"It's friggin' raining! What the heck? My hair is going to get all messed up now!"

Sophie glanced over at her cousin Lorraine and suppressed the almost overwhelming urge to roll her eyes. "Lorraine, it's Arizona in the middle of monsoon season. Just be happy it's not a dust storm."

Lorraine ignored her. "I mean, I put all this effort into looking absolutely fabulous so that I can catch Zane's attention. Now I'm going to look terrible."

Sophie clamped her mouth shut so what she wanted to say wouldn't come flying out. Lorraine already looked like a hooker. And not even one of the high-class call girls. A street-walking, right out of the ghetto in Phoenix, two-bit hooker. Her shirt could barely be classified as a shirt. More like a scrap of black material that almost covered her enormous, fake double Ds. Her pants were red pleather and so low that her black G-string hung out. Her platinum hair resembled something out of a bad eighties movie, and Sophie was pretty sure that if it rained too hard, Lorraine's makeup would turn her into an escaped circus clown.

Lorraine snorted and glanced down at Sophie, flipping her hair over her shoulder. "Not like you have to worry about anything," she said in her belligerent tone. "You always look the same no matter what kind of weather." She gave a high-pitched, witchy giggle. "Snow, rain, sun, it doesn't matter, you always look bor-ing." She sang the last word and puffed her hair again.

Sophie heaved a sigh. Going anywhere with Lorraine was the worst form of torture. She'd rather have a root canal...she'd rather have a root canal with no Novocain. The only reason Sophie was here with her now was because her car had broken down immediately before the concert, and Lorraine was the only person who would go at the last minute.

None of Sophie's friends liked metal music, and they all thought she was ridiculous. They had some stupid notion that, because she taught orchestra and choir, she should only listen to Mozart, or Broadway hits, or something. It was dumb. So what if she taught classical music? She happened to like brash, ugly-sounding guitars and pounding drums. She spent five days a week teaching the classics. The last thing she wanted to do was listen to them on her off time too.

Lorraine snorted again. "I mean, really, what kind of attention are you going to attract in that?"

Sophie returned to the present and glanced down at the outfit Lorraine was mocking. She wore jeans and a black, fitted T-shirt with the band's logo on it. She frowned. "What are you talking about? I'm wearing the band's shirt. What's wrong with that?"

Lorraine rolled her eyes. "Wearing the band's shirt only makes you look like an obsessed fan."

Sophie raised an eyebrow.