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“Because you think I wear too much makeup, right?”
“You do wear too much makeup. Come on, Luce, it’ll be fun. Get your stuff and I’ll get mine.”
Lucy regarded her with teenage condescension. “If it’ll make you happy.”
“I’ll be delirious.”
After they’d both gotten their cosmetics, Lucy insisted on fixing up Nealy first. While Button toddled after a long-suffering Squid, the teenager applied layers of makeup to Nealy’s face, then surveyed the results with a matchmaker’s satisfaction. “You look so hot. Wait till Mat sees you.”
Nealy studied herself in the mirror they’d propped on the arm of the couch. All she needed was a pimp and a street corner. She was afraid to laugh for fear her face would crack. “It’s my turn.” “I’m going to look like such a dweeb.”
“But you’ll be a cute dweeb.”
She set to work, applying only the lightest touch of eye makeup, then running her own pale lip pencil over Lucy’s mouth, followed by a layer of colorless Blistex. “This is what Sandra Bullock uses instead of lipstick.”
“Like how would you know?”
Like Sandra Bullock had told her. “I read it in a magazine.”
Lucy regarded herself a little less critically.
Nealy pulled out three pink butterfly pins she’d hidden in the pocket of her shorts. She’d bought them as a surprise, and now she slipped them into Lucy’s bangs.
Lucy stared at her reflection. “Ohmygod, Nell, they’re so cool.”
“Look at you, Luce. You’re completely gorgeous. Promise me you’ll only wear that heavy makeup if you’re having one of those I-feel-like-a-slut days.”
Lucy rolled her eyes.
“You don’t need to hide behind a mask,” Nealy said softly. “You know exactly who you are.”
Lucy began picking at the arm of the chair. Nealy decided to give her a few minutes to think about what she’d said and picked up Button, who was trying to stuff her head in the wastebasket. “Come on, punkin’. It’s your turn.”
She set the baby on the chair, dabbed the tip of her nose with pink lipstick, then drew on a delicate set of whiskers with Lucy’s eyebrow pencil. Lucy giggled.
Button was carrying on a delighted monologue with her reflection when the sultan of the palace walked into his harem. He’d finished his run, and he had a basketball tucked against his sweaty T-shirt. All three of them turned at once.
The sultan was wise in the ways of women, and he knew exactly what to do. “Who’s this cute little mouse?” He rubbed Button’s downy head, and she gave a round of baby applause.
Then his eyes settled on Lucy.
Nealy saw a whole world of feelings pass across her face: uncertainty, longing, and the protective armor of her sullenness.
“You look beautiful,” he said simply.
She took a shaky breath. “You’re just saying that.”
“I say what I mean.”
She began to glow. He squeezed her shoulder, then slowly turned to Nealy, but her appearance seemed to have left him at a loss for words. He studied the heavy foundation, the sooty eyes with their thick coat of black mascara, and her crimson mouth.
“Doesn’t Nell look great,” Lucy exclaimed. “I mean, if she didn’t have that stupid pillow on, she’d look like a model.”
“She does have commercial appeal.”
He countered Nealy’s raised eyebrows with a grin, then turned back to Lucy. “Come on, kid. Get your shoes and let’s go shoot some baskets. Nell, stay here, you got it?”
“Got it.” She tossed him a salute.
