“So we have a deal?” I ask.
“Sounds fair to me!” Matt says. “Now let's all go celebrate that Shade and Tiffany are getting their own show together! And we all get to appear on it, unless we want our faces blurred! This is fan-fucking-tastic!”
Me and Tiffany, doing a show together, sharing the billing and the spotlight and, oh yeah, the money we earned thanks to my idea. Oh yeah, this is fan-fucking-tastic all right.
“Right behind you,” I call after my friends as they rejoin the party. “I just have to send a quick text message.”
Chapter Forty
It doesn't take long for Tiffany to notice her phone's missing. If we weren't partying, she'd probably have noticed in three minutes or less; since she's busy toasting to our newfound success, she doesn't notice for a full ten minutes, when she goes to post about our epic party.
I make a pretense of helping her search the hotel suite. “I don't see it under here,” I say, upturning the couch cushions and even dropping to my knees to look under the couch. I do this in one seamless move that screams, “I'm so in shape I can bend like a rule in a sorority house”.
“Do you think one of those people stole it?” Tiffy asks in a stage whisper as I stand up. “I mean, no offense, but...these are your people, right? Don't some of them steal from the rich?”
I fix her with a glare that would grow icicles on a calender of Playgirl models. Probably over the best parts of the pictures, too. “I thought we all learned something here, Tiffany. Or was Richard the only one who learned anything? You think stealing is limited to the poor? Who, by the way, aren't my people any more than the intellectually gifted are your people? Why don't you ask Bernie Madoff's victims if rich people ever steal?”
“Just help me find my phone, please,” Tiffany whines. I think the “intellectually gifted” stab went right over her head. “What if we get another call from Ms. Haines? She couldn't get you earlier.”
I scrunch my face up as if I'm thinking. “I don't think I've seen you with it in here, Tiff. Could you have left it in the car or parking lot?”
She frowns. “I could have sworn I had it when I came in.”
“I'm calling it right now, but I don't hear it,” Morgan says, staring down at her own phone. “Is it on silent?”
Tiffany rolls her eyes. “When do I ever put my phone on silent?”
“Good point,” I say. “It must be in the car, or maybe you dropped it in the parking lot. Come on, I'll help you look.” Of course I put it on silent myself.
“I'll go with you,” Charlie says.
“No, you guys stay here and keep looking, in case someone of any financial background did steal it, we shouldn't all leave the suite,” I add in a lower voice as I hustle Tiff out the door. Charlie and Matt nod agreeably, and Morgan goes back to looking around the bar. Well, that's her pretense anyway. I think she's looking inside a gin bottle, if you ask me.
When we reach the car, I bend down to look underneath and casually slide the phone out of my sleeve and onto the ground. Then I grab it and wave it in the air for Tiffany to see. “Look! I found it!”
Tiffany's ass is sticking out of the backseat, where she's digging through our piles of clothes and other crap we didn't feel like hauling into the motel. “That's great,” she says, sliding out ass-backwards, her zebra-striped butt popping out, followed by her a second later. She turns around and reaches for the phone, but I bounce back a step and tap the envelope icon.
“What are you doing?” She lunges for the phone again, and I dodge her again, ducking behind a rust-stained Mitsubishi from the eighties.
“I just turned on your phone to see if the battery was still good and I accidentally hit your emails,” I say, scrolling down to the offending message. “You're the anonymous tipster. You sent that letter to Angela Burns, didn't you?”
“Of course not!” Tiffany comes around the Mitsubishi and I allow her to catch up with me and snatch back the phone. “I was framed. Someone got my phone while it was out here and-”
“And instead of making long distance calls to every friend and distant relative in the solar system, they sent an email time-stamped last night?” I ask. “Tiffany, stop lying. And don't bother deleting that thing, I already forwarded it to myself.”
“Well, so what?” Tiffany says, tossing her head. I have to hand it to her hairspray brand (Stiff As a Corpse): Her hair does not move, even when she tosses her head like a rock star about to smash her guitar into the stage. “Look at all the free publicity it got you! It probably contributed to Ms. Haines' interest in our project!”
“No, I think the rapidly rising hits on our vids did that, and I know that would have happened anyway,” I say. “Your tip only got published because our vids were so popular in the first place.”
“Whatever. You're the one who's always saying 'No publicity is bad publicity'.”
“In this case, I'm willing to make an exception to that rule,” I snap. “I want you to post a vid saying you made up the anonymous tip and that I really am rich. Say you made up the story for publicity, or because you were jealous, or whatever.”
Tiffany sneers at me. “I'm not going to lie. It's true and we both know it.”
“And how would you know that? Because I sold some condoms at a party? Or borrowed a few outfits? That proves nothing.”
Tiffany smiles, and there's something eerie about it in the flickering neon motel lights. “You think all I have is a hunch? I don't. I did at first, but that's all it was – a hunch. So I went looking for proof. At first I couldn't find any, so I started waiting for the mail delivery every day. I had to wait two months, but right before the semester ended I finally saw a letter to you from the financial aid office. So maybe I intercepted it.”
I grit my teeth. Our stupid financial aid office is still stuck in the nineties, sending out paper notifications even to people who have signed up for email notices. “You read my mail? That's a federal offense.”
Tiffany's still smiling the smile of someone with perfect teeth. “I didn't open it. The post office did a number on the envelope, and the letter fell out as I was taking it up to your room. I just happened to see what it said as I picked it up.”
I hadn't even thought about not getting a paper notice for last semester's financial aid statement, since I'd gotten it by email. Actually, I vaguely remember thinking that maybe the office's dinosaurs had finally gotten over the need to clear a rainforest every semester. I definitely remember the email, in which my parents' annual income was reiterated (in case I should notice any mistakes) and the amount of my academic scholarship was subtracted from my financial aid award for next semester. “So then you don't still have that letter?” I ask Tiffany.
She shakes her head. “I left it in your room, for you.”
“Tiffany, why did you do this?” I ask. “You've known for almost a month now. I've always been a good friend to you. I help you study for finals every semester. I did all of our group project for Intro to PR so you could get a B. I helped you through that mess with Dusty. Why would you screw me over like this?”
“Because I wanted to get my own show!” Tiffany yells. “Because I'm tired of school, tired of having to work so hard for grades in classes I don't care about, tired of my parents threatening to cut me off every time I do something they don't like. I always knew I wasn't smart enough to graduate and get a real job and actually be good enough to keep it. Not like you are. And I don't want to spend the rest of my life letting my parents control me for money.” She gnaws at a ragged, three-weeks-without-a-manicure fingernail. “Even rich people have to work for their money, you know.”
“What about taking the advice you gave me and finding a rich husband?”
She sighs. “Because you were right about that, Shade – I'd just be going from jumping through hoops for my parents' money to jumping through hoops for some guy's money. I wanted to make my own money, and I thought that at the very least, I could get twenty vids with fifty-thousand hits and get in o
n the profit sharing. Then I thought that maybe I could get my own show and really cash in – Dusty was an ass, but he had a point about that. But I didn't want to be part of some dumb show with him – it would just be him making fun of me for not being a hillbilly. So I started thinking that maybe I could just star in my own show. And I couldn't think of a way to outdo you, because you're always hogging the spotlight, and you're so smart that people actually want to listen to you all the time. So I thought that outing you as a fraud might get rid of you.”
She shakes her head miserably, glaring at the ground. “But that didn't work either. Ms. Haines doesn't care about the scandal – she actually told me it made you more interesting to the viewers. In fact, she really just wanted to give you your own show.”
“She did?”
Tiffany nods, tears making muddy mascara tracks down her face. “After everything I did, it only made her want to give you your own show! So I told her that you came up with this project as something we could do together, as friends – that's why we entered the Green Day contest together. I told her I came up with the idea, and you couldn't do the show without me. I figured I could convince you to go along with it if I told you Ms.Haines wanted both of us – you'd do anything to get your own show, even put up with me. But now...” She shakes her cell phone as if trying to get rid of the incriminating email. “Now you're never going to do that, are you? So the only thing I have left is whatever attention I can get for outing you. It may not last long or get me my own show, but it's all I've got. Maybe I can get fifty-thousand hits on twenty vids on my own GluedToYou channel out of it – I'll use your story to give myself credentials as an investigative journalist, then I'll start digging into other people's lives.”
I shake my head. “Tiffany, I never took you for such a self-serving, vindictive person. You're so much more like me than I thought.”
She glares at me. “I wasn't like this before. But being cut off by my parents for the hundredth time was so frustrating. And finding out that Charlie didn't care enough to help me out really hurt, too. It was like everyone who claimed to care about me only cared about themselves. So yeah, that made me kind of self-serving.”
I frown. “You know Charlie's parents cut him off too, right? And that's why he couldn't help you out? It wasn't because he didn't care – he just didn't have the money.”
She blinks through a haze of mascara and misery. “What? That's why he wouldn't help?”
I nod. “Yeah, I overheard him talking about it the day of the party where you guys had that big fight.”
“Why didn't you tell me?”
I sigh. “Because he obviously didn't want you to know. And I get what that's like, Tif – I never wanted anyone to know about my lack of money. And let me tell you, it really hurts when someone reveals the thing you're most ashamed of. Yes, I said it, I'm ashamed of my lack of money. And I will not apologize for that. I will not embrace being poor. It's caused me nothing but pain in my life, and I will not own it, or love that aspect of myself, or any of that happy crappy, okay? And while I may be a self-serving bitch, I don't screw over innocent people who don't deserve it, and that's why I didn't repeat Charlie's secret.”
Tiffany wipes at her face. “I'm sorry, Shade. I really am. I had no idea how much this would hurt you.”
“You can still help me fix it,” I say. “Just admit you lied. Say you know I'm rich because you were at the Mercedes dealership the day I drove my car off the lot.”
“How did you get that car anyway? Did you screw what's-his-face whose dad owns the lot?”
“No,” I snap. “I did his homework and wrote his papers and helped him study, like I did for you for free, because we used to be friends.”
She stares down at her Tory Burch sandals, one of which is a size bigger (that's why they were so cheap at the outlet). “I wish I could help, Shade. But this is my only chance at financial freedom, at being able to run my own life, instead of letting other people run it. You understand, right?”
“Sure,” I say, calmly pulling my phone from my pocket, pulling up an email draft and pressing send. “And you understand that if you don't help me, I'll be going public with that. But hey, I'm sure the publicity will make you more interesting. Well, until you get arrested.”
Tiffany pulls out her phone and opens the vid I sent her. She watches, her mouth forming an “O” in horror at what I've done: I took the Biff Blackmail video and edited out the parts with me, then blurred Biff's face. Then I edited in the part where Tiffany told Biff he needed to hand over his stuff or get used to embarrassment.
“That vid goes viral if you don't help me,” I say. I feel bad for Tiffany, but she obviously doesn't consider me that good of a friend if she's willing to throw me under the bus.
And the waterworks start again. “Please, Shade, this is all I have. You'll survive this scandal! And after we sign that contract, you'll be rich for real. It won't matter!”
I dig my fingernails into my palm. “You don't know that, Tiff. I have bad luck. Everything goes wrong for me. Everything I touch turns to shit. Half of those GluedToYou shows last less than a year, and five percent of advertising on twenty vids with fifty-k viewers is not that much. And even if it is a success, people will still know that I was poor. That changes how people look at you, permanently.”
“But you have the ability to make money, to get rich for yourself!” Tiffany screams. “You're not stupid!”
Now this is perplexing. I always thought Tiff was dumb as a box of rocks, but I never knew she thought that. “Tiffany...why do you think that? I mean, you got into college, right?”
She rolls her eyes. “You said yourself the only entrance exam to college is the ability to sign your name on a check.” She swipes at her face again, making arches in her makeup. The color of her fake bake almost makes them look like golden arches. “You think I don't hear people talking? You think I don't know that my father made a big donation to the school alumni association the year before I applied to colleges? You know I applied to ten schools, and the one he donated a crapload of money to is the only one I got into? You think I haven't asked everyone else what they got on the ACT? I haven't met anyone who got in with less than a 21.”
“Has this been bothering you for a long time?”
She shrugs. “At first, I shrugged it off. I told myself it didn't matter. But every time I got a C, my parents threatened to cut me off. And then the school forced me to take that math class, even though it doesn't have a fucking thing to do with PR.”
“Yeah, no shit.”
“I've taken it three times, and I can't pass!” she wails.
“Is it Finite?” I rub at my temples. “I flunked that thing the first time I took it, Tiff. The second time, I was never so thrilled to get a D, because it meant I never had to take it again!”
“But at least you passed the second time!”
“Is that what this is all about?” I ask. “You don't think you can pass Finite, so your parents are going to cut you off? And now you're panicking?”
“That, and thinking Charlie didn't care, and just generally being tired of the whole school thinking I'm stupid. I meant what I said, Shade - you are smart and talented and you will get rich and famous sooner or later. You can still be rich and famous if this story comes out. I can't! My options are limited! Don't do this to me!”
“Tiffany, I just told you how to pass Finite,” I say, trying to make myself be patient. As sad as I feel for Tiffany right now, I can't get over the fact that she thinks her options are more limited than mine. “And you're not stupid. A stupid person wouldn't have figured out my secret. Hundreds of stupid people at that school didn't. You and Richard were the only ones, and he didn't figure it out until he realized I was too much of a Feebay expert to have just started selling seriously.”
“Really?” The waterworks start to dry up. “I figured it out before Richard?”
“Tiff, there's a way we can both come out of this okay,” I continue. “Do what I want. Ref
ute your own story. We can still do the show together. You can go back to school and pass Finite with a D. I got a 61 percent, and that was with ten points of extra credit for perfect attendance,” I explain. “Seriously, the next time you take it, get in Professor Wells' section. She gives a full ten points extra credit just for showing up and trying to work through the homework, whether you get it right a lot. Squint at the screen, scribble some notes, and she'll let you pass with a D.”
“Really?” The waterworks slow to a trickle. The golden arches of makeup are hardening.
“Tell you what, I'll say I was in on the deception,” I continue. “We did it to get publicity for the show. We came up with this idea together, and that's the end of it.”
“You won't tell anyone that the whole thing was your idea? That I didn't come up with anything for the Green Day project?”
I shake my head. “No. I won't tell anyone. We'll both make money off this show, and we can both be financially independent. All you have to do is help me hide what embarrasses me. Can you do that?”
Tiffany nods. “Okay. I'll help you lie. But what about your parents, and your friends back home?”
“My parents don't watch much reality internet T.V. I doubt they know. And if they do hear about it, they'll call and ask me. And I don't think they want the whole world to know that I grew up in a house with doorknob-less doors and taped up windows and a bunch of other shit they didn't have money to fix.” I smile. “And as for my old friends, I think they can be bribed with my first paycheck. The bet is over, after all.”
Tiffany nods. “I'm really sorry, Shade. I never wanted to screw you over. I wouldn't have done it if I wasn't desperate.”
Sorority Girls With Guns Page 26
