Free Perfect Couple by Jennifer Echols Page B

class votes like it does.” This was directly opposed to the way Kaye had acted when she was elected Most Likely to Succeed: like it was the most important award of her life. And I was surprised to hear she’d talked Grace down about my title with Brody. Kaye hadn’t mentioned this to me. She must have been worried I would worry. She confirmed this by grimacing sympathetically as I swam up.
    “Happy Labor Day!” I sang.
    Grace glared at me. The other cheerleaders laughed uncomfortably. One of them, Ellen, exclaimed, “Harper! I didn’t recognize you without your glasses.”
    “I got contacts today,” I said.
    They ooohed and cooed over me and told me how good I looked and how pretty my eyes were, which they’d never noticed before—all except Grace, who stared me down witha look that said, Oh, you got contacts so you could come to this beach to seduce my boyfriend, eh? At least, that’s how I interpreted it.
    At my first chance, when the conversation turned to Chelsea’s story about fighting with a stranger over a pimento cheese sandwich at Disney World yesterday, which was the sort of thing that happened to Chelsea, I ducked beneath the surface to wet my hair. That would convince Grace I had no designs on her boyfriend. My hair was long and dark and board straight anyway, whereas she was still sporting her big blond curls. They were wilting a bit, though, now that Brody wasn’t holding her out of the surf. Her hairdo was wet around the edges, like a sandcastle nipped by waves.
    As soon as I surfaced, I was sorry I’d gone under. My eyes stung. I hadn’t opened them in the water, but as I wiped away the drops, I got salt and sunscreen in them. I wiped them again, which made the stinging worse.
    “I’m going down the beach,” I heard Grace say. “I saw some guys I know who are home for the weekend from Florida State. I’m scoring some beer. Tia, come with.”
    “No, thanks,” Tia said.
    “Why not?” Grace insisted. “You’re always drunk.”
    “I am not always drunk,” Tia said self-righteously. “I amdrunk on a case-by-case basis. And not on Labor Day. The beach is crawling with cops.”
    “Ellen,” Grace said, “come with. Cathy?”
    The other cheerleader, Cathy, giggled nervously. “Wish us luck!” The three of them waded toward the promised land of beer and college boys.
    Kaye called after them, “If you get caught, do not admit you’re cheerleaders for our high school. We have standards.” She said more quietly to the rest of us, “Let’s wait five minutes and then go after them. We’ll watch from the water and intervene if they get in trouble.”
    “Or we can just enjoy the show when they do,” Tia suggested.
    By now I could hardly see through the slits that my stinging eyes had become. “I’ll catch up with y’all,” I said. “Back to the towels for me. I’m having contact problems.” Amid the chorus of “Oh, no!” and “Poor baby!” and “Do you need help?” I explained what had happened. “If I can wipe my eyes and run fresh water over my hands, I think I’ll be okay.”
    I sloshed toward shore. But as I reached dry sand, I was anything but okay. My left eye stung. My right eye was worse. When I opened it, all I could see was blur. The beach was as bright as another planet with no atmosphere to filter the sun. I could hardly see my way back to the island of umbrellasand towels I’d come from. When I finally made it, I tripped over several boys and landed on the dog, who didn’t budge.
    “Move, dog,” I said rudely. She got up, sticking her sandy butt in my face as I opened my cooler for a thermos of water.
    Kennedy was telling the other guys about the indie film we’d seen at the Tampa Theater downtown last weekend. They were laughing uncontrollably. Kennedy was brilliant and had great comedic delivery. He would be perfect someday as the vastly intelligent, super dry commentator on a political comedy show. His shtick was as much about what he left out as