Robin Wasserman - Lust

“Everything was easier then,” Adam finally said softly, his voice almost carried away on the wind. “I miss it-you and me, just having fun, being together.”

“We hated it,” Harper reminded him. “We were bored out of our minds. We just wanted to grow up.”

Adam sighed. “Yeah, and look where that got us.”

Harper watched his silhouette in the moonlight and then, because it felt right, and because she wasn’t scared anymore, she took his hand. His fingers curled around hers, and she squeezed his hand gently. He gave her a quick squeeze back. They lay together on the rock, side by side, connected. She hadn’t felt so close to him in a long time. This was it. This was her moment.

“Adam, maybe-maybe it’s not supposed to be so hard,” she suggested hesitantly. “Maybe being with Beth should be easy . Maybe if it’s not-well, maybe you don’t really want to be with her. Maybe you want-”

He pulled his hand away from hers and sat up.

“That’s not what I was saying at all, Harper,” he said hotly. But the sudden anger, the quick retort-maybe, Harper realized, he knew she was right. “I love her,” he insisted. “It’s not supposed to be easy.”

“I know… but this?” she pushed. “Fighting all the time? Sleeping with someone else? You have to admit-it doesn’t really sound like a good, healthy relationship.”

“So we’re going through a bad time,” he protested-and from the look on his face, she wondered if she’d gone a step too far. “You don’t just walk away when things are tough.”

“Adam, I just-”

“Or maybe that’s what you do,” he said scornfully, leaping off the rock. “And maybe that’s why you’re always alone.You’re so used to being alone, I don’t even think you realize it-but maybe if you did, you wouldn’t even care.” He turned his back on her and walked inside.

Harper lay on the rock, perfectly still, watching the stars and listening to the silence of the night. She pulled Adam’s sweatshirt tightly around her and breathed in the smell of him, still lingering on the soft fleece.

She did know, better than anyone. And she cared.

There are times when a girl just needs to be alone.

This was not one of them.

Harper hit the speed dial and waited impatiently for Miranda to pick up the phone. Finally, on the fourth ring, just when she’d almost given up hope, salvation arrived.

“911, Miranda,” she said, by way of greeting. “This is an emergency situation. We’re going out.”

“Harper, I’ve got a test tomorrow, I’ve got to study, I-”

Harper wasn’t listening. She was too busy digging through her closet, searching. She needed the perfect outfit for a feel-good, look-better night on the town. And there it was. Spangled tube top-green, to match her eyes; skintight miniskirt-black, to match her mood. The strappy silver stiletto heels she never got the chance to wear. And a black beaded choker, to dress her naked neck. She pulled her hair back into a loose, low chignon, making sure that a few curly tendrils hung down over her eyes. It was a definite look. A little sweet, a little sassy; slightly slutty, but not too skanky. Basically-hot. Maybe a little out of place in the low-rent nightlife options Grace provided her, but if she got whistled at by some drunken trucker or hit on by a Hell’s Angel, well, so much the better. It would be a reminder that plenty of people out there wanted her-more than half the high school, for one (99 percent of the male half, with a few alterna-females thrown in for good measure, or so she’d been told). And tonight, she could use all the reminders she could get.

Miranda was still babbling on about a test, and some bio lab that needed to be written up.

“Miranda, listen to me,” Harper cut in impatiently. “SOS. Seriously, drop what you’re doing-were going out.”

It took some persuading, some wheedling, and eventually a promise from Harper that she would treat Miranda to a manicure in time for the formal that weekend and would finish burning all the CDs for the after party on her own. Still, Miranda hedged-it was late, she was tired, she was in her pajamas, her parents would be suspicious…

But Harper was nothing if not persistent-and Miranda was nothing if not loyal, and so, finally, she hung up the phone and answered the call.

As far as their parents were concerned, Harper was sleeping at Miranda’s house and Miranda was sleeping at Harper’s. All thanks to a supposed late-night cram session for an imaginary chem test. (Harper’s parents foolishly thought that Miranda was a good influence, and as far as Miranda’s mother was concerned, Harper was the golden child. It was almost too easy.) Later they’d sneak into Harper’s house to get some sleep, knowing that her parents, always up and out by five a.m., would never know they’d been there.

As for the night’s real entertainment, they settled on the Barnstormer, a seedy ribs joint on the north side of town that attracted a reliable clientele of truckers, motorcyclists, and a few regulars, who, by the time they passed through the red wooden doors, were already too drunk to pass along any information about their station in life (or possibly even to remember it themselves).

It was dark, smoky, and crowded, the perfect place to lose yourself and your problems. A sober observer would have spotted Harper and Miranda immediately-the two young girls, dressed to kill, were several decades younger and several layers of dirt cleaner than the majority of patrons. But by eleven p.m. on Rodeo Night, the only sober observers available were the waitresses, who, spending most of their time fending off wandering hands and cleaning up patches of vomit, had little inclination to bother the two girls from the slightly less wrong side of the tracks.

Feeling cloaked by a powerful haze of invisibility, they grabbed a small table in the dark recesses of the bar and, carefully avoiding any sticky spots, flagged down a waitress. Their order:

Two baskets of chicken wings.

One basket of ribs.

Two pitchers of beer.

It was going to be that kind of night.

As the twangs of country-and-western music blared in the background, Harper and Miranda spilled out their problems to each other, becoming increasingly incoherent and increasingly convinced that their problems could be easily solved by the elimination of all men from the face of the Earth. But, it seemed, nothing short of that would help.

A few years ago, the owner of the Barnstormer-a quietly practical middle-aged woman who had moved to Grace after the sudden death of her husband and concluded that the only money to be found in a town like this was in providing its population with food, drinks, or women (she’d hit the trifecta)-had hung a large piece of driftwood over the inside entrance. The red paint scrawled across it offered a legend to all who passed beneath: EAT TILL IT HURTS, DRINK TILL IT FEELS BETTER.

By midnight Harper and Miranda had done both.

Long years of practice had taught Harper and Miranda that the quickest way to feel better was to remind themselves that other people were so much worse. And Rodeo Night at the Barnstormer provided them plenty of opportunity.

“Check out the guy in the cowboy boots,” Miranda crowed, almost spitting out her mouthful of beer.

“Which one?” Harper asked, rolling her eyes. “They’re all wearing cowboy boots.”

“Yeah, but most of them are wearing a little bit more than that,” Miranda pointed out, nodding her head to the right, where an overweight, middle-aged guy had stripped off his shirt and climbed atop the bar, gyrating and bouncing in time to the Garth Brooks jukebox beat and the hoots of the crowd.