Frenemies(19)

“My God,” he said, his eyes raking me from head to royal blue toe. “You dressed as Violet Beauregarde. I didn’t realize this was a Charlie and the Chocolate Factory costume party.”

The worst part was that I was, in fact, dressed like a blueberry. This meant I had to stand there and take it.

“This is Ashley,” Henry told me, continuing on happily. “Ash, this is my friend Gus.”

My automatic fake smile made my cheeks ache. I didn’t know why I bothered with it. Except something about Henry made me feel that I had to at least pretend to be polite.

“So nice to meet you,” I murmured at his … whatever she was. For her part, Ashley kept running her skinny, manicured fingers up and down Henry’s arm instead of answering me.

“I need a drink,” she whined at him.

“There’s a bar inside,” he told her in an indulgent and yet dismissive tone that set my teeth on edge. He launched her on her way with a light smack on the ass.

“What a terrific way to treat your girlfriend,” I said, sniffing.

“She’s not my girlfriend,” he responded. Henry, I knew very well, preferred a constant stream of interchangeable bimbos to anything resembling a relationship. While Oscar felt this ought to be celebrated as a valid lifestyle choice—a man who can date empty-headed yet gorgeous twenty-three-year-olds is unlikely not to date them just because they annoy you, folks—the rest of us felt it was evidence of a deeper personality flaw. Namely:

“You’re disgusting,” I told him, as the girl tottered a few steps down the hall.

“You only think so when it’s convenient for you,” Henry replied. “Poor Gus, so conflicted.”

“I would tell you to go to hell,” I said with a sweet smile, “but that would be redundant, wouldn’t it?”

“We keep glossing over a point here,” Henry said. “I have secret information I’m guessing you don’t want made public. Shouldn’t you be a little bit nicer to me?”

“Are you threatening me?” I hissed at him.

“Easy there, drama queen. I was kidding.”

“That didn’t sound like kidding. It sounded like a threat.”

Henry shook his head at me.

“Are you coming?” Ashley demanded. I’d forgotten about her. “These shoes are killing me.”

Henry aimed a smile her way, and then looked at me. “Well? Are you coming?” he asked, his eyebrows rising. “Or are you waiting around for the rest of the fruit salad?”

“I hate you.”

“You’ve mentioned that.” He grinned. “Well?”

It was a dare.

So I sniffed, and walked next to him as if he didn’t bother me at all.


We made our way back into the party like we were one big, happy trio. I had the Prince of Darkness on one side of me, making sure I was aware of his presence. Silly, whiny Ashley was on the other, oblivious to both Henry’s sharp red horns and my own discomfort. In front of us, the scrum around the bar was getting louder by the second as just about every person I knew in Boston jostled for another drink.

And I, ever the clown, had chosen to dress myself as an oversize blueberry.

Obviously, I had absolutely no recourse but to dive right in and get wildly, embarrassingly drunk. After all, that strategy had worked before. I might be humiliated forevermore about my rendition of “Piece of My Heart,” but at least I could take comfort in the knowledge I’d given people something else to talk about. Something other than the original humiliation of Nate’s defection. The greater the spectacle I made of myself, the more attention I could divert from the real issue.

It almost sounded reasonable.

I left Henry and his bimbette without a backward glance. I kept my eyes on the bar. I had an involved fantasy about drinking myself into a state of collapse, wherein I would be unable to care what I looked like and could furthermore be unable to sing a note. I could hardly wait.

I was so focused on the first martini I planned to order that my sense of self-preservation completely deserted me.

It came back to me in a flash when I realized I’d walked within grabbing distance of Helen. She blinked at me, and opened her mouth to speak.

Absolutely not, I thought.

Without consulting my brain, my body made an executive decision. I dove into a passing crowd of matronly types—all out-complimenting one another with a passive-aggressiveness that put me and mine to shame. I snuck out of the banquet room again—using the sniping ladies as cover—and made for the bathroom as if pursued by the hounds of hell. The bathroom was always a safety zone. Every teenage girl who’d ever wept over some zit-faced adolescent boy knew the comfort of a quiet bathroom stall.

Once inside the bathroom, I dove into the nearest stall, locked the door behind me, and perched there on the toilet seat, breathing heavily.

Surely I would be safe. Surely even Helen wouldn’t—

I heard the door creak open.

I held my breath.

“Gus?” She was right outside my stall. She even knocked. Once. Twice. “Gus? I know it’s you, I can see those blue shoes.”

I flushed the toilet in the hope it would shame Helen into running away, but no, she was still there when I swung open the door. Like, right there. I couldn’t even exit the stall.