“We could ask Marco to come with,” she says. I guess Bethanie has caught on to my secret Marco-lust. I don’t even try to play it off.
“We should celebrate. What’ll we do?”
“Leave that to me. I’ll think of something. I probably won’t see you at lunch—I’ve got cheerleading tryouts. But you and Marco meet me here at my locker after school.”
Over lunch, Marco tells me he can’t go out tonight, and I have to act all calm like he hasn’t just ruined my entire weekend, and possibly my life because, you know, we’re just friends.
“That’s cool, it was kind of last minute, anyway,” I say, grateful I’m such an excellent liar when I need to be.
“I’d really like to hang out with you. But I’ve got this thing.”
Oh, no. I’m getting the generic, can’t-even-think-up-a-halfway-decent-excuse I’ve got this thing excuse.
“Seriously Marco, it’s no big deal. I might not even go myself.”
“It’s a very big deal. You just saved me from a lot of trouble without ever involving my parents and I owe you big time. It’s just that I have this family thing. I wish I could get out of it, but I can’t.”
He looks at me that way he does and I believe him. I can tell he’d really rather hang out, but family comes first. Which makes me that much more crazy about him.
“But I want another chance. Maybe one day when Bethanie has something else to do.”
Did he just sort of ask me out? I don’t need food, water, or chocolate—I’m pretty sure I can live on just those words for the rest of the weekend.
I completely forgot the lie I told Bethanie this morning until we pull into the Mitchell Moving parking lot, the first stop she makes after school. Now I have to keep up the pretense since I made out like my job depended on filling out the paperwork.
“It won’t take but a second,” I tell her before I jump out of the car so she won’t follow me. Bethanie will take any chance she can to get closer to the Mitchells or anything Mitchell-related.
My plan is to stand around just inside the lobby for a few minutes and then go back to the car, but then I hear a voice behind me. A scary voice.
“What are you doing hanging around here?” Malcolm asks. “Thought you don’t work until tomorrow.”
I’m wondering the same thing about him since he’s sitting at the receptionist desk. Mr. Mitchell is going to lose a lot of business if the first person prospective clients meet is Malcolm.
“I thought I left something here last week,” I say, looking around the lobby like the missing thing is going to magically appear—a week later. “I’m always losing stuff.”
Malcolm clearly doesn’t believe my story, just stares at me. I wouldn’t believe me either. The lobby is sparsely decorated and it’s obvious nothing is out of place. I feel committed to carrying this lie through, especially with Malcolm acting as though if he stares long enough, I’ll crack. So I kneel down and look under the lobby sofa, even behind a potted plant. As if to bolster my lie, when I stand up, my cell phone falls out of my bag.
“See what I mean,” I say, holding up the phone as proof.
Just then the receptionist arrives.
“Thanks for covering for me, Malcolm,” she says, patting her round belly. “Junior doesn’t always want to wait for my break.”
“Glad I was passing through,” Malcolm says, giving me a mean look.
I don’t waste any time getting out of there because that dude just creeps me out.
“This time you can wait in the car. I won’t be long,” Bethanie says when we pull up in front of her house so she can change for the party and redo her makeup. After school, we grabbed something to eat and the whole time she obsessed over what to wear, even though I reminded her it was just us, and I sure didn’t care what she was wearing. Then she decided she needed to go shopping so we had to spend two hours at the mall. I ignored her when she told me there was no way I could go out celebrating still wearing my uniform and that I needed to buy something, even when she offered to pay.
I’m disappointed about having to wait in the car because I really want to find out what she’s hiding. Turns out she doesn’t live near Cherry Creek like she told Lissa that day she gave her a ride. She lives smack in the middle of the neighborhood. It was a stretch to think she might have stolen the car, but I’m pretty sure you can’t steal a house, so Bethanie really does have Langdon money. After fixing my run-in with the birdfeeder and giving up her pen to keep Smythe off my tail, I really do believe Bethanie is almost a friend. Everyone needs a few secrets, but I get the feeling she’s hiding a big one. We can’t be true-blue until I know what it is.
Whatever it is she doesn’t want me to see inside her house—her parents, her family’s bad taste in interior design, I don’t know—must be bad. So far, all I know is the house matches the extravagance of her car. So I’m sitting in the car dreaming up a dark family secret for Bethanie when her mother comes out of the house before Bethanie is halfway up the drive. Bethanie stops in her tracks, like the fear of what her mother might do or say freezes her to the spot. I know the feeling of mother embarrassment, so I pretend to look away down the street, as if something interesting has caught my eye. But here comes her mother anyway, off the front porch and into the yard, her hand over her eyes so she can get a good look at me. Then she waves and motions me to come in. Bethanie looks terrified and I wonder what she’s so afraid of. I give up trying to pretend I don’t see her mother over there waving me in like she’s the guy on the airport tarmac with the big orange sticks.
“You must be Chanti.” Bethanie’s mother gushes all southern accent, and then she grabs me in a bear hug, nearly knocking me over, which is hard to do because I am not what you’d call waifish. She’s dressed head to toe in animal print, and sadly, not one animal but at least three different species are represented. And I’m serious about head to toe: from the kitten-heel mules in leopard to the long flowing (giraffe?) scarf around her hair, which I believe is paying homage to one of those eighties bands. Is this what Bethanie’s trying to hide from me, that her mother is a fashion victim?
“Bethanie talks about you so, and I’ve been wanting to meet you. Y’all come on in here and sit a while so we can meet proper.”
If I hadn’t spent my early years and most summers in the South, I’d almost think she was faking that accent because she’s laying it on so thick. No doubt it’s the real thing, the twang of it right as peaches in August. But it seems too heavy for someone who’s been here awhile, which I assume they have since Bethanie got agitated when I asked if she’d just moved to Denver. Maybe Mrs. Larsen is like Headmistress Smythe—a fake, hiding something just like Bethanie.
Soon as I walk in the house, I see money can’t buy style. The décor is nothing like those houses I saw last weekend when I was working with Paulette. It’s like a jungle in here with all the plants, not a single one of them real. Everything is either white or gilded gold. The water-spouting cherub in the fountain at the entryway is both. It reminds me of some of the houses on MTV Cribs. You can tell which celebrity has had money long enough to know they should hire a professional designer, and the ones who just got rich last week and let their mother or girlfriend do the decorating.
A woman in a maid uniform appears and Bethanie’s mom sends her off for some tea. I’m beginning to see why Bethanie wants to hang out with Lissa. It seems they have more in common than we do, right down to the housekeeper.
“Why don’t you get comfortable, Chantal, and we can have a nice visit.”
“Mama, it’s eighty-five degrees out. No one wants hot tea.”
“That’s what air-conditioning is for. We adore high tea around here, don’t we, Bethanie? Some days it’s the only time we can all get together.”
“When you say we, are you including Daddy in that? He’s almost never home for high tea.”
Mrs. Larsen makes a face like Bethanie has said more than she should, but like any good hostess, hides it behind a quick and
easy smile. Anyone else may not have noticed it, but I notice everything.
“Bethanie’s father travels quite often.”
“Yeah, right,” Bethanie says.
“Bethanie never talks about what her father does,” I say.
“He’s in oil,” Mrs. Larsen says, except she says it like there’s no I in the word. “It’s very lucrative. What do your parents do?”
“Well, it’s just my mom, and she’s a paralegal.”
“There isn’t much money in paralegal work, is there?”
No true Southern belle would talk about how much people make, but I’m pretty sure this woman’s no Southern belle, no matter how much she’s pretending to be.
“Not very much, but enough.”
“Then how can you afford to go to Langdon?”
“I got in the same way Bethanie did,” I say, looking at Bethanie. She’s shaking her head, hoping I understand that she wants me to shut it. Now.
“We’re rich, honey. That’s how Bethanie got in.”
“I meant to say, I got in on a scholarship.”
“Well, that’s just wonderful.”
“Mom, Chanti and I have to get ready to go out, so . . .”
“We have plenty of time,” I say, because there is no way I’m passing up this chance to get Bethanie’s real story.
I already know they haven’t had their money very long because no one who’s used to money talks about it the way Mrs. Larsen does. And Bethanie is lying about how long she’s been in Colorado because her mother’s accent is fresh off the Bible Belt. Then there are the lotto scratch-off tickets I noticed on the foyer table. People who can’t really afford the lottery are usually the ones who play. Obviously the Larsens don’t need to play, but I’m sure they once did. It’s a habit hard to break.
All of a sudden, I hear a man’s voice coming from what I’m guessing is the kitchen, since that’s the direction the housekeeper had gone for the tea. I can hear him easily because he’s yelling.
“Who bought this new dinette set? Y’all been shopping again?”
Bethanie and her mother look terrified, and Mrs. Larsen goes racing into the kitchen to run interference. She comes out a second later with the oil man.
“This is Bethanie’s father,” she says to me. To her husband, she says, “We were just entertaining Bethanie’s friend. You probably scared her with all that fussing.”
“Nice to meet you, Mr. Larsen. Mrs. Larsen was just telling me how you own an oil company. That’s very interesting.”
“It is very interesting. Oil is my passion. Love me some oil.”
“So does your company do horizontal or conventional drilling?”
“Say what? Oh, yes, right. We do the conventional-type drilling.”
“That’s probably the best way to go, certainly the least expensive. That way your wellbore is always parallel to your oil zone.”
Bethanie is looking at me like I’m crazy, and her father just looks lost.
“That’s it exactly,” he says. “That’s the very reason I go conventional.”
Oops. Wrong answer.
“You’re just a little Einstein, aren’t you, hon?” Mrs. Larsen says. “I can see why they let you into school with that scholarship.”
Bethanie grabs my arm and hauls me off to the kitchen.
“What’s the deal interrogating my father like that? And what are you—some kind of oil geek?”
“I wasn’t interrogating him. I was genuinely interested. Science is my favorite subject.”
“I thought French was your favorite subject.”
“French is my favorite class. Big difference. Anyway, I’ve been reading up on oil exploration, you know, because of the political climate and all. I’m no expert, but I do know the closest your father has ever gotten to oil is the unleaded fuel pump at Conoco. What’s the deal?”
“There is no deal, so mind your own business. I’m going to run upstairs for just two minutes. Don’t you dare move from this spot.”
Once she’s out of the room, I do move, of course. There’s a stack of papers on the breakfast bar and I suspect I’ll find something there. But before I can have a look, I hear the makings of an argument brewing between Bethanie’s parents.
“If y’all don’t stop spending all my money, we gonna be broke again,” says Mr. Larsen.
Broke again. So I was right. They are newly rich.
“Your money?”
“That’s right. I earned it.”
“Earned it? Is that what you call it? Well, at least I got something to show for my spending. What you got to show besides losing tickets from the dog track? At least I got things for my money.”
Scratch-off tickets and Dad bets on the horses, too. Seems to be a theme. They must remember I’m in the house because they quiet down and I pick up the stack of papers on the breakfast bar. I don’t even have to rifle through them because the evidence is right there on top. A letter from the lottery commission. And not just any old lottery commission. Bethanie is Powerball rich.
I can see hiding that from people, but I don’t get why her family is pretending to be from oil money. If I’d won the lottery, I’d keep it on the down low just to keep long-lost relatives from hitting me up for money, or to avoid being a mark for a ransom hit. I sure wouldn’t be trying to perpetrate a whole different kind of rich life. I mean, rich is rich. If you’re going to flaunt it, why not just go with the truth? Solving Bethanie’s mystery will definitely be my next case.
Chapter 19
Bethanie parks in front of a house just a few blocks from her place and I already regret saying yes to celebrating. She’s scammed me into hanging out with some of her stuck-up friends. Not exactly my idea of a good time.
“Whose house is this, anyway?” I ask as we walk up to the front door.
“I hope there’ll be some cute guys at this party,” Bethanie says, ignoring my question.
“Party? Wait a minute. That street sign back there said Prado, didn’t it?”
“Okay, don’t get mad.”
That’s when I notice the house number over the door. 218.
“Where are we, Bethanie?”
Before she can answer, and before I can make my escape, the front door opens. There’s Annette, and I want to kill Bethanie. When Lissa walks up behind her, I want to kill myself. But that’s a little drastic, so I just turn to leave.
“I think Chanti left something in the car. Will you excuse us a sec?”
I’m already standing at the car when Bethanie reaches me and whispers, “Come on, just give it an hour, please?”
“You tricked me into going to Lissa’s party.”
“Because you wouldn’t have come if I’d told you.”
“Damn skippy.”
“Lissa invited me at the last minute and I didn’t want to come by myself. I’m not all that comfortable around these people.”
“I thought these were your people.”
“I mean, I don’t know them that well, and I want to. Come on, just half an hour, then we’ll go. Besides, how will you get home? I’m your ride.”
She has a point there. I suck it up, hoping nothing could be that bad for half an hour. When we get inside, it doesn’t look like much of a party. For one, it’s really quiet, except for a TV playing somewhere in the house. And for another, no one else is there, except for the other two clones.
“Are we early? Did I get the time wrong?” Bethanie asks, realizing there is not a single cute guy to be found.
“When you told me you were bringing Chanti, I figured it might be a chance for us to get to know each other,” Lissa says. I half expect her to add an evil villain laugh. “You know, a real Langdon welcome to the scholarship kids. I was kind of hoping you’d bring that hot friend of yours, but just as well. We planned a girls’ night.”
“Night? We won’t be staying long. Right, Bethanie?” Because I can manage half an hour, an hour even, but there is no way I’m staying here any longer than that.
�
�You have to stay. We’re having a fashion show and doing makeovers, complete with goodies to take home. That was my idea. Sort of my version of public service, help the needy and all that.”
“Oh my God, that sounds like so much fun,” Bethanie practically squeals. Why she wants to be one of these people is beyond me, but I suspect it has a lot to do with that whole upscale Langdon life she’s creating for herself out of a dollar Powerball ticket.
The fun starts with a full tour of the house, and I don’t mean one of those important room tours like here’s the bathroom, here’s the kitchen. Because really, do I need to see the parents’ room and their priceless figurine collection or hear the story of how the silver in their special dining room (they have two dining rooms—special and everyday) was handed down by some deposed Korean emperor generations ago? Okay, I get it. You’re mad rich.
“Fashion show time,” Lissa announces after we’ve seen every last room in the house. “But before we start that, guess what Annette snagged from the wine cellar? Champagne. The good stuff, too. This goes for five hundred dollars a bottle.”
“My parents are collectors,” Annette says.
“Won’t they notice it’s gone then?”
“Who cares?” Lissa says, laughing as though I’d made a joke. “What a weird thing to worry about. Let’s just enjoy it.”
Annette fills our glasses while the clones go upstairs and change into their first ensemble.
“So Bethanie, I see your rich uncle let you borrow the car again,” Lissa says after sipping from her glass like she drinks rare champagne all the time.
“Yes. He doesn’t drive that often, anyway,” Bethanie says weakly. She won’t even look in my direction.
“He’s very generous, your uncle,” Lissa says before refilling her glass.
That’s interesting. Maybe Bethanie will be busted twice today. But Lissa quickly bores of Bethanie and turns on me.
“So what’s the deal with you and that scholarship boy? Are you two a thing?”
My Own Worst Frenemy Page 13
