long to realize that, as a witch, I could spy on Maddie anytime I wanted. In no time at all, I found myself in her closet—the very same closet she’d offered to hide me in when my parents yanked me out of my Beverly Hills life.
As I’d expected, the door was ajar. Maddie was always a mess, even when her parents were together and she had a maid to clean up her room every day. I’d never seen her room so messy, though. I don’t think she had any clothes on hangers. Well, maybe the stuff she’d bought and then realized she hated.
I’d come alone, because I didn’t know what I was going to find out. If Maddie was dissing me to everyone she knew, I’d rather some of the dirt missed Tara’s ears. I didn’t need two people knowing the worst of the worst about me.
Maddie was on the phone, natch. I’d always joked she’d be first in line when they made phones that could be implanted. From the way she was lying splayed across her bed, swinging her feet and giggling, I was pretty sure it was Brent on the line. Great. Just what I needed—to hear Maddie cooing with her boyfriend when I couldn’t seem to find any boy interested in me as more than a friend. At least, no eligible boys, anyway.
There was only one interruption to the love-fest while I was watching. Maddie’s mom came to the door with a younger man behind her. He had his hand on her back, so I guessed he was her boyfriend.
Her mom said, “We’re going out for dinner, Maddie.”
The boyfriend smiled and looked friendly, but I’d seen that look way too many times before on the faces of my friend’s mother’s new boyfriends. “We’d invite you along,but your room is much too messy. Perhaps when you are not a pig, we will take you to a nice place.”
“Oink, oink,” Maddie snarled back. “Who says I’d want to go to a restaurant with you, anyway?”
“Maddie, please!” Maddie’s mom had that caught-between-a-rock-hard-ab-and-a-daughter look. “Armand just wants to encourage you to do better, darling.”
“Right. I’ll take frozen pizza and a messy room, thanks.” Maddie went back to her phone call with Brent before they had even shut her door all the way. I had a feeling this scene replayed nightly at the Maddie Bedroom Theater. Her voice was so sweet and cooing with Brent, I would have thought I was dreaming the whole scene if I weren’t still leaning against an old tennis racket in her admittedly piggy closet.
Unfortunately, the cooing quickly turned to snarling. Maddie practically threw her phone down after a disgusted “If you’re going to be like that, I’m not going to talk to you. Good-bye.”
They say revenge is a dish best served cold, and I’ve seen it served both hot and cold back in Beverly Hills. But what I hadn’t realized before was that revenge is a dish best served in total ignorance of the taste. Because after I saw a little slice of Maddie’s life—even though I was still mad at her—I knew it was much crappier than mine. Sometimes you forget that while you’re struggling with the crappiola in your own life, someone else’s life is handing them a pair ofshoes that’s one size too small and two sizes too narrow.
Maddie’s mom had been happy with the role of wife and mother. She’d been unhappy when her husband walked out. And she had done one of the ten stupid things women do when they get divorced: She’d found a young, buff jerk and made herself fall blindly in love with him. Said jerk, not wanting to share the benefits of child support with the child (Maddie), was working hard to make her unwelcome in her own home.
As if that wasn’t bad enough, now her mom was telling Maddie to stop trying to mess up her opportunity for true love with a real soul mate this time.
Yeah, Maddie’s life was way worse than mine. Which didn’t mean I didn’t want to hate her. It just meant I couldn’t. Life was dishing back to her in a blockbuster way what she’d dished to me.
I thought about removing the fighting
Roberta Gellis
Georges Simenon
Jack Sheffield
Martin Millar
Thomas Pynchon
Marie Ferrarella
Cindi Myers
Michelle Huneven
Melanie Vance
Cara Adams