MacKintosh,” she tells me with a smirk on her face, naming a junior on the soccer team.
I raise an eyebrow at her in surprise. She’s never once mentioned being interested in him.
She shrugs. “I was bored and it’s slim pickings. Same old people all the time.”
“Well we are seniors now,” Sasha says rationally and, in my opinion, quite kindly. The reason it’s such slim pickings for Sarah is because she’s definitely dated around. Sophie is the only one who rivals her in terms of man-eater status in our grade.
“I know, but I wish the Liberty guys would swing by,” she says, referring to a nearby school that’s our rival.
I laugh. Sarah is always very aware of who the guys on the opposite teams are when we’re cheering at games and she’s always been interested in one guy in particular, but she’s delusional if she thinks anyone from Liberty is going to come here. Why would they? They don’t need to—they have their own parties.
“Whereabouts?” She points at her mouth, wondering where the smudged lipstick is.
I point at the bottom right-hand corner of my own lips to indicate where I mean.
Sarah lifts her middle finger and rubs at the skin under her lip, trying to hit the same spot as me. “Did I get it?”
I eye her for a minute, looking at the lipstick, and quickly swipe off the bit that’s smudged. “There, you’re fine.”
I look at Sasha more closely too. It looks like she’s attempted some sort of crease cut on her eyelids with a shimmery powder, but now that I’m up closer, it just looks like a mixed-up mess.
She laughs when she realizes what I’m doing. “Don’t judge. You weren’t there to help me.”
“You did that yourself?”
“Jen helped but gave up halfway through. We couldn’t get it to look like it did on the tutorial.”
I shake my head, stifling a smile. She’s eighteen years old and can’t figure out how to do her own glam makeup, but then that’s probably my fault because I’ll always, always do anyone’s makeup who asks, and Sasha is always asking. She can’t be bothered to do it herself and enjoys feeling pampered—not that I’m complaining. I love doing her makeup. Hers, Sarah’s, Jen’s, Ellie’s…anyone’s, really. It’s the only thing I’m good at.
“Come on,” I tell her, grabbing her hand and tugging her along behind me. “I’ll fix your makeup.”
I pull her upstairs, leaving Sarah to wander away, strolling along the hallway and into an empty bedroom that I know has an ensuite. Apparently Aaron’s party hasn’t gotten to the stage where kids are hooking up in bedrooms yet (although I’m sure that will come), or maybe it’s just that he has so many spare rooms this one wasn’t needed.
Sasha sits down on the edge of the bath as I root around in my small handbag, pull out the little amount of makeup I have on me, and lay it out next to the sink. Then I dig around in the cupboards, hoping I can find something that will help get off the mess of color she has on her eyes.
Bingo.
I pull out some makeup wipes at the back, which some former houseguest must have left behind, and hold them out to Sasha. “Take off your eye makeup, but try not to get any of your foundation.”
Sasha dutifully does as she’s told as I look in her bag and find that the only item of makeup she’s brought with her is some concealer. “This is all you’ve got?”
She shrugs. “You know me.”
I guess, though I can’t imagine ever not bringing my makeup to any social gathering—or whenever I leave the house, really. I care too much about what I look like, about the way people perceive me.
I guess it’s admirable that Sasha isn’t like that.
I take the lid off her concealer and dot it under her eyes and over her lids, blending it into the foundation she already has on and making sure you can’t tell the where the foundation ends and the concealer starts.
“What do you want?”
“I don’t mind.” She yawns. “To be honest, I might leave soon.”
“What? I just got here.”
“I know, but I have to get up early tomorrow, and everyone’s just trying to find someone to hook up with. I’m not into it.”
“Yeah.” I get that. Sasha was dating someone who was the grade above us for the last two years. When he went to college, they tried to make it work for a while, but it was too difficult