“I have absolutely no idea,” I answered honestly enough. “I guess I could sell my blood.”
She snorted. “You’d have to drain yourself like a raisin to even make a dent in the interest alone.”
“Too bad I wasn’t a man,” I lamented. “Then I could sell sperm. It’s so unfair! Donating blood hurts. Men derive pleasure from masturbating.Andthey get to perv at nudie magazines while getting paid for their efforts.”
Liz’s snub nose crinkled. “Think they get to keep it after?”
“The magazine? Like any guy would want to use it right after another dude—” I made quotation marks with my fingers “—choked the chicken all over it.”
Liz shuddered. “The pages would be all stuck together. So nasty.”
I guffawed. Such judgment from a girl who currently had her boyfriend’s semen running down her inner thighs. She stunk of it.
Lost in her own world, she rotated the antique amethyst ring around her middle finger, a family heirloom I’d never seen her without. Abruptly, she made a whooping sound. “I got it!”
“Jesus, Liz! You just scared ten years off my life,” I said, rubbing a hand over my heart.
“Sorry, I got excited. I have THE BEST idea: wits and tits.”
I wasn’t sure I’d heard her right. I was hoping I hadn’t. “Um, what?”
“Wits and Tits. It’s a wet t-shirt contest they hold every Wednesday night down at Shwilly Pete’s.”
“That cheesy nightclub with the giant pirate statue out front?”
“Yep. There’s a contest tonight! This chick whose hair I cut was talking about it at work today. Her boyfriend bartends there.”
“And what does this contest have to do with me?” I scoffed, almost afraid to ask.
“There’s a cash prize.”
“You can’t be serious. How are wet t-shirt contests even still a thing—what is this, Spring Break 2000? Will the producers ofGirls Gone Wildalso be making an appearance?”
She rolled her eyes. “Don’t make fun. I’d consider doing it myself, but the contest is only open to students, hence thewitspart. Apparently, my uneducated jugs are not good enough for Pete’s discerning tastes. But with boobies like these,” she said, pawing at my chest, “you’d be a shoo-in.”
I swatted her hand away from my B-cups. Liz simply had no concept of personal boundaries. “I’m not a student anymore, remember?”
She made a sputtering sound to show how trivial she found the detail. “You’ve still got your Dewhurst ID, right?”
Her enthusiasm was alarming, since it was clear she intended to follow through with the plan. Once she got an idea in her head, it was virtually impossible to change her mind. She was like a dog with a bone in that regard. I found her tenacity admirable usually, but it was annoying when it was directed at me.
“Look, there’s no way in hell I’m going to some skanky bar to flash my rack at a bunch of screaming frat boys.” I grabbed my handbag off the kitchen table and extracted my wallet, half expecting a couple of moths fly out of it, broke as I was. I removed my Dewhurst ID card and handed it to her. “Butyoucan have at it. No judgment here. Just make sure to hide the expiration date with your thumb.”
Examining my photo, she laughed. “Because we’re practically twins, right?”
Liz’s skin was perpetually snow-white, and she couldn’t tan no matter how much time she spent under the sun. My skin, while also on the pale side, would at least turn a light bronze in summertime, olive occasionally. My brown hair was long and wavy, classic. Her new haircut was bold and trendy. My eyes were brown, hers blue. An avid runner, I was short, petite, and athletic—compact, I guess you could say. Liz was taller, exotic, and statuesque, thoughsheconsidered herself “chunky.” She was constantly trying to lose ten pounds, which made me want to slap some sense into the crazy bitch. Had she been around in the 1950s, she would have given the hottest screen sirens a run for their money. Naturally, she was always telling me that she’d give her right arm to be as thin as me, while the sight of her hourglass figure made my eyes cross with jealousy. You always want what you can’t have, I guess.
“I haven’t told you the best part about the contest,” Liz grinned. “The winner gets—”
“What? A venereal disease?”
She shot me a steely look. “No, a thousand bucks.Cash.”
I eyed her suspiciously, but Liz wasn’t one to make up stories. She once told me that she thought lying was beneath her because people who lied had something to be ashamed of. Liz, of course, had no shame.
I could come up with a million reasons why I didn’t want to partake in the sleazy event, though I couldn’t find any alternative to how I could acquire a grand in such a short amount of time.IfI managed to win, that was. Still, a wet t-shirt contest? Barf.
“What if I run into someone I know?” I asked, though it was a needless question. I didn’t know too many people in the area, and this was due to circumstance opposed to antisocial behavior on my part. At Dewhurst, I’d struggled to connect with my rich classmates because we’d had very little in common. Then, when I’d gotten into a relationship with Sir Ass of Hole—oops, I mean Nick—what little spare time I’d squeezed from my schedule had been devoted to him. Now, being broke as I was, I didn’t have spare funds to go out for meals and cocktails, or even coffee, with what little acquaintances I’d managed to make.
