Chapter Twenty-One
Bethany
“You know, you’d look even better with nothing under that grass skirt,” Ransom told me, grinning.
“In this weather I would probably literally freeze my ass off if I had nothing to wear under this thing,” I countered.
I was surprised at how much I’d enjoyed the hula lesson, especially with Ransom doing it right at my side. I’d noticed that for all he seemed to be good at everything except for art, he’d been too preoccupied the whole time to really catch on--but of course, that had given me a chance to shine.
The hula stuff had just about ended, and people were browsing the huge buffet, snagging pork and salads and seafood. I loaded up a plate and tried to think of how I could ask Ransom what was on his mind without anyone figuring out what was happening. The last thing I wanted to do was give up our carefully-crafted cover story, just before the moment of my biggest triumph.
Ransom picked at his food, and as the afternoon wore on, people started heading back to the hotels or their houses, eager to get ready for “prom.” I thought that they’d probably planned the luau event specifically because it was something people could come and go from without calling too much attention to themselves, because it was casual and relatively care-free.
After we’d both finished eating, I suggested to Ransom that we might as well head back to the hotel and start getting ready ourselves, since the party seemed to have wound down. Really, I wanted to pick his brain about what he’d found out in his research in my organization’s databases that had made him so preoccupied, and why he’d wanted the information he’d been after if it wasn’t going to make him happy. Maybe he didn’t find it, and that’s why he’s in a mood.
When we got to the room, safely alone, it was the first question on my mind. “Did you get what you needed to find? And why did you need to access those databases?”
“I got it, but I don’t want to talk about it just yet,” Ransom said. “Let’s just get ready for the dance.”
I thought about pushing it, but I knew it was useless. Instead, I went into the shower and took my time, making sure that there wasn’t a hair on my body that I didn’t want there. I even took the opportunity to scrub down thoroughly with my favorite exfoliant, until my skin was gleaming even in the water of the shower and the yellow-tinged light of the bathroom. I used the hotel’s hair dryer and tried to decide what to do with my hair, thinking about the lovely dress I’d gotten for the occasion a good month before. I hadn’t been counting on it being quite as cold as it was, but I thought I could deal with it--the dance was going to be in the same hotel we were in, after all, and there wasn’t a very good reason for me to try and go outside for the rest of the night.
Ransom took over the bathroom as soon as I left it, and I used the other mirror in the main part of the suite to start putting my makeup on, still deliberating on how to do my hair. I went heavier with my makeup than usual, focusing on my eyes, taking the steps that I’d practiced after watching a dozen tutorial videos on YouTube, just for the purpose of the big dance. I wanted to not just be beautiful, but otherworldly. I wanted the guys I’d graduated with to envy the hell out of Ransom, and the women I’d graduated with ten years before to worry I could steal their husbands.
Just as I finished up, my phone rang, and I hurried to answer it--thinking in my startled mind that someone at the agency had seen the search Ransom had done, or that he’d done something behind my back to get me in trouble somehow. Instead of any of my bosses or coworkers, the screen flashed with Jess’ name and number, and I almost laughed from relief when I tapped accept.
“What’s going on? Aren’t you getting ready?” I asked. For Jess to be calling me, it had to be something important.
“My hair...is destroyed,” Jess said, sounding like she was in the middle of crying.
“Oh god, what did you do?”
“Just come to my room. I can’t even tell you,” she said. I looked around. I’d thrown on a pair of sweatpants and an old, soft button-down shirt to do my makeup in, with nothing underneath.
“I’ll be there in like, five minutes. Just don’t freak out too much,” I told her. Where I always got uncomfortable in social situations, or felt insecure, Jess was the kind of person who was great with other people--as evidenced by the fact that she’d had about a dozen boyfriends in the past three years—but she tended to melt down when something like this happened. She was the yin to my yang, so to speak.
I told Ransom I was going to help Jess with something, and made sure that I had my key-card before leaving the room. I hurried down the hallway, wanting to get Jess’s crisis out of the way as quickly as possible so I could get ready, and as a result only had a few seconds to hear the two women--Nadine and Katherine--chatting a few feet ahead of me, around a corner. Just enough time to avoid literally running into them.
“...sure, she’s hot but she’s the same she’s always been,” Katherine said.
“You really don’t think that she’d stoop that low, do you?” Nadine asked her. I wondered who they were talking about.
“Bethany? Of course she would. Come on, Dine. She hasn’t even posted about having a date in like--two years.”
“That doesn’t mean anything, though,” Nadine countered. “She might just be private, you know?”
“Yeah but just because she’s hot doesn’t mean she’s got what it takes to hold onto a guy like that,” Nadine insisted.
My heart pounded in my chest and I followed them, hoping against hope that they wouldn’t realize I was behind them, listening. As soon as I’d heard my name I had to know what they were saying about me.
“So maybe they just haven’t been dating that long,” Katherine proposed.
“I don’t think they’re dating at all,” Nadine said. “She probably hired him from some modeling agency or something.”
They reached the elevator then and I hung back, feeling waves of embarrassment washing over me. I couldn’t possibly announce myself then. I couldn’t face them after what they’d just said. They were as close to right as they could be, of course--but I wasn’t going to admit that, and I hated--hated--that they’d managed to see through my story.
I heard them get onto the elevator while talking about what kind of ad I must have put in the classifieds to find a hot guy like “James,” and I wanted to cry. But I had to keep focused. I had to take care of Jess. I waited long enough for them to be well out of the way and went to the elevator, pushing the button a good seven or eight times in my hurry.
By the time I got to Jess’s room, I’d managed to get myself under control. She let me in with her hair wrapped in a towel, and once the door was closed she let it fall. It turned out that she’d tried some kind of technique with a straightening iron to curl her hair, and it had gone all wrong. I brushed her hair out and damped it down, and showed her--from my own experience--how to do it right, to get the beachy, wavy curls she wanted to go with her strapless dress.
“I really--really--need to run now, Jess,” I said.
“Thank you, thank you, thank you,” she replied, kissing me on the cheek. “Your makeup looks amazing, by the way.”
“It better, after I practiced it so many times,” I said. “Can you handle it from here?”
Jess nodded and started on another section of her hair. She’d been doing that part all wrong--along with twisting the flat iron the wrong way. I kissed her on the forehead carefully and left her room, wondering if it wouldn’t be better to just call the night a wash. I’d already been humiliated, even if Nadine and Katherine didn’t know it yet.
I got through the door to my room, and Ransom was working on his tie. “You should just go in that,” he said jokingly. I rolled my eyes and shook my head.
“Not on your life,” I told him, my mind still spinning with what I’d overheard. “I am going to be the hottest woman at that stupid dance or I’m going to die trying.”