by Tonya Hurley
“She must have had a seizure,” Charlotte surmised. “A really bad one.”
“How do you know?” Beth asked, a shiver of fear in her voice.
“Some people react that way to flashbulbs,” Prue jumped in. “Photosensitivity.”
“Not just the flickering light,” Charlotte expounded, “but the stress hormones from the pressure to look beautiful can push you right over the edge.”
“If it was bad enough to almost kill her,” Pam continued, “her soul might have disengaged from her body.”
“Like Petula when she went into her coma,” Charlotte agreed. “Except Darcy was probably revived much sooner.”
“But there would still be enough time for someone or something with bad intentions to get in there,” Pam said.
“Someone?” Mary asked, confused like the rest of her classmates. “Who would want to do that?”
Charlotte, Pam, and Prue just stared at each other and let the question go for the moment and got busy.
“We’re going to need everyone’s help,” Charlotte pressed on, “here at the office and at prom.”
“Prom?” Prue groused. “Is this your way of getting there?”
Charlotte was a little hurt.
“It’s not like you have the best track record,” Pam said out of the side of her mouth to Charlotte.
“No, it’s my way of getting Damen there,” Charlotte answered cryptically.
“See what I mean!” Prue cried, throwing up her hands. “Now that we’re back here, it’s ‘Eric who?’ ”
“You mean Darcy, don’t you?” Pam corrected, shushing Prue.
“I mean both of them,” Charlotte responded. “Together.”
Pam and Prue weren’t quite sure where she was going, and the Dead Ed girls had no idea about Damen or prom, but Charlotte was persuasive enough that they were all willing to go along for the ride. Again.
Scarlet arrived home from the record store to an unusual sight: her mom sitting up in the kitchen nursing a cup of tea and looking worried. What should have been a fairly relaxing event seemed anything but to Scarlet, and she spoke up.
“Mom?” Scarlet queried. “Anything wrong?”
“Have you spoken to your sister lately?” Kiki answered in an atypically cryptic manner.
“Not if I can help it,” Scarlet said.
Despite the snarky attitude, Scarlet had been meaning to talk with Petula for a while now to show some solidarity in the face of The Wendys’ mutiny. But commiserating with Petula was something she’d never done before, and taking the first step had definitely proved to be challenging. Scarlet felt like a mosquito on a nude beach. She knew what to do but didn’t know where to begin.
“She’s got a lot going on,” Kiki said, “and I’m worried she’s not thinking clearly.”
“Status quo,” Scarlet said, shrugging.
“No attitude, please,” her mom insisted. “This is serious.”
“Serious how?” Scarlet asked with a bit more concern in her voice.
Maybe Petula had turned stripper—that would explain the late nights and rumors about her sister hanging out downtown. Keeping her off the pole had been a lifelong but so far unfounded worry of Kiki’s. Or, Scarlet considered, Petula might have become an identity thief, picking through Dumpsters for credit card receipts. Scarlet quickly dismissed that notion. Petula, she knew with absolute certainty, would never want to be anyone else.
“She wants to ask a homeless guy to prom,” Kiki announced.
Scarlet shuddered like she’d just been tasered by a policeman’s stun gun.
“She needs someone to talk to,” Kiki declared. “Do it for me.”
Kiki had always respected her daughters’ personality clash and never sought to force their relationship. So if she was asking Scarlet to reach out, it had to be really important to her.
Scarlet trudged up the stairs to Petula’s room, not knowing what to say or expect. As she peeked in the door, Scarlet could see Petula matching outfits, no longer hiding her causes. She was literally out of the closet now.
“What’s up?” Scarlet said, gingerly stepping across the threshold and into Petula’s sanctuary.
Scarlet looked around and could find few signs of Petula’s once vaunted meticulousness. The room was a mess, strewn with clothes and accessories, drawers and closets half-open, and rumpled bedding. Like Petula, the surroundings just seemed wilted.
Scarlet jumped right in.
“We’re all really proud of you for caring, but a homeless guy?” Scarlet asked, skeptically. “To prom?”
“I prefer to think of him as bohemian,” Petula interrupted. “Besides, who are you going with?”
That kind of slam would usually be the end of any serious conversation between them, but Scarlet gritted her teeth and let it go, pressing on for her mother’s sake.
“I’m just trying to understand what’s going on with you,” Scarlet prodded gently.
“He’s different,” Petula huffed. “And so am I. Just stay out of my business.”
“It sucks what The Wendys and that other clone Darcy did to you,” Scarlet offered sympathetically.
“I don’t need your pity,” Petula shot back, compulsively mixing and matching while she spoke. “I did what I did. No apologies.”
“Okay,” Scarlet said. “But what, exactly, did you do?”
The sisters stared at each other for a long while, Petula searching futilely for a plausible answer. Suddenly, Petula cracked. Not a huge earthquake-size fault, but a tiny fissure, enough to let off the emotional and psychological steam that had been building inside her.
“I’ve been hanging out with the homeless people downtown,” Petula wailed almost hysterically. “I’ve been giving them our old clothes.”
This outburst was so unlike Petula, Scarlet had no idea who was in the room talking to her—maybe, she thought, a changeling or something.
“Why?” Scarlet asked, completely perplexed.
“I’ve been styling them,” Petula confessed convulsively through her tears, as if she was vomiting up sins she’d been hiding her whole life. “I am becoming a, a…”
Petula could barely get the word out. Her tongue was swelling and her throat was closing up, as if she was choking on the very thought of the kindness she’d been showing.
“A humanitarian?” Scarlet suggested softly, putting up her hands like a boxer in case Petula took offense and lashed out.
“Yes!” Petula screamed in obvious pain, falling onto her bed and smashing her pillows over and over with clenched fists. “A crunchy, considerate, bleeding heart.”
“That’s not so bad,” Scarlet said, awkwardly attempting to comfort her sister.
“Not so bad?” Petula spit. “I’m practically a hippie for God’s sake!”
“Hardly,” Scarlet thought, staring at the back of Petula’s waxed and perma-tanned legs, which ended right at her four-inch stilettos.
“My friends, my reputation, my brand,” Petula moaned. “All gone.”
“They aren’t your friends,” Scarlet said. “They’re mercenaries.”
Petula made a mental note that Scarlet left her reputation and brand worries unremarked upon.
“This is your way of removing the toxins from your life,” Scarlet advised. “Like those alkaline drink and ‘no-chewing’ diets you torture yourself with.”
“Maybe, but all I know is Hawthorne is going to have the best-dressed bums in the world,” Petula said, “and I’m going to be fitted for a straitjacket and a pair of papier-mâché shower shoes.”
“That might be a great new look for you,” Scarlet laughed, getting a smile out of Petula as well.
“Life is not fair,” Petula said finally after a long pause. “Not everyone deserves the hand they are dealt, good or bad.”
Petula stopped what she was doing and unconsciously hugged the shirt she’d been inspecting close to her chest. This is exactly the kind of generic feel-good pabulum that would have sent her into a rage a few mo
nths earlier.
Scarlet saw Petula’s eyes water and lips begin to tremble and realized that her sister’s hobby had a lot less to do with her own situation or the unlucky in this world, than it did with what happened in the other one.
“Virginia wasn’t your fault,” Scarlet began somberly.
Petula froze. Scarlet understood much more than she thought, possibly even more than she herself did.
“And all the tricked-out homeless people in the world won’t bring her back.”
Chapter
19
Love the One You’re With
You can’t teach an old dogma new tricks.
—Dorothy Parker
You always hurt the one you love.
When someone wants to go on a “break” from a relationship, but they assure you that you are the one for them, you can be sure that they’re lying. They are pretty much saying, I don’t want you around right now because I’m afraid someone better might come along and I’ll miss that person because I’ll be with you. The bottom line is, when you truly love someone, a “break” would only break your heart.
It was a Friday night and IdentiTea was jam-packed, as usual, with rockers, dark-wavers, and hipsters. But tonight the “it” crowd included the coolest kids on both spiritual planes, which made it the place to be for everyone who is or was anyone to be. It was the perfect setting for the kind of accidental meeting Charlotte had planned.
Damen had just arrived and scanned the room for Scarlet as he made for the DJ booth, doing his best to avoid eye contact. She saw him come in and did the same.
“Remember,” Charlotte advised. “Stick to the plan.”
Charlotte felt like a ringmaster, trying to coax a bunch of unpredictable animals through her invisible hoops. She knew that it could go so very wrong very fast and that ultimately, she would need to count on The Wendys’ and Darcy’s brazenness and Scarlet’s stubborn snarkiness to seal the deal.
Scarlet scurried around trying to find one of her aprons to wear over a killer vintage baby-doll dress. She may have been feeling nervous on the inside, but she appeared cool and collected as usual. Her bangs were straight, but the rest of her hair was teased a little. She looked like she should be walking a couture catwalk in Paris, not serving Darjeeling tea in Hawthorne.
Scarlet was also wearing her bright red matte lipstick again, which took Damen, who was setting up his gear, by surprise. It looked to him like a flirty signal to the world at large that she was back to her old self—and available.
Darcy and The Wendys arrived and stopped at the counter to make sure Scarlet saw them. Scarlet just glared at them and fastened her apron. Pam and Prue gave Charlotte the okay sign and waited outside.
“How’s business?” Darcy asked snidely, looking over Scarlet’s outfit.
“Never better,” Scarlet snapped.
“Good thing you have so much more free time to spend working,” Wendy Anderson cracked spitefully. “Being single and all.”
The girls sauntered off to their front-row table, which was already set up with their favorite frozen light latte energy drinks and offered perfect sightlines to the DJ booth. They wanted to make sure that he saw them. Before long, it had gotten so crowded the girls could barely see each other, let alone Damen, so they took matters into their own hands.
The Wendys shoved people aside like celebrity bodyguards, blazing a trail that lead directly to Damen, whom Darcy wiggled and jiggled her way toward. She hopped over the rope dividing him from the rest of the room and began to dance, gyrating slowly and waving her arms over her head, snapping her fingers in time like some desperate fan.
Damen saw her—it was impossible not to—but chose to ignore her. Charlotte was satisfied that things were going off without a hitch, but became very uncomfortable with the events that she had set in motion when she got a good look at Darcy’s booty shaking and Scarlet’s horrified face.
As Damen picked up the beat, so did Darcy, getting a little smile out of him for no other reason than her sheer determination. The crowd appreciated it too, and chants of “Go, Darcy” went up, encouraging her further and pissing Scarlet off even more.
“One Kensington down,” Wendy Anderson whispered, “one to go.”
A cup and saucer that had been moving closer and closer to the edge of Damen’s stand was finally knocked to the floor by Darcy’s swiveling hips.
The Wendys signaled imperiously to Scarlet to deal with the spill.
“Waitress,” Wendy Thomas ordered, “clean up this mess.”
Things were definitely a mess, Scarlet thought as she walked over, and this wasn’t the only one that needed cleaning.
“You mean your life or the teacup?” Scarlet shot back, as she bent down to pick up the shards.
It was so loud, between the crowd and the music, that Damen barely noticed what was going down between Scarlet and The Wendys. When Scarlet popped up from the floor, he was shocked to find himself face-to-face with her. Neither of them knew what to say.
“Any requests?” was the best he could do, hoping maybe they could communicate as they always had, through music.
“I have one,” Darcy said to Damen, cutting in before Scarlet could manage a word. “Will you go the prom with me?”
Scarlet laughed, knowing damn well that Damen would never go to the prom with Darcy, no matter how she treated him.
“Why not,” Damen accepted. “The station is sending me to DJ there anyway.”
Scarlet was shocked and flashed him a scathing look.
Darcy began her victory lap, eventually returning to her table with The Wendys, who couldn’t be happier about the public dissing they’d just given Scarlet. In some ways, it was even more satisfying for them than Petula’s trial.
“Nice one,” Scarlet huffed, showing her disgust at Damen’s cooperation with her most hated enemies.
“Nice lipstick,” Damen shot back sarcastically, wanting Scarlet to know he got the message.
“It’s really me, don’t you think?” Scarlet said defiantly as she turned her back on him and walked away.
“I guess it really is,” Damen whispered.
Charlotte paced the alley behind IdentiTea, waiting for Scarlet to leave. She longed to reach out to her.
“Waiting for someone?” Eric asked, startling her.
“I was just going to talk to Scarlet,” she said. “But now that you’re here, I guess I’ll get going.”
“Charlotte, you don’t have to do this,” he said.
“Do what?” she asked.
“If you want to see her, I’ll leave,” he said. “I know she said she had something to tell you.”
Charlotte feared that that “something” was probably along the lines of “leave me alone and get out of my life,” which is something she could not bear.
“I just want to know that she’s okay, after everything with Damen,” Charlotte said. “Especially after tonight.”
Eric could only imagine what had gone on. He felt badly for Charlotte and only wanted to help, but whatever he said seemed to come out wrong.
“I’ll check on her,” he volunteered.
“Great,” Charlotte said with an edge to her voice. “At least she won’t be alone.”
Scarlet nursed a chai latte and a bruised ego for the rest of the evening, counting the seconds until closing time. The Wendys and Darcy split early, their self-satisfied grins on display, and in an effort to avoid another confrontation, Damen slinked out the back door. As the crowd emptied and the last straggler departed, Eric came in.
“How are you?” he asked.
“I just forced my boyfriend to go to the prom with another girl,” Scarlet answered, tersely. “Apart from that, I’m fine.”
“Ex-boyfriend,” Eric said, reminding Scarlet of her comment from the day before.
“Right,” Scarlet corrected herself wanly. “Ex-boyfriend.”
Eric sensed an opportunity. Not just to comfort Scarlet, but to help her channel some of the emotions she w
as feeling into something constructive, something that might benefit both of them.
“I always find that I’m at my best,” Eric said leadingly, “when I’m at my worst.”
Scarlet wasn’t sure where he was going but the need not only to vent, but to really work out how she was feeling, was overwhelming.
He put both hands out, as if he were escorting her to the guitar sitting on the stand.
“Let’s do it,” she said.
Charlotte was too agitated to head back to Damen’s and after a long while found herself wandering toward the Kensington house, hoping that Scarlet would be home soon and that maybe Eric would not be with her. It was time to come clean about everything, she thought. When she arrived, she noticed a light on in an upstairs bedroom, which alarmed her. What if they’re together, Charlotte thought, hanging out, laughing, listening to music, or worse. But it was Petula, not Scarlet, who was burning the midnight oil.
Charlotte walked in through the front door, as she had before, and up the stairs. It was a memory almost as vivid as arriving at Hawthorne Manor for the first time. She poked her head through Petula’s door and, surprisingly, into an empty room. No Petula, but it was just as well. If ever there was a place, Charlotte thought, to get some insight about guys and relationships, it was here, among Petula’s collection of diaries, scrapbooks, photo albums, keepsakes, and love letters. It was a veritable archive of unrequited love, a catalog of rejection that she maintained to keep score of everyone who had tried and failed to win her.
As Charlotte flipped through the three-ring binder of mash notes, all of which Petula had graded from A through F, she was startled to see the bedroom door push open and Petula walk in. At least she thought it was Petula, hidden behind a load of clothes she was carrying from another room.
