You Should See Me in a Crown(56)
The fifteen of us who still haven’t dropped out of the race, despite the outrageous time commitment and absurd amount of stress, are dispatched to different dressing rooms in the theater hallway and given our selection of shoes and tuxes and dresses to choose from out of the theater department’s costume closet. Everyone is buzzing, a strange excited energy that feels like a definite precursor to what prom will be like.
I get ready quickly, throwing on one of the dresses in my size from the closet and picking a pair of heels that I seriously hope don’t make me topple over and break my ankle. The dress is beautiful but decidedly not for me. It’s a floor-length gown, strapless, with gold sequins all over it. The sequins are scratchy under my armpits as I pull it on.
The dressing room has mostly emptied out. All the girls rushed in and put on their makeup and clothes in a flurry of activity, but I hung back in the costume closet until I figured everyone would be taking their places out in the parking lot.
I know everyone is out there. I know Amanda is out there. And I’m still not ready to face her.
“I know she’s being annoying about not being able to be crowned with Derek, but it’s so sad.” There’s a muffled voice coming from the other side of the vanity mirrors and the swish of moving taffeta.
I’m tucked behind the folding partition that’s up in the girls’ dressing room, trying to zip myself into my dress, so I can only assume that whoever remains has no idea they’re not alone. I peek around the side of the partition and am surprised I couldn’t place the voice faster. Quinn and Lucy stand nearby applying makeup that looks like dirt to their faces. Rachel is nowhere to be found, so I assume she’s already outside and in position. They don’t notice me from my spot, and I don’t make any move to be seen.
“Derek is such an idiot.” It’s Lucy. “He knew how bad she wanted this, and he just had to make a scene at the Bake-Off to show off for his boys. It’s such … What’s that thing we learned in sociology?”
Quinn responds. “Toxic masculinity?”
“Yes! Ugh, so totally toxic. I get why she had to break up with him.” Lucy groans. “And now she’s so worried about what it must look like for her to be single right before prom, she’s being even worse than usual.”
“You think she’ll actually go through with her plan to—”
I bump into the partition as I try and slide on the strappy pair of heels I pulled from the costume room, and the whole thing falls to the ground with a boom.
Quinn and Lucy immediately rush toward where I’m just barely standing.
“Oh my gosh, Liz!” Quinn’s heels click-clack on her way over to me. “We didn’t even know you were in here.” She cuts her eyes over to Lucy so quick, if I’d blinked, I would have missed it. “We could have helped you get ready!”
Lucy steadies me by wrapping an arm around my waist, and Quinn sets the partition upright again. She dusts her hands off like she’s accomplished a great feat of manual labor and smiles at me brightly.
“Your makeup isn’t even done yet.” Lucy tsks and pulls me back toward the mirror they’ve just abandoned.
“Yeah, it is!” I wave in front of my face. I did a pretty haphazard job of applying some fake blood, but I figure it’s good enough for me to hang halfway out of an upside-down Tahoe for an hour.
Now that I can see them in full view, I realize how made up they are. It’s not nearly as elaborate as they’ll be on prom night, but it’s definitely more than just school makeup. They both look thoroughly battered and bruised, but beneath that lies two otherwise picture-perfect prom queen contenders.
Lucy, who spends most of her days donning her pom squad uniform, is wearing a sleek silver gown that would probably drag on the floor if she weren’t wearing heels. And Quinn has a pale pink corset top that blooms into a wide silk skirt adorned with watercolor flowers at the bottom.
“No.” Lucy shakes her head and drags me in the direction of the vanity mirrors. “No, it’s really not.”
“Liz, Demo Day is a big deal! We have to make sure you look like a cohesive member of our Dead Girl Posse,” Quinn says. We’re in the same car for the demo, while Rachel is in Jordan’s. Quinn pulls a makeup sponge out of her sparkly pink Caboodle. “But we’ll have you performance ready in, like, two seconds. Don’t worry.”
“Why are you guys helping me?” I ask, looking between their reflections in the mirror. “Rachel would be seething if she saw you two with the competition.”
I think briefly about my own best friend, about what she’d say about this moment. She’d probably be pleased that I was aligning myself with the PomBots. Might say something like, “Only hitch your star to one that’s rising, my congenial but credulous best friend. Fraternizing with the enemy is okay as long as you end up on top.”
But Lucy just clicks her tongue. “Has anyone ever plucked your eyebrows before?”
“Let’s do it, Luce!” Quinn claps her hands together. She looks at me. “You have a beautiful brow line, Liz. It just needs some definition.”
I shake my head and take a step back. “No way. I’m not letting you two anywhere near my eyebrows. That sounds like the quintessential surefire sabotage plot.”
“Liz, if the two of us were going to sabotage you, it would’ve happened already.” Lucy rolls her eyes and pulls me back to her. “Besides, we don’t have a problem with you. That’s Rachel’s thing.”