“I mean, if the dance has a good theme, I’m pretty much guaranteed to be the Queen of Spring,” Gabby was saying as she walked back into the living room, her eyes locked on her almost-overflowing glass. “And that will prove to everyone that . . . I’m fine. I’m fine without Zach. I’m fine. Does that make sense?” She looked at Skylar with big doe eyes, one single curl falling over her left eyebrow. She sat, but her knee was bobbing up and down.
“It makes sense,” Skylar said, nodding and putting a tentative hand on Gabby’s shoulder. “I know you’ll come up with something good. Even better than We Heart the Earth.”
“Speaking of which”—Gabby perked up suddenly and brushed the errant tendril from her eye—“I was reading about all of these natural skin-care recipes—like, masks that you can make out of eggs, and oatmeal scrubs. We should do that! They’re good for the planet and they make us prettier!”
Skylar looked at her skeptically. “What? Like, now?”
“No time like the present!” Gabby squealed. She was definitely tipsy. Skylar wondered how she would get home. She obviously couldn’t drive.
Doing facials would at least get Gabby upstairs before Aunt Nora came home, so Skylar consented to Gabby’s proposal and helped her rummage in the kitchen for ingredients: olive oil, oatmeal, and eggs from the fridge.
In the upstairs bathroom Gabby insisted they turn on the shower so that the steam could “open the pores”—another tip she’d read about in Cosmo. She was in a good mood again. The alcohol had obviously relaxed her. Skylar was glad that, for once, she wasn’t the slurry one. And she decided not to point out the obvious—that running the water kind of negated the whole “save the planet” thing.
“It’s lucky that you’re into the whole natural thing right now,” Skylar said as they cracked the eggs in small bowls that Skylar had set on the back of the toilet. “I don’t really have a lot of fancy beauty products.”
“Oh, neither do I,” Gabby breezed, draining her glass. “The only thing I absolutely cannot live without is my La Mer face cream. My mom got it for me a couple of years ago, and it’s absolutely crucial. Have you ever tried it? I can totally share mine with you. Next time we’re at my house you have to put some on. It’s like insta-glow.”
Skylar knew what Gabby was talking about—she’d read about La Mer in InStyle. She knew it was extremely expensive—the kind of stuff celebrities used—and felt another flare of jealousy. But just then Gabby flicked her with a bit of olive oil, and Skylar couldn’t help but giggle. They mixed the facials with their fingers, laughing at the gloppy mess that formed in the bowls.
“This is going to be fun,” Skylar said, getting into it, loving the way the oil coated her fingertips, smelling sweet and earthy.
“The oil will be great for your skin,” Gabby said, looking at Skylar intently. “It’s supermoisturizing.”
Was Gabby saying that her skin was too dry? Was there an insult cloaked in that “helpful advice”? She looked at Gabby through the mirror, searching for the Lucy look.
But Gabby was just staring kindly at her through the mirror. It gave Skylar a pang of sadness for some reason. She was so used to being tortured and humiliated by Lucy, or yelled at by her mom, that it was almost harder work to know how to act when someone was being nice instead of pitying or just plain mean. Skylar wanted so badly to just enjoy having a good friend. Someone who cared about her. But she couldn’t relax. Couldn’t stop worrying.
Maybe some girls just aren’t meant to be happy.
That was what Skylar was thinking as she stared at Gabby’s face in the mirror, where the steam from the shower was spreading slowly, forming white tendrils.
“That’s pretty, isn’t it? Kind of . . . smoky?” Skylar touched her finger to the steamy part of the mirror and made a streak.
And then Gabby’s face changed completely. She slammed her hand to her forehead. “That’s it!” She stood up, pointing at the mirror. “That’s the theme!”
“What is?” Skylar said, snapping out of her sad mood.
“Smoke and Mirrors!” Gabby turned to Skylar with a wide, gleeful smile, then picked up her glass, gave a “Cheers,” and tipped it back, slurping the last drops. “Smoke and Mirrors,” she repeated, satisfied. And Skylar had to admit that it was a great theme.
After all, wasn’t popularity pretty much just a big illusion?
Just like that, an idea started forming in Skylar’s head.
? ? ?
“Ugh . . . I am hungover,” Gabby said as a greeting when she and Skylar met just before the dance committee meeting on Monday afternoon. Last night, after her fourth rum and juice, Gabby had ended up calling her parents, telling them that she and Skylar were having a cram session (she’d enunciated very carefully to avoid sounding as drunk as she was), and sleeping over. That morning Skylar had reluctantly opened her closet to Gabby. Skylar was embarrassed at her limited wardrobe choices, many of which were too big even for Skylar these days.