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“Makeover? I can’t—”
“Blah, blah, blah, yes, I know, you can’t wear makeup because it’s a sin or whatever the hell.” She pushes me into a chair before her vanity. It’s one of those ones with a light-up mirror. The vanity itself is covered with enough makeup for the entire high school. “But your brows need to be plucked. I’m just going to clean them up a little.”
“Don’t take off too much,” I whisper, as she grabs her tweezers. Her eagerness is...troubling. “My mother will kill me.”
“Is there anything your mother won’t kill you for?” she asks, leaning in. I almost jump out of my seat when she plucks the first one.
“Ow!” I cry.
Kappy laughs. “Stop being a baby.” She hands me a tissue. “You’re bleeding though, so hold that there.”
“If it hurt enough to make me bleed,” I reply, “maybe I’m not being a baby.”
“It only hurts the first time,” she says. “Just like sex.”
My eyes fly open, and she laughs again.
“Just kidding. I mean, not really, because I think it does only hurt the first time, but I wouldn’t know. Not for lack of trying.”
I keep my eyes closed, but if she didn’t have a sharp instrument approaching them, they’d definitely fly open once more. “Are you serious? You’re actually...you want that? Now?”
“Yes, Virgin Mary. It’s embarrassing that I haven’t done it yet. I guess you’re waiting for marriage or something crazy?”
I hitch a shoulder, defensive. “I wouldn’t say it’s crazy to wait. It’s in the Bible.”
She laughs. “The Bible also says you can’t wear clothing woven of two different materials, and I notice you wear a poly-cotton blend oxford every fucking day. Now pipe down and let me finish.”
She continues to pluck, and I stop making noise. How strange, though, that the very thing I’d be vilified for at my old school is enviable at this one.
“Okay,” she says at last. “Take a look.”
My eyes open, and I stare. I didn’t realize I was going to look so different—different enough that my parents will notice, and yet it’s definitely an improvement.
“Nice, right?” Kappy asks.
I nod, unable to look away from my reflection. I look like my mom. I mean, I really look like my mom. Her looks have always been celebrated, even in a community that wasn’t supposed to notice. So why do I still feel like the ugly duckling, waiting to be transformed?
Lauren’s house is huge. And there are cars as far as the eye can see.
No. No, no, no.
“I thought it was going to just be a few of us,” I whisper, the blood draining from my face.
“Few is a relative term,” Kappy replies. “Compared to the state’s population, this is quite small.”
I swallow, staring at a Range Rover in the grass, one I am pretty sure Ford’s friend Nico drives. “Are Ford and his friends going to be here?”
“Yeah, but it’ll be fine,” she says. “I swear to you, Ford’s actual friends are nice. JJ is not one of his actual friends.”
“No one’s going to want me here.”
She waves her hand at that. “You can’t let a few dickheads keep you from enjoying your senior year. I’ll have your back. And Alex Torres would definitely have your back. Or your front. Whichever you prefer.”
I raise a brow. I still can’t imagine what she’s saying is true. Alex is as popular as Ford and his stupid friends. There’s no way he’s interested in me.
She grabs my hand and pulls me forward into some huge room that is swarmed with bodies and bass and red Solo cups, and straight to a table that holds every conceivable kind of alcohol. It’s the set-up for yet another after-school special: the one where I get peer-pressured into drinking and wind up high or in jail for something terrible. The one where a promising girl winds up an addict and then pregnant and then dead.
Just like Mary Joyce.
