about what’s going on in Lulu’s life, she’s going to have to get used to hearing about makeup.
“I actually enjoy it,” Lulu says.
“You enjoy it.”
Naomi stands in the bathroom door. She looks uncertain, actually, like she isn’t sure of her welcome in Lulu’s space.
“I like looking nice,” Lulu says. “I like figuring out how to look nice.”
“There isn’t one way?”
“How to make myself feel nice, maybe. Or how I want to feel. Which changes.”
Lulu’s finally picked an outfit: a pale pink dress that she usually wouldn’t pull out during the winter, but feels right, somehow, for tonight. She’s accessorized it with a bunch of gold rings, and her plan is to dust her eyelids and cheekbones with loose shimmering gold powder, to make herself look as soft and glowing as she feels all over. This will probably be something like her and Cass’s public debut. She wants Cass to be proud of her. She wants to be as beautiful as Cass, unaccountably, believes she is.
Lulu looks at the makeup bag on the counter, pens and brushes and pots spilling out of it, and at Naomi’s face, reflected in the mirror in front of her.
“You don’t just hang out with your friends like this? Do your makeup, get ready to go out?”
“I don’t know if you’ve noticed, Lulu, but I do not wear makeup.”
“I know you don’t at home. But at school? When you’re going to parties?” Lulu twists her head around to look at her sister. “Truly never?”
“I don’t know how.”
“Nao, it’s not hard.”
“You think that because you know how to do it.”
“The dumbest girls in the world know how to do makeup. Don’t you hardcore feminists think makeup was invented to keep women stupid and distracted or something?”
“Feminists think a lot of things about makeup,” Naomi says. “I think it’s okay to be interested in whatever you’re interested in.” She’s such a goody-goody, it’s truly incredible. “And,” she adds, “I think yours usually looks really nice.”
“Okay, well, if you want to see a master at work, watch and learn.”
Lulu showered earlier, so her face is bare. She puts on primer and dusts herself with a mineral powder foundation, which she can get away with because her skin has been behaving itself, mostly, recently. She blushes the apples of her cheeks pink and streaks the lines of her face with highlighter.
“See?”
“It’s like a magic trick,” Naomi says. “Watching you do it doesn’t mean I understand how it works.”
“It’s just angles,” Lulu says. “Colors.”
“Hmmmm.”
Naomi comes into the bathroom and leans against the closed shower door. There’s not a ton of room in here, but they both fit.
“Who’s going to be at the party tonight?” she asks.
“It’s at this hotel this guy Ryan is opening,” Lulu explains. “He knows Owen, actually, so he’ll be there.”
“How’s that gonna be?”
“Fine,” Lulu declares optimistically. “And I—my—Cass will be there too.”
“Nice.”
“Yeah.”
Lulu is working on her eyeliner now, always her least favorite part of this routine. Her hand isn’t as steady as she wants it to be, and she never knows how dramatic to make her wings.
“Bea?”
“Oh,” Lulu says. “No, not Bea.”
B’s back in town—she messaged Lulu yesterday, and Lulu didn’t respond. She saw the notification and wanted to wait a few minutes so she didn’t look like she’d been sitting around waiting for Bea to get in touch with her, and then she got distracted and forgot, like an idiot. She pauses what she’s doing to send: Hey babe happy almost!!!! Have a good night see you soon? And then goes back to work.
“I was wondering,” Naomi says. “I haven’t heard much about her this break.”
“We’re fine.” As soon as she says it, Lulu knows it’s a lie.
“Okay.”
Naomi doesn’t say anything else, and Lulu is grateful for the silence, which gives her the concentration she needs to make her eyes look right. She finishes the liner, adds mascara. Now there’s nothing left but gold.
“Where are you going tonight?” she asks Naomi.
“Over to Kevin’s,” she says. “Remember him?”
One of Naomi’s high school friends.
“Just a house party?”
“Mmmhmmm.”
“Want me to do your makeup?”
“Oh,” Naomi says. “I don’t, I mean—”
“Subtle,” Lulu says. “Like, we could do just the eyes, or a bold lip. For fun. For something new.”
“That would be really nice, actually,” Naomi says. “If you don’t mind. If you have time.”
“I told you,” Lulu says. “For me, this is the fun part.”
She doesn’t tell Naomi, but it’s the first time she’s felt completely like herself since the Sloane Flash. Just a girl getting prettied up, getting ready to