Page 12 of Drop Dead Gorgeous

“I like your blue ombré.”

“It’s a cobalt balayage.” I don’t know that I believe her. “I did it myself. I’m a cosmetologist,” I say with pride.

“Of course you are.” She pats me like I’m a cute dog. “I didn’t mean to eavesdrop, but you said something about dying soon.”

I think I told Valentina I wasn’t going to wake up.

“You’re so young.” She gives me a soft smile. “You have your whole life ahead of you. It’s so unfair.”

That’s what I’ve been thinking, too. “I’ll never get to all the things on my bucket list, that’s for sure.” Not that there’s a lot on it.

“As in?”

“As in, I always wanted to see the Eiffel Tower.”

“Très tragique, Mademoiselle Brittany,” she says, and then starts talking to me in French like I have a clue what she’s saying. She could be calling me all kinds of names, but it sure sounds pretty. “Parlez-vous français?”

“No. I speak English, Texas, and Spanglish.” If you count the swear words I picked up from Mamaw Rose, a bit of German, too. This tall, sophisticated woman next to me actually laughs. Or at least seems like she’s trying to laugh. If she’s trying, it’s only Christian that I try, too. “What’s on your bucket list?”

“Nothing.” Her smile falls

and she stares off like she’s looking at nothing, too.

“Not one thing?” I think we’re around the same age, and she doesn’t have anything on her bucket list? She looks like she comes from money, but she can’t have done everything she’s ever wanted or lived every dream.

“I guess I would go to Banff one last time.”

Banff?

“Marfa!”

I turn my attention to the golfer and he motions to me with his club. “Your folks are in your room.”

I don’t think I’m ready for an emotional round two with my parents. I know that sounds bad, but it’s such a heartache to see them so sad. My energy will drain, and I kind of wanted to hang out, flirt with Tommy, and watch family-friendly television. “See ya around, Detroit.”

“Yes. You will.” I can feel her gaze on my back as I cross the room. I think Pearl was right about her. She’s cracky and notional, or, like Daddy always says, “half a bubble off plumb,” but most folks have all sorts of issues. I’ve been known to pitch a hissy a time or two and live to regret it.

“You might want to watch yourself around Detroit,” the golfer warns as I move past him.

“What’s wrong with her?”

“That’s not for me to say. But she’s not from around here.”

That’s obvious, but not everyone’s lucky enough to be from Texas.

5

I dream I’m a kid again and Andrea Dingleberry’s bullying me into a corner. She calls me Tubby Toast and she and her friends laugh. Dingleberry was always the prettiest girl in school, and I could never figure out why she was so ugly to me. She was also the only kid who ever admitted to knowing a thing about Teletubbies, let alone the fact that Tinky Winky ate Tubby Toast. Talk like that was grade-school suicide. Dingleberry was never the sharpest Crayola in the crayon box, but what she lacked in smarts she made up for in mean, and no one ever crossed her.

“Rise and shine, Bestie.”

I am startled awake and just about jump out of my body. Detroit is standing over me with that crazy smile on her face.

I sit up and swing my legs over the side of the bed. “What are you doin’?”

“Waiting for you.”

She’s creeping me out. “Why?”