“Hello?” she repeated, though her voice merely echoed in the huge space. “Is anyone here?”
She glanced around, catching her reflection in a mirror on the wall—then realizing it wasn’t her reflection at all. The girl in the silvered glass was at least twice her size, and she was smiling maliciously as she approached.
Oh, hell, it was Laura Bell, wearing the exact same white Vera Wang gown Jo Lynn had donned: a silk satin underlay with a layer of English netting and a silk voile overlay with delicate hand-sewn flower appliqués and seed pearls. Except Laura’s dress was obviously much larger than Jo Lynn’s. Forget her being a debu-tank. She was more like a debu-blimp, as in Goodyear.
“Surprise, surprise,” Laura taunted her, the sparkle from the heavily jeweled tiara in her upswept blond hair so intense Jo felt blinded. “What’s wrong, girlfriend?” Laura’s square-jawed face leaned close enough for Jo to feel the girl’s hot breath on her skin. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost. Or is it just envy, since I look better in this gown than you? Or is it because I’ve got the best-looking escort in the room and you’re all by your lonesome?”
Jo Lynn started to open her mouth to fight back, but all words caught in her throat when she saw the broad-shouldered guy in the tuxedo walking toward them. He ignored Jo completely as he took Laura’s hand.
OMG. It was Dillon Masters.
Her Dillon.
“Noooooooo!” Jo Lynn screamed at the top of her lungs.
Hands gripped her, shaking her shoulders, and a gravelly voice said, “Jo, hey, calm down. It’s all right.”
But it isn’t all right. Dillon is with that lard-ass Laura!
Jo struggled against the arms that wrapped tightly around her. A sob wedged in her throat, and she felt the rush of tears dammed behind her eyelids.
“Baby, I’m here. It’s okay.”
She stopped fighting and finally forced her eyes open to see Dillon’s face. His wide brow was wrinkled with concern. She wiped the dampness from her cheeks and touched his jaw, the unshaved skin like sandpaper, then let out a huge sigh of relief.
“You’re here,” she whispered, and glanced around at the familiar living room of her family’s guesthouse. They lay on the L-shaped sofa, across from the plasma TV, its screen dark and empty. It had all been a dream, she realized, the crazy beat of her heart slowing down. This was real. How could she ever have believed someone like Dillon would be with a slob like Laura?
“Oh, God,” she cried, and threw herself into his arms. “It was awful.”
“I knew we shouldn’t have watched Sean of the Dead again,” he said as he stroked her hair. “All that salsa and chips probably didn’t help either, and neither did falling asleep on the couch.” He squinted at his wristwatch and groaned. “It’s nearly eight.”
“But it’s Labor Day, Dil. No school, remember?”
“Your mom’s gonna freak if she wakes up and sees my car at this hour.”
“Please,” Jo scoffed. “Bootsie adores you.”
And it was true. Her mother loved Dillon. She’d totally buy that they’d passed out in the guesthouse watching movies, which was really all they’d done. Bootsie thought Jo Lynn’s boyfriend, Mr. Star Quarterback, was the model gentleman, and he was, even closer to perfect than Jo Lynn would’ve liked—although he had macked on her plenty last night. It was almost like he was out to prove himself after the romantic drought they endured the past few months, which Dillon blamed on the stress of football practice, training sessions, and pressure from his dad and college recruiters.
“You had a nightmare, huh?” he asked, settling back against the deep cushions, his pale eyes watching her.
He obviously isn’t in a hurry to disappear, Jo thought smugly, hoping that things were getting back to normal. She’d missed being close to him. She wanted the weirdness between them gone.
“More like a fright-mare,” she said, shaking off the flashes of it that still lingered. She squeezed her eyes closed a couple of times to clear her visions. “I was at the Houstonian, but no one else was there for the deb ball except that skank Laura Bell, and she was wearing my couture Vera Wang gown, although hers was way bigger than mine, of course, but that couldn’t possibly happen because the Glass Slipper Club’s historian records everyone’s dresses so no two are alike—”
Dillon was staring at her like she was a lunatic, so she stopped herself. “Never mind,” she told him, because explaining it did make her sound totally obsessive. “I think I’m just feeling some pressure. The first Rosebud meeting’s tomorrow night, and she’ll be there, acting like she’s all that and getting in my face unless I—”
Jo Lynn didn’t finish. Dillon didn’t need to hear about her scheme to get Laura ousted from the Rosebuds no matter what it took. She gnawed on her lower lip for a few moments, wanting to ask him a question that nagged at her. Finally, as nonchalantly as she could, she said “Just out of curiosity, what do you think of her?”
“Who?”
“Laura Bell,” she said slowly, practically spelling the name out.
Dillon shrugged. “I don’t know her that well, except from when Avery used to bring her around, but she seems okay.”
That wasn’t exactly what Jo Lynn was getting at, so she went right for the jugular: “You don’t think she’s attractive, do you?”
Her boyfriend drew back, giving her a “what the hell?” look. “Why would you even ask that?”
Because you were her escort for the deb ball in my damned dream, Jo nearly blurted out, but checked herself. “Like you said, Avery went out with her, and I thought he had better taste than that. She’s…supersized.”
“Do you hate her because he was your boyfriend first? That’s what bugs you the most, isn’t it? He went from dating you to seeing a girl who’s definitely not your idea of a beauty queen.” Dillon sighed, and the muscles in his jaw twitched. “Jesus, Jo. I’m surprised you let someone like Laura Bell get under your skin so much that you’re having nightmares about her.”
“You don’t understand,” Jo Lynn snapped.
“No, I don’t understand at all. You have everything any girl could want, but instead of being happy you keep fixating on someone who can’t hold a candle to you.” Dillon sighed again, staring at her, and there was something in his eyes that caused a chill to settle between them. “You need to give it a rest.”
That got Jo’s back up. “So I’m a bitch for not liking her, is that it?”
Dillon looked at her for a long time before he said quietly, “Sometimes I’m just not sure what I’ve gotten myself into.”
What was that supposed to mean?
Is it because I brought up Avery? Is he jealous? she wondered.
Or was it something else?
Don’t push it, Jo, she told herself, and her mind quickly shifted into gear. She hurried to fix things, before all the warm, fuzzy feelings from their evening together evaporated.
“Look, I’m sorry. I don’t want to fight. Seriously, I should thank you for hanging with me. All night,” she added, leaving out the rest of what she was thinking, namely, Even if we didn’t actually do it.
Jo Lynn leaned over and pressed her lips to Dillon’s, tasting his morning breath and not caring a bit. He pulled away and held her shoulders.
“No, I should be thanking you,” Dillon said, “for getting that I need to slow things down a little. Sometimes it feels like everything’s moving so fast around me that I can’t think straight.” He shook his head, exhaling slowly, and Jo Lynn reached up to curl her fingers around his arms.
“Uh, yeah, sure it’s okay,” she reassured him, though she didn’t exactly mean it. She wasn’t at all certain about this “I want to take things slow” gobbledygook. When did I agree to that? It was more like he’d slowed down all on his own this past summer, after a year of going hot and heavy, and the only thing she could do to hold on to him now was to go along with whatever he wanted.
So far as she knew, he hadn’t been born again, and it was fo
r damned sure she wasn’t into reconstituted virginity. She’d heard of girls accepting some kind of creepy promise ring from their dads for pledging to swear off sex until marriage. Ugh. Besides, it was way too late for that. Avery had made sure of it. Weren’t guys the ones who always wanted to move faster? As much as she wanted to ignore it, Dillon’s need to put on the brakes didn’t make sense.
“I really should go,” Dillon said abruptly, and wriggled out of her grasp. He jumped up from the sofa. “I need to work out this morning before I help my folks get ready for later.” He ran a hand over his tousled blond curls and looked around as he hiked up his cargo shorts and buttoned his vintage bowling shirt. “You know where my shoes are?” he asked, getting down on his hands and knees as he poked beneath the couch for his missing Vans.
Jo Lynn got a nice bird’s-eye view of his butt as he bent over, and she smiled as she watched him scrounge around for his kicks. It was almost too bad when he found them.
“I’ll see you at one o’clock, yeah?” Dillon slipped on his shoes. “You’re coming to my folks’ annual barbecue, right? My dad would kill me if you didn’t show. I think he’s got a crush on you,” he added, and wiggled his eyebrows.
“Stop it.” Jo shook her head, grinning. He could be such a goof. “Of course I’ll be there. I’m looking forward to it,” she said, and meant it.
“Cool.” He nodded as he stuck his wallet into his back pocket and picked up his cell from the coffee table without bothering to check it for messages. Then he grabbed his keys and headed for the door.
Jo Lynn shoved her feet into her favorite floral-embroidered Christian Lacroix flats and snatched up her iPhone, which she’d turned off last night so nothing would interrupt them. Hopping off the sofa, she followed him to the door. She flipped her tangled blond hair behind her shoulders, coming up behind him as he paused before leaving.
“Bye, babe, I’ll see you this afternoon,” he said, kissing her gently before he loped down the steps toward his red Mustang.
Jo closed the door and stood on the porch, listening to the sports car roar to life, the engine growling as it pulled away. She suddenly realized Dillon had never actually answered her question about whether he found Laura Bell attractive.
I’m surprised you let someone like Laura get under your skin, she heard him saying, and she hated the fact that he was right. She shook off her attack of insecurity, something she’d rarely felt since she’d had to give up pageants after her sophomore year.
Of course Dillon didn’t think Laura was pretty, she told herself. The girl was as tall as an Amazon and had a body type Bootsie politely referred to as “sturdy.” Not to mention she had no manners at all. Laura was known throughout Pine Forest Prep for saying precisely what she thought without thinking first and often ended up with her hefty size-eleven foot in her mouth. They might both be trust-fund babies, but that was all they had in common. Well, except the fact that they were both blondes and their mothers were best friends…and, unfortunately, Laura had also been picked by the Glass Slipper Club to be one of ten Pine Forest Prep senior girls in this season’s debutante class.
Though if Jo Lynn could find a way to get Miss Ding-Dong Bell booted out of the Rosebuds on her “sturdy” ass, she was bound and determined to do it. She’d already played an ace—or what she’d assumed was an ace—when she’d anonymously messengered a photo of a drunk and disrobed Laura Bell to every woman on the GSC’s debutante selection committee. Surprisingly that had backfired, leaving Jo Lynn with no choice but to try something else—which reminded her that she had some work to do on her “Get Laura Booted from the Buds” project before Dillon’s family barbecue this afternoon. It was Labor Day, after all, wasn’t it? Only, this chore would be fun.
Jo Lynn turned on her iPhone and found she had a new text message. She paused on the flagstone path that led around the pool to the main house, went to her SMS screen and read Camie Lindell’s note. Her friend was obviously curious about how things had gone with Jo and Dillon.
So??? Whassup with U and Big D?
Jo smiled and texted back: He just left.
Camie’s reply bounced back like she’d been sitting on her cell, waiting for Jo to respond. No way!!!
Way! Jo tapped into the keypad. And I’ll C him L8R at his BBQ. I so heart him!
You suck! I’ll B hanging out with Trish while U have real fun. We’re going 2 the country club 4 yoga, lunch & mani-pedis. Spill ALL when U get back!!!
U know I will.
My BFFs will have to do without me today, Jo mused as she slipped her phone into her back pocket and strode across the flagstone walkway through the manicured lawn. Though she was usually too preoccupied to admire the pretty acre in Houston’s pricey Piney Point Village upon which sat the home her daddy had custom-built before she was born, she took it in now. Tall pines soared heavenward and enclosed the property, hugging its borders like giant guardians, keeping the Bidwells safely separated from the rest of the world. Graceful cypresses dripped Spanish moss; fluffy asparagus ferns flourished; and the hibiscus, oleander, and Mexican honeysuckle still bloomed wildly in early September. Sago palms looked like verdant umbrellas, while velvet-leaved princess flower bushes still bore a few deep purple blooms.
Jo inhaled deeply, the sweet mix of scents so pervasive on the humid air that she could almost taste them.
Today, she decided then and there, will be absolutely perfect. Nothing and no one can ruin it.
Having the day off from school after two weeks back at good ol’ all-girls PFP rocked, particularly since it meant she’d be spending the afternoon with Dillon. Even though she wished they were doing something alone and not having to play nice with Dillon’s parents, plus most of the Caldwell Academy football team. Still, Jo Lynn kind of liked it when she got to act like Dillon’s arm candy, and he seemed to enjoy showing her off to the other guys, like he’d won a big prize that they’d never get.
Texas men were kind of possessive that way, even the well-bred ones who’d been reared in River Oaks or the Memorial Villages with silver spoons in their mouths and Gucci saddles beneath their butts. For sure, Dillon Masters was no redneck. He didn’t like to hunt, for one, and he didn’t do chaw, wear Lucchese boots day in and day out, or drive a pickup (with or without a gun rack) with that omnipresent bumper sticker that read DON’T MESS WITH TEXAS.
Not that Jo Lynn didn’t appreciate the motto, because she did. She kind of wished the whole world heeded the warning of “Don’t mess with Jo Lynn Bidwell,” though it was pretty much unwritten law at PFP that most girls seemed inclined to obey. At least, the ones who knew what was good for them.
There was one woman, though, who intimidated Jo Lynn, and it wasn’t a prep school rival or any competitor she’d ever encountered on the pageant scene, but rather Bootsie Bidwell, her mother, who just happened to be this year’s chair of the GSC debutante selection committee. And Jo Lynn didn’t want to cause an early-morning stink with her mother for strolling in at breakfast time, even if she’d spent the night only yards away in the family’s guesthouse with the Golden Boy of Caldwell Academy, whom she had every intention of marrying one day.
Jo used her key to open the door to the main house and stepped into a rear hallway near the utility room, just past the butler’s pantry, where kitchen deliveries were received.
She heard the familiar noises of pots and pans clanking in the granite and stainless steel kitchen as Bootsie’s personal chef prepared weekend brunch, always served promptly at eleven. Jo figured Cookie was getting double pay for sticking around and feeding the Bidwells on a holiday when even the housekeeper, Nan, had been cut loose for Labor Day. Not that Jo minded, since it meant the house would smell like cinnamon and other spices all morning.
Not wanting to attract Cookie’s attention, Jo removed her shoes, dangling them from her fingers as she tiptoed past the kitchen and scurried across the foyer, the marble floor cold beneath her feet. She briefly glanced up at the impossibly high painted ceiling—Bootsie’s o
de to Michelangelo’s frescoes in the Sistine Chapel—and took the curving stairwell up to her bedroom as quietly as possible, avoiding the floorboards that creaked beneath the Oriental runner just outside her parents’ bedroom. She had one hand on the knob of the door to her bedroom suite and was about to turn it when a voice from behind startled her.
“I think you missed your curfew,” Bootsie said, her honeyed drawl laced with sarcasm.
Please. As if I actually have a curfew.
Jo Lynn slowly turned to face her. “Good morning, Mother.”
Her mom gave her a slow once-over, and Jo knew she looked a mess. Her makeup was doubtless smeared, and she was wearing the same pair of hip-hugging D&G jeans and pleated white shirt she’d had on last night when she’d gone out to eat with Dillon, only now she looked severely wrinkled. Her fabric flats were damp with dew. As usual, Bootsie appeared the model nouveau-riche mummy, a tribute to crisp perfection even at barely half past eight in her tailored pearl gray Chanel slacks and sage green silk side-wrap blouse. She’d always been the best-dressed mother on the pageant scene, and Jo rarely saw her with a hair out of place.
Jo shifted on her feet, uncomfortable beneath Bootsie’s critical gaze.
“Good thing I’m not doing pageants anymore, huh? I wouldn’t even win Miss Junior Oil Refinery looking like this,” Jo Lynn remarked, hating the length of her mother’s silence. It meant Bootsie’s brain was making a list of Jo Lynn’s imperfections, like she’d done back in Jo’s pageant days.
“You do look a mess,” Bootsie said, crossing her arms and tilting her head. “But I guess that’s what happens when you don’t sleep in your own bed.”
Jo Lynn squirmed but couldn’t escape.
“Did Dillon stay over?” her mother asked, point-blank. “And don’t lie, because I heard a noise a few minutes ago and I caught his car pulling out of the drive.”
The Debs Page 18
