Diana and Shane giggled. Sonal covered her mouth with her hand to keep from spitting her
chicken salad everywhere.
"Well, that and... isn't she kind of dressing differently?" I asked.
They all leaned in to see the Billings table better. After a moment Diana shrugged. "Still preppy
and peppy," she said. "I swear that girl has at least one cable-knit sweater in every color in the
universe."
"I thought Seattle girls were supposed to be more, like, earthy," Son
al commented, tossing her
long black hair behind her shoulder as she sucked at her teeth.
"Apparently Amberly didn't get the memo," Shane replied.
"But she doesn't look like she's trying to emulate anyone else?" I prodded.
They glanced over again. "Laura Bush?" Shane suggested.
Then they all cracked up laughing and got back to their work. So much for that. Maybe it was just
because I had known Ariana better than they had. Or maybe I was just trying to see something
that wasn't there. And there was always the chance that I was getting a tad obsessed with this
whole Cheyenne murder thing.
I was about to return to my lunch when Kiran's ex--Dreck Boy James--walked by Noelle with his
tray of food. She said something to him as he passed--something I couldn't hear, but which
cracked up the other girls at the table. James paused for a moment, turning beet
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red. For a second I thought he was going to say something back, and I willed him to do it. To just
stand up for himself. But instead he ducked his head and kept walking.
Noelle smiled happily to herself as she sipped her water, and suddenly all those feelings from that
awful day last year came flooding back. The terrified look on Kiran's face when Noelle had told her
they knew who she was dating. How Noelle had basically blackmailed her into breaking up with
James. How atrocious and nauseated I had felt when I had been the one forced to do it. As much
as I had grown to love Noelle, I wished that just once she could get a taste of how she made other
people feel. Just once I wished someone would blackmail her or make her feel less than worthy.
At that moment I so wished I hadn't destroyed that Billings disc. It would have been such perfect
blackmail material. If I still had it, I could use it to get her to listen to me. Get her to finally hear my