Envy - 2 by Robin Wasserman

punishment.
    Karaoke. Both girls were equal y averse to the torture and public humiliation that Karaoke Night at the Lasso Lounge represented, but Miranda figured it was worth sitting through an hour of off-key crooning to see Harper make a fool of herself in public. She’d been right.
    “You aren’t real y going to make me do this,” Harper complained, as a hefty man crooned Clay Aiken’s latest “hit” up on the makeshift stage.
    “Oh, I so am,” Miranda replied with an evil laugh.
    “This is cruel and unusual punishment, you know,” Harper pointed out.
    Miranda smiled sweetly. “What are friends for?” She pointed to the short line of would-be American Idols who had assembled by the stage. “Now get over there and show ’em what you’re made of.”
    Harper glared at her, gulped down the last of her drink, and stalked off toward the line. “I hate you,” she tossed over her shoulder.
    Miranda just raised her drink in a one-sided toast. “Don’t forget to smile!”
    Then she leaned back in her chair and waited for the fun to start. This was going to be good.
    Too many hours and too many drinks later, Harper and Miranda stumbled out of the bar on a karaoke high. Midway through her Cyndi Lauper spectacular, Harper had abandoned her embarrassment and belted out “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun” at the top of her lungs. She’d scored a round of thunderous applause and returned to the table flushed and ready for more. And after another margarita, Miranda had conceded to go with her, kicking off a marathon sing-along that took them back to the endless afternoons they’d spent as kids, choreographing dance moves to the latest on MTV. The humiliation factor was through the roof—but there was no one there to see them, and by that point in the night, they didn’t even care. After a rousing, girl-power version of “I Wil Survive,” the karaoke machine had final y shut down, the lights went out, and Harper and Miranda were forced to seek a new adventure.
    So phase two of the night was planned during the tail end of phase one, which meant that clear, sober thinking had been left far behind by the time Harper suggested they stop off for supplies.
    The result of their giggly stumble through the twenty-four-hour convenience store?
    A two-pound bag of Mike and Ikes (on sale for Hal oween), a two-gal on bottle of Diet Coke and another of Hawaiian Punch (mixers), a six-pack of Jel -O pudding (because, wel , just because—thanks to the two pitchers of margaritas back at the Lasso Lounge, they no longer needed a reason). And the pièce de résistance: a box of hair dye that promised to
    “change your color—and your life—in three easy steps.” It was time for Miranda to become a bottle blonde.
    “You said you wanted a change, right?” Harper asked, tossing the box into their shopping basket, despite Miranda’s halfhearted protests.
    They stumbled back to Harper’s house with the goods—her parents were off in Ludlow for the weekend, visiting her great-uncle in his nursing home, a trip that Harper had easily resisted being guilted into. Great Uncle Horace had no idea who she was and last time had insisted on referring to her as Fanny, apparently the name of a British nurse who’d been “kind” to him during the war.
    Harper’s parents didn’t mind her staying home alone, as long as she had “that responsible Miranda” around to keep an eye on things. If they only knew.
    One very messy and wet shampoo later, Miranda’s hair was thoroughly coated with dye, and the two of them had nothing left to do but wait for it to dry. They fidgeted impatiently, leafing through magazines and flipping through the TV channels—Friday night was pretty much a home entertainment dead zone.
    Miranda refused to look in a mirror until it was perfectly dry—she said she wanted to wait to get the ful effect. And, as Harper watched with horror as Miranda’s hair dried and the final color emerged, she concluded that postponing