Wasted by Suzy Spencer Page B

weeks.
    “You don’t have to dress like that. You don’t have to draw attention to yourself because we like you anyway.” Hartwell’s appearance began to change. Gone were the dresses and the long hair. In their stead came fashionable Calvin Klein and Donna Karan.
    But Sam Reynolds felt she and Ynema were the only ones who really liked Regina for herself. Sam, Ynema, Regina: they made a great trio. Sam and Regina would dance together while Ynema dealt blackjack. After Sadie’s closed for the night, they would go to Regina’s house for more fun at a slumber party.
    There they would talk. Regina knew that others were using her—using her for the drinks she bought them, the gifts she gave them, the limos she ordered to chauffeur them around each New Year’s Eve when she was close to dead broke.
    It hurt her that they were using her, but she accepted it. It was worth the love and attention—anything to be center of attention. Fake friends were better than being alone.
    The only funny thing, though, was that some of those fake friends didn’t believe Regina Hartwell when she told them she had money. Another one of her lies, they thought. But Sam Reynolds saw papers from Hartwell’s trust officer, and she was there when Hartwell talked to her attorneys. She just never knew an actual amount. Two million, Regina told her.
    Two million. Three million. Zero million. It didn’t matter to Sam. She didn’t need Regina to escort her around town in a limo or anything else. Her family had their own money. She certainly didn’t need Regina’s dough.
    Hartwell found herself falling in love with Sam. It scared her, and she fought it. She didn’t want anyone who was beautiful on the inside. She just wanted someone who was beautiful on the outside. Sam was beautiful on the inside, and she was reserved. Regina was everything that Sam wasn’t—confident, outgoing, spontaneous—and Sam was drawn to that.
    She was drawn to Regina’s beauty and childlike heart. Regina brought out the best in Sam, and Sam loved her for that—for bringing her out of her shy shell.
    Hartwell appreciated that Sam Reynolds loved her for simply being Regina, and she loved Sam back for that. Besides, Hartwell liked women who were pleasers, and Reynolds was a kind, sweet pleaser.

    Everyone in Sadie’s knew what was about to happen. Everyone but Sam Reynolds.
    Regina Hartwell rushed up to the deejay, shouted in her ear, then tipped her well. She walked back to Sam with a huge smile on her painted on lips. She waited. The music started. She reached out for Sam. “This is for you,” she said. The song in the air was Basia’s “Time and Tide.”
    Everyone watched as Regina led Sam into the center of the dance floor, into the center of attention, and slipped an engagement ring on Sam’s hand. It was a gold nugget ring in the shape of Texas, with a diamond placed strategically where Austin should be. Regina proposed.
    Reynold’s friends shuddered. They’d all known her since high school. They knew how she hated to be in control. They watched Regina in Sadie’s and saw, in action, her need to control.
    Some thought Hartwell wanted to be a man because of that need. Externally, she was often very feminine, but she could also be as butch as any dyke on the street. Lipstick and butch—she was an oxymoron. And she struggled with those two sides of herself.
     
     
    To Sam, Regina talked about her father—how she didn’t have a relationship with him, how she wanted a relationship with him, how she only saw him at Christmas. But the entire time Sam knew Regina, Regina rarely went to Pasadena for Christmas.
    One night, Sam Reynolds overheard a conversation between Regina and her father, who was on a speakerphone. His voice was deep and Texan. He sounded loving, caring, like he longed for his daughter. But as soon as his voice grew sentimental, Regina picked up the phone, and Sam heard no more. Their conversation ended soon after.
     
     
    “I’ve been