10 Things I Hate About Pinky - Sandhya Menon Page 0,64

a future. This is a done deal, Pinky.”

“Though your passion is inspiring,” Abe said, smiling gently. A pity smile. A pity compliment.

Pinky pushed her chair back. “I don’t give a flying fig about being inspiring. If none of you has the ovaries to do anything about this, fine. I’ll do it myself.”

“Where do you think you’re going?” her mother asked. “Sit down. We’re about to begin the final round and then we’ll head home together.”

“I’m going back home right now,” Pinky said. “I’ll walk.” She turned to Samir as she scraped her chair back and stood. “You should stay.”

As she turned away, Pinky heard her mother begin to protest, but then her father said something that sounded like, “Let her go. You know we can’t reach her when she’s like this.”

That was probably true. She wished they’d at least try, though. Pinky walked out of the restaurant and tipped her head back to look at the stars as she went. Sometimes it felt like she was free-floating in space, the only human in orbit among the stars, her words completely soundless from the lack of air.

* * *

Five minutes into her brisk walk along a narrow, dark paved road lined with enormous trees (getting her heart rate up always helped her calm her anger beast), Pinky heard furtive footsteps behind her. At least two people. Maybe more. She kept walking as if she hadn’t noticed until she was able to duck behind an oak tree. There she quickly slipped off her pointy-heeled boots and held one in each hand by the toe, the heel pointed wickedly outward. Breathing hard, Pinky waited.

It was hard to see anything in the near darkness, so Pinky was taken a little by surprise when two figures materialized close to the tree. She’d heard their footsteps approaching but had assumed they were farther away. So you douche monkeys surprised me, she thought. So what? Bring it!

Pinky jumped out from behind the tree, her boots held out at eye level, ready to impale. “Haaaaah!”

One of the figures screamed and the other yelled, “Holy mother of what the hell!” and then Pinky felt someone grab her wrists with big hands so she couldn’t do the impaling part of her plan.

“Pinky?”

“Samir?” She squinted in the faint light of the stars. “Dolly?”

“Yeah,” Dolly said, and it sounded like she was on the verge of hyperventilating and dying. “We—we followed you out to make sure you were going to be okay.”

Samir let go of her wrists. “What were you doing? Are those your boots?”

“They also function as impromptu eye impalers,” Pinky said sheepishly, setting them on the ground and slipping them back on her feet. Then she straightened. “You guys didn’t need to come after me. I told you not to follow me.”

“No, you told me to stay, which is different,” Samir said.

“I know how much that butterfly habitat means to you,” Dolly added. “And you’re right. It’s wrong that nobody said anything when they announced it at the country club. I bet a lot of people are sad about it, though, just like you.”

“Again, I’m not sad—I’m mad,” Pinky clarified as they all began walking again.

“Well, I’m sad,” Dolly said. Her glittery blue dress gave off winks of light as they walked. “That place is an institution. I have so many happy memories there from when I was a kid too. I don’t want them to destroy it either.”

“I visit it every year, at least once before I go home,” Pinky said, softening a bit. “It gets more and more incredible.”

It was dark, but the softness in Samir’s eyes shone through as he looked at her. It was like something had shifted between them on the rooftop. They’d been more real with each other in those twenty minutes than they’d been over the last few days combined.

“I’m still excited to see it,” Samir said.

“Sure, we can go tomorrow,” Pinky said, touched that he hadn’t forgotten. And, she realized with a little start of surprise, she wanted to show him. He was someone who’d show it the proper respect. Turning to Dolly, she added, “When’d they say the developer’s beginning construction?”

“August tenth,” Dolly said. “Right before we leave.”

“Right before we leave,” Pinky mused. She could feel her internal Kali waking up and stretching. Hungry. “That’s what they think.”

* * *

Drama Queen “died” while Pinky was putting on her halter and leash three days later—the same halter and leash she put on and took off her seven times a day to acclimate