Rock Bottom Girl(72)

“Are you ready for the reveal?” Wilma asked.

She didn’t wait for an answer. My chair was spinning, and the mirror was coming into view. Please don’t let it be awful. Please don’t let it be awful.

I did a double take. And then a triple one. The person in the mirror looked like me. Sort of. Except her hair was now a choppy shoulder-length cut. It was full. There were coppery highlights shimmering in the gentle waves.

“I gave you face-framing layers so you can have some visual interest when you pull it back,” Wilma said, demonstrating by gathering my hair at the base of my neck in a fist. The layers cut across my forehead and curled gently around my jawline.

“It makes my forehead look normal-sized,” I observed. Zinnia, in a fit of PMS, had once called my forehead a fivehead. She wasn’t wrong. There was a lot of acreage above my eyebrows. And it had given me something else to be paranoid about for the rest of my life.

I tilted my head side to side and watched in fascination as those loose waves moved and caught the light. I didn’t want to sound like a shallow girly girl, but this was probably worth my emergency fund.

“Well?” Phoebe demanded. “Do you love it?”

“You better love it,” Angela said.

They all chimed in, demanding my opinion.

“I do. I do love it,” I admitted. “You guys definitely did not screw me over.”

“She means ‘thank you,’” Ruby said smugly.

I laughed and pushed my fingers into this strange hair.

“Here are three ways to wear your hair. Two of them should take under ten minutes to style. And these are your products,” Wilma said, holding up a paper and a trio of bottles. “For frizzies between washing. For volume at the roots. For style hold.”

“Oh, I can’t afford—”

“It’s all been taken care of,” Wilma said. “Including the tip.”

“By who?” I demanded. Had my dad stormed the store this morning, waving a credit card?

Wilma pointed to the team. “Them.”

“You guys!” I stared at the girls, floored.

They grinned.

“I can’t accept this. It’s too much. It’s probably illegal,” I pointed out.

“You believed in us. You’re making us better. We’re just returning the favor.”

“We took up a collection.”

“I guilted my parents into a donation.”

I was humbled. Embarrassed. Deeply touched.

“I don’t know what to say,” I confessed. Self-consciously, I held up my hands and formed a heart with my fingers. Grinning, my girls repeated the gesture.

“Now let’s move on to makeup!”





43





Marley





I didn’t recognize the person in the mirror. She was tall and lean-ish. Her hair was artfully choppy in a careless “I rolled out of bed looking gorgeous” way that I prayed I could replicate on my own. Her normal, boring brown eyes were two times bigger thanks to a very nice neutral palette and some excellent mascara. Her lips were painted a subtle nude that shimmered a bit. Her eyebrows were waxed and glossed to perfection. And she had a mountain of cosmetics neatly lined up on her childhood dresser.

She looked like she could handle spending an evening at a bonfire with a bunch of people who would only remember how her revenge plot had ruined an entire Homecoming celebration.

She was supposed to be me. Only a better version that involved actual effort.

I couldn’t help myself. I snapped a selfie and sent it to my sister.

Zinnia: What the hell happened to you, and can you make it happen to me too? If this is a photo filter, I need it.





Me: My team made me over. I don’t recognize myself.





Zinnia: You look gorgeous! Tell me you’re not wasting that look on Saturday night leftovers with M&D.





Me: Actually, Jake’s taking me out.





Zinnia: You can’t hear me, but I’m squealing right now. Okay. I’m squealing internally because I’m at Edith’s violin concert. Where are you going? Will there be sex?





Me: Uh. Yeah. Fake relationship. Remember?





Zinnia: He’s single. You’re single. He’s gorgeous. You’re gorgeous. I’m not seeing the problem.





Me: Sex would complicate EVERYTHING.





Zinnia: Your willpower is laudable. And annoying. If you loved me at all, you’d have sex with Jake and then write up a detailed report on it for me.





Me: You’re ridiculous.





Zinnia: Gotta go. Miss Edith just strode on stage in epic resting bitch face. She’s about to rock this place with the Suzuki rendition of Itsy Bitsy Spider.





Ahh, precocious child proteges.

Me: Break a leg, Edith.





I glanced at the time and realized Jake was picking me up any minute. I gave myself a last once-over, reveling in the fact that “oh well, whatever” didn’t echo in my head like it usually did. I’d kept the jeans, changed into a cute green sweater I’d stolen from my mom’s closet and added a puffy vest for warmth. I looked…good.