was in that vial your boyfriend brought to the beach?”
“What are you, Aaron, some kind of private detective?”
“He said it was liquid clairvoyance.”
Amber pulled her keys out of her backpack and reached for her car door. “I’m kind of done talking to you,” she said, “and for your information, it was just a glow stick.”
She slammed the door in his face.
Well, that went well, Aaron thought, as her tires squealed on the asphalt and left him in a puff of burnt rubber.
***
“It’s too suggestive,” said Amber’s mother.
Amber stood on a pedestal wearing the dress, still fuming inside from her conversation with Aaron. Just who did he think he was? At the moment, a dozen people were looking her up and down.
She felt André’s hands on her waist. “We want to display her athletic figure,” he said. “The fabric accentuates movement, lightness. Step down, Amber, try walking around a bit.”
She stepped off the stool and walked a few feet then turned around. The group murmured its approval.
“And what are those ruffles, André?”
André smiled. “It’s a fabric, Mrs. Lilian. It has to move.”
“Can you tighten that up along the side?”
“Quit nitpicking,” said her father. “He’s done a fine job.”
“You have no idea how camera flashes can amplify these imperfections,” said her mother.
“Imperfections?” scoffed Dravin, one of her parents’ friends, as his vulture-like eyes inspected Amber favorably from behind his glasses. “All I see is perfection.”
“Quiet,” said her mother. “André, do you have any brighter lights? I can’t see anything properly in your cave of a studio.”
André brought out two halogen lights on stands and they, like the eyes of her dozen admirers, were trained on Amber’s body.
“Congratulations,” said her mother. “You’ve wrapped her in vinyl.”
“There needs to be luster,” said André.
“Can it be charmeuse?” she said.
“Mrs. Lilian, the dress is done,” he said. “We’re just making the final adjustments.”
“Then do it again,” she said.
“But there isn’t enough time,” he muttered.
“Can we put padding in the cups?” said her mother.
André scowled.
“Ignore her,” said her father. “The dress is flawless.”
“It is not flawless,” said her mother.
While they bickered, Amber wandered into the corner and stared at herself in a mirror. Her hair was pinned up so every part of the dress could be seen, admired, and scrutinized for flaws. Just like her.
The silk was whisper-light on her skin, barely touching her, but not so loose they couldn’t see what she was shaped like underneath. It was André’s most appealing design so far—and probably the one she’d wear on her eighteenth birthday, although the thought made her stomach squirm.
She couldn’t stand the idea that once she met her half—once she belonged to him—she would never again be considered her own person. Irresistible as she was in André’s dress, she felt the urge to rip it off and don baggy sweatpants. The worst part, though, was she doubted there was even a single seventeen-year-old in the world who could empathize with her.
Well, maybe one seventeen-year-old.
Amber realized she was about to start thinking about Aaron all over again and sighed in frustration. She had thought about him way too much ever since he came to her school last week. But that wasn’t because she liked him. He was a jerk.
She just couldn’t figure him out, and though she didn’t trust him at all, she wished she had told him what she knew about the missing boy from her high school—at least to get it off her chest. Now he probably thought she was hiding something. Which she was.
And why did she care what Aaron thought? For all she cared, he could curse her name in his sleep.
Dravin appeared behind her, his half at his side. “He’ll be lovesick when he sees you, sweetheart.”
“Fine. As long as he doesn’t puke on me,” said Amber.
He ignored her tone. “With you at his side, he’ll be chosen as the heir.”
“Dravin, please do your scheming with my father,” she said.
Amber caught his half’s eye in the mirror and regretted it immediately. There was a reason Dravin usually left his half home when he visited. The woman’s unfocused eyes lolled between them, only loosely timed with their speech.
Amber averted her gaze, but not before her lips curled with disgust. Dravin must have read her expression.
“That’s not polite, sweetheart.”
“She’s gross.”
If the comment stung, Dravin didn’t let it show. “I was born in the early days, sweetheart. Before they understood premature contact. We first touched when we were only three days old; her body wasn’t ready . . . her channel tore open and