Page 23 of A Shade of Myself
My eyebrows rose. This was a version of Marsha I could get behind. Maybe final book club would be fun after all.
“I’ll see you Sunday. And Miriam? Thank you.” She hung up, leaving me staring at the phone and wondering what had just happened.
“What’s next?” Emmett stood over me, dripping.
I flung a towel at him. “Wanna clean my house for booze?”
“Toots, you said the magic word.” Forgoing the towel, he strode inside, dripping water everywhere.
He did such a good job cleaning house for the next three hours that I told him he could go through my closet for something to wear to dinner. He laughed, said “As if I’d be caught dead looking like you,” and went upstairs to find Sadie, who’d just gotten home.
I looked down at my sundress. It was cute, wasn’t it? It didn’t need to be ironed or dry cleaned, which was practical. I wandered into my living room, gazing adoringly at the sofa that I’d bought last month. It was a vision of decadent wine velvet that stood out like a sore thumb in an ocean of beige.
When it was delivered, Sadie had clapped her hands and declared this was more like it.
Even Eli had nodded in approval, reminding me of the old red brocade chair he’d had in his first apartment that I’d always curled up in. “Given how much you loved that chair, your furniture choices always confused me. I understand now you wanted to blend in because of your hidden magic, but I’m glad you’re finding that part of yourself again.”
I mulled over his words. The sofa was a good first step but tonight was time for my next one. Smiling, I marched into my bedroom for my transformation.
* * *
One hour later I was sitting on the edge of my bathtub, draped in midnight-blue silk, while Sadie applied false lashes onto my left lid.
I flinched. “Watch it. You almost took out my eye.”
“For the one billionth time, I did not.” She held out the tweezers. “Do it yourself. Oh wait, they looked like a second pair of eyebrows when you tried. Guess you’re stuck with me.”
“Are you this mean to the camp kids?” I checked how tacky the glue was on the second pair of lashes.
“When they bitch as much as you do? Yes.”
Emmett laughed, standing at the bathroom counter and testing shades of lipstick on his hand. He’d borrowed a ruffled pirate shirt and black jodhpurs from Sadie’s cosplay costumes. The pants were too short and too small, held together with a belt, but the shirt was okay, since it was baggy on Sadie. He looked kind of raffish, especially with the black top hat he’d perched jauntily on his head. “You two are exactly alike,” he said.
“Wow,” Sadie said.
“Truth hurts, kid.” He made a face at a sheer pink gloss, adding it to his discard pile.
“Hey!” I prodded my child. “Show some respect.”
She wrapped her arms around me. “I adore you, Mom, and I’m proud to have inherited your mean genes.”
I leaned into her embrace. “That’s better.”
“Now.” She straightened up, waving the tweezers menacingly. “Sit still and keep quiet while I make you look beauuutiful.”
Emmett snorted and I kicked his shin.
The pain of kicking someone made of solid, hardened clay was mostly worth the gain.
I admired my smoky eyes with the swipe of green shadow that made my brown eyes look sensual while the false lashes brightened them up. Then I sucked in my cheeks. “Cheekbones, who knew?”
“I could give you a ten-minute daily makeup routine,” Sadie said hopefully. “Super easy.”
I applied my scarlet lipstick. “That’s about eight and a half minutes too long for me, kiddo.”
“One day,” she muttered darkly and left the bathroom.
It took a few minutes to pry Emmett away from his primping in front of the mirror, but we made it to the parking garage leading to the hidden magic speakeasy with five minutes to spare.
