Just Like Her

Chapter 26

Emma

"Remind me again how you two going out together is going to help things?"

I looked up at the ceiling as Trisha dusted my face with a thin layer of powder foundation. The bathroom in our flat was already small and cramped but now made more so by the wooden chair Trisha had dragged in from the kitchen for me, not to mention Trisha's massive collection of beautifying products that she had spread across every flat surface.

I called her almost immediately after Tom had walked into the kitchen and begged her to help me get ready. Trisha eagerly agreed, instructing me to meet her at home in thirty minutes. I left soon after we hung up with Tom promising to pick me up at seven o'clock.

"The event is for a charity Tom works with-the Footprint Foundation, or something. They do a lot of work with urban green spaces," I explained as I tried not to blink too much. "Anyways, some major donors for Tom's foundation will also be there."

"So you're going to poach donors?" She asked incredulously, apparently managing to find an ethical standard above poaching wealthy philanthropists at charity events, but somehow not below prowling the same events for one night stands.

"No, of course not!"

"Close your eyes," she ordered as she grabbed a tube of eyelid shimmer.

I did as I was told and tilted my chin up slightly. "Cynthia just wants me to meet them and show them I'm not some crazy party girl or any other sort of bad influence on Tom."

Trisha was quiet as she applied just the right amount of cosmetics. "Don't. Move." She mumbled as I felt her tug slightly on my eyelid before I felt the cool brush of liquid eyeliner slowly drag over my lash line.

She hesitated after she finished the first eye. "But there'll photographers outside the event tonight, right?"

"Probably. Maybe inside it, too."

"I thought..." she said slowly, her voice low in concentration, as she began the other eye, "you were trying to avoid photographers. I mean, that's the excuse you keep giving me whenever I invite you out anywhere."

I waited until she had finished and I could feel her lean back. "I am, it's just... I think the foundation really needs this. I think Tom needs it, too, he just won't admit it."

I slowly opened my eyes and had to blink several times before I could clear my blurry vision enough to make out Trisha's face and her perfectly tweezed eyebrow raised just enough to give her arch a dramatic look.

"He's more often their target than I am," I explained. "And I can see how the awful things they say affect him. He pretends they don't, but they do."

"Well," she sighed dramatically as she briefly turned back to the counter to retrieve a tube of mascara. "As a crazy party girl myself, I don't see what's so wrong with enjoying a fun evening dancing on tabletops with your mates."

"Nothing's wrong with it," I laughed as I took the tube she held out to me and uncapped it. "But, unfortunately, donors and hiring managers don't seem to be very big fans."

Trisha let me finish brushing on my mascara and then inspected my work before fussing over my hair again.

I had repeated Cynthia's guidelines verbatim to her-evening wear, elegant, something to dance in-and added a few requests of my own-on trend but still on the conservative side of things, preferably understated, and as economical as possible.