“Oh good heavens!” the short, thin blue haired woman shrieked as the rock hard pork chop flew from Brenda’s mouth, landing in the lap of her irate dean who just sat there in shock with the meat in her lap looking positively appalled.

     “What in heaven’s name is wrong with you!” Brenda’s stepmother, Iris Barrett, demanded.

     Brenda grabbed a glass of water and gulped it down as she gesticulated wildly at the offending pork chop. “Too much pepper,” she said in between gasps as she fanned her opened mouth, “and, I’m sorry but it’s hard as a rock!” she said, gulping down some more water to wash the unpalatable taste of the meat from her mouth.

     Coming out of her shock, the dean found her vocal chords. “You are the most troublesome young woman I have ever known!” an exasperated Dean Carmichael said through gritted teeth as the other visiting parents gazed over at the commotion. “The face of an angel, the will of a demon,” she muttered under her breath.

     Someone tittered with laughter. The dean looked as if she would faint dead away at the continued food insults and growing embarrassment.

     “Brenda,” her stepmother growled, pressing her gaudily jeweled hand against her dyed blonde hair in irritation. “There’s nothing wrong with the food. Stop making a scene!”

     Brenda Veronica Barrett was incredulous. Ignoring her stepmother’s tyrannical command, she turned to the dean. “Dean Carmichael, taste it,” she implored, “How can you deny that this tastes horrible? Are we inmates in a prison that we have to be subjected to this kind of meal?”

     There was more laughter. The dean clutched her head as if it would explode.

     Sitting next to Brenda was Juliet Jacks who was chewing on her own rock-hard, pepper-ridden pork chop and trying desperately not to gag as she attempted to chew the vile meat. Most of the parents in the cafeteria were struggling through the luncheon, too polite in their over the top, upper crusty mannerisms to insult the food.

     "Brenda stop being so ridiculous! It’s perfectly edible,” her stepmother lied, giving her an angry glance. “Eat it and stop embarrassing me this instant!”

     Brenda glanced at the table and saw Juliet’s face was contorted in misery and she was about to spit out her food too. Biting her lip to keep from laughing, Brenda quickly passed her a napkin and Juliet made immediate use of it earning her the ire of the dean.

     “Brenda and Juliet, excuse yourselves from this table at once!” the dean ordered turning an unflattering shade of red as the embarrassing moment lingered on.

     Brenda was only too happy to oblige. She pushed her chair back and left the table with Juliet following. They made their way to the dorm room they shared and Juliet plopped onto the bed looking at her friend with mischievous admiration.

     “You did something to those pork chops, didn’t you?” she said grinning with expectation.

     Brenda tried to keep a straight face, but failed. “I may have replaced the regular pepper with some Cajun spices I found in the pantry,” she shrugged. “I had no idea how strong it would be. But you know how bland the food is on campus. I just thought it would give it a little zest.”

     Juliet laughed. “A little zest? Oh Brenda Barrett, you are priceless! What I can’t believe is that they all actually ate it! Did you see them all? Chomping away even while their eyes were watering and their tongues were hanging out.” Juliet was laughing so hard tears were in her eyes. “And did you see Professor Jones’ eyes bug out? You just know that her insides must’ve been on fire.”

     Brenda was about to answer but the image that her friend had conjured up was so funny that she just erupted into laughter instead.

     Juliet Jacks and Brenda Barrett had not always been friends. In fact they had started off quite frostily upon their first meeting three months ago in Miss Danvers philosophy class debating over Socrates and Aristotle with Brenda driving Juliet crazy by always having to have the last word and asking so many questions that it left Juliet dizzy. Needless to say Brenda had won the debate while Juliet had developed a splitting headache.

     Despite their sparring beginnings, however, Juliet had grown terribly fond of Brenda. She admired the spirited, unpredictable, wildly entertaining Brenda Barrett. Juliet liked her cleverness, her adventurous spirit, her sense of fun and her hysterical wit and how she said exactly what was on her mind no matter how outrageous it was. She had even come to appreciate that argumentative, overly inquisitive nature that had initially made her brand Brenda as impossible and disagreeable.

     Upon their first meeting she had been wary of Brenda for she was breathtakingly beautiful with goddess-like attributes: dark silky hair with a brilliant sheen, eyes a bewitching shade of hazel with dark gem-like greens and golds, a gorgeous dimpled smile and an infuriatingly perfect physique. Juliet did not normally trust anyone who looked like they were on loan to the human race from heaven itself. But it was impossible not to like Brenda and Juliet hadn’t tried very hard.

     “So was that your infamous stepmother jumping so readily to your defense?” Juliet asked sarcastically.

     Brenda laughed. “Yes that’s her. Isn’t she as awful as I said she was?”

     “Worse,” Juliet admitted. “Why did she even bother to come down to see you in the play?” Juliet wondered, her lilting Australian accent as lovely as a song.

     “Well she didn’t come to see me perform, that’s for sure. She’s just trying to latch onto somebody’s rich divorced father. My stepmother is a pure social climber who loves money and status more than life itself,” Brenda explained.

     “Well at least be thankful your stepsister didn’t come with her,” Juliet said.

     “Believe me, I am. Although I have no idea what she looks like, so I wouldn’t have known is she were here or not. I’ve never even met her.”

     “Really? You’ve known your stepmother for three years and you never met her daughter?”

     “Nope. She never came around for holidays or vacation or anything. She didn’t come to the wedding when her mother married my father and she didn’t even show up at my dad’s funeral.”

     “Is she some sort of anti-social do you think?”

     “I have no idea.”

      “So why is your stepmother so nasty to you anyway?”

     “From what my dad told me she always wanted to marry him. She was very jealous of my mother when my mom and my dad got engaged. She even tried to stop the wedding by claiming that her daughter was his, but my father married my mom, had me and lived happily with us until my mother died and Iris didn’t get him to the altar until twelve years later. And even then, it only lasted six months before my dad was killed in that . . .” Brenda cleared her throat, “umm that car accident. So she never got her happy life with him. She blamed my mother for that and then she transferred her hatred of my mother onto me. That’s the way it’s been ever since,” Brenda said with a shrug.

     Juliet shook her head. “That’s awful. She must treat you terribly.”

     “She does her best,” Brenda said. “But I fully intend to get as far away from her as possible as soon as I graduate school.”

     “Three more years?” Juliet groaned. “Bren, can you hold out that long?”

     Brenda grinned. “A girl’s gotta do, what a girl’s gotta do. Hey, so why aren’t your parents here today?” she asked Juliet. “Or these corporate shark brothers of yours that you’re always talking about? I would have loved to meet them.”

     “Well, let’s see . . . Mom and Dad are vacationing at our house in London and my brother Jerry -- he’s the oldest -- well he just got married last month so he’s finishing up his honeymoon somewhere in the south of France on one of the yachts and won’t be home until tomorrow. My brother Jax - his real name is Jasper, but no one calls him that and lives to tell about it -- he and his best friend Devon . . .”

     “Devon?” Brenda interjected, smiling knowingly. “Would that be the same Devon that you’re always going on and on about?”

     “Right,” Juliet murmured with a sheepish grin. “Anyway, they just went into partnership on this amazing riverboat restaurant and they’re getting it ready for a grand opening on the fourth of July, and that leaves my brother Justin who’s too busy chasing after his Hollywood starlet girlfriend and wouldn’t be caught dead at this school watching his little sister sing in an amateur musical.”

      “Wow. Your family sounds so interesting.”

     “Twisted is the word we normally use amongst ourselves.”

     “Well I was trying to be polite,” Brenda whispered.

     Juliet laughed. “So, do you have plans for the summer?”

     Brenda rolled her eyes. “Oh sure. I plan to be living a nightmare at home back in New York watching my wicked stepmother play Cruella DeVille around the house while she desperately tries to land herself some rich husband. I’ll probably just hang out at the beach all summer to avoid her.”

     “You don’t have a boyfriend?” Juliet asked, surprised. A girl who looked like Brenda Barrett surely would have them lined up for blocks and blocks, maybe even for countries!

     “My stepmother keeps driving any potential ones away. I think that she wants to make sure I have no dates so that I won’t be tempted to get married before I’m 25.”

     “What happens if you get married before you’re 25?”

     “Well I get the money my father left for me, which she - to may utter disgust -- currently has control of. Enough that I could be financially free of her for good, I think,” Brenda explained.

     “Must be tempting,” Juliet said.

     “Oh, I don’t want to get married. And I’m not desperate enough to do it just to get my money. . . at least I don’t think I am. I just don’t want Iris spending my money like it’s hers, and I don’t want her breathing down my neck all the time and doing anything in her power to make me miserable.”

     Juliet was silent for a moment as she had an idea. “Brenda, how would you like to spend the entire summer with me at my house?” she offered.

     Brenda looked shocked. “Your house? As in New Orleans? As in the mansion on St. Charles Avenue?”

     St. Charles Avenue in New Orleans was like New York’s Central Park West and California’s Beverly Hills. It put the L in loaded, the R in rich and the S in swank.

     “Yes. Come on it’ll be a blast! It can be like a real vacation for you, free of charge. Our house is on top of this beautiful hill in the Garden District and it was designed after the Oak Alley place on River Road. We have plenty of room -- the house is huge. It’s so huge that Justin and Jax each have wings of their very own. We have plenty of extra bedrooms. Plus my mom throws lots -- and I do mean lots -- of incredible parties all the time, you can meet tons of people . . .”

     “What about your other brother? What was his name again? He doesn’t live in the mansion with you guys?”

     “Who Jerry? Well, since he got married he moved into the guesthouse on the property right by the foot of the hill. His wife kept getting lost in the main house.”

     “Lost? In a house?”

     Juliet shrugged. “It’s rather big.”

     “Must be. Sounds like you have a lot of land too,” Brenda murmured.

     “Oh yes. Acres and acres,” Juliet said as if it were irrelevant. “Come on, say yes! You’ll be in the lap of luxury and it’ll be such a relief to have someone to band with me against my brothers. We’ll have so much fun! You can meet my family - they’ll just love you! We can go shopping, have pool parties and barbecues, and with my brothers around, you’ll never be bored, I promise you that. And did I mention that our butler is a hoot? And we’ve got the best cook in all of New Orleans. His name is Vince and his wife Sherra is a genuine fortune teller . . .”

     Brenda was chewing on her lower lip. She really wanted to go! Suddenly she frowned though. “Oh I can’t,” she groaned. “I know my stepmother and she’ll just find a way to screw this up for me. She’s completely opposed to anything that might bring me the slightest amount of joy or - God forbid - put me in contact with men. Why do you think she sent me to this all-female music college in the sleepy community of Lake Charles? Trust me, she’s going to make it impossible for me to go with you. She’ll probably use that lame threat about sending me to the nunnery again.”

     “If she’s that mean and unreasonable we just won’t tell her the truth,” Juliet decided.

     Brenda rose a perfect eyebrow. “Now, that might work,” she agreed with a conspiratorial smile. “We’ll just spin an elaborate tale.”

     “Yes we are rather good at that sort of thing. Let’s tell her you got abducted by aliens. That excuse is gaining in popularity these days, you know,” Juliet suggested with a little laugh as she got up from the bed, and began to take items from her dresser and pack them up into her expensive Italian leather suitcases.

      “Oh she would just hop on her broomstick and follow me into outer space if she had to, just to make sure I was adequately miserable. I’m telling you Julie, I would rather go back and eat ten plates of those pork chops than go home this summer.”

     “You’re not going home, Brenda. I’ve already told you that. All we have to do is come up with an excuse to give your dreadful stepmother, that’s all, and I think I just came up with a brilliant idea!” she said stopping what she was doing and turning to Brenda. “Why don’t you tell her you’ve signed up for the summer session theater workshop? Then she’ll think you’re here in Lake Charles at school for the whole summer, surrounded by nothing but schoolwork, female teachers and female students. That ought to convince her that you’ll have an awful summer.”

     “And if she thinks I’ll be having an awful summer she’ll leave me alone,” Brenda murmured liking this particular fib.

     “But what if she gets the notion to come to school to see you?”

     “Oh we don’t have to worry about that. She only came today because she was trying to scope out the rich divorcees. She won’t show up here again until the next big school function that includes men.”

     “Well then she’ll never know a thing, will she?” Juliet said with a smile.

     “Not likely,” Brenda agreed enthusiastically and then she raised her hands in the air as if she had scored a touchdown. “New Orleans here I come! So when do we leave?” she asked with the excited impatience of a 12 year old.

     “The limo is coming to get me on Wednesday,” Juliet told her.

     Brenda suddenly glanced at her friend. “Wow, that’s only three days away. Shouldn’t you call your parents or your brothers or somebody and let them know you’re taking somebody home with you for three months?”

     Juliet shrugged. “Oh why do that? They love surprises,” she said.

     “But . .uh . . .”

     “Don’t worry about it,” Juliet assured her as she dragged Brenda by the arm and they left the dorm room to go get a decent meal at the diner two blocks away and make plans for their summer.