Privilege (Privilege 1)

Briana Leigh's blue eyes flashed dangerously and Ariana remembered that she was dealing with a murderer here. A quick-tempered, cold-blooded murderer. Her skin flashed hot with both fear and embarrassment as the girls to her right all stopped talking and turned to stare. She dug her fingernails into her arm and forced an apologetic smile.

"I'm sorry, Briana Leigh."

"Well, don't let it happen again, Em" Briana Leigh snapped with a laugh. As if shortening Ariana's "name" was somehow hilarious. When she finally stopped giggling at her own joke, she looked Ariana up and down. "You know, Dana always said her friend Emma was fat. You're not fat

at all."

Ariana's heart skipped a beat, feeling snagged. So Briana Leigh did remember Dana talking about Emma. Had she just been pretending before, or had she just now remembered Emma Walsh?

She had to answer this accusation casually. If Briana Leigh got suspicious, it was all over.

"Yes, well, it's all about self-control," she said smoothly.

"Huh. I guess." Briana Leigh's eyes narrowed. "And you're from Chicago?"

Ariana's mouth was dry. Did Briana Leigh suspect something? "Yes."

88

"Which part?" Briana Leigh asked.

"The Gold Coast," Ariana answered instantly.

"You don't have a Chicago accent," Briana Leigh observed.

"I go to school back east, so I've gotten good at masking it," Ariana said, pretending to take a sip of her drink. Her fingers shook.

For a long moment Briana Leigh said nothing. Ariana's skin burned hotter and hotter, but she gazed out at the pool as if nothing was amiss. Was Briana Leigh suspicious, or just interested? Ariana couldn't be sure--which annoyed her. What had happened to her perceptiveness? Why couldn't she get a read on her? Finally, Briana Leigh leaned back in her chair and Ariana let herself breathe. She quickly, surreptitiously, removed the toothpick-speared-olives from her glass and tipped it over at the edge of the pool, dumping the alcohol into the water.

"So what're you doing in Dallas?" Briana Leigh asked, pushing her sunglasses over her eyes.

Stealing your money, Ariana answered silently. Heart in her throat, she quickly brought the glass to her lips, pretending she was finishing it off. She sucked an olive off the toothpick and her stomach growled, anticipating food--something it hadn't had nearly enough of lately. But if she could just pass Briana Leigh's little test, if she could just answer this question perfectly, that was all about to change.

"It's been a nightmare, actually," Ariana said, praying that Briana Leigh had a long enough attention span to listen to a story that wasn't about her. "My cousin invited me down for the summer to stay at her new ranch. She and her husband had it custom-built and said I'd

89

have my own suite with private access to the pool. But I get there and the ranch isn't even finished. Instead of a suite, I'm sleeping in what's going to be the maid's quarters, and I have a blue tarp for a wall. Plus she keeps asking me to watch her kids, two terrors under the age of three. I mean, hello? I'm not a zookeeper."

Briana Leigh stared at Ariana from behind her sunglasses, her mouth hanging slightly open. For a long moment there was total silence and Ariana thought she had failed for sure. Briana Leigh could see right through her.

But then, suddenly, her mouth snapped closed.

"That is so wrong!" she said. "Your cousin should be taken out back and shot."

Ariana blinked. Was that an expression around here or what?

"I just don't know how I'm going to live like this another day," Ariana said wearily.

"Well, you're not," Briana Leigh told her.

"Excuse me?" Ariana raised her eyebrows.

"No one should have to live like that," Briana Leigh said firmly, looking Ariana in the eye. "You're going to come stay with me."

Yes, Ariana thought. She had done it.

"With you? I couldn't," Ariana said as she placed her empty glass on the table. "I mean... what about my cousin?"