Page 29 of Contention

Just the way her mother always would and the realization was in his eyes.

Her father ended up leaving for Arizona two weeks later, managerial position in hand. The beating he’d given her was well worth it.

She changed her hair back to its normal, rich brown color right after Charlie got on a plane, because she couldn’t stand to see her mom in the mirror almost as much as he couldn’t stand to see her in Kara’s face.

Bianca shrugs, twirling her pasta on her fork. Her blue eyes are inquisitive when she asks, “And…you don’t call your grandparents either? Do you seriously just like being an angry hermit locked up in your apartment all alone? They’re your grandparents!”

Sure, they are. But where were they all those awful years when it was just Kara and Charlie?

“Well, you know, they raised a monster and I hate myself for still loving him.” Kara snaps before covering her mouth with her hand, eyes wide.

She hadn’t meant to say that. Bianca looks shocked and Kara coughs with embarrassment. “I mean. Talking to them is like talking to him. I don’t want the door open. That’s. That’s all.”

Charlie Hayes is good at playing games and playing with the emotions of others. He would twist it somehow that she abandoned him, that she wasn’t a good daughter, that he’s so hurt that she isn’t with him.

Ugh. Charlie, Kara thinks mutinously, a storm cloud hovering over her head.

Pursing her lips and nodding sagely, Bianca says, “Well! That escalated in a rather scary fashion. Deep, dark, and oh-so-dramatic! Part of your charm, I say.” She points her fork at Kara. “You need a distraction and I’m going to give it to you.”

“Please. Spare me,” Kara drawls, picking an olive off the skewer in her drink, mood souring fast.

“Not a chance, bitch. We should go,” Bianca says with finality, waving over their waitress, gulping her wine with a bit of a cough.

Uh, what?“Go where? Home?”

Bianca twists her face in vaguely tipsy disbelief. “No! To the fancy club, you big silly! TheDark Mirage! That whole conversation we just had made me forget that I’m notactuallyan emo thirteen-year-old anymore, so I need a pick-me-up so I can forget that stage of my life, and fast.”

That certainly is the last thing on Kara’s mind. The absolute last. Her jaw drops open a little bit as she stares at her friend in horror. TheDark Mirage? “Oh, God. Why?!”

Her friend smiles widely, that big smile worth seven glasses of wine and just as sloppy. “Are you making a dramatic statement or are you asking me why I’m asking you?”

“Probably both, you mad harpy,” Kara comments, blinking. “I am working a case against the owner, you know! They’re probably closed, anyhow. And, you need a passcode.”

“Oh, no. I checked. His partner or financier, whatever, has it open and running still while Brooker is under house arrest. Let’s just stop by. Quick, I swear. We can maybe flub a passcode.”

“But…it’s a Wednesday!”

Bianca pays her end of the bill and rolls her eyes with a devious grin. “Oh, do people not get freaky on Wednesday? I hadn’t heard that. Who wrote that shitting law? You? Stop being a bitch,bitch. We’re going now. I’ll even pay for the cab. Come on!!”

Grabbing her little black purse before Bianca yanks her out the door, Kara says incredulously, “I’m not dressed for a club! Let alone asex club!”

“Excuses,” Bianca crows passionately. Her eyes drift up and down Kara’s form. “Look at you, tight black jeans and a burgundy blouse. The red heels are probably murdering you about now, but suck it up, buttercup.”

Glowering as they wait for a cab to pull up, Kara scowls up at her taller friend. “My blouse isn’t clubby. It’s just…elegant-ish.”

Quick, like a bird, the redhead undoes the top two buttons of Kara’s blouse. “There,” she says with a victorious look in her azure eyes. “Now the blouse is slut-ish in an elegant-ish way.”

“Oooh, thrilling,” Kara mutters as they crowd into a cab. “I have eyeliner on. That’s it, B. This is absolutely ridiculous. I look sixteen.”

Nodding in that falsely consoling manner, Bianca pulls out a dark red lipstick and attacks Kara with it. They scuffle briefly, but in the end, Bianca pins Kara against the cab door and applies it to her lips. “There!” She sounds out of breath. “Now, you look eighteen.”

Kara laughs so hard that she nearly cries. “I don’t have the aura of jailbait now? You saintly miracle worker.”

Bianca smiles and kisses her on the cheek fondly. “Yeah, the miracle is getting you to laugh like that.”

The cab pulls up to a very modern looking skyscraper in the middle of the financial district, the heart of the downtown. Bianca pays as Kara slides out onto the sidewalk, looking up at the glittering building in the dark sky.

Coming to stand beside Kara, Bianca puts her hands akimbo and stares upward as well. “So, this is it, huh? Very scary.”

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