cafeteria: meat loaf

(Miranda thought this last log-in requirement was a master stroke—how else would the Web site screen out all the perverts and cyberfreaks?) She hit enter, and the final version of her profile popped up on the screen.

User Profile: Spitfire

Sex: female

Age: 17

Height: 5′2″

(Okay, so she’d added an extra inch and a half—but who knows, maybe she was still growing.)

Favorite color: scarlet

Favorite food: -----

If I were an animal, I’d be: an elephant

(It wasn’t sexy, but had the virtue of being true.)

Best lie I’ve ever told: Mom, you look great today—have you lost weight? And can I have a raise in my allowance?

Celebrity I most look like: Scarlett Johannson

(Um … maybe if you squinted? While you were high?)

Three things I can’t live without: 1) my iPod, 2) my best friend, 3) chocolate chip cookies

I am … always ready to laugh, or to make you laugh. Honest, loyal, fun (and totally willing to hold a grudge on your behalf).

You
are … someone who thinks these questions are as stupid as I do. Someone who knows how to have a good time without making an ass of himself—and if the latter can’t be helped, at least is able to laugh at himself. Someone who knows what the word “latter” means. Basically, you’re smart, funny, confident, and you love that I’m all those things too.

The confident thing was a lie, of course, but she’d thought it would look good, and might attract the right kind of guy. The kind who wasn’t a desperate freak too pathetic to find his own flesh-and-blood dates. If any of the guys on matchmadeinhaven.com actually fit that profile—Miranda was seriously skeptical.

But, crazy or not, she’d decided to go for it. What, other than the final shreds of her dignity, did she have to lose?

chapter
3

“Here’s your uniform, and here’s your mop.”

“My … mop?” Harper took the outstretched polyester hoop skirt, holding it between the tips of two fingers as if afraid of catching its germs. She just stared at the mop, however—no way was she touching that thing, much less pushing it around.

“What, did you think I was going to start you out as a waitress?” Mr. White, the Nifty Fifties manager, threw his head back and burst into mean-spirited laughter, his double chins jiggling in time with his throaty cackles. Finally he stopped, rubbing his bald spot thoughtfully. “Well, you’re pretty enough to be out front, I’ll give you that.”

Harper held herself still as his beady eyes swept over her body. He was gross—but if it meant losing the mop, well … let him look.

“But you’ve got no experience,” he continued. “You can start training as a waitress as soon as your supervisor thinks you’re ready.”

“My supervisor? Aren’t you my supervisor?” Harper looked around the restaurant, wondering which of the crater-faced losers would be bossing her around. Maybe this was a good thing, she thought—at least she wouldn’t have to humiliate herself, serving people she knew. Safe in back with the mop, she could work completely undercover.

“Me?” Mr. White expelled another hearty chuckle. “I don’t supervise people at
your
level. No, I’ve got someone perfect for the job. In fact, you probably know her.” He stuck his bulbous head out of the kitchen door, bellowing, “Manning! Get back here for a minute.”

Harper’s knees almost gave out, and she was forced to lean against the grimy wall for support.
Of course,
she thought. She should have known.

“Yes, Mr. White?” Beth bounded into the kitchen and stopped short when she saw Harper, looking horrified. Harper couldn’t even take her usual pleasure at the sight of Beth in her tacky uniform, knowing full well that soon, she’d be sharing the same fate.

“Good news, I’m giving you a little helper,” the manager said shortly. “Harper Grace, meet Beth Manning, your new boss.”

“Oh, we’ve met,” Beth said coolly.

“Yep, I figured.” He thrust the mop handle into Harper’s hands and kicked a rolling bucket of soapy water toward her. She squealed and squirmed away as some of it sloshed over the top and splattered onto her faux Manolos.

“I want Harper here to start with the basics: floors, toilets, spills—you know the drill. And don’t be giving her any special treatment just because you two are friends—got that?”

“Oh yes, Mr. White,” Beth assured him, a broad smile crossing her face. “I know exactly what to do with her.”

Harper leaned back against the wall again and clenched the mop tightly.

You can handle this,
she told herself sternly.

She just hoped it was true.

Adam usually counted the days until the start of basketball season. Though too modest to admit it aloud, he knew exactly how good he was at nearly every sport Haven High had to offer. Last year he’d led the league in lacrosse assists, and as captain of the swim team he’d just set a new school record in the butterfly relay—but there was nothing like basketball. It wasn’t just the adulation of the town during basketball season: the cheers of the crowd, the triumphant headlines, the adoring cheerleaders—though all of that helped. It was the game itself, the rough, heavy feel of the ball cradled in his hands, the flicker of weightlessness in those moments his feet left the ground, the cool certainty of a perfect shot, when the ball flew from your fingers, sailing through the air in a perfect arc. You could close your eyes, turn away—and just wait for the soft, satisfying swish.

He’d woken at dawn that morning and spent the day bouncing around the house, filled with nervous energy, just waiting for nightfall, for the first practice of the season. Now that he was finally stepping into the locker room, he suddenly realized he hadn’t felt so happy, so relaxed in weeks. And then, in an instant, it all went to shit.

“What are you doing here?” he asked sourly.

“I—”

“Never mind, I don’t want to hear it.” Adam turned away and flung open his locker, throwing his gym bag to the floor and pulling off his T-shirt in one fast, fluid motion. He wanted to get out of there as quickly as possible. He hadn’t spoken to Kane since the night it had all gone down. And to run into him now—here, of all places, the site of his betrayal—

“I’m on the team,” Kane said calmly. “Where else would I be?”

“You’re not on the team,” Adam growled. Kane had played ball for Haven High back in tenth grade. He’d lasted a month. Kane had been the best player they had, by far—but after he’d missed two practices in a row, Coach Hanford had thrown him off the squad. Now Adam was the best player they had. But only by default. “Coach Hanford would never let you back on the team.”

“Hanford’s out,” Kane retorted. “Or didn’t you get the memo? Retired to Arizona. And, lucky for me, Coach Wilson isn’t such a hard ass—he seemed quite persuaded by what I had to say.”

Adam pulled on his team shorts and slammed the locker shut.

“How did you—” he stopped himself. He couldn’t speak to Kane, couldn’t look at him, without the bile rising in his throat. Without remembering the pictures he’d seen, of Beth and Kane, in the locker room, after hours, in each other’s arms.

“Could be fun, bro,” Kane suggested. “Like old times, you and me—”

“I’m not your
bro,
” Adam spit out, finally facing him. “I don’t know what you think you’re doing here, and I don’t care. Just stay the hell away from me.”

He brushed past Kane and headed for the door—he suddenly needed to be out on the court, to slam a basketball into the backboard. Hard.

“Now, is that any way to talk to a friend?” Kane called out after him.

We’re not friends. And I guess we never were.

But out loud, Adam said nothing. Kane had thrown away any right he’d had to call himself a friend. He’d trashed their friendship; he’d trashed Adam’s life. And now Kane had the nerve to speak to him?
Here?
Had the nerve to rejoin
his
team? Was he trying to destroy yet another part of Adam s life? Adam’s love for basketball was pure, and it was clean, and he wasn’t going to let Kane infect it, or steal it away.

Not this time.

Not again.

Beth had always been a “nice girl.” She thought of the phrase just like that, in quotes, because she was so used to hearing the words in someone else's voice. “Be a nice girl,” insisted her mother. “Such a nice girl!” her teachers all glowed. Other people’s voices, telling her who she was, what she should be. But all she ever heard in her own, silent voice these days was a warning.

Nice girls finish last.

And here was Harper, the perfect object lesson—the antithesis of nice, and she always walked away with everything. She was beautiful, she was popular, she was
mean
—and yet still, she’d taken home the prize. Beth's boyfriend. (
Ex
-boyfriend, she reminded herself.) And now here she was, at Beth’s mercy.

Beth could do the right thing, the nice thing—show her all the shortcuts, the places White would never check her work, ways to take an extra-long break; Beth could get her bumped up to the waitstaff in a few days.

Or … she could take a cue from Harper and throw nice out the window. She could be strict. Cruel.
Mean
.

And as it turned out, she was a natural.

“Well, what are you waiting for?” Beth asked caustically, as Harper stood frozen with the mop. “A written invitation? The bathroom's that way—get to work.”

Harper trudged off down the corridor. Realizing that she’d neglected to change into her uniform, Beth was about to call out after her—then decided against it. Let Harper figure out on her own why she might not want to scrub a toilet in her street clothes. Instead, she followed Harper silently down the hall. After all, she was a supervisor now. It was time to get to work.

“Are you just going to stand there all day and watch me?” Harper asked, after she’d been sweeping the mop back and forth for fifteen minutes.

“If that’s what it takes,” Beth answered snidely. “You’re doing it all wrong—might as well just start over again.”

“What?” Harper cried. “No way.”

“Well, if you want me to call Mr. White and see what he thinks …”

Harper sighed and shrugged her shoulders. “Fine—you’re the boss.”

Beth was amused by how much the words thrilled her. Everywhere else in this town, Harper was in charge. Suddenly, Beth was the one with all the power. And she loved it already.

“I don’t know how Adam put up with you for all that time,” Harper mumbled under her breath.

“What was that?” Beth asked sharply.

“Oh, nothing,” Harper replied in a poisonously sweet voice. “Just wondering to myself what I should wear on my date tonight. My
boyfriend
is taking me somewhere special. It’s our two-month anniversary, you know.”

Beth knew. And she knew what had happened two months ago. In one day, Adam had both hooked up with Harper and decided Beth was cheating on him. Beth had long wondered which had come first. But she wasn’t about to ask.

She walked out of the bathroom without a word and back down to the kitchen, where she grabbed a fresh packet of sponges. Then she rejoined Harper and tossed her one.

“You’ll want to get down on your knees and really scrub those hard-to-clean stains,” she explained, pointing to a random spot at her feet. “There’s one now.”

Harper looked at the sponge with disdain. “My hands and knees? On
this
floor? You have got to be kidding me.”

“Hey, if you can’t cut it, you’re welcome to quit,” Beth suggested, impressed by her own icy tone. Where was all this coming from? Was this who, deep down, she really was? Whatever the answer, if felt too good to stop. “Until then,” she continued, smiling as Harper slowly got down on all fours, “like you said—I’m the boss.”