Magnetic

Chapter Nineteen

Prom was on a Saturday at 8 p.m.

So that day, Paisley showed up at my house, uninvited, holding her prom dress in one hand and a large, chevron-print bag in the other. "I've got makeup and stuff to fix our hair. We've got," she consulted her watch, "approximately six hours until we meet with Brady and Gage and go to Mickey's." Mickey's was this Italian restaurant a couple blocks over; Gage, Brady, and Paisley all said it had the best food in the Monraville-West Cliff area. So, of course, it was natural for everyone to want to go there right before prom started.

It was just a bit after noon and I had literally just woken up and ate a granola bar. My under eyes were dark and my hair was a mess from sleeping on it. I was positive that I reeked -I was a restless sleeper who woke up every morning sweating buckets- and was still in a tank top and sweatpants that I wore to bed to sleep in. My father was somewhere, probably with a client. He didn't tell me he'd be gone, but I must've been asleep when he left.

"You should've told me you were coming by," I said, stepping aside so she could enter the house. "I still need to take a shower."

"Go ahead." She plopped down the humongous bag-that sounded extremely heavy-on the kitchen counter. "I suck at doing hair, so I need you to curl mine or something. But I still need to do my makeup, so I can do that while you shower."

Since, to me, it was still early morning, and I consistently woke up with a bad attitude, I was easily annoyed by how eager she was. Prom wasn't as important to me as it was to her, and that had become evident a couple of weeks ago.

At lunch a couple of days ago, she had shown me hundreds, if not thousands, of pictures of hairstyles that she was debating between for prom. It had taken the entire lunch period to as much as look through most of them. We eventually decided on a beach-wavy style that would look amazing on her short hair. It was the first picture she had shown me.

Her makeup decision didn't take near as long as the hair. By herself, she had narrowed it down to something, as she described it, "naturally-dramatic". I didn't really understood what that meant, because my makeup regimen only consisted of a small bit of concealer and mascara to make my blonde eyelashes noticeable. "Naturally-dramatic" seemed to contain everything I wore and added foundation, eyeshadow, eyeliner, blush, and lipgloss. I had no idea how to even use half of that. On me, that'd definitely be dramatic.

It only took me about ten minutes to take a shower and five to dry my hair, and I wasn't even going at full speed. When I came back downstairs from the bathroom, Paisley was sitting at the kitchen table, a magnifying mirror-that she must've brought from home; I had never seen it before-in front of her, pulling a mascara clump from one of her eyelashes.

"You take quick showers," she said, swiping the mascara brush over each set of eyelashes again, and then leaned back to admire her work. "I think I've finished my makeup. But, in case I notice something, I'm leaving everything out for easy access." She looked up to me for a moment, and then grabbed my arm, pulling me down onto the chair beside her. "Let me do your makeup for prom, Nicki."

I guess I looked skeptical, because she added, "I won't add anything that you aren't comfortable with."
"No eyeshadow," I said, "or blush. Got it?" I had naturally red cheeks, any more color would make me look like a clown.

"Got it," she repeated, laying a hand on her heart. "I swear."

Almost immediately, she came at me with a makeup brush loaded with foundation. We had around the same skin tone, so her makeup color would most likely be the same shade as me. Or, at least, close.

I had never seen anybody apply eyeliner to another person with such ease; I didn't even need to close my eyes. She was obviously used to doing other people's makeup, as I was used to doing other people's hair. Together, we'd make an unstoppable prom beauty team.