Bookishly Ever After (Ever After #1)(18)
Golden. Maeve. She was brave and smart and witty. And she had to go undercover and not be herself to help Aedan. She’d be perfect. Except for the fact that she was a little bit aloof sometimes…
My focus drifted back to the Hidden House series. Okay, so maybe a little bit of Marissa mixed in with the Maeve wouldn’t hurt.
I picked up my phone and typed a quick text to Grace. Time to make some changes.
The Hidden House series book 1: Hidden PG 147
My eyeliner is perfect, making my eyes look dark and mysterious. Ditto my red lipstick. With one last check in my phone, I shut off the camera and yank my hair out of my ponytail. It falls down my back in wild curls. No straightener today.
“You look like a harlot.” I turn and smile at Cyril, who is scowling at me from the mirror.
“Maybe in your century. Now, it’s just considered hot.” I say back to him with a wide grin. I push my peasant top a little bit more off of my shoulders1 and step back to show him the whole outfit. “Do you think this will get his attention off the house?”
“I think I don’t like this idea.” But his eyes wander appreciatively from my legs up, up slowly to my face. He shakes his head and his expression grows even sterner.
“Which part don’t you like, the mini skirt or the fact that I’m going to be romancing Daniel Shen until he believes there’s no point in continuing his investigation here?”
“Both.” Eyes that match the silvering of the mirror bore into mine. “I may have been trapped in here for a century, but I doubt what you are about to do could be considered right on any moral scale.”
“It will be if it keeps him from ghost hunting you into oblivion.” I tell him. I grab my messenger bag—backpacks are such a bad idea with minis—and throw my lipstick in the front pocket. “Besides, it might be fun to be the Mata Hari of Brookview High.”
“Who?”
Right. He’s pre-World War One. I raise one perfectly arched eyebrow at him. “I’ll tell you about her later.” Getting into character, I blow a little kiss at the mirror and saunter2 out of the room, putting a little bit of merengue into my hips. He follows me through the mirror on the stairway and the hall mirror, but I ignore his protests and push through the front door.
It’s time to save his hot, mirror-trapped self3.
10
Makeovers in books and movies looked like so much fun. Not so much in real life.
“Would you please stop manhandling me?” I dug my fingers into the velvety vanity seat cushion as Grace, her own hair flowing down her back in a perfect rose gold sheet, yanked another handful of my now brown-again hair and started threading it into a spiraly tube roller thingie.
Another tug, this time hard enough to make my eyes water. “You’re way too sensitive. Trust me, this is nothing. Wait until I tackle those eyebrows.”
My hand reflexively went up to my eyebrows. “You’re not touching me with any sharp objects. I take care of them.”
“I didn’t say that you don’t. But I can make them better. Geometry actually comes into play if you do it right.” One last pull at my hair and she stepped away, letting me see myself in the mirror. Between the pore strip across my nose and the spirals of curlers sticking off of my head, I looked like something out of Star Wars. “Besides, you’re the one who changed her mind about the makeover. I could totally get a few blackmail photos of you right now,” she said with a laugh. “Don’t even joke about that.” I took a deep breath. “So, what’s next, oh guru of Fifth Avenue?”
She reached forward to yank the pore strip off of my nose and I cringed at the sharp skin-tearing feeling. “Clothes. I’m going to reevaluate your wardrobe later, but a makeover isn’t a makeover without that moment where you walk into school and everyone stares at you. We need the full effect tomorrow.” She grabbed my hand and pulled me over to her massive walk-in closet. “I think I might have something that will work for you.”
Right. Grace was built like a dancer. I…wasn’t. But I let her pull me along, anyway. As she rifled through hangers filled with designer clothes, I shifted from one foot to the other nervously. “What do you think about what Em’s been saying about me and Dev?” My words were a little more halting than I had hoped.
Grace looked up with a frown, her dark eyes studying me for a minute before saying in a measured tone, “A bit of advice? Never let anyone tell you what you should or should not do or who you should date. Em and I are like this…” she held up two crossed fingers, “but sometimes she gets so carried away with things that she forgets it’s your life, not hers.” She held a plaid skirt up against me. “Well-meaning people are going to always try to butt into your life and make you fit their idea of what’s best. Believe me, I know. But if you try to make everyone else happy, you’re going to end up miserable.”
I tried not to frown as she paired a white, cabled sweater with the skirt. I would look like a preppy cheerleader wannabe, and the commercial cabling was just plain uninspired. I could cable a better pattern in my sleep.
“I know. But I also get that I’m socially inept and don’t always catch things, like that social mirroring stuff you were talking about.”
Grace pursed her lips, shook her head, tossed aside the sweater, and reached for a black top instead.