“She’s so skinny,” I said quietly, as we watched the Kia girl cross the parking lot and walk into the building, her light blue scrub pants and faded gray T-shirt practically hanging off her thin frame.
“You have a better rack,” Dev said loyally.
“Thanks,” I mumbled.
“Stop.” He held me by the shoulders and looked into my eyes. “Don’t do this. You are prettier than a pre–Tony Romo Jessica Simpson. Prettier than a pre-rehab Lindsay Lohan.”
“Thanks, Louise.” I squeezed his arm.
“The adventure’s just beginning, Thelma,” he said, unbuckling his seat belt. “I’m going in.”
“Wait, what?!” I sat up. “What are you doing? You can’t go in there!”
“Sure I can,” he said confidently. “I’m Indian. Walking into a med school. I was born to go undercover here. Everyone will just assume I’m meant to be there.”
“Dev—”
“Give me ten minutes. I’ll find out everything we need to know.” He leaped out of the car and strode confidently into the building.
My cell phone remained on his seat. I picked it up. There it was: “At Starbucks. Skyping my editor.” I rubbed at it with my thumb absent-mindedly, but that wasn’t going to erase it. Unable to help myself, I texted, “I miss you.”
I clutched the phone desperately, willing for it to vibrate, clinging to it like a lifeline, but no. Nothing.
I have no idea how long I sat staring at that phone, but eventually Dev bounded back in.
“Okay,” he said breathlessly. “So I was doing fantastically, totally blending in, then this mouth-breathing moron with a clipboard comes up to me, says he’s organizing a softball game, and needs to know who my supervising professor is so he can put me on a team. So I said House. Dr. House.”
“Like the TV show?”
“It was the first thing that popped into my head!” he protested. “Then he asked my name, and I said Kal, Kal Penn.”
“The Indian actor who played one of the doctors on House?” Sometimes Dev was just unbelievable.
“I was thinking off the cuff, okay?!” Dev raised his hands. “Sue me! I did the best I could. Anyway, they kicked me out.”
“Oh, Dev—”
“But not before I got … this!” He held up an ID on a lanyard. “Ta-da!”
“Dev!” I gasped. “You stole her ID?! How could you?!”
“All’s fair in cheating and ho-bags,” he exclaimed. “Does the name Hannah Rupp mean anything to you?” he said, glancing at the ID.
“Hannah Rupp … Hannah Rupp …” I cast around in my brain. “No, I don’t think so.”
“Hannah Rupp. Pharmacology and Cancer Biology intern.” Dev looked up, and his eyes locked with mine. “Camden Harbor, Maine.”
“Oh my God,” I whispered.
“Wasn’t Garrett’s high school girlfriend named—”
“Hannah,” I finished for him. “Oh my God. Oh my GOD! Why is she here?!”
“She’s pharmacologizing and cancer biologizing!” Dev said.
“I mean, I mean, why was he here?! There! Why would he see her?! She cheated on him! And broke his heart! And … and … they were hugging!”
“Or kissing,” Dev said matter-of-factly.
“Dev!” I wailed.
“Sorry, sorry!” he said.
“Garrett’s cheating on me … I can’t believe it … I … H-he’s cheating on me,” I stammered.
“He’s the world’s biggest idiot,” Dev said, squeezing my knee.
“Do you think he’s cheating on me because he thinks I’m cheating on him? Is that why? Do you think he thinks I’m cheating on him with Beau?”
“Who can tell what that crazy bastard thinks. I mean, he wears sandals with socks!” Dev shouted.
“That only happened once!” I shrieked. I took a deep breath. “I have to get out of here.” I shook my head, trying to clear it. The truck roared to life, and I peeled out of the parking lot so fast we burned rubber.
“Easy there, tiger,” Dev cautioned as we sped down the road, trees flying by in a green blur.
“I can’t believe he’d do that to me,” I muttered. “How could he do that to me? I thought he really … I mean, I know I really …”
“Hey!” Dev said brightly. “Happy place. Let’s sing!”
He turned the radio up, and it played: “I’m giving up on love ’cause love’s given up on me.”
“‘I’m giving up on love ’cause love’s given up on me,’” I sang. “Perfect.”
“Now, this is not exactly what I meant—”
“Don’t you DARE change that station!” I shouted, as the woman continued singing.
“I was kind of hoping for something that wasn’t about setting things on fire,” Dev muttered.
“Nope, this is perfect.”
We sped down the road, traveling faster and farther as Miranda Lambert sang about soaking things in kerosene. I knew exactly how she felt.
“Um, Libby,” Dev ventured after a while. “Do you have any idea where you’re going?”
“Nope,” I said evenly. “I just know I can’t go back to that camp yet.”
“Fair enough.” Dev nodded. “Wait! Here! Here! Pull in here! Turn right!”
I did and, tires spinning, we skidded to a stop.
“‘The Snikering Squirrel’?”
“I think it’s supposed to be ‘Snickering,’” Dev said, squinting at the neon sign. “Let’s go.”
“What is this place?” I asked as we got out of the truck. It was a rambling wooden building that looked like it was about to fall apart at the seams, neon beer signs gracing its windows. “A bar?”
“Nope.” Dev pointed at the flashing neon KARAOKE NITE sign. “It’s your salvation.”
“I’m not in the mood.” I scuffed the dirt in the driveway.
“Trust me, I know what’s best for you,” Dev said, as he dragged me up to the door. “You need to sing this all out. It’s the only way for you to deal with your problems. It always helps the kids on Glee deal with their issues.”
“Dev, we’re not twenty-one,” I said apprehensively, as we crossed the threshold.
“I don’t think that’ll be a problem.” He glanced pointedly in the direction of a family of four, where two boys who couldn’t have been more than eight pelted each other with chicken wing bones.
“My phone!” I cried, feeling a sudden vibration.
“I’ll go set this up,” Dev said, and disappeared into the crowd.
I pulled it open. It was from Garrett: “Yeah, me too. Where are you?”
My heart thumped. I didn’t know what to say. Or if I wanted to see him. But I typed, “At a bar.”
I closed the phone and stuck it in my bra. I still didn’t really know how I felt. Not that it mattered. Because with only that much information, there was no way he could find me, anyway.
“Libby!” Dev hailed me from the back of the bar. “Come on back!”
I pushed my way through. It was pretty crowded and noisy, with everyone laughing and having a good time. Dev was perched on a barstool at the end of the bar, making goo-goo eyes at a very cute boy in a plaid cowboy shirt.
“That was fast,” I muttered.
“Libby, this is Duane,” Dev announced proudly. “Duane, Libby; Libby, Duane.”
I nursed a soda as Dev and Duane flirted away. Dev managed to get a Sex on the Beach out of Duane with a wink, but I was fine with my Sprite. As I sucked meditatively on my straw, Duane talked on and on about hunting, which Dev kept accidentally-on-purpose mishearing as “humping.” A woman got up and sang “Goodbye Earl.” A man followed after her and sang “All My Ex’s Live in Texas.” And then, over the microphone, a man said, “Libby?”
“That’s you.” Dev slurped up his drink. “Go get ’em, doll.”
“Libby?” the man called again.
I made my way to the stage. A somewhat pudgy guy in a cowboy hat handed me a microphone. Slightly tinny opening chords blared out
of the karaoke machine. I looked at the screen. Carrie Underwood. Thankfully, it was the only country song I knew. I looked out at the audience, and standing in the door was one of the last people I expected to see. I took a deep breath and sang:
“Right now he’s probably slow dancing
With a … brunette tramp
And she’s probably getting frisky.”
Okay, so I know the lyric is “bleached-blond,” but somehow “brunette” just popped out.
“Right now, he’s probably buying
Her some fruity little drink
’Cause she can’t shoot whiskey.”
As if I had somehow conjured him out of thin air, Garrett stepped into the bar. How had he found me?
“Right now, he’s probably up behind her
With a pool stick
Showing her how to shoot a combo
And he don’t know.”
By this point the entire bar had stopped what they were doing, and they were watching me, swaying and shouting. The whole room was blurry, except for Garrett. He was the only clear figure in a sea of whirling faces. I tried my best to shut him out and sing.
“I dug my key into the side
Of his pretty little souped-up four-wheel drive
Carved my name into his leather seats
I took a Louisville slugger to both headlights
Slashed a hole in all four tires …”
I took a deep breath, looked right at Garrett and sang:
“Maybe next time he’ll think before he cheats.”
I finished the song, closing my eyes and trying to pour everything I was feeling into the timeless words of Carrie Underwood. The bar erupted into applause, people shouting and stamping and chanting my name. I didn’t care about any of that. I couldn’t think about anything but Garrett. I handed the mike to the pudgy man and made my way back to the bar.
“Woo-wee!” the man with the mike hollered. “Let’s give it up for little Miss Libby!” The bar exploded into cheers again. “Careful not to burn down the bar, girl! You’ve got some smokin’-hot pipes!”
I nodded and smiled halfheartedly at the guy, while I looked around for my soda. It had disappeared. Dev and Duane were at the end of the bar, making goo-goo eyes at each other.
A female bartender in her forties with frosted hair approached me. “Can I get you somethin’?”
“Whiskey.” I mean, that was what one drank in these situations, right? Isn’t that what Carrie Underwood had said?
Garrett appeared behind me.
“ID, hon?” the bartender asked, arching a perfectly stenciled eyebrow that framed her crescent of lavender eye shadow.
“Shirley Temple. Straight up. No, on the rocks,” I amended. Garrett slid onto the barstool next to me. “Make it a double.”
“Sure thing.” She narrowed her lavender eyes at Garrett, as if she recognized when a man had done a girl wrong, and went to fix my drink.
“Hittin’ the hooch pretty hard there, huh?” Garrett nodded at the bartender, who was plopping maraschino cherries into my glass. “Did I just hear you order a whiskey?”
“Maybe.”
The bartender slid me my pink glass, and I took a long swig.
“That was quite the … um …”—Garrett swallowed noisily—“spirited rendition of ‘Before He Cheats.’”
“Mmmm.” I narrowed my eyes at him. “I really, really empathize with Carrie Underwood. So I sang it with feeling.”
“That you … that you did.” He nodded.
“How did you find me?” I asked.
“Google Maps search of every bar in a ten-mile radius. And I have GPS on my phone.” He waved it in my face.
“Good for you,” I said sarcastically. “Good for you.”
“Yeah …” He looked at me searchingly. “Libby … are you … are you okay?”
“Oh, me?” I laughed hollowly. “I’m good. Really good. Good in the sense that I’m doing great, and I’m a good person. I’m a good person, Garrett.”
“I know you are,” he said, his brow furrowed. “Libby, what’s going on?”
“I need to find Dev.” I stood up abruptly. I couldn’t talk to him. I couldn’t even look at him anymore.
“Uh—okay,” he said. “I’ll be right here!” he called after my retreating back.
I hopped off my barstool and stalked over to tap Dev on the shoulder.
“You rang?” Dev turned around, after winking at Duane.
“We need to go,” I said. “Garrett’s here.”
“WHAT?!” Dev exploded. “How DARE he?! How dare he come on our turf! I mean, hello, this is practically our place!”
“Whatever, let’s just go,” I mumbled, glancing nervously at Garrett. “I just want to go.”
“Oh, we’re going all right.” He swept off the barstool. “Duane, you feel free to call me.”
Dev and I pushed our way out of the bar, Duane waving sadly goodbye.
“Libby!” I heard Garrett call. “Libby! Hey, Libby! Where are you going?”
“Just keep walking.” Dev steered me forward. “Just keep walking.”
We made it to the truck. I left Garrett standing in the parking lot and sped out onto the road. Aside from the low hum of the radio, Dev and I drove back to camp in silence. Until …
“Holy Mary, Mother of God,” Dev whispered. “We are in deep, deep shit.”
There was a familiar figure in gray leaning against the fence in the parking lot.
“Oh, no,” I whispered. “Oh, no, no, no, no, no.”
Beau was standing with his arms crossed, and he did not look happy.
“We’re sure none of the guns here have real bullets in them, right?” Dev asked.
“Let’s hope not.”
Dev and I quietly got out of the car, like we were about to head into the principal’s office. I let Willie out of the truck bed, and he bounded happily to Beau’s feet. I followed slightly less joyously.
“What,” Beau said tensely, “the hell were you two thinking?!!”
“We were getting—oh my God, I didn’t even get my coffee!” Dev cried.
“This was about coffee?!” Beau asked incredulously.
“It started off being about coffee,” Dev replied.
“Beau,” I said, shaking my head, “I am so, so, so—”
Another car pulled into the parking lot. “Libby!” Garrett shouted out the window as he parked.
“Things just got a little out of hand,” I said, as Garrett jogged over to join us.
“All right, what the hell is going on?” Beau asked.
“Exactly.” Garrett nodded vigorously. “What the hell is going on?!”
“Is that my shirt?” Beau asked out of the blue.
“You’re wearing his shirt?” Garrett’s jaw fell open.
“Is this his shirt?” I asked Dev, panicking.
“You stole my truck, my dog, and my shirt?” Beau asked incredulously.
“We borrowed your truck, your dog, and your shirt,” Dev clarified.
“Why did you borrow his shirt?” I hissed.
“Why did you borrow his shirt?” Garrett thundered.
“Because I—Wait a minute!” I whirled around to face Garrett. “I don’t have anything to feel guilty about!”
“Why are you wearing his shirt?!” Garrett asked again.
“Maybe I have another person’s shirt on my chest, but at least I … I don’t have another person on my chest!” I said heatedly.
“Good one.” Dev rolled his eyes sarcastically. “Seriously, Libs, not your best.”
“What? Who? Chest? What? Who?” Garrett hooted like a confused owl.
“I don’t have to explain anything to you!” I shouted. “GOOD NIGHT!”
Garrett took a few steps back, muttered something, and hopped back into his car.
Dev flashed me a thumbs-up. “Maybe slashing-tires time?”
“Maybe later.” I shook my head. “Beau”—I turned to him—“you, on the other hand, I have a lot
of stuff to explain to you.”
“No, she doesn’t,” Dev interrupted. “It was all my fault. I coerced her. At gunpoint.”
“Oh, Dev—”
“Run along, you,” he said, kissing me on the cheek. “It’s been quite a night. I’ll take the heat.”
I squeezed his hand, and, leaving all the boys behind, I disappeared into the night.
seven
“What the hell is this?” I tugged unsuccessfully on my bodice, trying to pull it up higher.
“It’s an outfit,” Dev said, tugging it back down.
“What am I supposed to be? A common whore?”
“Exactly.” Dev nodded with satisfaction. “A wayward sister, a soiled dove, a public woman …”
“Um, no.” I started fiddling around, looking for a way to escape from this scarlet monstrosity. “I’m not going out dressed like a prostitute.”
“Sure you are. Stop looking for buttons and hooks—you can’t get in or out of that thing without my help.” He had a point. It was so tight, he might as well have sewn it onto my body. Which, come to think of it, he actually had done in places.
“Why are you doing this to me?” I asked. “Why, Dev, why?”
“I wanted to let people know you’re back on the market!” he exclaimed.
“Back on the market doesn’t literally mean ‘for sale’!” I protested. “Also, I mean, I’m not technically back on the market. I don’t think.”
“You have got to be joking.” He placed his hands on his hips. “He cheated. C-H-E-A-T-D, cheated.”
“You missed an e.”
“Maybe I’m wrong about spelling, but I’m right about this,” he said, as he fluffed my hair. “He cheated. He lied. He’s a bastard in nerd’s clothing. Shut it down, Libby. Shut. It. Down.”
“I’m just saying, we haven’t officially broken up yet. We should probably talk about this—”
“What’s there to talk about?” Dev said, exasperated. “It’s over. You don’t owe him anything. Not even a conversation. Get out now, before he hurts you any more. And I refuse to let that happen.”
“Thanks, Dev.”
“Seriously.” Dev cupped my chin in his hand. “You deserve someone so much better. A good guy. Who’ll treat you the way you should be treated. Who’s nicer. Not to mention hotter and better dressed, but those are ancillary issues.” He waved his free hand. “I’m not going to let him hurt you again. I’m not going to let you put yourself in a position to get hurt again. Because if he does hurt you again, my vengeance will be terrible. Yea, I swear it. On the hammer of Thor.”
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