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I laugh, the sound shrill to my own ears. “Do I?” I look down at the makeup that’s spread on my bed, not having any idea where to start. “I don’t know what I’m doing,” I finally admit.
“Oh, lovely.” She shuffles closer, placing her hand on my cheek and lifting my face up to hers. “It’s okay.”
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sp; I shake my head, the telltale burning in my nose telling me that tears are sure to come at any stage now. “It’s not. I have no idea what I’m doing. Is there any point in this date? I may not be here much longer and he’s only just gotten out of a relationship—”
“First off,” Livvy starts, her eyes lighting with fire. “That woman was nothing but bad news.” I open my mouth to say, “But she’s a police officer,” but she beats me to it. “She may have had the title of officer, but she’s rotten to the core.”
“I—”
“She doesn’t deserve someone like that sweet boy… now, you? You deserve him and he deserves you. You’ve been through so much in your short lifetime, getting the worse end of the bargain constantly.”
“But—”
“Nope.” She shakes her head, leaning forward. “No buts. You have fun, you go out and laugh, dance the night away, eat some junk food. But most of all, be you. Show him who you are in here.” She points to my chest. “Show him the real you, because I know for a fact that once he sees that, he’ll never be able to look back.”
I bite my bottom lip, not knowing what to say to that. Letting him see who I am is scary, what if he doesn’t like the real me? What if he’s only doing this because he feels sorry for me? What if—
“I can see those thoughts swirling. Get rid of them. It’s one night, not the rest of your life. Go and have fun.”
I look back up at her, scanning her eyes. Can I do this? Can I really?
I let out a breath, nodding my head to myself. I can do this, I’ve already showed him a part of myself that I never thought I’d be able to. So why does this feel so much harder to do than that?
“Now this.” Livvy lets go of my face, pointing at the makeup. “This I can help with.” She stands up, picking up some foundation and reading the label. “Back in my day, I was a pro at this.”
“You were?” I ask, watching as she pushes a couple of pumps of the liquid onto the back of her hand and picks up a brush.
“I sure was,” she answers, applying it to my face. “I used to do all my friends’ makeup before the Saturday night dances. I think I preferred to do this rather than actually attend them.” She chuckles and continues applying my makeup, telling me all about the dances she used to attend and the people she met.
When she gets to her first husband—yes, you heard that right, she’s had three husbands—she tells me how she only thought she was in love with him.
“Now, Dylan—the second.” She tilts my head back and tells me to close my eyes. “I knew right away that he was my one true love. The way I felt when I first looked at him, the way he made me feel like nothing but me. I knew then and there that there’d be no one else like him.”
“Really?” I ask, feeling those butterflies in my stomach again.
“Yep! I have no doubt that I’d still be married to him had he not died.”
“Oh, I’m so sorry,” I say automatically.
“Don’t be sorry—open up.” I open my eyes as she puts on a little more eyeshadow. “When you have that kind of love, you should never be sorry. If you have it for a week, a year, or all of your life, you cherish every single moment of it.”
I swallow as she comes at my eye with a black pen thing, telling me to close my eyes again.
“What was he like?” I ask, wanting to know more.
“A perfect mixture of West and Sebastian,” she answers, moving to the other eye.
“West and Seb are Dylan’s grandsons?” I try not to frown.
“They sure are, my first husband only lasted six months,” she says, running the tip of the pen on my eyelid. “Their mother, Dalia, she was the most beautiful thing, and so much like her father it was unreal.”
“Dalia?” I ask, wondering what she was like. Livvy isn’t the kind of person who has photographs of people around her house.
“Yeah.” She taps my chin twice, taking a step back and checking out my face and her handiwork. “She went down the wrong path, those two boys were born when she was sixteen. She was never the kind of person to get into trouble, but she fell into the wrong crowd, and well... one thing led to another I suppose.”
I nod sadly, knowing just how much one decision, one action, can change your whole life. That’s all it took to change mine forever.
