Bookishly Ever After (2 page)

I laughed at his goofy pose. “Don’t worry, Dev. Fictional crushes pale in comparison to you. You’re so hot, you’re totally out of my league,” I said, patting his cheek in mock consolation. “I’ll just have to settle for boys in books.”

He sat back, but not before tugging on my ponytail. “And yet again, my hotness works against me.” Someone waved at him from across the room and he stood, gathering his things. “Sorry to deprive you all of this awesomeness, but my regular lunch table calls. See you in band.”

Em watched him walk away for a few seconds, brows knit together, before turning her attention back to me. “So, the homecoming dance.”

I picked at the crust on my sandwich. “What about it?”

“You’re going, right? Now that they made it a masquerade, it’s totally up your alley.” She paused, then added, “Up
our
alley, because who doesn’t love costumes?”

“You made me buy a ticket and talked my sister into making me a costume, so I doubt I have a choice anymore, do I?” The whole dancing in front of my classmates thing held no interest for me, even though a part of me thrilled
at the idea of becoming someone I was not and maybe catching Kris’ attention. But my friends didn’t need to know about that.

“Actually, you do,” Grace said before Em could answer back. “I’m skipping. Leia’s really not into costumes.”

Alec looked up from his hoagie in mock shock. “I thought Homecoming was one of those things cheerleaders
had
to do, along with pyramids and cartwheels.”

“My girlfriend’s discomfort trumps disappointing the squad. We’re going to Marranos after the game, instead. You can come with us, Feebs.”

“No, she can’t. Jon’s going.” Em looked directly at me. “And you’re going to look cute for him.”

Eyes wide, I looked over at Grace and Alec who both shook their heads to show they weren’t getting involved. With a dirty look at both of them, I tried not to groan. “Em—”

“What?” She stared me down in that intense no-excuses Em way. “You need to get out more. Plus, I’m not letting you get stuck in this whole only wanting to crush on guys who fit descriptions of guys in books thing. He’s hot. I get that you’ve got Kris on a pedestal, but Jon’s in Junior ROTC. Hello, pushups and uniform.” Em fanned herself dramatically.

A cough came from across the table. Alec raised his hand. “Remember, guy at the table.”

Em grinned at him. “Sorry, forgot you were there.”

“I really need to find a table with more testosterone.”

I slumped in my seat, pulled out my book, and prayed for the bell to ring.

Family meals at the Martins house were like the compulsories at the Olympics. If you wanted to keep living in the house, you showed up on time and made it through dinner. Even if the entire place was on fire, we’d still sit at the table until Mom gave us the signal to start cleaning up. Mom and Dad were firm believers in the bonding power of food.

I shoveled mashed potatoes in my mouth while flipping to the next page in my book.

“Phoebe, are you listening?”

Food and conversation, even though Dad was just as bad as me about bringing scholarly journals or books to the table, and I’d seen Mom sneak her own books under the table, too. I scrunched my nose and stuck my napkin in my book to hold my place. “Yes, Dad?”

“We’re heading up to Massachusetts this weekend.” “Aunt Terry,” Mom said the name as if it tasted bad,

“
finally
decided she was going to throw your grandmother a birthday party and invited us. And I know it’s only two days’ notice, but we shouldn’t miss it.” She plopped another scoop of mashed potatoes onto Dad’s plate with a little more force than necessary.

“Ok-ay,” I said slowly, waiting for the ‘you should go even though this is insanely last minute’ guilt trip to start.

“Grandmom Clara isn’t going to be here forever, you know,” Dad said, echoing mom’s tone. Oh, boy. Even he was getting in on the guilt piling.

I shifted in my seat, pretending to focus on my book. “I know, but— the dance and work—I promised Cassandra I’d teach this weekend…” I heard the front door open and popped out of my chair. Saved by the big sister. Trixie would talk them out of making me go. “Trixie!”

Rushing into the foyer, I grabbed Trixie and swung her around, heedless of all of the bags in her arms. She was about my height, but her frame was so small that she looked delicate, as if she were going to collapse under the weight of her bags and momentum of my spin. “Save me from Massachusetts,” I whispered.

“I’ll try,” she whispered back, conspiratorially, and added an exaggerated wink. “I didn’t come down to Lambertfield for the weekend just to go even more north than NYC.”

I gave her another hug, then tugged at her bags. “So? Do you have it?”

She scrunched up her little button nose and dropped her bags in the middle of the floor, spreading her arms and legs like a goalie to keep me from getting to any of them. “No ‘how’s sophomore year, Trixie?’ ‘Glad you’re home for a visit, Trixie?’ ‘Did any of your work get into any good fashion magazines lately, Trixie?’ I’m really feeling the love, Feebs.”

I tossed her an amused look before reaching around her
to dig into one bag that had hints of green fabric peeking out of the top. “Oh, it’s good to see you, but even better to see the dress.”

“Dinner first,” Dad called from the kitchen. “You’re late, Trixie.”

She stopped blocking me for a second to call over her shoulder. “Sorry, there was an accident on the Turnpike that delayed all the buses.” Amusement played across Trixie’s face as she turned back and swatted my hand away from the bag. “You heard Dad. Dinner.”

I reached for the fabric again, endured another swat, and batt my eyelashes at her. “Please can I have the pretty? Please?”

“You’re terrible.” She swept past me and tugged on my sleeve to pull me away from her things. “And maybe it would do you some good to wait. I spoil you way too much for your own good, baby girl.”

“Because you love me.”

Trixie shook her head and dragged me back to the dinner table. “Right. Remember, you owe me a sweater after this.”

“Hold still.” Trixie jammed another pin into the top layer of my dress, just barely skimming my skin.

“Careful! You almost stabbed me.”

My older sister just pulled another pin out of the cushion on her wrist. “I told you not to move.” The second pin actually scraped my waist and I had to fight not to flinch. “I didn’t come down all the way from New York to screw up the fit on this thing.”
Between pins, I ran a hand over the incredibly soft green fabric. “This isn’t what I bought.”

“I used my student discount to pick up some decent stuff in the Garment District. I can’t work with crappy fabric,” She lifted the skirt of the dress and let the green material run over her hands like a waterfall. “Pure silk.” She sniffed a corner of it. “It even still has that real silk smell.”

I swatted the material out of her hands. “Stop smelling my dress. That’s weird.”

She went back to pinning. “You smell books and yarn.”

“That’s different. There’s nothing in the world like brand new book or that sheep-y, wool-y smell.”

“Except for silk.” Apparently satisfied with sticking enough pins in the dress to make me into a life-sized voodoo doll, she stepped back to check me from a few angles. “Good. Time for the overlay.” She reached into her bag and pulled out a bundle of material that was as delicate as cobwebs. “Arms up, bend over.”

“Overlay? The description in the book didn’t say anything about an overlay on the dress,” I complained, but at one look from those dark brown eyes, I complied. Never mess with a girl who owns four different kinds of sewing shears.

She slipped the layers of gossamer fabric over my head, letting it swoosh down my body like a whisper. “Won’t need to alter this,” she murmured, pulling and prodding the fabric into place. A tiny smile slipped across her lips. “I have to say, I thought this was a weird challenge, but this dress will look amazing in my portfolio. I love that they decided
to let you wear costumes to Homecoming.” She brushed at imaginary lint on the skirt.

“That’s because some parents started protesting that our Halloween Fling was satanic or something and the school had to cancel it. This was our only chance to dress up.”

“It’s almost too pretty for a costume.” We both turned to see Mom leaning against the doorway to our shared bedroom. Since Trixie went away to college, I had taken over most of the room, but we were standing in her still sacred corner of fabric and sewing machines, and sketches that papered the wall so thickly, you couldn’t see the violet paint underneath. “It’s a shame you’re not saving it for your Senior Prom.” Mom stepped inside and came over to inspect Trixie’s work.

My sister’s smile turned into a full-out grin and she shook her head hard enough for the red and orange tinting the ends of her short brown hair to flutter like flames. “No way. Imagine how much better I’ll be in a year. Feebs’ senior prom dress is going to be epic.”

“Why do I feel like I’m just one of your experiments?” I teased, faking a pout.

Trixie added a golden belt to my whole outfit. “Your crazy ideas actually work out. Plus, your body type is a nice challenge.” At my glare, she added, “I’m all straight up and down. You might be practically flat chested, but at least your hips give you some curves.”

“I don’t know whether to be insulted or flattered.”

“Flattered. And you can always pad in some fake boobs.”
At my Mom’s frown, she quickly added, “Could. You don’t need to in this dress…” Mom kept frowning at her. “…and, um, because you’re only sixteen and not a prostitute?”

Even Mom laughed at that one. “You’re beautiful the way you are.” She made a twirly motion with her pointer finger. “Turn around, I want to see the entire thing.”

As I rotated carefully like a music box ballerina and tried not to stick myself with any of the pins, I said, “I’m using shoes from that Irish dance store and I’ve got temporary color and extensions to give me ‘waves of flowing red hair.’”

I stopped turning at the dismayed look on Mom’s face. “Oh, Phoebe. You have beautiful hair. Why would you do anything like that?” Leave it to Mom to say that. While Trixie had gotten dad’s straight chestnut hair, I had inherited hers. Our hair was fine, thin, and hovered in this part-curly, part-straight state that was frizzy ninety percent of the time. Mom always kept hers short like Trixie’s and probably never noticed. And our color was brown. Not chestnut. Not auburn, not golden brown. It was a nice, boring shade of dirt brown. People never dyed their hair our color.

“Because it’s a costume. Maeve is a redhead.” I tugged at my puny braid. “The heroines in practically every book always have long, thick hair that flows down their backs. Well, except for that one character in that knight book, but she cut off her braid so she could fight.”

Trixie just shook her head at me. “Okay, enough playing. Off with the dress so I can do some alterations.”

“Wait.” I lifted the skirts and picked my way across the
room towards our full-length mirror. “I haven’t seen it yet.”

I stood in front of the mirror, taking in the dress with more than a little bit of awe. It really was as if Trixie had just pulled it out of the pages of
Golden
, down to the tiny gold ribbons tying my off-the-shoulder sleeves to the main dress. And instead of looking out of place on me, I looked like I belonged in something this pretty. I looked like Maeve. “The perks of having your own designer,” Trixie said, echoing my thoughts. “In a dress like this, you’re not allowed to hang out on the side of the dance floor like the nerd you are, you know.”

An image popped into my head of Kris showing up at the dance dressed in a green battle tunic just like Aedan’s. He’d come up beside me and, as if we were the only ones in the room, would sweep me into a waltz. I wouldn’t be invisible dressed like this. A shiver of anticipation rushed through my body and I smiled at the thought.

“Maybe,” I said, unable to tear my eyes away from the reflection. “Maybe not.”

I twirled, watching as the layers of sheer material wafted around me in a green cloud. “Trixie did a good job.” Em said, making her way through the school atrium doors. “Now, stop spinning before you hurt yourself.”

I stopped midturn and the skirts settled in a sigh around my legs. “It really is perfect. I feel just like Maeve in this.” I couldn’t help but swing my arms at my side as I walked so the sheer overskirts brushed my hands and rustled as if there was a breeze in the building. My hair shed glitter that dotted everything.

“Too bad nobody will have any clue who you’re supposed to be.” She tilted her pirate hat at me as we headed into the gym. “Nobody reads books.”

“When the movie comes out, all of you will wish you had thought of this.”

“Doubt it.” She reached over to straighten one of my gold torques. “But you look so pretty tonight. Like something out of a fairytale.” Satisfied with the torque, she fixed my hair so a bunch of it spilled over one shoulder.

“Thanks.”

“Pretty enough that maybe Jon will ask you to dance,
drag you off to the locker rooms, start making out with you in the showers...” she said with a wink.

I shook my head. “Right. Only in Em-fantasyland.” We were early and they were just starting to set up the decorations. I craned my neck, checking to see if Kris was there yet. When I didn’t see him, I slumped slightly. “I wish I had half of your flirt-fu.”

She smiled back at me over her shoulder. “Since I come from cultures that gave the world Aphrodite
and
Oshun, it’s in my blood, you know? But I can totally teach you. Your sister made you a dress that makes you look like you actually have a little bit of cleavage,” I made a face at her, but she continued, “so use it. Lesson one, work the nonverbal with the verbal. Watch and learn.”

“Can’t wait, Yoda.” I watched Em make her way over to the DJ stand where Wilhelm, the cute foreign exchange student from Germany, seemed to be struggling with the speakers. She dropped onto his lap like she was already dating him and started pointing at the random cords in his hands.

“That girl is as subtle as a nuclear bomb.” I glanced up to find Dev standing right behind me. “You’re very…sparkly. What are you supposed to be?” he said, quirking a half smile.