Scars, Spells and Secrets

Chapter 9

Elizabeth woke up the next morning before her alarm went off. She was already in the process of laying out potential outfits for the day when there was a knock on her door. She quickly tightened the sash of her robe and answered it, letting Charline into her bedroom. The other girl grinned and shoved a large cup at her. "I brought you some chai! This'll help you get all alert and ready!" Elizabeth took it with a laugh as Charline took a sip of her own large coffee. "Okay, so let's see what we've got to work with! I'm thinking a nice, sweet, retro sorta look." She set her coffee down on the desk, totally ignoring the spellbook there as she pulled up a picture on her phone to show Elizabeth. It was a singer that the taller woman vaguely recognized.

"Okay..?" she managed, trying hard to sound interested. "It's very pretty."

"Okay, we'll do a double wing liner and a little bit of smokey eye..." She rambled on a little more and Elizabeth just slowly nodded, not understanding a bit of it. "Uh-huh," was all she managed before the darker skinned woman went to look over the clothes she'd laid out. "...Your wardrobe looks like my grandma's psychic's."

She went through the clothing, finally settling on a knee length straight black skirtand a lilac button up blouse with cap sleeves. She added a black blazer and simple ballet flats. "Well, you're like six feet tall so you hardly need heels."

Elizabeth made a face. "I'm not six feet."

"Whatever, you're tall."

"You're short."

Charline just laughed and shook her head. "Okay, well. No matter what, you don't need heels." She made a show of turning to face the wall, picking up her coffee again. "Change."

"So bossy!" Elizabeth huffed, though she was grinning. She turned away from the other woman and quickly put on the clothing she'd picked. "Okay, done."

From there it was makeup, done in a soft style. Despite the fact that it took almost an hour, the end result somehow looked like she was hardly wearing anything on her face. Now this is magic, Ellizabeth thought.

Charline helped to wrangle her hair into a simple side ponytail, the curls mostly contained. After the application of at least five bobby pins, the hair even managed to not look like it was willing to spring free at any moment. The dark-skinned girl grinned brightly. "There! I'm about ninety percent sure that won't budge before your interview."

Elizabeth laughed. "Gee, thanks for the vote of confidence."

Charline stuck out her tongue and went to get her coffee again. "Okay, so I'm gonna try to hang out while you do that. Is that okay? I want to see about getting something to hang in my office, and if nothing else I can get a good idea of what I want."

Elizabeth nodded and went to check herself in the mirror. "Yeah, of course." She was a bit surprised, suddenly realizing with full force that in the last handful of years she'd gone from a gangly teenager to an actual adult. The effect was a bit disconcerting. I still feel like I need permission to go to the movies. How can I look like someone a kid would call "ma'am"? she wondered.

Elizabeth took a deep breath and picked up her wallet, slipping the thumb drive and business card inside. She took another sip of tea, glad that her friend had gotten it for her. It gave her something to focus on besides the bundle of nerves in her stomach. She turned to face the other woman and smiled. "If my interview ends soon enough, do you want to go to Vines for lunch? Or can you?"

"Oh, yeah. I'm still waiting to hear back from our client about the specific measures he wants security-wise, so I'm on a work from home basis right now. My computer's actually running some programs right now," Charline explained. She had tried to explain her work before but all that Elizabeth understood was that she worked for a company that tested security measures and recommended changes. The shorter woman grinned. "I figured this was as good a time as any to have it automatically compile the data and cross-check it, and I don't actually have to do anything for that."