Even without contact lenses, I could tell from the mirror that my face was blotchy and my eyes swollen. I tried cold water, but that did nothing for me, so I took a cotton pad, soaked it in Florence’s orange face tonic, and dabbed my face with it. It didn’t do anything about the blotchiness either, but at least it smelled delicious. What I needed was soothing face cream. Maybe I’d find some among Florence’s expensive little pots and jars, although Mia and I were forbidden to touch them on pain of death. So far I hadn’t, but now I felt an urgent need to unscrew the golden lid of one of them. Calendula cream. I couldn’t read the small print, but calendula sounded healthy and reassuring, the natural enemy of red blotches. I slapped plenty of it on my face.
“I can hardly break the door down, can I?” Grayson was obviously still leaning on the other side of it.
“No, but you can—hic—just go away,” I said.
“I’m not talking to you—and no, I can’t, not without rousing the whole house.… Liv, what are you doing in there?”
“Have you—hic—lost your marbles?”
I could hear Grayson’s sigh through the door. “Not cutting your wrists, are you?”
What? “No, I’m rubbing cream into my face.” And now the delicate little golden glass lid slipped out of my hand and fell into the basin. “Oh, damn it! Hic.”
“Did you hear me? You’re fine, both of you.”
Who was he talking to out there? I hoped it wasn’t Florence. She’d murder me when she found out that the lid of her calendula cream was cracked. Maybe I could conceal it with a little gold nail polish? I’d seen some on Florence’s toenails the other day. I opened the drawer where she kept her bottles of nail polish, about sixty of them.
“No, you idiot, I can’t see it with my own eyes,” said Grayson outside the door in annoyance. “Because I don’t happen to be able to see through walls … No, how could I … Liv, please open the door! I have to convince myself that you’re all right with my own eyes.”
“You’re out of your mind,” I said. There—gold nail polish, next to a bottle of pale brown! Florence had sorted them out by color.
“Don’t say that, Henry, not to me,” said Grayson.
The little bottle of nail polish slipped out of my hands, but I just managed to catch it before it hit the tiled floor. Henry! The shock had cured my hiccups as if by magic.
“He couldn’t reach you on your cell phone, so he called me,” said Grayson. “And now he’s driving me insane and keeping me here outside the bathroom door.”
Fingers flying, I opened the bathroom door, and Grayson, dazzled by the light, narrowed his eyes. Silently, he held out his iPhone to me. “At last!”
I put my hand out, but then I couldn’t bring myself to take the phone. The mere idea of hearing Henry’s voice …
“Tell him I’m asleep,” I whispered.
Grayson rolled his eyes. “It’s a bit late for that. Anyway, I was asleep myself, and he couldn’t have cared less.” He yawned. “Liv, can’t you two sort out your problems in the daytime?”
No, I was afraid our problems couldn’t be sorted out at all. Either by day or night.
Grayson put the phone to his ear again. “Did you hear that? She doesn’t want to talk to you. But like I said, she’s fine.”
Oh, sure. I was really, really fine. Except for the tears coming to my eyes again.
“What?” Grayson was looking at me rather more thoroughly now that he was used to the light. He frowned. “Yes, I tell you! Perfectly normal. And now I’m ending this call, okay? It’s four thirty, and we’re all supposed to be fast asleep right now. If you call again, I’m not answering, is that clear? See you at practice.” With a snort, he ended the call. “What have you been doing to him?”
“What have I been doing to him?” I felt like snorting myself now, which helped a bit to get the tears under control. “I only disturbed him getting up close and personal with someone else, that’s all. Do you happen to know a woman called B?”
“Shhh!” Grayson reached past me and switched off the bathroom light. “Don’t go waking everyone else too!”
“I haven’t finished in here,” I said, switching the light on again.
“Oh, yes you have.” Grayson switched it off. “You ought to be in bed. Have you seen yourself in the mirror? You look terrible.”
“Do you think I don’t know that?” I tried to slam the bathroom door in his face, but he got between me and it, took my arm, and hauled me out into the corridor.
“We have an important game this afternoon, and our coach wants us to have extra practice. I’ve had enough of all this. I need some sleep.”
“Then go to bed, why don’t you?” I made a halfhearted attempt to shake off his grip, but I was thankful at heart that he had made me leave the bathroom. Otherwise I’d probably have spent days in there, doing stupid things with my head, the tiles, and Florence’s nail polish.
But Grayson wasn’t to be shaken off just like that. He didn’t let go of me until we were in my room and he had closed the door behind us. Then he leaned back on it and took two deep breaths.
So did I. I could see the pity in Grayson’s glance even in the poor light of my bedside lamp, and it was hard to take. I narrowed my eyes. I mustn’t cry in front of him. I wouldn’t either.
“What’s that on your face?”
“You mean my nose? Ugly, isn’t it? Like everything about me. No wonder Henry doesn’t want me.”