“See?” she demanded in triumph. “I always knew you could be beautiful if you just put a little effort into it.”
At any other time I would have protested, but now, with that familiar-yet-strange face looking back at me from the mirror, I thought Sydney might have a point. I put the cap on the lipstick and started to hand it back to her, but she shook her head.
“No, you keep it. I have a feeling you don’t have anything that color, right?”
That was a joke. My entire lip collection consisted of my Burt’s Bees balm and a single tube of peach lipgloss that got worn maybe twice a month, if that. “Thanks,” I said.
She looked over my reflection, then gathered up my unruly hair and twisted it into a quick knot low on the nape of my neck. “We’ll do your hair like this, and then a red flower….”
“Aunt Rachel has some dangly gold earrings I can borrow, too.”
“Perfect! No one’s going to recognize you.”
“Well, especially with a mask on,” I pointed out.
Her face fell. “Are we really going to wear masks? I hate those things. It always feels as if my lashes are jamming into the eye holes.”
“It is a Halloween party, you know.” Then again, I didn’t know for sure if everyone wore masks to the dance or not. Maybe I’d bring one along and see what other people were doing. I mentioned this to Sydney, and she brightened a little.
“Okay, that I can work with.” She turned away from me and held up the shimmering gold dress she planned to wear. “What do you think? Not as spectacular as yours, but….”
“It’s gorgeous,” I said truthfully. “And it’ll look perfect with your hair.”
She ran a hand over the beaded fringe and nodded. “I found this awesome pair of gold heels to go with it, too. I just have to hope that I won’t break my neck walking down the street in them. I swear, I don’t think there’s one level sidewalk in this town of yours.”
“Probably not.” There didn’t seem much point to staying in the red dress any longer, now that we’d determined it fit, and so I moved back behind the mirror to take it off. “I still can’t believe Madison was okay with just giving these away.”
“Well, I might have offered to give her free highlights for the next couple of months in exchange….”
I stuck my head out from behind the mirror. “That was generous. What can I do to chip in?”
“Nothing,” she said blithely. “It’s good practice for me. I don’t mind.”
Past experience had taught me that it was no use insisting, so I only said, “Okay, but let me get dinner at least,” before going back to getting the dress off and putting it back on its hanger. As quickly as I could, I slipped my bra back on and pulled on my shirt and jeans.
“Deal.” I heard the bed creak a little as she shifted on it. “Hey, Anthony has next Saturday off, and he and a couple of friends — not Perry — are taking their four-wheelers up to Crown King. Want to come?”
Crown King was a ghost town about seventy miles south of Jerome. Well, not completely a ghost town. A few people still lived there, and even more had summer homes on the mountaintop, but the place’s biggest claim to fame was its saloon…and the bragging rights of driving over more than twenty-five miles of dirt road to get there. I knew a few people who’d made the trip, and it always sounded like a lot of fun, but it would’ve been a stretch at the best of times, and I knew it sure wasn’t going to happen now, not with the whole McAllister clan watching my every move.
“I don’t think so,” I said slowly, and came out from behind the mirror, dangling my boots from one hand. “But you guys have fun.”
For a minute Sydney didn’t say anything, only watched me carefully, blue eyes scanning my face, looking for what, I didn’t know. Then she said, “Are you going to tell me what’s really going on?”
I gave her as guileless a look as possible. “Nothing is going on.”
She crossed her arms. “How long have we been friends?”
“About seven years now, I think.”
“And have I ever let slip any secrets about you? Told anyone the truth about your family?”
“Well, no,” I replied, not sure where she was going with this.
“Then why won’t you tell me what’s wrong? I can tell something isn’t right. You’ve got those people who look like refugees from Hogwarts camped out in your aunt’s store, you seem all jumpy, you won’t come up to Crown King even though technically it’s still in your ‘safe zone,’ whatever that means. So why don’t you trust me to tell me what’s going on?”