Free Burning Up by Susan Andersen Page B

and shot Liz a grin that was likely a little demented around the edges. “You must be the only twenty-eight-year-old in captivity who equates rock videos with porn. You really are provincial, aren’t you?”
    The other woman’s perfectly made-up face mottled with fury, and Macy realized she had inadvertently issued the ultimate insult. Because she remembered now the way Liz had always prided herself on being so much more worldly than the rest of the girls in their class. Back then it had even been true. The rest of them had gone to Long Beach or Ocean Shoresfor family vacations or spring break. Liz had gone to Paris.
    The other woman leaned into Macy’s space and said in a low, vicious tone, “I wonder if your aunt and uncle know you blew the entire football team?”
    Fury drove a spike up Macy’s spine, but applying the discipline she’d taught herself years ago, she stepped back from both it and Liz and gave the other woman a cool assessment. “I doubt it, considering that was always more your style than mine,” she said mildly. In truth, it had been neither of their styles. But wherever girls gathered in a small-town high school—in locker rooms and restrooms—Liz could be found bragging of every sexual act she’d ever taken part in with her boyfriend of the moment.
    “Tell you what, though,” she said. “Why don’t you trot over to the boardinghouse and ask them? I’d really enjoy hitting you with a slander suit. Wouldn’t His Honor the Mayor love the publicity from that? Especially when it comes out—as these things have a tendency to do—that, while you were busy ridiculing me as the school whore, you were the one committing sexual acts I never even dreamed of. What was it you used to tell all the other girls? ‘I may be a slut…but at least I’m a rich one?’ That oughtta play well in court.”
    Then she moved closer and her voice lost its easygoing equanimity. “Get this through your head, Elizabeth. I’m no longer a kid without resources. And I’m only going to say this once. If I hear so much asa hint of that rumor making the rounds, I will have your ass in court so fast you’ll make Linda Blair’s little pre-exorcism head whirl look like an ordinary event. It doesn’t matter if the whispers originate with someone else. I have lawyers who live for tracking false rumors back to their source.”
    The mayor’s wife stared at her, breathing hard for a moment. Than she took a deep breath. Let it out. And ruined her pretty looks with the ugly expression that twisted her features. “You trailer-trash bitch! ”
    “Uh-uh-uh.” She wagged her finger admonishingly. “Only the truth, remember? I freely confess to being a bitch. But the only trailers I’ve ever been in has been on location. And, honey, while you may not know this, never getting out of Sugarville and all, those are a long way from being trashy.”
    “Ooooh!” Liz stomped off and Macy pushed her cart toward the front of the store. Back in high school such an encounter would have had her stomach churning for the rest of the day. She hadn’t been any more capable of penitently hanging her head or turning the other cheek while self-satisfied liars trashed her good name then than she was now, but she’d always felt sort of sick to her stomach even as she was giving back as good as she got. But now? Surprisingly, it had been downright cathartic to lay down the terms if Liz was considering picking up the same old gauntlet. And she actually felt…
    Pretty darn good.
    “You’ve got your nerve showing your face.”
    Her short-lived pleasure popped like a balloon meeting the business end of a pin. Stopping her cart, she looked at the woman standing a few feet in front of her, her heart beating a sickening rhythm. “Hello, Mrs. Sorenson.”
    “Don’t you hello me, Missy! Look at you, sashaying into a God-fearing store half-naked. How dare you go on with your life as if you didn’t ruin my Jimmy’s?”
    For a second Macy was