“So this thing with Max. It’s the real deal?” she says again.
“Yes . . . and it’s going to happen all over again unless you help me. What can I do to get you to trust me on this?” I grip the edge of the countertop.
Jules thinks for a moment. “So you can really wish for anything you want?”
I nod. “Yes—case in point!” I exclaim, running my hand through my hair.
Jules gathers her own blond strands into a ponytail then lets it fall loose around her shoulders. “I haven’t changed my style since before Ellie was born.”
“You don’t need to—you always look beautiful.”
Jules rolls her eyes. “Please. J.Crew called and it wants its cover outfit from the 2005 catalog back.” She tugs at her pale yellow dress and blue-and-white-striped cardigan sweater. “I’m in such a rut lately. Like I could use a serious update—starting with this.” She frowns as she points at her hair.
“Like cutting bangs?”
“No! Don’t you dare wish me those. Bangs are never the solution.” Jules shakes her head as if a shiver has just run through her. “You should know that better than anyone,” she says, reminding me of when I’d lopped off the front of my hair into what a magazine had described as blunt fringe when I got my job at the advertising firm, convinced it would make me look edgy. It did not.
“Point taken,” I laugh. “So what do you want, then? Because I’ll wish you a hot boy toy if it means you’ll believe me.”
She raises her eyebrow, but the doorbell rings before she can answer. Jules calls to Ellie and Evan and ushers them quickly out the door, her body visibly relaxing once it shuts.
“I cannot tell you how glad I am that it was not my day to carpool. This is going to be so much more fun!” She rubs her hands together. “Okay, so I’m ready. Do your thing—wish me a makeover!”
Heart pounding, I pull out my phone and quickly type a status on Facebook, silently praying that this will work:
Not that she needed one, but Jules looks amazing after her makeover. She’s a hottie!
She grabs my arm and pulls me into the bathroom, giggling like a tween at her first concert, and I can’t help but join in as we lock the door.
“So what’s this going to feel like?” Jules says tentatively. “Will I go through some kind of transformation à la Teen Wolf? And what will people think when they see your status? There are going to be questions.”
“Hopefully no one will be growing facial hair and fangs in this scenario!” I laugh. “And so far, all the posts I’ve written have disappeared as soon as the wish has been granted,” I say, thinking about how I had searched my timeline frantically after I’d written the status asking for the strappy sandals, but it was nowhere to be found. “Let’s just close our eyes and count to three and then turn and look in the mirror.”
“One, two, three,” we say in unison, then cautiously we swivel around and face our reflections.
“Oh. My. God.” Jules screams, clasping her hand over her mouth. “I’m fucking hot! Ben is going to shit his pants when he sees me.” She turns around, scrutinizing herself from every angle.
Jules has never lacked in the looks department, with straight blond shoulder-length hair and round green doll-like eyes that are only accentuated by mascara on special occasions. But now her hair is shaped into a layered bob with sharp edges and golden highlights, and her skin is dewy and glowing. She lifts up her shirt and lets out a yelp. “Look at my stomach. I have abs again! Feel them.” She puts my hand on her abdomen and laughs.
I shake my head. “I draw the line at feeling you up—but now do you believe me?”
“Hell, yeah!” She laughs. “Can you give me some liposuction on my ass too?”
I smile, slapping her butt. “You do not need that! If anything, the makeover gods should’ve given you a little more junk in your trunk!” I study her body, still as thin as it was before I wished her a makeover, but I had to admit the wish had created an air of sophistication that looked good on her. We lock eyes in the mirror. “How are you going to explain this to Ben?”
She waves me off. “It won’t be a problem.” Jules turns away from her reflection to face me in the half bathroom and hits the towel bar as she awkwardly brings me in for a hug. “I’m sorry I doubted you, Kate. But I’m with you now—one hundred percent.”
“Thank God. Because I’m kind of freaking out. And I need you.”
“Okay, so you have this amazing power. But how should you use it?”
“I obviously have to figure out how to stop history from repeating itself,” I say, sitting on the toilet, the image of Max’s resilient face as he broke the news to me at the rehearsal dinner still burned in my mind. “But first, I need you to be brutally honest with me about something.”
“Like when you told me the belly band wasn’t working after I had Ellie?”