Devoured (8 page)

“Actually, that one
was
from a Broadway play, but—”

“So,
Megan
,” Ari says, interrupting Nicki. “Did you do anything interesting today? Or see anyone interesting?”

My mind scrambles. Would Dr. Macardo qualify as interesting?

And then it clicks. Luke.

Somehow Ari knows I saw Luke and she’s beyond pissed off thinking I was pulling a
Samantha Lee Darling
on her. My heart races as I struggle to come up with some sort of reason for being there—a reason that doesn’t involve Remy.

“Oh, well, uh,” I stammer. I swallow hard and then it comes to me. I sit on a couch opposite her and try to look self-conscious. “This is sort of embarrassing, but you’ll love this—you too, Nicki. Remember how you told me about Luke’s grandmother, you know, about her being a so-called psychic?”

Nicki sits on another couch, giving me a where-is-this-going look.

“Yeah,” Ari deadpans.

“Well, I got this crazy idea that maybe she might be able to like, um, look in to my future and tell me something about Ryan.”

“Ryan?” Ari asks, surprise in her eyes.

I swallow again. “Yeah, like if we were destined to be together.” I give a pained smile. “Pathetic, huh?”

Nicki bursts out laughing. “Oh my God! I
knew
you were going to go there sometime. It was freshman year when you asked me about that place.”

Ari’s face softens. “Freshman year?”

Nicki snorts. “Yeah, she wanted to go—what was it for—something about Jason? Oh, man, I
cannot
believe you actually went!” She sits up straight and folds her hands in her lap. “So how many kids are you and Ryan going to have? Boys or girls? Was she able to tell you about your future pets too?”

I roll my eyes. “Ha, ha. I didn’t even get a reading or anything—Mrs. Amador wasn’t feeling well. I did see Luke for a few minutes, though. Did he tell you, Ari?”

Ari sits up straight too. “No. But I was driving by … uh, on my way to get my nails done and saw you at his house.”

“Oh, well, I’m sure he’ll tell you all about pathetic me hoping to get my cards read.”

Deborah comes in carrying a silver tray with a pitcher of iced tea and glasses. I could kiss her for her perfect timing. She pours us each a glass and I gulp mine down hoping the cool liquid might do something to get rid of the burning sensation in my cheeks.

“Anything else, Miss?” Deborah asks.

Ari waves a hand dismissively. “No, we’re good.”

When Deborah leaves I chance looking at Ari again, and I’m relieved to see Happy Ari has returned. “So,” she says, “how many kids would you want with Ryan?”

“Um, I never really thought that far into the future,” I say.

Ari nods. “Yeah, can’t say I blame you.”

“Huh?” Nicki asks, looking back and forth between Ari and me.

“Samantha Lee Darling,” Ari and I say in unison and burst into giggles.

“Oh, don’t encourage her paranoia about Samantha, it’s beyond demeaning. She should trust Ryan or dump his ass!”

“Well, not all of us are as perfect as you,” Ari says. She jumps up before Nicki can respond and walks over to a large wooden hutch. She opens the doors and pulls out a bottle of vodka and gives it a shake. “Who wants to spice up their iced tea?”

I look at Nicki, who scowls and shakes her head ever so slightly. She doesn’t drink because she says alcohol is bad for her voice. Since Nicki doesn’t imbibe, I don’t either, especially after a very unfortunate experience at the reception for my aunt Kerry’s third wedding when I was fourteen. Everyone there was totally boozing it up because the groom, a truck driver with a huge beer belly and rundown double-wide, was an even bigger loser than husbands one and two.

I snuck way too many margaritas and ended up puking for hours in the hotel room. Luckily, I was sharing the room with my cousin Nora, who was just slightly less inebriated, and I blamed my upset stomach the next day on the pork rind appetizers at the reception.

Ari cocks her head at us. “Don’t tell me you two don’t drink.”

Nicki folds her arms across her chest. “You shouldn’t either—it’ll ruin your voice.”

“Seeing as
you
get all the solos, I don’t have to worry about that. How about you, Megan? You said you can’t sing for shit.”

“I guess I’ll try a little,” I say, avoiding looking at Nicki. Just because she can’t drink doesn’t really mean I have to go along, and it’s not like I’m looking to repeat margarita madness.

Ari walks over and refills my glass with vodka and iced tea. She holds hers up and I raise mine. “To a truly
enchanted
summer,” she says as we clink glasses.

Nicki ignores the toast and places her glass on the table. “Megan said you’ve got some shows we could watch.”

Ari takes a long drink and then smiles at Nicki. “I’m kind of in the mood for something
dark
. Do you like
Sweeney Todd
?”

I grimace. Nicki had nightmares for weeks after watching the movie version of
Sweeney Todd
, and seeing people get their throats slit and ground up into meat pies wasn’t something I was dying to see again either.

Nicki pales and shakes her head. “Anything a little more upbeat than cannibalistic barbers?”

Ari laughs and gets up. “Come over here and you can see what we’ve got.”

I watch them walk over to a shelf stuffed with DVDs and videotapes and take another sip of my drink, the too-strong vodka burning its way down my throat. Ari certainly hasn’t mastered the fine art of bartending.

“Meggy,” a voice whispers right next to my ear.

I jerk my head and choke on the iced tea. Remy is standing next to me wringing the hem of her dress in her hands. “Come quick!” She skips toward the door and I’m hoping she’ll just keep going and disappear, but she turns back and beckons to me. “Hurry, Meggy!”

I sigh.
Please, God, no pyrotechnics tonight.

SEVEN

After excusing myself to the bathroom, I follow Remy down the hall and groan as she races up the stairs.

“Remy!” I hiss. “We can’t go up there!” She fades away and I bite my lower lip and consider turning around and heading back to Nicki and Ari.

She reappears at the top and leans over the banister. “Hurry, Meggy, it’s bad!”

My stomach lurches and I brace myself for another Remy meltdown. What could she possibly be so freaked out about? I look around for the maid or Miss Patty, and then hike my purse strap over my shoulder and tiptoe up the stairs. I wince every time the polished steps creak under my feet. “Remy, we really shouldn’t be doing this.”

I reach the landing and see Remy walk into a room about halfway down the hall. As I get closer I hear Miss Patty’s voice. “What the
hell
did you show her?”

My heart races and I want to turn around, but Remy’s calling me, her voice starting to take on that frantic tone she uses before everything goes to hell.

“I don’t give a crap what you promised her,” Patty continues. “I’m her mother and I want to see what you showed her so I can do some damage control before she goes and gets another bee in her bonnet and someone gets hurt.”

A deep, dark laugh answers Patty, sending chills up my spine. A man’s voice—too low to be Mr. Roy’s—says something, but I can’t make it out.

“Well, I’m the only mother she knows, thanks to you!”

“Meggy,”
Remy’s voice implores from the room.

I take a step toward the doorway, peek inside, and catch my breath. Miss Patty is standing in front of a large gilded mirror, identical to the one in her office, but her reflection isn’t showing. Instead, a man’s long, narrow face, its edges blurred and smoky, floats in the center of the glass.

“Yes,” the face says, drawing out the word mockingly. “The only mother she’s ever known—and one she holds in utmost contempt. You know what she thinks of you, you ask me all the time, so why are you so concerned about her all of a sudden?”

Miss Patty puts her drink to her lips and drains it. The ice rattles in the empty glass as she holds it tightly at her side. “She’s got that look again.”

“It hasn’t bothered you in the past.”

“Well, it bothers me now!” Patty snaps. “We have everything we need, but it’s never enough for her—she wants more and more and he always gives it to her. It isn’t right.”

The face smirks. Two hands with incredibly long fingers and dark pointed nails appear in front of the face’s chin and clap slowly a couple of times. “Oh, he does love to spoil her, doesn’t he? How do you feel knowing her every whim will be satisfied, yet he denied you your heart’s greatest desire?”

“He would’ve done it if he hadn’t consulted Ari first! Like it was any of her damn business if we wanted more kids.”

“Or it could be that he didn’t want to have a child with you for other reasons. You’re hardly royalty. Where was it he found you again?” The fingers of one hand tap the chin once. “Oh, yes, in a stripper bar.”

“Shut up!” Patty shrieks and she throws her drink at the mirror’s surface.

I want to leave, but I’m rooted to the spot. I want the mirror to shatter and that face to stop talking, but the glass bounces off the mirror and breaks as it hits the floor. Ice cubes skitter across the stone tiles along with the broken shards of the cocktail glass. Miss Patty stands frozen, staring at her own reflection, which now fills the mirror. I see her eye makeup drawn down her cheeks by her tears.

Remy appears at my side, her eyes wide with fear. “Run, Meggy!”

My phone rings and I gasp. I bolt down the hall as Miss Patty calls out, “Ari? Ari, is that you?”

I race down the stairs as I fumble through my purse for my phone and turn the sound off. I pass the bathroom, and then double back, go in, and shut the door. I hear Miss Patty thunder down the stairs. “What’s the matter, Ari? Couldn’t wait to have your little friend spy on me, so you had to do it yourself?”

Miss Patty stops in front of the bathroom. “Ari,” she says, her voice dripping with venom. “Come out, we need to talk.”

Oh great, she thinks I’m Ari. “Um, it’s me, Megan,” I call out with a shaky voice. “I’m … I’m just finishing up in the bathroom.” I flush the toilet, hoping she’ll think I was in here all along.

“Oh! I … I forgot you were here. I … just, well, I’ll go get Ari. Sorry,” Miss Patty says through the door.

I listen to her footsteps leading away and take in a deep breath. What the
hell
just happened, and what the
hell
was in that mirror? I quickly look up at the bathroom mirror and I’m relieved to see my own face—pale and drawn as it is—instead of the horrible one that was talking to Patty.

Why are you doing this to me, Remy?

I shake my head. Why does Remy do any of the things she does? “If only Dad could be with you,” I whisper. “Then you could rest and I could get on with my life without seeing girls with their chest carved open or floating heads in mirrors!”

I grip the counter and take a deep breath. Getting carted off to the loony bin is actually sounding somewhat appealing— as long as Remy can’t come, that is.

I look at the missed call and see it was Ryan. Why did he have to go to Portland today? We could’ve done something and I wouldn’t be here, hiding in the bathroom!

Well, I can’t stay in here forever. I just hope Miss Patty isn’t lurking around, ready to ask why I was spying on her.

I open the door and see Patty having a heated discussion with Ari outside the entertainment room. They both turn my way as I leave the bathroom.

“I’ll take care of it. Why don’t you go and clean yourself up before Daddy gets home?” Ari says without any effort to keep her voice down.

Miss Patty purses her lips, and then turns and walks down the hall away from us without saying anything else.

Ari rolls her eyes when I get closer. “Sorry about that.”

“It’s okay.”

“Every couple of months something sets her off and she gets totally ’faced, and seeing as she’s been on this one-thousand-calorie-a-day diet, what she downed this afternoon hit her worse than usual. I think it’s all the crap with the park opening and the fact that this new ride we’re installing won’t be ready and she totally lost it today.”

“Oh, that’s too bad—about the ride
and
Patty.” I hold my phone up and point to Ryan’s number, thinking he’ll be the perfect excuse to leave. “Um, Ryan tried to call, so I was thinking I should probably see what’s going on.” I shrug. “You know, before Samantha decides to
entertain
him.”

“Yeah, that’s cool, but before you call him, I was just wondering if the mirror completely freaked you out.”

“How did you …” I trail off as Ari bursts out laughing.

“Oh my God, it did, didn’t it? I can see it in your face! It’s supposed to be like the
latest
in animatronics. My dad paid a freakin’
fortune
for it—for two of them, actually, but once we got them, it was pretty clear we couldn’t put them in the park. For kicks we hung one here, and the other is in Patty’s office. They’re supposed to be the magic mirror—you know, from ‘Snow White.’ It’s totally state-of-the-art voice recognition stuff. You talk to the mirror, and the software analyzes your words and it’s supposed to come up with appropriate responses and facial expressions.”

“Yeah, I don’t know that I’d use the word ‘appropriate,’” I say, having a hard time picturing the conversation I’d just overheard being simply computer generated.

“Well, that’s what we were told, but as you saw, the mirror isn’t really kid friendly. My dad said it was probably a cultural thing—they were made in France and, you know, they do things
a little
differently over there.”

I think back to the things the mirror said to Miss Patty. Why would the programmers have even anticipated needing the words “stripper bar” for something geared toward kids? “It was like it was having an actual conversation with Patty—even taunting her.”

“Yeah, the software definitely has a few bugs that need to be worked out. Patty gets tanked and starts talking to the stupid thing like the idiot she is, and then gets royally pissed off when it says something inappropriate—which it always does.”

“But why didn’t you just return them?”

“They wouldn’t let us. We even threatened to sue them, but seeing as they’re in Europe, they weren’t too worried. At least it was a tax write-off.”

“Wow, but besides the language, the face in the mirror is a little too PG-13 for the park anyway—it’d give some kid nightmares. They did a really good job on it, otherwise.” Totally spooked Remy and me!

“Enough about the stupid mirrors. Nicki’s watching
Gypsy
—the Patti LuPone version. Seen it a million times, but if you want, we could head out to the pool. I’ve got it cranked up to eighty-five!” She cocks her head and looks down at the phone still in my hand. “Unless you’re one of those girls who blows off her friends for a guy?”

“No. But I should probably at least call him back just in case it was something important.”

“Sure, but before you do, let me show you the pool.” Ari leads me to some French doors at the end of the hall, looking out to the backyard.

Large rocks are lit up with soft blue and green lights tracing the path of a waterfall that splashes into the pool. Chinese lanterns hang from cherry trees whose petals drift down onto the pool deck and scatter across the water’s surface.

“I could snag some champagne and we could swim or hang out in the Jacuzzi.”

“Okay,” I say, gawking at the Jacuzzi attached to the pool. “I vote for the Jacuzzi! Let’s get Nicki—she’ll love this.”

“I seriously doubt we could pry her away from the show. And, you know, I’m getting a little tired of her Debbie Downer routine. She takes everything so Goddamn
seriously
. Doesn’t she just drive you crazy the way she’s always on your case?”

“What do you mean?” I asked, stunned.

“Like riding you about Ryan. I mean, relationships are complicated—you can’t just bail on a guy because there’s a little trouble, right? But if it were up to Nicki, you’d already be broken up. And having one little drink, what’s the big deal? Did you see the way she was glaring at you? It’s like she doesn’t think you can make up your own mind.”

“Well, we kind of are underage, and as far as Ryan goes, she’s just concerned that I’m setting myself up for a fall. We didn’t know each other too well when he first asked me out—and there’s the whole Samantha thing.”

Ari looks at me doubtfully. “I guess you could look at it that way, but if you ask me, she’s jealous.”

I shake my head. “No. Nicki isn’t like that.”

“Well, I’ve just never heard her talk about any guys at chorus. Not that Nicki could be bothered talking to me much, even though I’ve tried to include her in conversations.”

I stare out at the pool. Nicki’s made it more than clear Ari isn’t one of her favorite people, and seeing as Ari can change from hot to subarctic at the drop of a hat, it’s not hard to imagine why. But Nicki
has
been riding me about Ryan from the first day he asked me out. I was so excited, but she just stared at me like I was crazy and asked why I said yes to a guy best known around school for scarfing twenty-eight cupcakes in three minutes our sophomore year.

She’s only dated a few guys, the longest lasting just over a month. But she’s chalked the breakups to the fact that the guys weren’t into women’s rights or politics or just not—I keep myself from rolling my eyes—
serious
enough.

I guess Ari nailed it.

“But if you want, go ask her to join us,” Ari adds.

“No, she’d rather watch the movie. Besides, she thinks bathing suits are designed by chauvinistic people who view woman’s bodies as eye candy for men.”

Ari shakes her head. “Yeah, like I was saying. But let’s get changed, and I’ll meet you out here in a few.”

Ari heads off and I walk slowly toward the front entrance hall where I left the bag with my suit and towel. I feel a little guilty not coming to Nicki’s defense, but in a way Ari’s right. Nicki needs to loosen up or at least accept that she’s not always right about everything.

I pull my new bikini out of my bag and wish Ryan were here. I’d never admit it to Nicki, but I don’t see anything wrong with being eye candy. And maybe next time—if Ari asks me over again—I won’t ask Nicki to come.