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Whatever weird spell was between us is broken, and Peter straightens, stepping away to open the door.
Under her eyes and her nose, the skin is red from crying, her eye makeup smudged. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to get upset—”
I stand and cut her off. “Believe me, you aren’t the first person who’s gotten emotional after seeing a new look.”
I change the subject. There have been enough tears. “Would you like me to do some repair work?”
She nods and flashes a smile.
We go back downstairs, and I apply more concealer and fix her eye makeup. Juna sits on the couch this time, not hovering but keeping a watchful eye on her daughter and what I’m doing.
“I have to admit,” she says as I swipe some mascara on Sylvie’s eyelashes, “I’ve never been into makeup. Never. Not even when I was a teenager.”
“That’s not true,” Peter says from across the room. “You went goth for a while. We had to listen to Rammstein, and Mami got upset when you forgot to wash your face and stained the pillows.”
I glance at Juna. “You were goth?”
She huffs. “I was a teenager. They do weird things.”
“Mamineverwears makeup,” Sylvie chimes in. “Not even to our cousin’s wedding.”
I cap the mascara. “We’re done.” I reach into my case and pull out a soft, subtle pink lip color. I raise an eyebrow at Sylvie. “What do you think? Is this a good color for your mom?”
Sylvie grins and looks at the selection, pulling out a few brighter colors. Juna makes a face.
“Part of my job is figuring out not just what makes people look good, but what they’d actually wear. It can be more about how they see themselves as opposed to how society wants to see them. After all, we don’t want to look like someone else, right?”
“I guess,” Sylvie says. “If I was pretty—”
Juna and I both protest, but I get my words out first. “Don’t. You’re very pretty, and if I have to convince you of how pretty you are, I’m going to say some nice things and make you cry again.”
Sylvie laughs like I hoped she would.
“The point is to make your mom look like herself, but accentuated. Just like we did with you.” I hold up the tube of pink. “So, Juna...?”
10
Peter
Kara doesn’t stopwith my niece. She does my sister’s makeup—light and barely there but enough to please both Sylvie and Juna—and then Mami’s and even puts some lipstick on Grosi. And then Mami decides dinner is going to be formal this evening.
While I change into one of my suits, Kara helps my niece pick through her wardrobe and find something to wear.
I know that being a teenager is hard, and it’s been exceedingly difficult on my sister’s family as Sylvie transitions. I know from many late-night calls from Juna that hormone therapy, teasing from classmates, and dead naming are constantly nipping at the heels of the household’s sanity.
So, for Kara to devote so much time and care into my niece felt like a miracle. I’m just an uncle; I don’t truly understand the depths of what that family is going through, but when Sylvie cried, it broke me in some way.
Broke me enough to kiss Kara. It wasn’t intentional, I don’t think. It wasn’t a sexy kiss; it was just driven by pure instinct and gratitude.
Afterward, though, when my thumb had stroked the soft skin above her collarbone, and we’d stared at each other, I’d felt something stir.
I shake my head and slide my arms into my button-up.
There’s a knock at the door. “Yes?”
“Um,” Kara’s voice wafts through the door. “It’s me, can I come in?”
I look down. My shirt is half buttoned, and underneath, I’ve only got boxer-briefs on. “Just a moment.” I grab the pants from the bed and pull them on while hopping across the room to the door. Kara’s seen me in my underwear before, but this feels different, more intimate. We’re about to sit down to dinner with my family, and I don’t even know what the kiss earlier meant.
