Young and Beautiful

Chapter Two

Hattie turned to Flo and frowned. She pressed her fingers to her temples and said to her best friend, "Flo, I feel a headache coming on."

Flo turned crossly to her friend. Hattie groaned inwardly, knowing immediately that she had said the wrong thing. "When do you not have a headache coming on at a party, Hattie?" Flo looked around, keeping her face arranged neutrally, and when she saw that no one was looking, her eyebrows dipped together in a deeper frown than her friend's. "Would you let me enjoy a good party? Just once?"

Hattie nodded and massaged her temples harder. "That's fine, Flo," she said. "You stay here, and have enough fun for both of us, alright? But I think I'm heading home. I don't feel well."

Flo wrinkled her nose, thought better of it, and tried a different tactic. Hattie noticed with distaste how her friend's facial expression switched so quickly from one of annoyance to one of sympathy. "I know how you feel, sweetheart," Flo said, gently rubbing her friend's arm. "But look at yourself! You're all decked out and looking gorgeous, and there's more than enough entertainment for us both." She winked at her friend, leaned in conspiriatorially, and lowered her voice. "Stay a little while, won't you, darlin'? We'll have so much fun!"

Hattie yanked her arm from her friend's grasp and lowered her voice, not in secrecy but in irritation. "Flo!" she said sharply. "I am not in the mood to deal with all of this. I've been putting up with your complaints about Julianna and Laurence all evening! What are good friends for if they don't support their best friend?"

Flo frowned even more at this. "I see how you feel," she said at last, softly and yet in a steely voice. "You can go home, Hattie. You're welcome to. But you'll regret every minute of it, I'm warning you, and I'll have the most fun of us both. I'm not known as a flirt for nothing." 

"Yes, I'm sure that's true, indeed," Hattie said, knowing full well that it was. At this moment, Flo's beauty outshined hers in every way, even though her best friend wore an expression of annoyance. Her long, thick lashes hovered over her almond-shaped eyes, with pupils a lovely azure shade, and her rosebud lips came together in a small, pert pout. And the cold, ugly feeling that twisted in Hattie's stomach when she realized this was nothing compared to the hurt she felt at being dismissed as easily as a maid. They were best friends, for Christ's sake. It was Flo's duty to understand--she already knew how Hattie felt about parties. And the fact that Flo could compare her beautiful, much grander, and more worldly self to Hattie without a moment of guilt gave Hattie a feeling even worse than the last.

"Well, I should be leaving now," Hattie said after a pregnant pause.

Without waiting for Flo to call her back or tell her that it was all a misunderstanding, she smoothed down her striped blue dress, turned around sharply, and hurried out of the party. She pushed through the throng of people, inhaling the pleasant forest-like scents of the gentlemen's suits and the seductive fragrances of the ladies. Her senses had come alive during the party, hyperacuity becoming her newest problem. Everything was so much clearer, sharper, more beautiful.

Suddenly, she didn't want to leave, and when she ran into the arms of a young man with tanned brown skin and the most lovely, intoxicatingly green eyes, she made a choice not to. But before she could say something coquettish and sly about his rescue act, the world went black, and she went limp in his arms.