Confessions of a Triple Shot Betty

by Jody Gehrman

  “Yeah,” Jana put in, “but we heard about it.”

  “Allll about it.”

  Their satanic laughter seemed to linger in the humid air long after they’d driven away.

  I put a hand on Hero’s shoulder. “It’ll blow over.”

  She spun around and pinned me with an accusing glare. “Dad made me clean out the hot tub. You want to know what I found?”

  I cringed. "What?”

  “A pair of tighty whities, a pipe, and a ribbed condom.” Her lip curled in disgust. “Happy birthday to me.”

  “Hey,” I said brightly, “at least it was a rager. Wouldn’t it be worse if no one showed?”

  “I doubt anything could be worse than this.”

  “Look, it got out of hand. I’ll admit that, okay? But we can’t turn on each other. The thing now is to figure out who’s responsible and make them sorry.”

  “I know who’s responsible: Amber.”

  I held up a hand. “Innocent until proven guilty, remember?”

  “She never showed, didn’t come to work. Here I am, getting taunted by Jana Clark, and she’s holed up at home, knowing she ruined my life.”

  “Hero, don’t be so melodramatic. I really don’t think Amber planned on hurting you.”

  “Oh, no?” She was gathering steam now; her mouth took on a righteous, tight-lipped meanness. “Then where is she? I bet this whole thing was her idea. She never liked me. You know that. She was jealous of me. All she wanted from the start was to see me humiliated.” Her neck was getting all splotchy, a sure sign she was fighting tears.

  “Amber wouldn’t do that.”

  She shook her head. “You’ve got no idea who she is, do you?”

  “Oh yeah, who am I?” We both spun around and there was Amber in the doorway. Her face was puffy and her hair looked like it hadn’t been washed in days. “Go on. I’m dying to hear this.”

  “Amber!” I ran to her and gave her a big hug, but she felt stiff in my arms. She smelled like cigarette smoke.

  Hero kept her distance. “This is all your fault.”

  “Oh, is that right?” She looked fierce standing there. She was dirty and retaining water, but she drew herself up to her full height and suddenly she looked like an Amazon. “I’m to blame, huh? What did I do, Hero? Okay, so I made some stupid decisions. But after that, I didn’t choose what happened.” Her voice trembled slightly. “None of it.”

  “See?” I said to Hero. “She didn’t do it.”

  Hero looked at me, amazed. “You just take her word for it?”

  “I was used,” Amber told her, “just like you.”

  “Yeah, well you’re not the one sitting in here while the whole town drops by to have a good laugh.”

  “Hero,” I said, “she didn’t do—”

  Amber interrupted me. “And you weren’t the one stupid enough to fall for some guy’s bullshit, okay? I was. I was. And for that, I’m really sorry.” Her voice cracked and her whole face was tense with pain. I wrapped an arm around her shoulder. She just stood there, unmoving, her eyes distant. Then she shook my arm off and ran out the door.

  “I’ve got to go,” I said. “Cover for me?”

  “So what, she’s saying she was tricked?”

  “I’m going to find out.” I ran out after Amber then. She was revving the engine of her mom’s El Dorado. “Amber!” I yelled. “Wait up!”

  But she didn’t hear me, or she pretended not to. The El Dorado jerked out of the parking space in a fast, arcing reverse and I had to jump out of the way to avoid getting hit.

  “Amber!” I screamed, but she was already tearing out into the street, narrowly missing a Mini Cooper. Oh God. It wasn’t just any Mini, it was Lane’s, and he was headed right for TSB.

  I dashed back to work and slipped in while Hero was taking Lane’s order—a double cappuccino, as usual.

  “I’ll make it,” I said, taking his to-go mug from him.

  Hero looked relieved when she saw me. She still hadn’t perfected the mounds of creamy foam Lane likes best.

  When Lane was gone, I looked at my cousin and saw that the red splotches on her neck had become bright pink continents. She wouldn’t look me in the eye.

  “Don’t worry, Hero. I’m going to get to the bottom of this. And when I do, we’ll clear your name, I swear.”

  She studied her fingernails with a frown. “Good luck.”

  6:10 P.M.

  After work, I decided to skate to the Springs in search of Amber. I wasn’t exactly sure where she lived, I only knew the general vicinity. I never really go to that area—I mean, I pass by there on my way to Moon Mountain, but I’ve never explored the neighborhoods. It was like visiting a third-world country. There were dismembered cars rotting on brown lawns, smashed windows, scary dogs frothing behind insubstantial fences. I passed a decrepit trailer rotting behind a veil of weeds. A toddler stood alone in the yard, staring up at me, her diaper sagging. At a street corner, a man with a leathery, wizened face sat on the hood of a yellow Mustang, his glassy eyes staring vacantly at the can of Bud in his hand. I sped up.

  I was about to give up when I spotted the gold El Dorado. It was parked in front of a mint green house. I navigated a tangle of plastic chairs and milk crates strewn about the yard and stepped into the shade offered by the small covered porch. I hadn’t even knocked when the door flew open.

  “What are you doing here?” Amber looked mad.

  I took half a step back. “I want to talk to you.”

  She widened her eyes in exasperation, but said, “Get in the car. Don’t make any noise.”

  I tiptoed down the porch steps, made my way through the cluttered yard again, and let myself into the El Dorado. I tried to shut the door without making any sound, but it wasn’t really closed, so I tried again and it slammed loudly.

  Just then Amber flew out the front door, took all three porch steps in one leap, and ran for the car, keys clenched in her fist. I’d never seen her move so fast. Then I saw long, skinny brown legs push through the door, and there was her mom. She stood on the porch, her fried bangs teased into an ’80s plume, her hip cocked to one side.

  “Where the hell you going, Maggie? Don’t take my car— you’re not taking my car!”

  Amber swung herself into the driver’s side, turned the engine over and gunned it. At first we lurched forward, almost slamming into the truck parked in front of us, but then she managed to wrench it into reverse, and we backed up enough to clear the truck. I threw a nervous glance back at the house. Amber’s mom was still there, her face enraged but exhausted. A guy with long hair, who looked a little like Bono, staggered out the door with a cigarette; he was wearing nothing but plaid boxers.

  When we were on Napa Street headed toward town Amber said, “I hate her.”

  “I’ve got an idea. Want to go to Geevana?”

  She looked at me like I was crazy. “There’s a pack of smokes in the glove,” she said. “Get ’em.”

  I opened the glove compartment, fished through a bunch of receipts, a McDonald’s bag with one squished fry still in there, several lipsticks, half a Butterfinger, until at last I found the slightly creased pack of Camels. I fished one out and started to hand it to her, but hesitated.

  “What’s your problem?” she snarled.

  “They’re harder to kick than heroin, you know.”

  She snatched the cigarette from me. “There should be matches,” she said, feeling around on the seat. She looked down for too long and almost rear-ended a tourist bus.

  “I’ll get them,” I snapped, and sifted through the collection of Coke cans littering the floor until I produced a book of matches from Motel 6.

  She lit her cigarette without incident. Tossing her hair over her shoulder, she coughed a little, trying not to. “What’s Geevana, anyway?”

  “Turn right at the next light,” I said. “I’ll show you.”

  From Geevana Ridge, you can see all of Sonoma Valley spread out below you like a huge green and gold quilt
. The hills look soft as lion fur from a distance, though up close the tall, dry grass is scratchy and full of stickers. Today the sky was bright blue, with only a few puffs of whipped cream clouds floating near the horizon. The vineyards form big emerald squares cut into blond hills. This time of year the vines get heavy as the grapes turn swollen and juicy. You can smell them from Geevana—that ripe, dusty odor that will always make me think of home.

  Amber and I sat on the lowest branch of my favorite old oak, Albert, her puffing away on her second cigarette, me worrying that bringing her there was a mistake. She’d maintained a sullen silence since we’d gotten out of the car. I’d never taken anyone there, not even Hero, and I wondered why this had seemed like a good idea.

  “I’ve been worried about you,” I told her.

  “Well, don’t be.”

  “I left like a million messages on your cell.” I ran my hands through Albert’s moss, comforted by his texture. “You missed work.”

  “I know.”

  “What’s going on?”

  She stubbed her cigarette out, grinding it into the bark. I cringed. She was hurting Albert. I know it’s babyish, but I really do feel close to him. It, I mean.

  Amber tossed the butt onto the acorn-strewn ground, and I told myself I’d come back later to pick it up. She said, “I can’t believe I fell for his shit again.”

  “John’s?”

  “Yeah.”

  I turned to her. “What did he do? I knew he was behind this.”

  She kind of smiled, but it was more of a grimace. “I must’ve inherited my mom’s vile taste in men. Did you see her latest? He’s a tweaker, just like my dad.”

  “That guy on the porch?”

  She nodded. “He’s brand-new. She picked him up hitchhiking. They’ll last two weeks, I bet.”

  I’ll admit I was intrigued by the story of the hitchhiking Bono, but my curiosity about what had happened with John won out. “What were you saying about John, though?”

  Her jaw flexed at the sound of his name. “He must think I’m incredibly stupid.”

  “Why? What happened?”

  She picked at a scab on her wrist. “I think his first plan was to get Hero wasted and have sex with her at the party. He can’t stand it when a girl isn’t into him. When that didn’t work, he moved to plan B.”

  “Which was?”

  “He started working on me as soon as you guys left. I was drunk and lonely and . . . I don’t know, needy, I guess.”

  “You still like him, huh?”

  She looked at me, then away, then back again. “I never really got over him. He’s the first person I met here. I felt like he was some sort of—this is so lame!”

  “What? Go on.”

  “Like he was a sign, you know? An omen. I was so stoked about leaving Lake County, getting away from my mom’s old boyfriend, starting fresh. John fed me all this shit about how beautiful I was, how even when he goes off to college I could visit him all the time—he was so convincing.” She stared at the ground, her eyes glazed and far away, remembering.

  “And then what happened?”

  “He just turned on me, you know? Like he became this completely different person. He spread all those rumors about me, made fun of me in front of his friends. I’ve never been so humiliated.”

  “So, Friday,” I began, then hesitated. “I mean, what about the pictures?”

  “It’s like, when I’m alone with John, he makes me feel like the sexiest girl in the whole world.” She tugged a bit of moss from the branch. “He got me to put on those stupid boots, and he started taking pictures. He kept saying, ‘Come on, Ginger, don’t you trust me? When I’m at Yale, I want to remember you just like this.’ After that, the whole night’s sort of a blur.”

  I sighed. “I can’t believe him.”

  "What a joke. When I saw what he’d done on MySpace, I was so irate. I wanted to kill him. And at the same time, I wanted him. God, it’s so messed up.”

  I watched a couple vultures circling in the distance, swooping lower, barely flapping. “The guy’s evil.”

  Amber nodded. “And now Hero totally hates me.”

  I touched Amber’s hand. “She won’t when she hears what happened.”

  “Yeah, she will.”

  “No, she won’t! You didn’t do anything wrong. I mean, okay, so you took some sexy snaps for a guy you like—that’s not a crime! And you never would have done it if he’d told you what he had planned.”

  Amber chewed her bottom lip. “It doesn’t matter.”

  “She’ll be mad at John, not you.”

  She jumped to the ground and tugged her skirt down. “People like her don’t listen to people like me.”

  “That’s ridiculous.”

  “No, Geena, it’s not. You don’t know, okay? You have no idea.”

  “Amber—”

  She walked toward the car. “Let’s go.”

  I hopped down off the branch and started after her. “Just because Hero’s rich doesn’t mean she’s stupid. She’ll know you’re telling the truth.”

  She glanced over her shoulder. “It’s not that simple. We’re from different planets.”

  “What about me? I believe you.”

  “What do you want, a medal?” She opened the car door, got inside, slammed it shut, and started the engine.

  When I slipped into the passenger’s seat beside her, she was scowling out the windshield. “You’ve got no idea what it was like, moving here. This town is totally locked down. Everyone knows each other and you’re all rich—”

  “I’m not rich.”

  “Everyone—the emo-kids and the wangsters and the hicks—you all have money! Only you don’t see it. It’s like everyone’s living this wine country fantasy.”

  I thought about the little girl with the sagging diaper by the trailer. “I’m sorry,” I whispered.

  “I don’t want your pity!”

  “I don’t mean—it’s not pity. I’m sorry for not seeing how hard it is for you. It’s just that you act so strong all the time.”

  She stared at her lap. "’Act’ being the operative word.”

  “But we’re friends, right? That’s not an act.”

  She leaned against the steering wheel, her forehead against the rubber, and then she turned her head so her cheek was against it instead. Her green eyes took me in for a long moment before she said, “Yes. We’re friends.”

  “Good.”

  She turned off the car. “I really wanted to go to Hero’s birthday party.”

  “We wanted you there. You should have come.”

  “I couldn’t,” she mumbled.

  “We missed you.”

  When she turned to me again, her face was wet with tears. "I missed you too.”

  Monday, August 4

  4:00 A.M.

  Can’t sleep. Keep tossing and turning, trying to find a way to untie this knot of lies. Finally, got up and sent a text message to Amber: We have 2 tell H.

  To my surprise, my cell phone rang three minutes later. It was Amber. I guess I’m not the only one losing sleep over this.

  “So what are you saying? It’s okay for me to look like a slut, but not Hero?”

  I stared at the wavy pattern on my bedspread, feeling dizzy. “Everyone needs to know the truth—not just Hero, but PJ and Claudio too. Everyone.”

  “Oh yeah? What’s the truth, Geena?”

  Her tone was so unfriendly. “The truth? You were tricked by John into posing for him.”

  “You’re so naïve,” she said, disdainful now.

  “What? That’s what happened.”

  “Okay, first, you know what the gossip hounds will turn that into? ‘Amber’s an aspiring porn star nymphomaniac.’ Second, no one will believe us. Even if Hero does, PJ and Claudio will assume we’re making it up to save Hero’s reputation. They saw what they saw.”

  I thought about that. I was used to assuming people would believe me if I told the truth. Obviously Amber had a different take on t
hings. She had a point, though. PJ and Claudio might not believe us, especially with John in their camp, spinning his web of lies.

  “I see what you mean,” I said, feeling suddenly exhausted.

  Her tone didn’t soften. “But I’m glad to know you wanted to sacrifice my reputation for Hero’s.”

  That stumped me. “What reputation, exactly?”

  She hung up on me.

  I sat there, staring at the small circle of light cast by my bedside lamp, puzzling. Amber was the power slut of Sonoma Valley High, the nasty little bombshell who wasn’t bound by virginal expectations. Why was she suddenly worrying about protecting her reputation, when there was nothing left to protect?

  I called her back. “It’s me. Don’t hang up. I thought you were proud of being . . . you know . . . promiscuous.”

  She sighed. “When you get boobs in the fifth grade, people talk. Pretty soon you realize you can’t stop them, so you act like you’re proud of it.”

  “You mean, you’ve been pretending?”

  “I wanted to be normal, Geena. When I moved here, I thought I could start over, but that lasted like five minutes. You want to know the truth? I never even had sex with John. He made all that shit up.”

  “Why would he do that?” I asked, frustrated.

  “Why? Umm, maybe because we almost did it, except he couldn’t.”

  “You mean like . . . ?”

  “Tiny little thing, couldn’t get it up.”

  I giggled. “Are you serious?”

  “Yeah. And the next day, guess what? I’m suddenly the ho. Haven’t you noticed that all the girls he goes out with end up on the official skank list?”

  I thought about the girls in those dance photos on his walls: Marcy, Lexa, Nikki, Kim. It’s true; I never thought about it before, but after they dated John, their respectability suddenly plummeted. They got kicked off cheerleading squads and debate teams for sketchy, ambiguous reasons. One by one, each of them became persona non grata in the cafeteria. The guy was a one-man demolition crew, destroying girls’ reputations like they were disposable. All the while, he was the one jumping from girl to girl, yet he remained the golden boy, untouchable; he was the slut, if anyone was. And not even a very good slut at that.