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But then I had picked it up.

Hadn’t I?

I was sure I had. I was sure I had picked it up and carried it back into the living room, stubbing it out in Granny Wanda’s ashtray.

At least I thought I had.





CHAPTER EIGHTEEN





CAT


I’ve often thought of myself as something of a Frankenstein’s monster. My individual pieces might be fine on their own—my thick hair, my long legs—but the overall effect is off-putting. I should be pretty, but I’m not.

I used to assign blame to specific characteristics: my teeth weren’t straight enough; my skin was bad. My parents took me to an orthodontist and a dermatologist, as well as an aesthetician to address what my mother called my “masculine brows” (a feature I hadn’t thought to worry over until that moment), and I still wasn’t satisfied. When I hit a growth spurt the summer before ninth grade and rocketed up six inches in the span of three months, baby fat distributing in the process, I was relieved. My face might still have its flaws, but my newly conventionally attractive body would surely be my ticket to popularity. Boys would ask me out; girls would no longer torment me for sport.

I was wrong.

I didn’t understand how my body’s metamorphosis could fail to translate into increased social standing until I met Audrey. Objectively, she was no great beauty. She was unusually short, with red hair, freckles, and a sharp chin; there was something foxlike in her appearance. She had one bicuspid that turned inward and a crooked smile to conceal it, and she was quick to develop dark, bruise-like circles under her eyes. If you were to score us on physical attributes alone, I would rate higher than Audrey on almost any scale.

And yet she captivated people. Audrey turned every head in every room she ever entered, and people fell all over themselves to be in her presence. I studied her, trying to understand what made her so utterly bewitching. After weeks of careful observation, I finally concluded it was indefinable. Audrey sparkled and that was all there was to it.

Knowing I would never possess even a fraction of Audrey’s innate charm was somehow freeing, allowing me to stop trying to emulate her and to instead focus my energy on things that were in my control, like my education and my career. I was proud of what I’d accomplished, and greatly enjoyed updating my LinkedIn page with new achievements: big cases on which I’d worked, articles I’d written for legal journals. I might not ever hold a roomful of people in my thrall like Audrey could, but I could certainly impress when needed.

Still, I longed to be thought of as feminine, to be a romantic heroine setting my prince’s heart aflutter. So when Audrey suggested doing my hair and makeup before trivia, I agreed with only the briefest hesitation. I left work at five o’clock for the first time in my professional life, leaving my office light on and sneaking into the elevator when no one was looking, and was waiting with a stomach full of nerves when Audrey arrived at my apartment thirty minutes later. It was silly to expect she could transfer some of her je ne sais quoi to me through a swipe of mascara, and yet I was hopeful.

She greeted me with a frown. “That’s not what you’re planning on wearing, is it?”

I glanced down at the gray J.Crew sheath I’d worn to work, trying to see it through Audrey’s eyes. It had always been one of my favorite dresses, an understated, easy piece with a matching suit jacket, but now I realized how boring it was.

“Of course not,” I said.

Her light eyes twinkled as she laughed. “Liar. But don’t worry. I’m here to help.”

From her bag, Audrey produced a black T-shirt with a plunging neckline.

“I can’t wear this,” I told her. “There’s no way I can pull it off.”

“You absolutely can.”

“No, Audrey—”

“It’ll look great on you,” she interrupted. “Come on, Kitty-Cat. Trust me.”

I eyed the shirt nervously, imagining my thin, pale chest exposed by the expansive V-neck. How would that be appealing to Connor?

“You trust me, don’t you?” she pressed.

I wanted to trust Audrey. I wanted to believe she could work a miracle.

“Of course,” I finally said. “I trust you.”

? ? ?

AUDREY SET UP her laptop on my bathroom counter and began searching for YouTube videos on eyebrow shaping. Shame burned in my chest as she clicked through video after video, a pair of neon-pink tweezers in her hand.

“Sorry about these masculine brows,” I murmured, running my fingers over them self-consciously.

“Are you kidding? You have amazing brows.”

I searched her face for signs of sarcasm, but saw none.

“I would kill for strong brows like yours. That’s why I’m looking up these videos—I want to make sure I’m doing you justice. I only have these little scraggly things to work with.”

I studied Audrey’s eyebrows, realizing with surprise that they weren’t the perfect, tawny arches they appeared to be. They were sparser than I thought, filled in with pencil and powder.

“Your eyebrows look great,” I said honestly.

“It’s all smoke and mirrors,” she said, taking hold of my face in one hand. “Now don’t move.”

? ? ?

AS AUDREY SMOOTHED creamy foundation over my skin, I couldn’t help but think of Emily Snow daubing Cover Girl on my face in our cabin. Look at you, she’d chirped. Just like a model.