“Oh, I don’t know.” I remembered the last time I’d gone to a party. It hadn’t ended well.
“It’s the best idea! You need to blow off some steam. Maybe that’s why you’re so stressed out—you don’t have an outlet.”
“That’s not the problem,” I said.
“Then what is?”
I didn’t really have an answer to that. “I just . . . Being in situations like that makes me anxious.”
“Then the party is the answer,” she said. “Here’s what we’ll do. I’m going to give you a Novalert to try, just to relax you. If it works, the friend I get it from will be at the party, and I’ll make sure he has more for you.”
I wasn’t so sure that was a good idea.
“Don’t give me that look,” Alex said. “You know I’m right. We’ll have so much fun getting ready—I’ll find something that fits you so we can get all dressed up, and you can help me with my makeup, since you’re obviously way better at it than I am.”
I’d never seen Alex wear makeup. Her skin was perfect; giving her a makeover would be kind of fun. Like painting on a totally clean canvas. “You really think I should try this?”
“It worked for me. Loosened me up, too. Much easier to flirt when you’re not worried about whether it’ll work.”
“That might be going a little too far.”
“We’ll see,” she said. “So, are you in?”
Maybe Alex was right. Maybe I did need to relax. Besides, I’d already fainted in front of a bunch of people, so whatever happened at this party couldn’t be any worse than that. And it was all in service of the most important thing, which was the SAT. If I didn’t fix that problem, then I might as well trash any hope I ever had of getting into a good school and having a real future. When I thought about it like that, I knew I had no choice. I’d try anything.
“I’m in,” I said.
The night of the party I told Mom I was staying over at Alex’s, and I packed up a train case of makeup to take with me. I’d done the basic SCAM so she wouldn’t see what my blank canvas looked like, but I saved the rest of it to do at her house, once we’d decided what I would wear. It would have been easier just to pick something out of my own closet, but I didn’t have anything like Alex’s Closet of Wonders, and she’d made it clear that this party was going to be capital-F Fancy.
Alex had already started decimating her closet by the time I got to her house. Her bed was covered with dresses in nearly every color. “I have to find the perfect thing,” she said.
“For you or for me?”
“Both!” She picked up two dresses and held them out at her sides. “Me first. What do you think?”
One was a black cocktail dress, simple and beautifully cut. The other looked like a flapper dress from the twenties, short and spangly and adorable. “What are you going for?”
“Well, the plan was to be wingwoman for you. But I’ve got my eye on someone there too.”
“Who?”
“Let’s just call him the Prospect,” she said. “I like to have nicknames when I’m on a mission.”
“Gotcha,” I said. “Okay, the black one isn’t sexy enough. The other one’s cute, but it’s so short I think you’ll be pulling on it constantly, which is probably not what you want.”
“You’re so practical,” she said, but she sounded impressed. “I hadn’t even thought of that.”
“Do you mind if I—” I nodded at the dress pile on the bed. She gave me the okay and I started sorting through the mess, luxuriating in the fabrics: the soft-but-bristly feel of suede, the near-liquid sensation of running my hands through a dress made almost entirely out of fringe. I kind of wanted to just jump in the pile and roll around in it, everything felt so good. Finally I saw a silky red slip dress. It was short, but not as short as the flapper dress, and it had thin straps and a little swirl in the skirt. “What about this one?”
Alex squealed her approval. “Oh, I forgot about that one!”
Given how many dresses were on the bed, I could understand how. She shimmied out of her jeans and T-shirt before I had a chance to say I’d happily go into another room. Now that I’d seen her out-of-school wardrobe, I wasn’t surprised she was wearing a matching set of black lace lingerie. I, as usual, was wearing faded blue briefs and a bra I’d owned for years that probably needed replacing. Alex slid the dress over her head, and it fell down her body as if it had always wanted to be there. The spaghetti straps emphasized her thin shoulders, the color was flawless against her skin, and the cut of the dress showed just enough cleavage and created the illusion of hips, which she didn’t really have.
She slipped on a pair of shockingly high-heeled black shoes with bright red soles—I had no idea how she could walk in them—and twirled around. The skirt flared a bit, but not too much. “Yes?” she asked.