Smiling, I winked at Brad. “I promise to keep an eye on her.”
He watched her slam the front door with a small smile. “She means the world to me. She escaped the house after just learning to walk. Still under a year old. I didn’t close the door tight. My parents found her a few minutes later in the snow crying. No harm. No permanent damage. But Dad sat me down and we had a talk about protecting Beatriz.”
He turned to look at me. “I took it very seriously.”
The intensity of the moment caught me off guard. Would she be safe tonight?
“You have nothing to fear from Ted. I promise.” You just needed to fear everything else.
He nodded and I escaped into the house where Beatriz stood at the kitchen window peeking through the curtain to ensure he left.
“Is he coming back?” she demanded letting the curtain fall back into place.
“Nope. I promised to keep you safe from Ted. So behave tonight.”
She snorted and picked up a back from the kitchen table. Just one. Many others remained creating a small mountain on the wooden surface.
I eyed the bags. “Are you moving in?”
“I wasn’t sure what I’d need so I brought my whole room here.”
My mom called from her bedroom telling us to bring everything back there. I helped Beatriz carry a few bags and tossed them on Mom’s bed. Everyone sat back there. Even Aunt Danielle. She looked corporeal as long as you didn’t touch her so I guessed it made sense.
After introducing everyone, we hung our dresses in Mom and Aunt Grace’s bathroom and started talking shoes and hairstyles.
Three hours later, my stomach growled. Gran heard it and ran to get us both something to eat. Mom and Aunt Grace had taken over our preparations for the dance and used us as pre-wedding guinea pigs. Tweezed and powdered, I rolled my eyes at Beatriz in the mirror. She winked at me. She at least didn’t mind the attention.
“I saw that, Tess,” my mom said twisting the curling iron to roll up a length of my hair.
“Are we almost done?” I whined.
“We have two more hours before Morik said he’d pick you two up.”
I glanced at the clock and groaned. Two hours meant after dark. Mom playfully tugged my hair.
“Maybe we can take a break?” I begged.
“Sure,” she said giving me hope. “In two hours.”
Gran returned with a few crackers and cheese. I scowled and munched my meager portion.
* *
The doorbell rang while we strapped on our shoes. Thirty minutes early. Inside, I cheered.
Mom raced to the door and gave Stephen a quick kiss when he walked in. Inside, I cried. The torture needed to end.
I stood in scary high heels, compliments of Aunt Grace. She wanted us to wear the same ones to the wedding, so she got me a pair for tonight. Guinea pig.
Teetering on their thin heels, I smiled at Stephen and introduced Beatriz. We did look amazing. After so many hours of prep, how could we not? The sister stylists agreed my dress called for an up-do and created a mass of curls to crown me. To soften the look, they allowed several to strategically escape and cascade toward my back, never quite blocking the view.
My back proved a challenge. Aunt Grace had run to the drug store and bought several varieties of concealer. We’d used them all. With dim lighting and no touching, it should stay intact. I wondered about the car ride to the dance though.
Beatriz stood beside me in svelte perfection. They’d twisted her hair up smoothly to give further elegance to the dress, which shimmered softly in the kitchen lights. She smiled a greeting with her china doll face.
They’d tweezed our brows, added some light penciling, outlined our eyes, and dusted us with blush and shadow before finishing with several coats of mascara. I felt over dressed and makeuped for the dance, but kept quiet.
“Give a spin,” Mom encouraged.
She whispered to Stephen as I turned so I took my time with the spin. He needed proof we could hide the mark. With my back to the door, someone else knocked. I looked over my shoulder to see Gran open the door for Brad.
Beatriz groaned. She didn’t need to though, he didn’t look at her. With a camera loosely held in his hand, he stared at me, his eyes sweeping my back. I blushed and faced him.
“Here for pictures?” I asked.
He didn’t respond immediately and Bea giggled. It jarred him from his daze.
“Yes. Pictures. My mother sent me,” he justified to the room.
Beatriz and I stood close. I put an arm around her shoulder. She carefully wrapped one around my waist trying not smudge the makeup.
“Bet you half of me is cut off of each of these photos,” she murmured from the side of her mouth as Brad snapped several shots.
I repressed a smile noticing the canted angle of the camera. Mom ran to get her camera and joined in the clickfest. While we posed for her, Brad moved to the side. I heard a click and glanced over at him. He pretended to look down at the camera.
“I think he just took a picture of my back,” I whispered to Beatriz.