Sour Grapes

“It’s important.”
    “I swear, if you touch me again, I’ll hurt you.”
    More shaking, the bony fingers biting into her shoulder. “You’ve gotta hear this. Wake up.”
    Savannah came fully conscious and realized that Atlanta was serious... not like this morning. Whatever the reason for her waking her, it wasn’t something as frivolous as snoring.
    “The girls in the room next to us,” Atlanta whispered. “You should come in here and listen. I was taking my bath when I heard them, and I thought I should wake you up.”
    Savannah squinted up at her sister and realized she was wet and shivering, a towel twisted around her torso, her sudsy hair dripping on the floor.
    “Okay, okay.” Savannah swung her legs out of bed and sat up. Her head spun, as though both tablespoons of her blood had raced to her feet, giving her a blood pressure of minus zero.
    She followed Atlanta into the bathroom where she, too, could hear a conversation going on in the next room. Apparently the plumbing provided an excellent conduit for eavesdropping.
    Atlanta stood to one side of the toilet and pressed her ear to the tiled wall. Savannah took a position on the other side.
    “You never liked Barbie anyway,” one of their neighbors said. “I wouldn’t be surprised if you were the one who pushed her off that cliff.” “ Yeah, well, I don’t like you either, Eileen, but I haven’t done anything to you... yet.”
    “Don’t threaten me. I’ll go straight to Mrs. Lippincott and tell her how you ripped Barbie’s evening gown and put drain cleaner in her shampoo.”
    Savannah looked at Atlanta and waggled her right eyebrow. Atlanta stifled a giggle.
    “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” came the reply.
    “Okay, then you won’t mind if they check her gown and her shampoo bottle, right?”
    “I don’t care what you say or what they do. I’m glad that Barbie Matthews is dead. She was a bitch, and I hated her guts. I hope somebody did murder her. It would serve her right.”
    “I think you killed her, because you were tired of her beating you in contests. Everybody knows you threatened to hurt her after she took the Miss California Sunshine crown and you were first runner-up.”
    “She fixed that pageant! She slept with two of the judges. That’s the only reason she won.”
    “And you only slept with one of them, right, Desiree?”
    Both Savannah and Atlanta cringed, expecting to hear some indication of physical violence. Instead, they heard the voice, identified as “Desiree,” reply with deadly calm, “I’ll bet I won the evening gown tonight, and if I did, it’s because I’m the only pro here. The rest of you are stupid little girls who couldn’t win a pageant if you slept with every judge on the panel. And as far as whether I hurt Barbie or not…“
    Savannah shoved her ear as tight against the wall as she could and held her breath.
    “...that’s for me to know and you to think about. Think about it anytime you’re going to say something stupid to me... or about me. You’d better think hard, Eileen. Your life might depend on it.”
    The sisters stood, plastered to the bathroom tiles, straining to hear more, but that was all. Apparently, Eileen had wisely decided to keep any further opinions to herself.
    Finally, Savannah moved away from the wall and motioned for Atlanta to follow her back into the bedroom. They closed the bathroom door behind them.
    “So... was that worth getting out of bed for?” Atlanta asked, a satisfied smirk on her face.
    “Well worth it. And if you promise not to wake me up again—-benevolent, forgiving woman that I am—I just might let you live to see the morning light.”

    But Savannah couldn’t go back to sleep. Long after Atlanta was making z-z-z’s in the bed next to hers, Savannah was cursing herself for wasting these precious hours tossing and turning. But images kept running through her head, disturbing pictures of a young woman falling off a cliff, of someone pushing an enormous rock down on her, trying to crush her, of someone leaning through a window and pouring blood and gore onto a beautiful, rose damask bedspread.
    And those scenes were anything but soothing.
    Finally, she rolled out of bed and walked over to the window. Pulling back the curtain, she looked out and savored the view. Directly below were the lawns where the evening-gown competition had been held earlier. And beyond the dark grass was a silver sea—the moonlit vineyards.
    Only a few