Free Betwixt by Tara Bray Smith Page B

windows
     as the girls drove away; Jacob, of course, was down at the pizzeria. When they were out of sight, Neve took out a cigarette.
    “God, she has
nothing
to do.” Neve sighed, looking at Morgan in the front seat and raising her eyebrows. “I have to get back by one, okay? I told
     her I would.”
    Morgan just laughed, and as soon as they got to Ondine’s, placed a beer in the younger girl’s hand.
    “You need to relax, young Neve,” she instructed, bringingthe frosty bottle to her friend’s glossed lips. Morgan winked and licked lime juice off her fingers, watching Neve sip slowly
     — but steadily, steadily — at the Corona she had given her.
    “Thanks, Morgue.” Neve giggled. “I
think.
”
    The girl was good-natured and cute in a turquoise fifties-style shift, which could’ve been vintage or could’ve cost five hundred
     bucks from one of those indie boutiques that someone like Neve always knew about. Amanda Clowes had a Saks card, and Morgan
     knew trips back to New York to see the Clowes clan in Brooklyn always meant at least a few grand dropped on some mother-daughter
     Barneys time. It irked Morgan to think that the nicest sweater she owned was one that Neve had bought her. And that hair.
     So blond tonight it seemed to glow. Neve swore she didn’t dye it, but Morgan had her doubts. No one got to be that pretty
     just because.
    “Hey, Ondine.” Neve picked up. “How psyched are you that your parents are gone?”
    Ondine smiled, but her eyes were downcast. “I guess I’m happy.” She paused. “To tell you the truth, I kind of miss them.”
    “Yeah.” The younger girl nodded, her brown eyes growing larger. “I always bitch about my folks, and then when they go away
     I’m like ‘Where’s Mom? Where’s my dinner?
Waah
—’ I end up ordering from Dad’s restaurant just so I can taste his cooking.”
    Dad’s restaurant.
As if everyone didn’t know Jacob’s. He’deven been on the Food Network, for chrissakes. The thing Morgan didn’t understand was how a three-dollar slice could make
     someone such a shitload of money.
    She leaned against a corner of the butcher-block island in Ondine’s kitchen and watched the other girls prepare. Her new friend,
     Ondine, sliced the limes, laughing with her old friend, Neve, who arranged chips in various bowls and unscrewed salsa tops.
How charming.
The girls’ plans to make hors d’oeuvres had vanished once they came back from the liquor store, and they ended up ordering
     pizza instead — not from Jacob’s, though. Dear Old Dad didn’t need to have his delivery boys spying on innocent little Neve
     this evening.
Innocent.
Puke. Neve was already slurring her words and had shown both girls the new Agent Provocateur demi she got online. Somehow
     Morgan doubted that Neve was going to be so innocent when K.A. showed up.
    What the fuck were they talking about? She watched the girls’ mouths move but felt as if she were watching the scene through
     a mist. Things were too weird already. When they had gotten to the house and unpacked the alcohol, Morgan had been shocked
     to find a second keg in the trunk, though she would have sworn that the weird, cute guy with the roaming fingers and great
     lips — what was his name, Mouth? — had ordered only one. When she asked her about it, Ondine rolled her eyes and muttered
     something about Moth trying to send her to jail tonight. There were a dozen bottles of booze, several cases of beer,at least eight jugs of cheap wine. Who had remembered limes and lemons? And the rest of it? Morgan knew she’d been undone
     by the eerie presence of the handsome older boy, but for the life of her couldn’t figure out how the rest of the loot had
     gotten to Ondine’s. There was enough alcohol to blitz an army. Or a least the Salvation Army. Portland’s kids were, in Morgan’s
     opinion, underemployed.
    Or rich, she thought, staring from behind an oversized red wineglass at the two girls chatting away in front