Chapter 14
Piracy

Scott

I'm sure the wedding was a small affair, Mansfield standards. Still, God knows how Jess pulled the thing together in two weeks time. Although I suppose when you have Superman Adrien on your team, anything is possible.

Rachel wouldn't sit by me at the wedding—by now her loyalties were all screwed up, and if Adrien was still regarding me as the enemy, well, then so was she. Just as well.

Jess had this weird no-bridesmaids thing going on, so I ended up next to Manda, who was pissed as hell that Johnny hadn't showed. Personally, I suspected the righteous anger had more to do with the related absence of a certain Welsh best friend than with the wayward brother himself. After all, Manda had been hanging on Yates an awful lot while he was around.

More importantly, there had to be a reason the girl wasn't barking up my tree anymore.

"He'd better freaking come to my wedding," Manda muttered.

I folded my arms and leaned in towards her to talk in her ear. "I'm sure he will," I mused. "If you marry his best friend."

Her whole body stiffened. "Shut up," she hissed, scowling up at me without turning her head. "Why are you even here anyway?"

I shrugged and leaned back into the church pew. It was a legitimate question. Everyone but Daddy Mansfield knew that I'd screwed the bride and screwed her over. But here I was anyway. I suppose it was all about appearances in the end.

Speaking of ends, the ceremony was coming to a close with the you-may-kiss-the-bride part. I pursed my lips as I watched Jess politely kiss her brand new husband. It annoyed me that she had married Matthew Wright. It seemed like she should have backed out of it, should have retreated to her third floor room in the Mansfield mansion for the rest of the summer to lick her wounds. I didn't like the way she rallied. You see, picturing myself in her place, I couldn't see me doing as well as she was doing. And I had liked to think that Jess and I were the same. Her resilience seemed to put her on a level above me.

After the ceremony, Mr. and Mrs. Matthew Wright waited in the church foyer to thank their guests for coming. There would be no reception. Jess and Matthew, with Manda in tow, were leaving immediately afterwards for the European honeymoon.

I waited in line with everyone else to pay my regards to the happy couple. I shook the stupid husband's hand, and then I stepped over to Jess. She didn't smile at me. I leaned in, lightly touching her waist, and kissed her cheek. I thought about whispering "I'm sorry," but I didn't. I would have been mostly lying, and Jess would have known it.

I moved away. Rachel, who had finally decided it was okay to acknowledge my existence, caught up to me and linked her arm in mine to walk me out of the church, presumably before I could do any more damage. Still, I couldn't help but look back at Jess one more time.

Standing in that church foyer, in her white dress, she looked just like a martyr. Almost noble. I turned away and walked out of the church, into the blinding daylight. And that was the last I saw of Jess for a very long time.

- - - - - - - -

That night, after the wedding, was the night that everything started. Really, now that I'm thinking back this far, I could say that everything that happened that summer with regards to Kate was Rachel's fault. It was, after all, Rachel's idea. There's always a way to pass the blame.

I was sulking in my room that night, mad about Jess. Mad that she had married Wright. Mad that I was stuck here for the rest of the summer with nothing to do. I was trying to read some God awful book about economics, I remember, because after running so long with the Mansfield crowd I was beginning to fear brain atrophy. Rachel came into my room without knocking, which meant she had something important to say. I pretended to be absorbed in my book.

"I need a favor," she said, taking a seat on the floor where she could lean against the wall and still look me squarely in the eye. If I would look at her, that is. Right then I was turning the page of my book, acting oh so preoccupied.

"I need a favor," she repeated, a little annoyed now. "We have to do something about Adrien."

Ah, Adrien. Let me explain what had happened to Adrien. He and Kate had suddenly become best friends again. They were almost inseparable. I assumed this was simply a fallback into what Kate and Adrien had been before Rachel had showed up. There was nothing particularly sexual or even really flirtatious in the way they acted towards each other. I mean, it was obvious that Kate was half in love with him. Obvious to everyone but Adrien, that is. He certainly didn't know it. And Kate knew he didn't know it—it wasn't as if he was leading her on. They had chemistry, for sure, but like I said there was nothing sexual about it. Not yet anyway.

Still, Rachel was right. Something did need to be done about Adrien. She was loosing ground with him. And, given the proper amount of time, Adrien would inevitability figure out that his feelings for Kate went beyond platonic.

I set down my book and put on my smirk. "Somebody's a poor sport," I said.

Rachel shrugged nonchalantly. "I'm not a poor sport," she said. "I'm just a poor looser."

"And what is it that you want me to do?" I asked. I stretched my arms out behind my head and leaned back on them. I raised my eyebrows, waiting for her to answer the question. I was interested to hear her solution.

"Take Kate off the market," she said bluntly.

I probably should have seen that one coming, but I didn't. I had no intention of doing anything with Kate back then. I was agonized by the mere idea of having to spend enough time with her to effectively "take her off the market," and Rachel so tactfully put it. As far as I was concerned, Kate was the least stimulating girl I had ever met.

So I sat there, staring blankly at Rachel, waiting for her to say she was just joking. She didn't. She just stared back at me.

"You're serious," I said.

"Oh yes, completely," she confirmed, completely serious. There was not even a hint of irony in her tone.

"I don't want to," I said, not caring right then how much like a spoiled two-year-old I sounded. I didn't want to. That was it.

Rachel rolled my eyes like I was completely ridiculous—after all, whether or not I wanted to was hardly the point in the first place. "You haven't got anything better to do," she pointed out. "Besides, you'll like Kate. She's smart, funny—not on purpose of course—"

"Mute," I interjected.

"I'm not asking you to marry her or anything," Rachel scowled. "Just distract her for a week or two. Get her away from Adrien. I'm only asking for a fighting chance here."

I sighed. My initial irritation at Rachel's plan was beginning to wear off. I began to remember that my opinion of Kate had actually been improving lately. She had, after all, been fascinating with Johnny. And we'd had that short conversation in the hall. Rachel was right—she'd been funny then.

"She's awfully into Adrien," I said. "Who's to say she'll take the bait?"

Rachel rose to her feet. She knew that I was giving in to her plot, and she was satisfied. "Well, it will be a challenge then, won't it?" she mused, patting my knee a bit patronizingly as she started toward the exit. "Besides, I have faith in you, Casanova," she added as she left.

I rolled my eyes, drummed my finger on my book. I hadn't actually told Rachel I would do it yet, I thought to myself. I could still back out. But I was bored. Jess was gone. I needed something to do, or the summer was going to be a long one. And I liked the idea of a challenge. So I knew I that was going to help my sister out.

In fact, I had already begun to strategize.

- - - - - - - - - -

It wasn't until two days later that fate offered me an opportunity to start working on Kate. I found her alone that afternoon, in the room with the piano, the one where we'd first been introduced to Johnny. She was, in fact, playing the piano. I stopped in the doorway to watch her for a moment. Then, with a prematurely triumphant smile, I crossed the room to where she was sitting.

Kate didn't react when I approached her. She glanced up quickly and, seeing that it was me, she looked back at her music and kept playing. It was obvious—my presence made her uncomfortable and she didn't know what to do about it. I crossed my arms and scanned her music until I found where she was playing. Then, when she got to the end of the page, I turned it for her.

She drew in a breath, hesitated. Then she spoke. "You read music?" she asked, not missing a beat and still staring at the sheet she was playing from.

She was talking. That was good. Pleased with myself, I took the liberty of sitting down beside her on the bench as I explained. "I took lesson when I was a kid," I said, motioning toward the piano. "Turned out it wasn't my hidden talent."

She still didn't look at me, but she smiled. It was fortunate for me that I'd been around for so long now. Kate was used to me to an extent—not used to me talking to her, but used to me at least being in her general vicinity. Used to me as a part of the scenery. She was quickly growing comfortable with our conversation. We fell into silence while she played. My eyes drifted back to her music. I turned her next page.

"So did you ever find it?"

I looked back at Kate. "What?" I asked, confused as to what she was referring to.

"Your hidden talent. Did you ever find it?" She looked down at her fingers.

"Oh sure," I said, surprised by the question but always quick on my feet. "I'm pretty damn good at dodge ball." Kate laughed and shook her head.

"You laugh," I continued with mock seriousness, "but where I went to grade school that was some serious shit." I probably shouldn't have said shit. Kate, hanging out with Adrien as much as she did, was probably the kind of girl with virgin ears. But she seemed unfazed, and then I figured she was probably used to hearing that kind of stuff from Johnny and Yates. It was easy to forget about those two when they weren't around.

"You need to turn my page," Kate said. I hadn't been paying attention, having devoted the majority of my concentration to our repartee. I turned the page for her again. But almost as soon as I had, she stopped playing and rotated on the bench to face me.

"Why are you talking to me anyway?" she asked, her eyes narrowing almost unnoticeably as she sized me up.

I put on my sincerest face. "I wanted us to be friends."

She raised her eyebrows, unconvinced. "Why?" she asked. The girl wasn't as easy as I thought she would be. A real challenge, that was for sure. I liked it.

I had half a second to think of how to answer that—anything longer than that and it would've seemed insincere. I said, "Remember that day you were in the hall eavesdropping on Rachel and Johnny, and I asked if that was what you were doing, and you were all, 'We have questions about her intentions'?"

Kate nodded.

I shrugged. "That was funny," I said. I was so damn good, you could cut my sincerity with a knife.

She still didn't know whether to believe me. And with all that business with Jess, you couldn't blame her. "Besides," I added, lapsing from my tone of utter earnestness to something more casual, "I'm bored as hell, and you are my last option." Saying that, it was a risk. She would either get offended, or she would take it as a joke. If she took it as a joke, I had a feeling that I wouldn't mind taking her off Rachel's hands after all. If she got offended, well, that was that.

Kate looked at me for a moment, then laughed, shook her head again, and went back to playing the piano. I'd read her right.

"So can we be friends?" I asked, knowing the answer was yes.

But Kate said, "Maybe." She was trying to hold out on me, not wanting to give in completely just yet. But a girl like Kate, all starved for attention—she was clearly already into the idea.

"You're killing me, Kate Pierson," I told her, with a smile. I said that because I knew it would come out sounding charming. What I didn't know is that I would end up saying the exact same thing to her again, much later and meaner, and that I would think it many more times than that.

"You certainly have found your hidden talent, haven't you?" Kate said. She nodded; I turned her page.

"And what's that?" I asked.

"Talking," she concluded.

The girl had my number. I should've know it then. I should've known to leave Kate Pierson alone.

- - - - - - - - -

To: Don Yates
From: Amanda Mansfield
Subject: Back on speaking terms

So I talked 2 Kate, and she said u said u were sorry. (U ought to be, btw, 4 taking off in the middle of the night like that.) I was just holding out to c if u'd show up 2 the wedding (which u didn't, and u should also be sorry for—u couldn't talk Johnny into it? I have more faith in u than that. You didn't try v. hard did u?)

At any event, I suppose I forgive u. Am on the Grand European Tour From Hell now, enjoying the sights and the completely dysfunctional married couple. Don't suppose u could find a way 2 get yourself over here?

Love always,
Manda

- - - - - - - - - -

To: Amanda Mansfield
From: Don Yates
Subject: RE: Back on speaking terms

Damn, woman, I thought you were never going to talk to me again.

I'll do my best to get over there (I ALWAYS do my best to see you, contrary to your completely ill-founded doubts.) But now is not the time to have Johnny on our asses. He's not in a very open and accepting frame of mind at present. Boy is pissed as hell over some business about Kate, Adrien, etc. Same shit as usual. Complete bullocks if you ask me, all of it.

Miss you, love.

- - - - - - - - - -

To: Don Yates
From: Amanda Mansfield
RE: Back on speaking terms

Is not complete "bullocks." This is my favorite brother we're talking about. (Don't tell Johnny. Only kidding about the favorite brother part. Well, mostly only kidding – ha ha) Rachel is a whore. I'm on Kate's side. U should be 2.

And don't call me woman.

Miss u too.

A/N: Happy New Year, one and all.