A few questions have been raised about the rich friend, Richard Walters, who doesn't like to be compared to his wealthy relatives and, in fact, refuses to talk about or even identify them (the prevailing theory is that he's heir to the Walters Condom Company fortune, but so far the media can't confirm this). But this blogger received an anonymous tip Shade Stevenson has a far more interesting past.
The tipster says Stevenson was broke before receiving an academic scholarship to Southwest Texas State. She then moved into the sorority house, where she pretended to be rich by using her wealthier friends. Her extracurricular activities included tricking drunk people into losing bets, selling free condoms from the student health center at parties for a dollar each and dumpster-diving in the sorority's dumpster, where she found dozens of slightly used designer handbags and clothing items that she sold on Feebay.
The truth is, Shade Stevenson is a wannabe celebrity who never had what it took to get rich and famous. She wasn't fortunate enough to have a trust fund and apparently, as attractive as she is, she can't land a rich guy. So she just decided to take what she wasn't good enough to get. It's a disgrace,” says the anonymous source in the tip letter.
This blogger never takes anyone's word for anything, so she investigated. And guess what I found out? Stevenson's social media personal profiles are closed to those who aren't her friends (how rude is that?), but some of her friends aren't so uptight. One of them posted a pic of the two of them in their hometown, before they left for college. Using my super-gossiper spidey-skills, I tracked down the friend and explained that I was writing a story about the B Green 2 Save Green project and she was totally willing to talk to me!
So, this friend wouldn't go on the record, but she admitted that Shade's upbringing was financially anemic, and that Shade always had an insatiable appetite for the green stuff. “Everyone I know grew up broke,” she said. “I don't know why Shade took it so personally, but she did. She got dollar signs in her eyes, you know? It's sad, but she couldn't see past it. She got all obsessed with getting rich and famous, auditioning for every dumb reality show out there. I think this Go Green project is really just another tactic for getting her own reality show, but if she can do some good with it at the same time, I guess it's okay.”
The friend also shared a few pictures of Stevenson's childhood home, shown below. The '93 Oldsmobile rusting on the lawn was Stevenson's car in high school.
Who do you think Shade Stevenson is? A philanthropist, trying to help the environment and those who can own up to their lack of money in a way that she can't? Or is she a rank opportunist, looking for her fifteen minutes of fame? Speak up, readers, this blog runs on your comments!
Chapter Thirty-Six
“Holy fucking shit!” I yell, as I jump out of the hot tub and fling a scratchy towel around my shoulders with the hand that isn't holding the phone. Several of the mothers give me a filthy look. Like their kids are never going to hear profanity in their lives.
I grab my purse, not caring that I'm soaking wet (vinyl, as opposed to real leather, holds up fairly well to water) and run out the door, ignoring all signs to the contrary (I'm flexible; if I slip I'll just do the splits).
I arrive at my room, still dripping wet, bangs hanging limply in my eyes, and fumble with my keycard, but Morgan swings the door open for me.
“Is it true?” she asks, and she's looking at me the way I never wanted any of my friends to look at me – with pity. This is the only thing worse than rich people looking at you with contempt. They can't look at you as an equal, because, well, they just can't, so there are only two options – pity and contempt. I can't stand either of those, so I had to solve the problem the only way I knew how.
“Of course not,” I say, breezing past Morgan with as much dignity as I can manage. I toss my stuff on the table and grab an extra towel from the bathroom.
“There are a few more articles popping up,” Morgan says, sitting down at the table where her laptop is open. “This one is an interview with your high school boyfriend, some guy named Cliff? He says your lack of money was the reason his mother made so much of an effort to end your relationship. He also says that you were the one who got away. Isn't that sweet?”
“He said what?” I yell, shoving Morgan out of the way and staring at the laptop. “Holy fucking shit!” This time there's no one around to be offended.
This article is worse than the one by Angela nose-in-everyone-else's-business-because-she-probably-has-no-life-of-her-own Burns. That I could refute - claim that wasn't my house, that those are some other Stevensons. Maybe if I begged my parents they'd even go along with it. Probably not, but it'd be worth a shot.
But this thing with Cliff is a nightmare. The jerk couldn't stand up to his own mother. He never thought to call or email me, not once in five years, and all of a sudden, now that I'm getting some minor attention on social media, now he says I was the one who got away? He's full of shit, that opportunistic little bastard. And what's worse, he's destroying my only chance of leaving that shithole life in the rearview.
There are pictures of the two of us. One, horrifically, shows me smiling my hideous, uneven smile, like a badly carved jack-o-lantern. Its caption lists our ages at the time as 17. Sadly, I'd already started bleaching my hair at that point, and I've always taken good care of my skin, so aside from a different haircut, I look almost exactly the same. I'm wearing an Arizona Jean Company sweatshirt that my mom got off a clearance rack at JCPenney, which clearly marks me as middle-class or lower. The bad bleach job (I did it myself until I moved away to college and started making money on Feebay) makes me look like I just stepped out of Wal-Mart on the first of the month.
“That could have been photoshopped,” I say.
“But why would that Cliff guy lie?” Morgan asks. “He's rich, so it's not like he needs the couple hundred bucks or whatever that reporter had at her disposal for bribes.”
“Maybe his rich parents cut him off too,” I suggest, a good possibility forming in my mind. “That would explain why he's trying to get a piece of what little notoriety I've achieved in the past few days.”
Morgan shakes her head. “Shade, you don't have to lie to me,” she says quietly. “It all makes sense. You eat cheap food, which you claim is because you're a vegetarian. You've been obsessed with recycling as long as I've known you, and you always volunteer to take other people's bottles and cans and crap to the recycler. You knew way more about the ins and outs of Feebay than someone who sold three things from an ex would. You can keep lying and denying, and you might even convince some strangers, but I know it's true. Look, I'm your friend no matter what. You know that, right?”
I don't know what to say to her. How can I explain that our friendship is permanently altered now? That even though she's still my friend, and it might be the same for her, it will never be the same for me? That she will always be looking at me with pity, she'll always offer to pay for things, and I will never, ever feel like her equal again? How do you explain that to someone who has no fucking clue what it feels like and never will?
“Thanks,” I say. “But if you'll excuse me, I have to go kill someone, okay?”
Chapter Thirty-Seven
I find Richard in his hotel room, soaking in the jacuzzi. Yeah, his hotel has a jacuzzi in the room, not next to some pool full of screaming, pee-leaking, tiny humans. Matt lets me in as he rushes out the door, saying something about meeting Delilah for drinks. I don't ask.
“You son of a bitch!” I scream at Richard after the door closes behind Matt. I stalk over to the jacuzzi and grab his ostentatious, $3,000 bottle of champagne and the accompanying glass. “Getting to like money again, huh?”
“Matt ordered that.” Richard rolls his eyes. “He and Charlie drank half of it. And I'm in the jacuzzi because you're making me stay in this hotel and act rich. Now why are you suddenly pissed off at me?”
“Oh, you're going to play it like that?” I pour the champagne into the jacuzzi with him, then toss in the
bottle and glass. They float in small circles, like a grownup's version of a rubber ducky and toy boat.
“What is your problem?” Richard asks, with the most genuine look of fake confusion I've ever seen.
I'm not buying it. “You can act like you don't know, but I'm not stupid!” I yell. “Is that it? Do you think poor people are all dumb or something? Well, of course you do. Look at how long you got away with your lie. I was the one who figured it out, but hey, just count me with the idiots too!”
“I still have no fucking clue what you're talking about,” Richard says. “But it looks like you seriously need to relax. Wanna join me? Swimsuit's optional.” He winks at me.
“You have no fucking clue what I'm talking about?” I grab his cell phone from the stand where he has the champagne and pull up Angela's article. “This is what I'm talking about! Did you really think I'd never figure out you were the anonymous source?”
Richard grabs the phone and squints at it, his eyes flying over the article. I watch the contortions of his face, going through what has to be fake surprise, then twitching at the corners of his mouth with what is, apparently, amusement. “You think I'm the anonymous source?” he asks finally, looking at me with a great facsimile of confusion. If I didn't know better, I might consider the remote possibility that he's telling the truth.
“Richard, it can't be anyone else,” I snarl. “You're the only one who knows.”
“What about your friend from back home? The one in the article? Think it's a coincidence that this reporter happened to find someone who confirmed the anonymous tip she got?”
I pause to consider. “But why would she do that? She doesn't have a grudge against me, and I doubt that reporter could afford to pay her much for the story.”
Richard shrugs. “I don't know, maybe she thinks the story will get national attention, or you'll get your GluedToYou reality show, and she can get real money from a tabloid later. If it's not her, it could always be another friend from your hometown. Surely one of those people would sell you out for a payday, right?”
“Sure,” I say. “But how would they know the rest of the story? That stuff about me selling condoms at parties to drunk people and dumpster-diving in the sorority's trash is pretty specific. Based on the GluedToYou video, someone I knew back home would have no idea that I was living like a rich person before the Green Day project. And they sure wouldn't know about my activities on campus. This was you, Richard.”
Richard shakes his head. “I can't believe you don't trust me.”
“You can't believe I don't trust a guy who extorted me for personal gain?”
Richard rolls his eyes. “I was just trying to protect myself and my money from all the grifters who chase the rich. And I wanted to preserve the image all my friends at school have of me. I like that guy a hell of a lot more than the guy I left behind in California. But you did what I asked, Shade – my past never saw the light of day. Why would I screw you over?”
“Because you hate what I stand for,” I say. “The same reason I keep telling you that we'd never work as a couple – because I love money, I love the things it buys, I love the way even the illusion of being rich makes other people look at me. I love how it makes me feel powerful. I will never stop feeling that way, and you will never stop seeing money as this awful, shameful thing that you have to hide.”
“What do you mean, you keeping telling me we'd never work as a couple because of that?” Richard asks, and I realize I've forgotten my own rule about our rufied, late-night conversations: Richard can never know they happened.
I shrug. “I've told you that before, when you asked me out.”
He stares me down, his eyes like laser beams. “No, you said something vague about how I wasn't your type. And I only asked you out that one time.”
I struggle to change the subject. “Well, I thought it was more than once, but it doesn't matter, Richard. You did this because you hate money and you hate me for loving money.”
“No, I didn't!” Richard yells. I guess $3,000 a bottle champagne and a jacuzzi can only relax you so much. He jumps out of the hot tub, sloshing water onto the tiled floor. “I can't believe you don't trust me, Shade. I have always wanted you in spite of how you feel about the money. I wanted to hate you, but I couldn't, because for some reason you fascinate me, and I don't care about your hangup with the green paper, I really don't. I wouldn't even care if you wanted me for my money, and you're the only girl I've ever said that about.”
I stand there, gawking at him in his Tommy Hilfiger bathing trunks. He has never said anything like this to me sober before. He's definitely never said anything like it without making sure I wasn't sober first.
For a split second, I consider that maybe he's telling the truth, that maybe someone from home found out about my lifestyle at school, maybe they saw some pictures on my profile or friended Tiffany or Morgan and chatted with them about me, maybe it was even someone from school who figured out what I was up to. Could it be that Richard's telling the truth?
And then it hits me. I know exactly what he's doing.
“You really do think I'm stupid,” I say, hoping my voice is cold enough to make him glad he opted for the swimsuit.
“No, that's what you think about all your sorority friends. You think they're idiots and you can use them all you want.” Richard steps back, folds his arms over his chest. He realizes now that the I-really-care-about-you crap isn't going to work on me, and he's going into self-protection mode. “And I can see now that you think the same thing about me, too.”
I shake my head. “You're lying because you think I'm going to out you. You were hoping that declaration of love would fool me, and I'd change my mind about doing to you what you did to me. Well, it's not going to work.”
Richard's dimples are MIA, his face a mask of horror. “I'd be offended by that,” he says, quietly. “But the truth is, I get it. I know what it's like to not trust anyone. You think poor people are the only ones whose relatives screw them over for money? They're not, Shade. I have cousins I can't talk to anymore, even though we were best friends as kids, because my dad's brother embezzled money from my mom's company. After she gave him a job when no one else would.
“So I get it. I understand why you don't trust anyone, me included.” He shakes his head, his eyes turning into blue storm clouds again. “All I can do is ask you to make sure I'm guilty before you pull the trigger on your revenge plan. After all, you wouldn't want to make the mistake of not getting even with the person who really screwed you over, would you?”
I glare at him silently, trying to formulate a response.
He shrugs. “I know, you're thinking that I'm saying this to protect myself. That doesn't mean I'm lying, Shade. In fact, I know I'm telling the truth. I can't stop you from outing me, but If you find out you're wrong, you'll have lost the one person who really knew you and liked you anyway. And you'll have let the guilty party get away with no repercussions. So you better be very sure before you blast something you can't unblast.”
“I'll take that under advisement,” I say, and turn around to head for the door.
“This isn't really that big of a deal, you know,” Richard yells from behind me. “Who cares if people know the truth? You can still keep right on doing what you've been doing, dumpster-diving and using the money to buy expensive clothes, driving that Mercedes someone owed you for writing his papers.”
I whirl around. “Then why don't you tell everyone the truth about your financial background? You can still live like a pauper, just the way you've been doing. You know why you don't, Richard? The same reason my life will never be the same: Everyone knows, and they're all going to look at me differently now. And I will feel differently around everyone else. And you just better hope I find out someone else is the reason why.”
Chapter Thirty-Eight
I can't go back to my room and deal with Morgan right now, so I go downstairs to the pool in Richard's hotel, using his extra keycard (I might have swiped it
on my way out the door) to let myself in. I need to think, and I do that a lot better with the help of a hot tub or sauna.
Five star hotels have really awesome pool lounges. This one actually has a coffee/smoothie bar, where I buy a five-dollar soy white mocha, paying with my vending-machine coin collection. Then I slip on my shades (even though it's an indoor pool) and sink into the nearest hot tub (yes, there's more than one here – did I mention expensive shit really is better?).
I take a few quick sips of my mocha, hoping the caffeine will jog some brilliant idea in my brain cells. Like, how can I figure out if Richard really is telling the truth? Honestly, I never took him for an excellent liar before now; he was never a truly lousy one, like Morgan, but he wasn't at the master skill level like me, either.
So, Richard is a mediocre liar who really, really faked surprise well when presented with the news. His expression of surprise didn't last longer than a second or two (I learned from some badly written crime show that the longer the look of surprise lasts, the more likely the person is lying).
On the other hand, Richard is in the best position to have tipped off Angela Burns. He's the only one that I know for a fact knows the whole story.
Or does he? I pick up my phone and open the article again, scrolling through to the section about my activities at school:
Her extracurricular activities included tricking drunk people into losing bets, borrowing and replacing clothes from girls who had so much stuff they never noticed, selling free condoms from the student health center at parties for a dollar each and dumpster-diving in the sorority's dumpster, where she found dozens of slightly used designer handbags and clothing items that she sold on Feebay.
Hmmm...how did Richard know about all those things? He figured out most of the Feebay part, and I told him about dumpster-diving behind the sorority house everyone else was passed out drunk. I didn't tell him about the clothes-borrowing, though. It was just something I'd do, after my dumpster-dives. I never stole anything – I only sold or permanently kept stuff that was already in a dumpster. But some of my sorority sisters had sooooo many clothes, that if I borrowed something while they were passed out on the bathroom floor, they never noticed it was missing the next day. I'd wear it, and occasionally someone would say, “I have that exact same blouse, isn't it the cutest?” When I was done, I'd just throw it back into the right person's hamper the next night. Any of the girls would have let me borrow an outfit if I'd asked, but if I did that someone might notice that I wore a borrowed outfit more days than not.
Sorority Girls With Guns Page 24
