Free Gluttony by Robin Wasserman Page B

knocking around, banging her intestines, crushing her lungs. She kept her eyes squeezed shut and screamed and screamed, waiting for the nightmare to end until, with a heart-stopping jolt, it did.
    Harper took a deep breath, then another. “Are we alive?” she whispered, her eyes still shut tight.
    “You were really scared, weren’t you?” Adam said, and she could hear the surprise in his voice. She would have shot back some snide comment about how he might have picked up on that from the hundred times she’d said it, back when he was dragging her into the seat. But she didn’t have the energy. She was too relieved that it was over, and they were still alive.
    There was nothing fun about screaming metal, uncontrollable speed, spinning and plunging and waiting for the crash.
    At least, not when you’d been through the real thing.
    Harper realized that her hands were still gripping the thin metal bar, and they weren’t alone. Adam’s left hand was wrapped over the top of her right one, his grip warm and firm, as if he’d meant to keep her safe.
    He let go first.

    “Here at Heavenly Helpers, it’s all about you, ” the attendant had chirped. “What you want, what you need, whatever makes you happy.”
    It had, in fact, sounded a bit like heaven to Miranda, whose life was usually all about anyone and everyone else. But the spa’s slogan soon proved more fiction than fact, since whatever made Miranda happy most definitely did not include the Heavenly Peace Floral Skin Resurfacing and Pore Varnish facial.
    “For your skin, dear,” the woman had chirped as she slapped and pulled Miranda’s face, then rubbed on a layer of acidic slime, ignoring Miranda’s protestations. “Those pores are enormous, and caked with bacteria—when was your last facial?”
    How about never?
    Nor would she have chosen the Warming Stone Mint Massage with Body Wrap.
    “It’s a must!” The burly male masseur said, bustling her off to the steam room after a painful and slightly embarrassing hour of rubbing, pinching, and moisturizing. “The heat and the aromatherapy will fuse together in a blessed blend of healing vapors. It’s unforgettable!”
    But as far as Miranda was concerned, it was just hot and boring. And when she emerged, still covered in a thin film of all-organic mint-infused mud and smelling like a bag of potpourri, she felt neither relaxed nor rejuvenated. She just felt slimy.
    “Isn’t this heavenly?” the woman to her left asked, as they lay back on over-padded chairs, cucumbers covering their eyes and gauzy netting draped down over their bodies as if to protect them from mosquito sized bad karma.
    “Mmm-hmmm,” Miranda mumbled, trying not to seem ungrateful for her birthday present, even though the stranger in the next chair obviously had no idea who Harper was or why it would matter that Miranda feigned gratitude. “It’s great.” She couldn’t help but wonder what Harper was thinking. Didn’t her best friend know her at all? Maybe, just maybe , if they’d done this together, they could have laughed at the manicurist’s beehive hairdo and tag-team flirted with the hot masseur. But Harper apparently preferred to spend the day without her, and Miranda was left to spend her last day as a seventeen-year-old alone, getting scolded.
    The manicurist scolded her for biting her nails; the facialist scolded her for poor skin hygiene; the masseur scolded her for letting stress build up in her muscles and tie knots in her back.
    Try living my life, she’d wanted to tell him. And then talk to me about stress management .
    “My sister and I come here every year,” the woman confided. “Our husbands go off and gamble or”—she tittered—“at least that’s what they tell us we’re doing. And we come here. It’s a tradition—we’ve been doing it for years.”
    “Mmm-hmmm,” Miranda mumbled again, wondering how she was supposed to relax when they stuck her in the relaxation room with someone who wouldn’t