Getting Caught by Mandy Hubbard

store in town. It isn’t a chain. It’s a single store. And it’s not anywhere near Harvard.
    And I’m pretty sure I heard that Jess Hill works there.
    I suddenly remember running into her in the hall. And I realize it hadn’t been surprise in her widened eyes; it was fear. She thought she’d been caught red-handed. She’d probably planned to hide in the room before I got here so she could hear my humiliation. But if she really knew me, she’d know I always arrived early.
    I stare at him for a long, silent moment, my mouth slightly agape and my heartbeat ringing in my ears. He shoves the card back into his portfolio, but I can see in his eyes that he knows.
    “That bitch,” I snarl.
    “Uh, what?” he says calmly, like he doesn’t know what I’m talking about, but his face has a slight red tinge.
    I stand up so fast my chair clatters to the floor. “That fucking bitch.” I’ve never been one to swear, but anger is boiling up so fast I can’t stop myself. “She knows what this means to me. She knows how serious this is.” I shake my head and start backing away from the table. I’m so angry I’m trembling. “You tell her—”
    “Who?” he interjects, still playing dumb.
    “You tell her,” I repeat, louder this time, “that she’s going to regret what she just did. She’d better watch her back, because things just got ugly.” I pause for a moment and take a deep breath, trying to keep myself from throttling him. “Things just got real ugly.”
     

Chapter Eight
    Jess
     
    I let go of the push bar on the lawnmower, adjust a strap on my camouflage tank top, and check the display on my cell.
    Gavin. Butterflies dance in my stomach as I quickly flip the phone open. “Well?”
    “Well,” he says tentatively. “Somebody is not a very happy camper.”
    I let out a breath. “So it worked? Yes!”
    “Not so fast. It did, sort of. She bought it up to a point. But I blew my cover before I could get her to do the Hokey Pokey.”
    I shrug and collapse on the newly mowed lawn outside my house, feeling pure triumph surge through me. The grass is cold, almost frosty on my bare skin.
    I’d spent probably as many sleepless nights thinking up the interview as Peyton did preparing for it. “That’s okay. The point is, she believed it. I wish you could have videotaped it. I would have loved to see her face when she figured it out.”
    “Picture Medusa. But a hundred times meaner.”
    “Really?” I laugh. “Classic.”
    “She was really pissed. I’m surprised I made it out of there alive.”
    I squeal with delight. “Perfect. And don’t worry about Peyton. She’s harmless. The most she’d do is throw a dictionary at you. I’m the one she’s at war with.”
    He’s quiet for a moment. “Exactly. So I don’t think you should come within spitting distance of her for the next decade.”
    “Not possible. She lives next door to me,” I say, inspecting the blue-shuttered bi-level next to mine. Peyton’s stepmom is all artsy, so there are these horrible wire and clay statues on the front lawn of butterflies and gnomes and gargoyles. An ugly “Welcome to our Home” slate under the mailbox has the scariest-looking creature painted on it, and just screams “Stay away!” I think it was supposed to be a caterpillar but looks like the green-skinned ogre of my childhood nightmares. To go with the ogre, their house numbers are surrounded in hand-painted, whimsical flamingoes. And they never mow their lawn. “Lawnmower” is probably the one word that isn’t in Peyton’s vocabulary. “Besides, I’m tough. I can handle her.”
    “Tough is an understatement. You’re downright diabolical.” His tone is reproachful.
    “Oh, please. You have no idea what that girl is capable of. Public humiliation has been her specialty since freshman year. If you were there that day, you wouldn’t feel an ounce of regret. She deserves everything I can dish up, I promise you that.”
    I stare up at the cloudless sky