Friends with Benefits by Melody Mayer Page B

night?”
    â€œHow’d you know I was on a date?” Kiley asked lightly.
    â€œMy mother and I talked about it. She said doodyhead was hot. She said she couldn’t understand how someone like you could get such a hot guy.”
    So, she and Tom were fodder for mother-daughter discussions in the main mansion? Kiley fumed but did her best to hide it. “He’s very . . . nice.”
    â€œMy mother says he’s hot,” Serenity corrected. “She said she would do him. Do you know what that means? Because I do.” She glanced at the crayon Kiley was using. “That color sucks. Don’t use it. I don’t feel like coloring anymore. I’ll tell you what color to use and you do it.”
    Sometimes it was a challenge to like this kid.
    â€œI told you, Serenity. You don’t get to order me around.”
    â€œWell, just because you said it doesn’t make it true.” Serenity stood. As she did, she blithely smashed a lime green Crayola beneath her bejeweled Santa Monica HottStuff flip-flop. Kiley winced; mushed Crayola plus plush white carpet equaled cleaning disaster.
    â€œYou should take me shopping,” Serenity decided, glancing down at her flip-flop but ignoring the mushed crayon beneath it. “I want shoes. High heels. Jimmy Choo.”
    â€œUh-huh,” Kiley said pleasantly.
    Why point out that Jimmy Choo didn’t make shoes for children? Serenity would retort with something cutting. Kiley would chastise her. Then Serenity would do or say whatever she wanted anyway. Her mother would back her up. Platinum called it self-expression. Kiley called it spoiled brat–hood.
    â€œDid Mr. Doodyhead try to stick his tongue in your mouth?”
    â€œHis name is Tom. And that’s none of your business, Serenity.”
    â€œI know his name. He’s a big model. His picture is on all the bus shelters. And he
didn’t
try to kiss you!” Serenity chortled. “Knew it, knew it, knew it!”
    Humiliatingly enough, that was true. Last night on the beach by Marym’s home, she and Tom had walked up nearly as far as Barbra Streisand’s estate. The conversation came easily, more easily as they walked away from the model’s new mansion. Kiley had Tom in stitches with stories about Serenity. He’d taken her hand; she’d felt so comfortable, just like the night they’d run into each other at the movies, but he hadn’t kissed her. Not then, not when he’d dropped her at home.
    The dreaded F-word came to mind once again. “Friend.” And most likely without benefits, because Tom showed zero interest in any. At least, not any from Kiley.
    â€œYou could be pretty, you know,” Serenity told her. “I could help you do makeup and stuff.”
    Great. Nothing like a seven-year-old offering a mercy makeover. The women at that party last night had been so spectacular— Tyra and Caroline and Charlize. They’d run into Mischa Barton on the beach with a Danish guy Tom knew from some modeling he’d done in Copenhagen. Each looked perfect, airbrushed, and confident.
    Serenity kicked off a flip-flop, which sailed across the room and landed on Barbie’s newly crayoned breasts. “Hey, did you hear me?”
    â€œDon’t do that. Are we done coloring?”
    â€œDuh.” She squinted at Kiley and studied her. “You need to lose ten pounds. You’re not, like,
fat.
But only really skinny girls are pretty.” She glanced at her own nonexistent tummy, two inches exposed beneath her pink belly shirt. “I’m too fat. We should diet.”
    â€œSerenity, you’re not fat.” Kiley began gathering up the crayons, unwilling to leave them for the maid.
    â€œAm too. Sid said.”
    It was amazing, really. Serenity pulled off her know-it-all act so well that sometimes it was hard to believe she was also just an insecure, poorly parented kid who’d just finished second