Just Like the Movies (15 page)

“So, guess who I'm meeting up with?”

I turn to see Lily behind me, shooting me a sly grin. I grab my tray off the cafeteria line.

“Let me guess, could it be a certain motocross god who is hot as hell and really nice?”

“Perhaps . . .”

Then her mouth spreads into a smile and I follow her gaze. I see Joe sitting at a table with a handful of other guys—the motocross team, I think. He must have seen Lily too, because he gives her a nod, then crooks his finger and motions for her to come closer.

“That's a pretty sexy move right there,” I whisper to her. “I wouldn't keep him waiting if I were you.”

“I think you're right,” she murmurs, then grins at me and heads toward him.

I let my eyes follow Lily as she reaches Joe's table and he scoots over to let her sit down. She drops her backpack on the seat next to her and pulls out a spiral notebook.

Of course—well, I guess a type A personality doesn't change her stripes. Or something.

And speaking of stripes . . . I cock my head, still looking at Lily but paying closer attention to her outfit. I think she could really use a fashion intervention. Her pinstriped, button-down shirt is like something my dad would wear to the office. While her jean skirt isn't terrible, it's about half a foot longer than I wear my skirts. I plop down at the track table next to Beth, considering ways I could get Lily to make over her physical appearance. I have a feeling that calling in the professionals of
What Not to Wear
or
Fashion Emergency
wouldn't go over too well with her.

Suddenly, my line of vision is blocked by a herd of drama kids moving past us, singing some random song from some random musical. I watch them as they head for a table in the back of the cafeteria and I'm reminded of Joe's flash-mob marketing ploy. Flash mobs are the kind of thing that everyone notices and talks about, not to mention films on their cell phones. There was that one on
Oprah
with the Black Eyed Peas. That went viral. Hell, even movies are getting in on the act—like
Friends With Benefits
, where Justin Timberlake's character uses it to get Mila Kunis in the end. Totally adorable.

I just need to figure out how to pull one off.

After school, I force Lily to meet me at my house with an excuse about Joe's fund-raiser. When she gets there, though, I hustle her up to the bathroom before she can make a quick getaway.

“What do you mean a makeover?” Lily asks. Her tone is an equal mix of hurt and terror. I reach out and pull on the cuff of her shirt.

“Lily, this is something you wear to the office, not to school. I'm not saying you need a complete overhaul. I'm just saying that you could use a little sprucing up.”

“You make me sound like a landscaping project,” she grumbles. I shrug.

“Well, I can take some clippers to your hair, if it'll make you feel better.”

“Ha-ha.”

Once we get up to my bedroom, though, Lily turns out to be pickier than I expected. First I thought I'd give her outfit approval and allow her some sort of vote when it came to her new look. When she reached for a pair of jeans and a T-shirt, however, I realized that I'd need to veto anything she approved of.

“Just think about
Easy A
—remember how Olive got all dolled up in lingerie to get attention? And it worked!”

“Uh, if by ‘worked' you mean people thought she was a prostitute!”

“Never mind. We're doing this my way. Get in the bathroom.”

“You're so bossy today,” she says, flashing me an irritated look, but she moves toward the hall bathroom without any more resistance.

Once she's settled on the stool next to the sink, we both peer at her reflection. Her hair is dark—really dark—and her curls are haphazardly arranged to frame her face. Her blue eyes are bright but sort of lose their luster underneath prominent eyebrows and so much hair. She needs two things really badly—tweezers and eyeliner.

“All right, we're starting with the painful part first.”

“Painful?” Her alarm is back and I pat her shoulder.

“Not really. Not terribly painful, anyway. It'll just be a little pinch.”

“What are you going to do to me?” she almost whispers.

“Tweeze you. Your eyebrows are a monstrosity.”

“Thanks a lot.”

“Hey, just keeping it real.” I lean in to get a better view while I work.

Lily actually handles it pretty well, and it isn't long before I've managed to craft a clean arch and thinner brows altogether. That alone makes all the difference, but I know that eyeliner is gonna be a game changer.

“So listen,” I say, rummaging through my box of eye makeup, “I forgot to tell you the details of my flash-mob plan for Operation: Tommy's Love.”

Lily's newly shaped brows fly up in surprise.

“Keep still,” I scold her.

But she ignores me and shakes her head.

“You were serious about that?”

“Of course!”

“How in the world will you pull that off?” she asks. I grin.

“I talked to Chelsea Norton after lunch—she's captain of the dance team.
And
I talked to Brett Yanno—he was one of the drama kids at the meeting, remember? Anyway, the Drama Club and the dance team have been working on the choreography for the musical, so they've already got a dance down pat. I asked them if they'd be willing to do a spur-of-the-moment performance, and they were all for it.”

“Did you tell them what it was for?”

I shrug. “Nah. I guess they'll figure it out when they see me and Tommy making out like crazy in the middle of all the dancers.”

Lily exhales hard. “Wow. I think that might be more ballsy than the
Say Anything
plan. You going to dance with them or just observe?”

I sigh, sweeping a shimmery shadow over her brow bone.

“Well, originally I was going to dance with them. But they know the steps and I want to have them perform tomorrow, so there's no way I could learn all the moves by then.”

“Tomorrow?” She sounds equally surprised and horrified. “Jeez, when you decide on something, you go all out, don't you?”

I shrug. “What's the point in waiting? Now close your eyes so I can line them.”

Lily makes a show of rolling them first, but then she closes her lids and I lightly draw a line along her lashes with a dark-brown liner.

“You know I'm never going to be able to remember how to do this,” she warns as I move to the other eye.

“Sure you will. It isn't complicated. Besides, you're going to like it so much that you'll want to know how to do it yourself.”

“Whatever you say.”

I know she's still doubting me, even after I've swept bronzer over her cheeks and a sheen of pinky-gold gloss over her lips. It isn't until she opens her eyes and looks in the mirror that she finally gets what I'm trying to do.

“Wh-what did you . . . how did you do that?” she says, stumbling over her words. I grin at her in the mirror.

She looks phenomenal. The blue in her eyes sparkles now with the delicate brown frame around her lashes. Her lashes themselves look doubly long with a bit of mascara, and her lips glisten with a “kiss me” pout.

“You're lucky you have such great skin,” I tell her, running a powder brush over her nose. “I didn't have to do much at all and you look outstanding. Do you like it?”

She nods, turning her head from side to side to check out her face.

“Dude, I totally owe you an apology. You were right.”

I laugh. “I wouldn't say that yet. I haven't picked your clothes out, and you might not feel the same way when you see how short my skirts are.”

She grimaces, but now she's a little more amenable when we move back to my room. She even tries on a sassy, strapless pink dress that I wore last summer to a concert.

“I could never pull this off,” she says, her eyes wide.

“Well, you're wrong, you look killer. But it's important for you to be comfortable.”

We finally settle on a short ruffled skirt with tiny flowers, a white tank top with a healthy amount of cleavage, and a cropped white denim jacket.

“I'm showing an awful lot of the girls, don't you think?” She gestures to the deep V-neck of the shirt. I shake my head.

“Nope, I
don't
think. Here's the thing—guys want to see just enough that they know there's something there to look forward to.”

“So you think there's something to look forward to here?” She gestures to herself as if she's some kind of science experiment.

I take a good look at Lily. She's pushed her hair back from her face, showing off some dangly earrings. Her makeup is still perfect and looks even better on her now that she's smiling. The jean jacket and skirt have the right
amount of opposing style—the practical denim versus the frilly ruffles.

“I think Joe is going to swallow his tongue when he sees you tomorrow. And I think you're going to need to find an excuse to take that jacket off and really show him what he's missing.”

Lily's cheeks redden, but she looks pleased. She turns back around to look at the mirror, and she shifts back and forth to see the skirt swirl around her legs.

“Thanks for this,” she says, glancing over at me. “Seriously. I owe you.”

“Oh yeah?” I say. “Wanna join a flash mob?”

She snorts a laugh.

“Not in a million years.”

I shrug, then grin at her. “Eh, it was worth a shot.”

Ugh
. I feel like an absolute idiot.

I tug at the hem of Marijke's ruffled skirt. I can't believe she convinced me to wear something this short. And this tank top? It's tighter than anything I've ever put on, including bathing suits. I've never felt more self-conscious. And yet, here I am, standing in the parking lot at school, trying to muster up the courage to walk inside for my SGA meeting.

“Lily?”

I turn to see Courtney behind me. She's positively gawking at my outfit.

“I—” She blinks at me, then shakes her head. “I didn't think it was you at first, but then I saw your car. You look . . . different.”

I look down again at my skirt. “Bad different?”

Courtney laughs. “No, not at all. I've just never seen you dress like this.”

I shrug. “I guess I just wanted to try something new.”

But when we reach the Student Activities office, Courtney's reaction is magnified by two.

“Holy hell, Lily!”

Meagan's face is agog as she stares at my skirt. I feel the red flush spread over my face again.

“Jeez, it's just an outfit,” I mutter.

Ms. Vincent, our advisor, is sitting at the long meeting table. She just raises an eyebrow.

“Uh, yeah. A
hot
outfit.” Meagan is shaking her head. “Well, someone is clearly trying to tempt a member of the student body. Who's the guy?”

I shake my head. “No one. I just figured I'd—I don't know . . . Can we just start talking about prom planning?”

Our meeting is short, considering most of the details are fairly surface level—the junior class has volunteered to organize the refreshments and the decorations are pretty standard: streamers, strobe lights, the works. I remember the Bikes for Tykes raffle at the very end, but I wait for Ms. Vincent to head back to her office before I mention it to the other girls.

“So by the way, Joe Lombardi is having this motocross fund-raiser—have you guys heard about it?”

Courtney nods. “Yeah, someone said something about it
yesterday. Apparently they wouldn't let him hold it on school grounds.”

“Right. The event's gonna be at the MotoTrak across town. Anyway, listen, there's this raffle . . .”

I explain the prom proposal plan and watch as eyes begin to light up around me. The class secretary, LeeAnn Gardin, is grinning and nodding emphatically.

“That is an AMAZING idea—and I know
so many
guys who will totally go for that. I mean, I'm waiting and waiting and waiting for Denny to ask me to prom. If someone took the work out of it, I might not be waiting anymore.”

“Yeah, that's the worst thing about prom proposals,” Courtney says, nodding. “So many guys wait until the last minute to pull off something totally awesome. Either that or they can't think of something cool enough to do on their own.”

“Exactly,” I say, shuffling my feet and moving toward the door, “so we're going to sell tickets after school on Monday in the student parking lot.”

“What about at lunch?”

I shake my head. “No dice—there are too many teachers around. I don't know if they'd approve or stop us, but considering their feelings about motocross, I figure we should keep this under wraps.”

“Sure.” Courtney's nodding and heaves her backpack on her shoulder. “Hey, speaking of lunch, why don't you
come sit with us today? We can decide whether we want to get a band or a DJ for prom?”