Chapter 28 - Perspectives

When I walked into the guest room, Olivia was sitting in front of the small bedroom vanity. Various hairstyling implements were laid over the top of it and makeup was spilled everywhere. Olivia was already in her black dress. She turned in her chair to look at me.

I held up the teal dress. “What do you think?”

Olivia stared at it as if she’d never seen anything like it before. Her eyes rose to my face.

“You picked that?” she said.

“Yeah.”

“On your own?”

“Yeah.”

She smiled. It was wide, bright, and there was an evil gleam in her eye. “It’s perfect.”

“Why’s that?” A speck of nervousness snuck into the question. It occurred to me that a smiling witch wasn’t always a good sign.

“Because Nylah’s never been able to pull off that dress.” Olivia stood up. The evil gleam in her eye was more pronounced. “She’s going to be furious.”

I hid my wry smile and resisted the urge to shake my head. Olivia was enjoying her rivalry with her sister; I'd hate to distract her by making her angry at me.

“We need shoes,” Olivia said.

“Crap,” I said. “I totally forgot.”

Olivia turned toward the closet. “Nylah’s feet are bigger than mine. Her shoes wouldn’t have fit you anyway. I think something neutral would look better than black.”

She pulled a box down from the top of the closet. It was neatly labeled "Olivia’s clothes."

She saw me glancing at the label.

“I found it yesterday,” she said.

“I thought you weren’t planning on coming back here.”

“I wasn’t. These are the clothes I left behind.” She put the box down on the end of the bed. “My mother probably had Janice pack them away.”

“You left clothes behind?”

Olivia lifted the lid. When I looked inside, I saw a bunch of expensive-looking items, carefully folded and resting between layers of tissue paper. Olivia pawed through them, looking for shoes.

“These are the clothes my mother bought for me,” she said. “She must have thrown the rest away.”

Turquoise, green, cream, blue—not a stitch of black. My heart sank when I saw it. I was looking over the remnants of an old battlefield in a war where everyone had lost.

“Ah-ha!” Olivia pulled out a pair of taupe, ankle-high, wedge-heeled boots. “These.”

I took the boots from her. “I thought you weren’t going to lend me any of your clothes.”

She returned to her chair in front of the vanity. “You could walk through a cattle yard in those, I wouldn’t care. And, even if I did care, I’d give up my best pair of heels to see Nylah’s face when you walk in the room, in that dress, looking good.”

I turned to her. “You don’t think it’ll look weird?”

Since she was facing the mirror, it was her reflection that gazed at me quizzically.

“You know…” I squirmed a bit. “With my hair?”

Olivia rolled her eyes. “I can’t even imagine you with hair, Emerra.”

I grinned.

I wasn’t often self-conscious about being bald, but there were times, and there probably always would be. It was the worst when I was silly enough to worry about how others saw me. But, thank you, Olivia Oliversen! Her magnificent indifference slapped a band-aid over that particular nick in my heart.

I don’t know why I bothered worrying. At this point, most people would think it was weirder if they saw me with hair. Kappa probably wouldn’t even recognize me.

In the mirror, Olivia saw my reflection smiling at her.

“Well?” she said. “Are you going to get dressed?”

“Right!”

Changing into the dress and boots took all of three minutes. And, of course, my hair took even less time than that (that’s one of the major perks of being bald). Olivia was still at the vanity when I was done getting ready, and it looked like she’d be there for a while.

“Do you need some makeup?” She waved her hand over the array of bottles, powders, brushes, and strange metal implements that wouldn’t have looked out of place in a torture chamber.

“Uh, thanks,” I said, “but I’m okay.”

“Uh-huh. What do I have to say to talk you into it?”

I blinked. “You…want me to wear makeup?”

“The better you look the more it’ll annoy my mother and Nylah.”

“Oh, I see.” I nodded with mock seriousness. “As long as it’s for a good cause.”

“Precisely.” She scooted her chair aside to give me room.

Still, I hesitated. “I thought that women had, like, their own kind of makeup—that it was personalized…or something…”

My voice petered out when Olivia turned in her chair to look at me.

Her expression wasn’t soft—this is Olivia we’re talking about—but it wasn’t as hard as normal either. There was no evil glint, smirk, sneer, frown, or rolling of the eyes. It was nothing but a face, and her eyes were searching mine.

“Emerra, do you know how to wear makeup?”

I grunted and scratched my eyebrow.

She was still looking at me.

“No,” I admitted.

“How old are—”

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“I’m twenty. And you know it.”

“And you don’t know how to wear makeup?”

“It never came up,” I grumbled.

“Your mother never taught you?”

Oof. I fielded that punch by taking it right to the gut.

“I never had a mother,” I said. “She abandoned me when I was two.”

Olivia froze for a fraction of a second. When she thawed, she said, “You didn’t have friends that could—”

“Friendships were pretty weird for me. Look, do you mind if we table this conversation? I don’t know how to use makeup. That’s the important part.”

“Sure. We can table the conversation.” Olivia stood up with liquid grace. “Let me help you with some makeup tonight, and I’ll promise never to bring it up again.”

I lunged for the abandoned chair. “Deal.”

Olivia pulled over another chair, sat down in front of me, and inspected my face. “Our skin tones are pretty close to the same, but it’s not an exact match.” She eyed me critically for another moment, then turned to the table and started searching through the pile of makeup. “You’re skin’s good enough we can skip the foundation. We’ll do eyes and lips.”

“E-eyes?” I stuttered. “You want to draw attention to my eyes?”

“Relax.” Olivia picked up a dark brown pencil. “You’re going to be fine. Lots of people have dark eyes—admittedly, not as dark as yours.”

She started filling in the stringy lines that were all that had survived of my eyebrows.

Olivia worked in silence. The only noises I could hear were from downstairs, where the caterers were perfecting the final details. The muffled sounds felt as if they were coming from a world away. I could smell the makeup and Nylah's faint, lingering scent, clinging to my borrowed dress. The small strokes and gentle pressure of Olivia applying the makeup was almost hypnotic. The whole atmosphere conspired to lull me into a thoughtful mood.

“Olivia?”

She had moved onto my eyeshadow by that time. As she shifted from one eye to the other, she hummed to show she was listening.

“Do you have any friends your age?”

She didn’t pause her work to answer. “No.”

“May I ask why?”

She let out a silent sigh. The only reason I knew she was doing it was because I could hear the whisper of the air escaping her nose. “Because I’m an Oliversen—no! Don’t make any faces. Relax.”

I unfurrowed my brow. “Did Nylah have friends?”

“Nylah didn’t mind. I did.”

“Mind what?”

“On the first day you arrive at Saufgrove, half the girls already hate you just because you're an Oliversen, and the other half would do anything to be your friend.”

“Is that also because you’re an Oliversen?”

She nodded once. “I decided I wasn’t going to waste a single second of my time trying to make a bunch of prejudiced people like me.”

“And the girls that wanted to be your friend?”

She stopped what she was doing and looked in my eyes. “Would you want friends like that? People that only like you because of your family name?”

I wasn’t familiar with that particular problem, but I could kind of understand where she was coming from. I had often felt lonely, even in a crowd, and the only thing I’d wanted was someone to really know me and still like me.

But to understand the concept of false friendship when she was that young? And to be able to reject it?

Olivia said, “What are you—Emerra, stop laughing! I’m going to poke you in the eye with this brush.”

I tried to stop, but that only made my nose wrinkle. My shoulders were still shaking, and the edges of my eyes were still crinkled up. There was no way Olivia could apply makeup with me in that state—which was complicating her already complicated life.

“Sorry,” I said when I finally got myself under control. “But I see you now, Olivia. I know what you are.”

Olivia was not impressed by my prophetic announcement.

“What’s that?” She picked up some eyeliner.

“Too independent for your own good.”

Olivia stopped and looked at me. We both smiled.

“You’re right,” she said. “Now close your eyes. And no wiggling!”

“Does it work for you?” I asked. “Being independent, I mean.”

There was a slight pause. I felt the cool touch of a brush on my eyelid.

Since Olivia had to give most of her attention to the tricky art of liquid eyeliner, she spoke slowly: “It gives me a lot of strength. But it has its downsides. I think most things do.”

Too independent, and still wise beyond her years.

“Were you lonely?” I asked.

“For friends? Not really. I had Kirby and Miss Langley, and I saw Miss Langley almost every day.”

“You’re supposed to call her Autumn.”

“Yeah, now. Back then she was a teacher. I don’t know about other people, but as long as I can be comfortable around them, I only need one or two close friends.”

“Even if they’re that much older than you?”

“Friends are friends. Age doesn’t matter. I like Iset too.”

That mean little witch kept laying her fingers down on the metaphorical guitar strings strung across my heart, then lifting them up again—never quite plucking them, never letting them be still. My emotions gently vibrated in my chest.

Of course, it was my fault. I was the one asking her questions.

Olivia switched over to my other eye.

“Do you like Nylah?” I asked.

Olivia grunted, then elaborated. “Not really. I like Lindsey.”

“Lindsey?”

“My oldest sister. She moved out after her apprenticeship. She escaped.”

I heard a tiny note of pleasure in the word “escaped” and opened my eyes just in time to catch a glimpse of Olivia’s proud smirk. She ordered me to close them again.

Olivia went on, “Nylah is Mother’s perfect child, and she hates Lindsey and me for causing problems.”

“The perfect child,” I muttered.

“My mother’s dark-haired clone. Beautiful, talented, and graceful. Good for her, I’m sure.”

I couldn’t stop thinking about the art blazing out from the gray-blue walls.

“Are you sure she’s not pretending?” I asked.

Olivia stopped.

I opened my eyes to see what had happened. Olivia was staring at me. All the old, familiar hardness and animosity had returned.

And I had been doing so well too. Any year now, I’d learn to keep my big mouth shut.

“She’s not pretending,” Olivia said. There was no arguing with that tone of voice. It held the kind of certainty that could carve granite.

I chewed on my lips as I thought. When I was ready to speak, I kept my voice quiet. One should always move carefully around anything capable of scarring rocks.

“Olivia, not everyone’s as independent as you.”

“So?”

“So what if Nylah valued peace enough she chose to repress herself so she could get along with your mother?”

“No one would do that.”

The phrase “blind as a witch” flashed through my mind, but I kept it to myself.

When I spoke again, I adopted a casual tone. “She was wrong about you, you know.”

Olivia rolled her eyes. “That I believe. What did she say to you?”

“She thinks you cause trouble on purpose. I think that you’re only doing what you think you have to do, and I think you learned to do it without worrying about what others thought—because you had to.”

Olivia put the eyeliner she’d been holding onto the dresser top. It made a sharp snick sound when it hit. She turned and ran her hand over the makeup, moving them around as if she was searching for something, but her shoulders were tense, and I got the feeling she was making it a point to not look at me.

I went on because—why not? The bridge was burning, the ship was sinking, and, oh, what a merry day to die!

“She thinks you’re showing off, but I think you ask a lot of yourself and you derive satisfaction from the quality of your work.”

If that last line sounded unusually fancy for me, it’s because I’d stolen it from Count Vasil. I figured that was how most perfectionists saw themselves, so it had a chance of appealing to Olivia.

She still wouldn’t look at me.

I said, “She thinks you’re proud of not having friends—”

“And what do you think?” she snapped.

“Me?” I shrugged. “Oh, I just think you’re proud.”

She finally looked at me and saw what I’m sure was my snarkiest smile.

“You’re a butthead,” she said.

“So are you,” I said.

She picked up another mysterious tube and opened it. Ah-ha! Even I knew that was a mascara brush.

“Open your eyes,” she said. “Now, relax, and try not to blink.” She leaned in. “What’s your point, Emerra?”

I waited until she finished my first set of lashes. If she didn’t like what I had to say, it’d be too easy for her to “accidentally” jab me in the eye.

While she was loading up the brush again, I said, “People are complicated. They’re usually too complicated for an easy explanation. If Nylah’s wrong about you, do you think it’s possible you might be wrong about her?”

Olivia finished my second set of lashes before she answered. “I’ll consider it.”

“Hey, that’s something.”

She closed up the mascara. “Why do you care, anyway?”

I lifted one of my shoulders in an uneasy shrug. “Isn’t it how you’d want other people to see you? It’s how I want them to see me.”

She put the mascara back on the dresser top. “Now we need lipstick.” After a quick glance my direction, she started pawing through the makeup again. “Something that will work with that dress.”

“You have something like that?”

Olivia pulled out a few tubes. “You’re new to this whole makeup thing, so let me teach you one of the great secrets. Everyone who wears makeup should own at least three lipstick colors that look terrible on them.”

“Why?”

“So they always remember they look terrible on them. Now get over here.”

I watched as she compared the different shades of lipstick to my skin, the dress, the light, and, possibly, the astral alignment.

“Olivia?” I said.

“Yeah?”

“I think you look really good in black.”

She selected one of the shades and put the rest back on the vanity. “Would you be surprised if I told you I didn’t care?”

Her voice had been low and deadpan, but—too bad for her—I’d caught sight of the slight smile on her face, when she turned.

“Not in the slightest,” I assured her.