“What’s up with you, anyway?” she asked. “You look kind of… strung out.”
“Well…” Was I going to share with Lianne? What a weird idea. “It hasn’t been the best day. I sort of threw myself at Rafe, and he turned me down.”
Her famously expressive eyes widened. “Really? Are you sure?”
“Of course I’m sure. I’m not a subtle girl. No eyelashes were batted. I stuck my tongue down his throat. He definitely noticed.”
She tapped the fingers of each hand together thoughtfully. “Sorry, but that does not compute. I was starting to think that the two of you were just inevitable.”
That made me grin. “If anyone can ruin a sure thing, it’s me.”
She frowned. “Speaking of ruining things, I looked at Brodacious again today. They haven’t changed the password. If you want me to take down the photo, it’s still easy to do that.”
“That’s cool. But I had a different idea, actually.” Doing laps in my room this morning, I’d had a bit of a brainstorm. Lianne was probably the wrong person to share it with. Then again, who else would want to hear about this plan? Not Rafe, because apparently we weren’t speaking. Not Graham, because he’d tell me it was too crazy. And there were several reasons why I couldn’t ask my hockey friends for help.
I clapped my hands. “Okay. Let me bounce something off you. It’s really a non-technical solution. But, say, ten days from now I might have a new picture to post up there. Do you think you could make that happen?”
Lianne frowned. “Posting a picture on Brodacious is a snap. But they could just delete it. Even if I changed the password to Bite-My-Feminist-Ass, they could just call up their web host and take the whole site down. Within minutes, probably.”
“I’ve thought of that,” I admitted. “But if I play my cards right, the whole school will have the same picture on their phones, even if it doesn’t stay up on the website.”
She blinked at me. “What exactly is this low-tech idea of yours?”
“I’m going to try to humiliate Beta Rho using nothing but a couple of reams of colored paper. It will either be the best use of ten dollars ever or a complete failure.”
Lianne sat back in her chair. “I’m listening.”
I continued to outline my big idea, while Lianne’s eyes got bigger and bigger. When I stopped speaking, she just stared at me silently.
“Well?” I finally prompted her. “What do you think?” I braced myself to hear that she thought I was insane. And I probably was.
“That is GENIUS!” she shrieked. “Where do we start?”
After our Thai food showed up, we continued to scheme.
“You know,” Lianne said, pausing to chew a bite of chicken, “your odds of success are greater if we can find you a little more manpower.”
“That is true.” I offered her the pad Thai. “Want some noodles?”
She shook her head. “I can’t eat carbs. If I gain an ounce, my manager nags me.”
I lowered the carton to my lap. “Seriously? Can’t you just tell him to fuck off?”
“It’s complicated.” She got up to throw her empty carton in the trash. “Now, where are we going to find some extra sets of hands? I’m sure there are a lot more girls who want to get even with Beta Rho.”
“Sure…” This was something I’d thought about, too. “But if they all show up at the football game together, that will look really suspicious. Even drunk frat boys can recognize their former hook-ups. And if I bring in outsiders, that would be a big red flag.”
Lianne tapped a pencil on her knee. “Who would a bunch of drunk frat boys listen to?”
I laughed, because there was one obvious answer. “The Rockettes or the Laker Girls. The Swedish Bikini Team?”
Across from me, Lianne gasped. “That’s it!” She spun her chair to face her computers, grabbed the keyboard and commenced typing.
“What are you doing?”
“I know a casting agent in New York. We need models. Not the famous, catwalk kind. But the ones they call when there’s an automotive convention. The girls who get paid thirty bucks an hour to drape themselves over next year’s Porsche Carrera.”
“That’s going to blow my ten-dollar budget,” I pointed out.
“Honey, I’m from Hollywood,” she said, grabbing her phone. “Blowing the budget is what we do.”
Huh. “How much do you think this will cost?”