Once she’s done with the lip-liner, she applies some “liquid lipstick”. By now, you’re thoroughly lost, despite keeping track of what she’s doing. There’s liquid lipstick? You apply lipstick with a brush now? What?
After that, she moves on to your eyes. She patiently explains what she’s doing here, and how it’s helping. She paints a thin line of eyeliner around your eyes, helping them to look like they’re set deeper in your face—helping to minimize their roundness, she unhelpfully informs you. Then she moves on to eye shadow, applied over your eyelids—apparently, it helps make them look smaller somehow. Then, finally, some mascara—by making your lashes look larger, the rest of your eye looks slightly smaller.
You’re left entirely confused, but you can’t argue with the effects. Your skin looks smoother and nicer. Your mouth, usually thin and wide, is still thin and wide, but not quite as badly. Even your eyes, normally too wide for your face, look smaller somehow.
And the best part of it is, Victoria did it all slowly and simply, explaining each step as she went.
“You probably won’t get it perfect the first time, but that’s okay,” she concludes. She’s moved behind you now, peering over your shoulder into the mirror as she slips her arms around your chair and pulls you into a weird half-chair, half-Taylor hug. “You just need some practice, and you’ll be able to look like this every day. If you need more help, I can come over on Wednesday and show you how to do it again. Sounds good?”
“Yeah,” you say absently. You flick your eyes over Victoria again, trying to place why you feel so strange. Nothing comes to mind immediately, though, so you dismiss it. It doesn’t feel serious, anyway. It’s just a niggling little feeling, like something’s missing and you want it back.
“Excellent.” She sounds satisfied as she swings your chair around and offers you her hand. You take it, pulling yourself up to your feet. For a moment, your feet waver forwards as you attempt to step forwards, but then you reconsider and allow Victoria to step out first, drawing everyone’s attention and allowing you to step out almost unseen. She doesn’t seem to mind, though, and allows you to scurry out of the store.
Once you’re out of the boutique, you can breathe a bit easier. It doesn’t feel like everyone’s judging you now.
It takes a few minutes for Victoria to emerge from the store. When she does, she gives you a ghost of a smile as she steps forward, as though she knows what you’re thinking.
“Alright,” she says quietly—as quietly as she can be in the middle of a crowded mall, at least. From her side, she raises her hand and passes you a white paper bag. You look inside, peering at a variety of plastic tubes, most of which you recognize from your lesson just now. “Here’s the makeup for you. Remember, if you need any help again, just call or text me and I’ll come over Tuesday or Wednesday, okay?”
You nod. You don’t think you’ll need any help with it, although it might be a good excuse to get Victoria to come back to your house again. Her lessons were pretty clear, though—applying the makeup doesn’t seem hard, just fiddly. You might have to get up earlier to apply it for a while, or skip breakfast in the mornings until you have the hang of it.
You want to lean up and give Victoria a kiss for teaching you, but you can’t. Being in public is hard.
She seems to recognize the impulse in you, though, because her faint smile turns into a grin, and she steps forward, taking your hand in hers. And that’s all that needs to be said.
It’s not quite all that needs to be said, you realize soon, but even temporary goodbyes are frustrating, and you hate giving them out. They’re the worst part of knowing people, honestly. Everyone should just always stick around you.
But that can’t happen, not when you have a date and Victoria has to head home for the day. “Mom wants me to go on patrol,” she says with a grimace. “Crystal and Eric are getting busier now that they’re in college, so I have to take some of their shifts.”
You pat her arm in what you believe is a sympathetic. “At least you get paid for it,” you console her. And it’s true, she does—you’d learned that much earlier, when you had looked up information on New Wave. The organization was officially registered with the government, and a part of that involved giving all the people involved in its operation recompense for their time, as they didn’t meet the criteria for a not-for-profit charity.
That’s how she could afford to buy all this stuff for you so easily, if you had to guess.
She just gives you a sour look, which she quickly smooths over. You’d be offended, but you don’t feel a spike in irritation aimed at you, so you think you’re all good. But damn it, now that you’ve thought about that you actually are a little bit worried. “I guess,” she mutters. “It just sucks.” She pouts at you, and you have to once again resist the urge to lean up and kiss her. It’s not a good idea, no matter how adorable her pout is and how much you want to bite that lip.
“Well, at least it won’t take too long,” you attempt to console her. “One afternoon, and you can go home and relax. Have you picked out the book for next week’s book club?”
She perks up. “No, I haven’t!” She doesn’t smile, but she shifts slightly, her body language opening a little. “That’s a good idea. Thanks, Taylor. And I need to plan where I’m taking you tomorrow, too.” She gives you an exaggerated wink at the reminder, causing your lips to turn up in a reluctant smile.
“Yeah, fine,” you say begrudgingly. Surprisingly, it didn’t feel completely awful to have Victoria buy you something, probably because she doesn’t even mention it again. When she doesn’t try to hold it over your head, it somehow feels a bit more tolerable. “I’ll see you tomorrow, then.”
Giving you a silly little wave, she waits for you to turn around before she heads off.
As it turns out, you hadn’t thought the logistics of this through very well. If it weren’t for the fact that you work at the theater, you’d be stuck clutching a bag full of makeup in front of you when Amy finally arrives. What an awkward impression that would make on your first pseudo-date! Luckily, you do work here, and India doesn’t care enough to remind you that you shouldn’t be entering the staff common room without wearing your uniform. You drop the bag off there and head out the front to wait for her.
She arrives a little late, her hair still a little damp. She must have showered directly before coming here—either having showered specifically for the date, or more likely, having worked in the morning and showered afterwards. Her clothes are nice, though— not too formal or too fancy, but better than the casual clothes you normally see her wearing around the break room at the clinic. It makes you feel a little self-conscious, honestly. Your own clothes aren’t very fancy, because you don’t own any fancy clothes.
Her gaze darts anxiously around the cinema for a moment, her eyes skimming straight past where you’re sitting half-hidden behind a wall. You flush, realizing your mistake, and move to where she can see you easier, giving her a little wave. Finally, she spots you. You meet her halfway, ending up standing awkwardly beside a cardboard cut-out of Alice from Alice in Wonderland.
Okay, the decorations are a bit out of date. You make a mental note to take these down and bring out some more current ones the next time you’re in.
Eventually, you speak up when the silence gets a little too awkward. “Hi,” you say lamely.
“Hi,” she says back. Her cheeks flush red for a moment in embarrassment, and she looks off to the side, scanning the cinema. You follow suit, hoping to avoid catching her gaze until you figure out something to say. Somehow, you’d hoped to avoid this happening, but all the smooth conversational topics you’d planned out in your head all fled the moment you laid eyes on her.
You scan over the building twice, but nothing leaps to mind. Finally, you clear your throat, and settle for the obvious. “Um,” you say nervously, “you look nice. I like your hair.”
She blushes prettily. It’s true, though. She’s attractive normally, if a little mousy, but dressed up in flattering clothing and with her hair done up in a neat bun, she looks really cute now. “Thanks,” she mumbles. “You look really pr—nice! You look nice. I like your makeup.”
You give her a small grin, but don’t mention that Victoria was the one who did it for you. It seems wrong to tell her that another girl did it for you when she doesn’t know—and that seems much worse now that you think about it. You should probably tell her soon. Maybe when you’re ready to ask her out on a real date. Instead, you turn away and quickly search for a change in topic. “What did you want to watch today?”
She freezes, then looks quickly up at the board above, where a screen displays today’s movies and their session times. “Avatar?” she says hesitantly. “My cousin’s said good things about it, at least, so it might be worth watching.”
You shrug half-heartedly. What you’ve seen of it while you were working hasn’t looked promising, but neither have any of the other movies on right now. “Okay,” you say, trying your best to inject some sense of happiness into your tone. She doesn’t seem to notice that you’re not particularly enthused, so mission accomplished.
Your staff discount is pretty significant, actually, at 50% off. Mr Harding had offered to give you tickets for free when you started working here, but it feels wrong to take advantage of that kind of thing when it’s for someone other than you. Besides, paying half price for tickets and snacks for the two of you isn’t too bad.
“What do you want?” you ask her lowly. To India, you say, “I want a small popcorn, a small coke, and a small chocolate ice-cream.” You turn back to Amy to explain that she can ask for anything she wants, but the words die in your mouth when you turn back to see a deep blush on her face. You ran back over what you said, but— what is she blushing about? Nothing you said is even vaguely erotic! Amy’s head must be a weird place.
“I’ll, um. I’ll have a small popcorn and a small sprite,” she says weakly, avoiding your gaze. You pout at her, but somehow, she just manages to avoid looking at you even harder. Honestly, it’s a little frustrating, not knowing what’s going on up in there. You need more teasing material, damn it!
You pay for your snacks, then lead Amy over to the theater—Theater 2, the second-largest one in here. It’s really frustrating to clean, because the seats are always sticky for some reason, and half the time you’re in here people have thrown popcorn at the screen.
You lead her up towards the back row. The theater here isn’t big enough that you need to worry about straining your neck, and you don’t really want to be seen by all the people behind you, so it’s as good a spot as any. You still can’t figure out why Amy’s cheeks turn red again, though.
“Okay,” you say, finally claiming a seat for yourself— the two least creaky seats in the whole back row. “Take a seat.” You give her your most charming grin as she sits beside you, settling herself into the seat.
Neither of the two of you says anything for a moment, contenting yourselves with chewing on some popcorn—Amy—and opening the prepackaged ice-cream cone—yourself. You idly lick at the ice cream, looking at Amy out of the corner of your eye and wishing you could figure out why she’s still blushing. Whatever embarrassed her should have gone away already, and you’re not doing anything now except licking an ice-cream!
You go to say something—you’re not really sure what—when another couple enters the theater, talking to each other in hushed whispers. The boy says something in the girl’s ear, and she giggles as he leads them to a seat two rows in front of you. You stare down at them, and—he only bought one tub of popcorn. A giant one.
Oh wow, that’s actually a good idea. You find yourself suddenly envious of this boy and his preparation skills. Now you wish you’d done the same. It wouldn’t quite be hand-holding, but it’d be close! And you’re willing to settle for close, at least for now.
The theater slowly fills up, although it’s not exactly full—you estimate that less than a quarter of the seats in here are taken. It’s enough that the atmosphere doesn’t feel very intimate any more, though. Damn it.
Finally, the movie starts up. You give it as much of your attention as you can, but you’ve already seen enough of the movie to think that it’s boring, and it doesn’t do a good job at all of keeping your attention. Especially not when you have something—someone—so much more interesting to look at.
You try not to stare at her too much, because it feels kind of creepy to stare at her while she’s watching a movie. You can’t help but turn to look at her occasionally, though.
Amy is one of those people who has the habit of mouthing the characters’ lines. She doesn’t even seem to realize she’s doing it.
You slowly creep your hand along the armrest of your chair. Amy is clutching the edge of it, but you don’t feel quite confident enough to just reach over and take it outright. Instead, you inch your hand along, hoping against hope that she’ll notice. She doesn’t, though, until you finally reach the point that your fingers brush her hands. You almost visibly see her freeze when she looks down and notices where your hand is.
She doesn’t grab it herself, but she also doesn’t move her hand away. This time, there’s no almost about it— you can see the deep, red flush that sets in over her cheeks.
