Chapter Nine
PAXTON
*
"Oh, this is so exciting!" Anna-Claire dropped down on my creaky old bed, throwing her arms out dramatically. "My best friend, who I long believed to be a closet asexual-"
"Hey!"
"-has finally got a date, with a sexy, handsome, slightly rude man!" She rolled over to prop her head up on her hands, elbows on the bed, kicking up her feet behind her. One professional, dressy high heel dangled off her foot, the other already fallen into the narrow space between my bed and the wall. "This is the best news I've ever gotten from you!"
"Settle down, now," I commanded. "And wait, why is 'slightly rude' a good thing?"
She had an answer ready, of course. Anna-Claire always had an answer; unlike the chaos of my life, which I tried to minimize by staying in for as much of it as possible, she kept everything neatly ordered and under control. "Because you are the most uptight girl I've known," she answered immediately. "And if this guy can break you out of your shell a little, it will do you a world of good."
"Great, now you're my psychologist as well as my money manager?"
"What money?" she countered, raising her eyebrows. "You know that you're never going to turn this bookstore into anything other than a meager living at best, right? Have you given my advice any more thought-"
I held up my hand. "Really, Anna-Claire, not now. I don't want to talk about this at all, especially not when I'm stressed over this stupid date." I dropped down onto the bed beside her, burying my head in my hands. "Why, oh why, did I say yes?"
"Because it's good for you," she answered my rhetorical question. "Come on, Paxton. Just admit that this could turn out to be not entirely awful. You said yourself that he was attractive, didn't you?"
"Too attractive," I repeated.
"And what's that mean?"
I gestured down at myself, standing in front of my closet in the same jeans and tee shirt that I'd been wearing before, looking at my meager selection of clothes and hating every single one of them. "I mean, look at me! Even if I try and make myself look nice, I wouldn't get a second glance normally from someone like him. He's totally out of my league, and he shouldn't be asking me out."
"But he did," Anna-Claire observed.
"Exactly." I flipped through a couple dresses hanging in the back of the closet, hoping that a better outfit would magically materialize behind them. Nothing did. "And that means that he's got some sort of ulterior motive, one that I probably will hate."
She sprang up from the bed, walking up to gently but firmly push me aside. "You're always so pessimistic," she said as she flipped through my outfits, giving most of them barely more than a single glance.
"Realistic," I muttered, but kept it too soft for her to hear.
After scrolling through everything that my closet had to offer, Anna-Claire flipped back to select a couple different pieces. "Here, put one of these on," she commanded as she held them out to me.
I winced. "Polka dots?" When did I ever decide to buy a white top with lots of little pink polka dots on it, and how drunk had I been? "Are you crazy?"
"I think that I can make it work, with the right pairing and accessories." Anna-Claire turned away, but then glanced back at me over her shoulder. "Go on, change. It's not like you've got anything to show me that I haven't seen before."
All well and good for her to say that; I was pretty sure that she hadn't seen the most recent couple of faint but still present stretch marks on my thighs and sides. I did my best to limit the indulgences craved by my sweet tooth, but I still carried around the stubborn extra pounds regardless. Especially next to Anna-Claire's Pilates and elliptical-trained, toned body, I felt like a sack of lumpy potatoes.
I wasn't going to win an argument against her, however, and at least she'd have me looking more composed and put together than I'd ever be able to manage on my own. I turned away from her and shrugged off the tee shirt, replacing it with the blouse.
When I turned back around, Anna-Claire had her hands on her hips and her head tilted slightly to one side, looking at me with a critical eye. "We can work with this," she nodded.
"Really?" I looked at myself in the mirror attached to the back of my bedroom door. "I look like I've got chicken pox again." Polka dots weren't my look, although I'd never really found any pattern that worked any better.
"Hush, would you?" Anna-Claire bent to tug at my pants, shaking her head at my poor fashion choices. "Why are your pants so baggy?"
"Because if I buy ones that are tight, it makes me feel even worse when I can't squeeze into them."
"Yes, but buying baggy stuff just makes you look shapeless." She waved a hand. "Oh well. I can't fix that now, not when this guy's coming in less than an hour."
I jumped glancing at the little clock on my bedside table. She was right! How had the time flown by so quickly?
"So instead," Anna-Claire continued, "we're going to have to boost your image using accessories!"
"Is one of them a full-face helmet?" I asked hopefully.
It didn't even get a laugh from her. She brushed my hair back behind my ears, frowned at it, then gathered it into a ponytail. "I think we can go for a cross between sporty and fresh. Like you just changed after a workout at the gym, but haven't hit the showers quite yet."
I thought of the last time I'd come back from a workout – okay, it had been quite a while in the past. I could think of a few words to describe my appearance, but "fresh" wasn't one of them. Hell, I didn't even think that I could manage "sporty". "Huffing and puffing like the Big Bad Wolf" seemed more appropriate.
Anna-Claire, however, was already dancing around me, a whirlwind of digging through my jewelry box, holding up various bits of cheap jewelry to my ears or neck, and then darting back to try a different combination. "Okay, go with these ones," she finally said, holding out a pair of small diamond studs and a thin little gold necklace with a tiny heart locket threaded on it.
I blinked down at the diamond studs. "These aren't mine, are they?"
"Nope, they're mine." Anna-Claire reached up to tug at one of her own bare earlobes. I hadn't even noticed her removing them. "But they're going to look great on you, and you can return them to me whenever. I've got more at home."
I stepped up to the mirror, added the little sparkling earrings and the necklace. Okay, I admitted, they helped a little. Still, I just looked like a chubby girl squeezed into a spotted blouse. I didn't see any of that "fresh and sporty" look that Anna-Claire had suggested.
"Well, we aren't done yet!" she pointed out when I remarked on this. "We still have to get to the girl's best friend!"
"Diamonds?"
"Makeup," she said firmly. She glanced at the little bits of assorted makeup on the bathroom counter, sighed, and dug out her own compact from her purse. "Sit," she commanded, pointing at the toilet.
I grimaced as she opened up the compact. "Really, Anna-Claire, do I need to bother with the makeup? I hate putting it on, and then worrying about accidentally touching my face and screwing it all up..."
"It's worth the hassle," she cut me off. "Just hold still for a minute, and I'll show you the face that's going to make this guy realize that he picked the right girl, after all."
I obediently, if slightly impatiently, sat still while Anna-Claire plucked hairs, tugged at my face, and swiped across it with different brushes. She stepped back several times, giving me a critical look-over before diving back in to make a few more adjustments. I sat with barely contained impatience through it all, until I finally couldn't take another plucked hair or soft frowning murmur from my friend.
"Enough!" I batted away her hand as she tried to pat my cheek with a little sponge, standing up and moving over to look at myself in front of the mirror-
-and froze, staring at my reflection.
If she wasn't wearing the same shocked expression, the same polka-dot top, I wouldn't have believed that the person in the mirror could be me. I had... cheekbones! My eyes looked bigger, my skin more delicate, my nose less of a lump protruding from the middle of my face. My eyebrows looked elegant, and the careful swipes of mascara that Anna-Claire had applied made me look sultry and mysterious, sexy and attractive.
"Oh my god," I said, looking at my reflection.
Behind me, she chuckled. "See? There's a reason why makeup is our big advantage over guys. When this guy – what was his name, again?"
"Alex," I said softly, still mesmerized by the face looking back at me from the mirror. I reached up, as if unable to believe that it was really me.
"When Alex sees this, he's going to be blown away," Anna-Claire promised. "If you want to find out why he originally asked you out, just ask him. He'll be so distracted by how you look, he'll give you honest answers to everything."
I finally managed to tear my eyes away. "Have you used that tactic, then?"
She smirked. "Let's just say that, after I found out that I was being underpaid quite a bit compared to my male colleagues, I quickly rectified that issue."
Even with myself looking more beautiful than I would have otherwise guessed possible, I still wasn't sure that I'd be able to get a straight answer out of Alex. Something about his attitude, the way he joked so easily while keeping the conversation light, afraid to touch on real issues, told me that he had some strong internal walls. Those weren't going to come down, just because my cheekbones now stood out so beautifully.
But if I could get him flustered and not pressing the attack against me... well, I'd be happy with that. As long as I made it through this date without doing anything too stupid or embarrassing.
"So, do I get to see you off on this date?" Anna-Claire asked. She ducked back into the bathroom to put away the bits of makeup she'd swiped from me. I'd need to sit her down, one of these days, and figure out how to do something like this for myself.
"Am I going to be able to stop you?"
She stuck her head back out to smile at me. "I'm so glad that you understand me so well."
I'd take that as a no. I gave myself one last look in the mirror, turning back and forth to see how my chunky figure looked in profile. Maybe Anna-Claire was right and my pants were a little baggy, but I liked them that way – it kept them comfortable, and let me climb the ladders and stepstools in Davies Books to reach the high shelves.
The blouse was definitely too tight for my preference. Additionally, it dipped quite low at the chest, revealing a good inch of cleavage. I had more still lurking beneath the surface, but I didn't like the idea of putting it on display for anyone to see. Anna-Claire had done something to my bra that made it hoist my girls even higher than usual, so they practically peered out of the polka dot top's scoop neck.
The first words that Alex had drunkenly shouted at me had been for me to flash him, and now I was doing practically just that! I grimaced, but it was too late for me to change now. He was going to be here any minute.
As if reality was feeding on my anxieties, I heard the chiming of the doorbell from down below. Anna-Claire sprang out of the bathroom, clapping her hands together.
"Here we go!" she called out, her cheerleader's voice filled with enthusiasm.
"Here we go," I echoed, sans her excitement. I gave my reflection one last look in the mirror, fervently prayed that my fears were unfounded – and then headed downstairs to meet Alex at the front door.