From Twinkle, With Love(38)

See, I have a lot going on. I don’t need to be nervous about N. But that doesn’t mean I don’t want to look as beautiful and sexy and “shiny, future self” as possible. Fake it till you make it and all that. This could be the beginning of the future, non-groundling me. Tonight might be the night I look back on fondly once things have turned around for me. Shouldn’t I look my best for it? (No heels, though. That’s where I draw the line.)

Love,

Twinkle





Saturday, June 13

Car ride with Papa


Dear Sofia Coppola,

Papa’s driving me to the carnival. I would be more focused on meeting N in just half an hour, but I’m too busy being stunned by my unbelievably weird day so far.

I had no idea looking beautiful and sexyish was as complicated as solving a freaking differential equation.

It all started out pretty well. I got a cute dress at Target. It’s sleeveless and purple lace with these tiny buttons at the back and falls to midthigh. I even picked up some lip gloss and eyeliner on impulse (the dress was on sale, so I was able to get all of that for less than forty dollars, which is what Dadi had given me). But when I got home and began to get dressed (at five p.m., just to give me plenty of time), I realized I’d forgotten a big part of my outfit: my hair.

I mean, it’s long and thick and falls to just above my waist. I usually wear it in a braid so I don’t have to deal with it. But I couldn’t wear a braid to the carnival, for my first meeting with N. I looked up these YouTube videos that promised “5 EASY ways to style hair ANYONE can master!” I must not be “anyone” because I felt like I was wrestling an octopus. Or maybe I needed to be an octopus, because there is no way anyone without eight arms can do all the stuff the girl in the video was doing.

At one point I was in tears. This was not how the first night of the rest of my shiny, new, non-invisible life was supposed to start. Things were supposed to be easy and fun, but everything felt stressy and sweaty and annoying. Honestly? I kept wanting to call Sahil to vent. I longingly imagined him, Skid, Aaron, and me in Perk, just laughing and hanging out. But then I’d tell myself I was being silly. Neil and non-groundling status was what I’ve been dreaming of for so long. Maybe I’m just suffering from impostor syndrome.

Once I dried my tears I tried to recruit Dadi, who said she’d be happy to help and then braided my hair into two braids that were horrifyingly stuck to the side of my head. I looked like I belonged on the hills of Switzerland with milk pails. It was already well past six o’clock at this point and I was beginning to hyperventilate when it hit me: I had the number to an expert hair-doer-upper. Sure, this wasn’t strictly why she’d given me her number, but I was desperate and ready to try just about anything. So I called Victoria Lyons.

At first she thought I was telling her that I had a wig I needed help with for the movie, but when she got that it was my hair that was in dire need, she immediately said, “Oh! Okay, gimme your address.” She showed up twenty-five minutes later with—I am not even kidding—a little suitcase on wheels.

I stared at it because I thought she’d misunderstood and thought I’d asked her over for a sleepover or something. “Um … is that a suitcase?”

“It’s a travel case of all my hair supplies,” Victoria explained. Then, pointing to her luscious red hair, which was in a high, bouncy ponytail, the kind I could never pull off, she said, “Do you think all this magic happens without some serious tools?”

She walked in and looked around at my tiny living room and the attached kitchen. “Oh. This reminds me of this cute little cabin I stayed at in Amsterdam over last winter break. They misrepresented the picture online when I booked! My dad almost sued the pants off them.” She beamed at me, and I realized she didn’t mean any of that to be insulting.

“Um, my room is this way,” I said, walking down the tiny hallway. Once we were inside and she’d had me sit on my desk chair, facing the floor-length mirror on my wall, I said, “Thanks for coming over, by the way. I know you must have stuff to do.”

Victoria smiled slyly. “I figured this had something to do with a boy. And that adorable dress on your bed and this makeup here tells me I’m not wrong.”

I felt my cheeks get warm. Thank goodness for dark skin; Victoria probably couldn’t see it. “No, you’re not wrong.”

Her grin widened as she loosened my hair from the knot I’d tied after Dadi’s disastrous braid attempt. “So, is it Sahil?”

I hitched in a sharp breath. Victoria watched me curiously in the mirror. “Ah, no,” I said. “Not Sahil.”

She nodded. “Okay. Well, you don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to. We’ll just make sure you sweep him off his studly feet. Deal?”

I grinned. “Deal.”

She paused with her hands in my hair. “Although … can I tell you something?”

I looked at her in the mirror. “Sure.”

“You don’t need all this stuff”—she gestured to her suitcase—“to sweep him off his feet. You’re kind of cool in a weirdly quirky way. It draws people in.”

I almost choked on my spit. “No, I’m not.” Had Victoria not noticed that people were so not drawn to me that I, in fact, seemed to repel them? Especially the silk feathered hats?