“I thought you said that it doesn’t matter how you look.”
Well, she had me there. “That’s true, but when you go somewhere fancy and put on a nice dress, it’s pretty normal to want to be at your best.”
She seemed to accept this contradiction. “I like it in the twisty thing you did. Silas will, too.”
I looked at her image in the mirror instead of at my own slightly worried expression. “Why do you think that Silas will like it?” Had he noticed my hair and said something about it to her?
“I know he will because he likes the same things I do,” she answered.
Oh. “Ok, I’ll put it up,” I agreed, and swept it into a low bun with a few dark waves framing my face.
“Could I do that to my hair?”
“Sure,” I said, and I tried to keep the eagerness out of my voice. I always reacted that way when she offered an opportunity for us to connect, but it was better to be casual. “Sure, we could practice it tomorrow.”
“Did your mom teach you how?”
“Yes, and she used to do hair as her job so she’s very good at it,” I explained. “She’s really talented at updos and she did amazing braids for the girls on my softball teams, too. She gave me and my dad all of our haircuts.”
“I never get mine cut. Neither does Silas.”
I was aware of that. Both of them had a whole lot of thick hair, too, and in my opinion? They both could have used a trim. But my opinion didn’t matter, I reminded myself again. I was doing my best to keep my thoughts to myself about most things. Lately, I would only intervene when I believed that something was very wrong (I’d said that Silas couldn’t add cayenne pepper to oatmeal because maybe the color would be pretty, but the taste wouldn’t have been) or when I was afraid of harm (flipflopsto school were a no, because Lyra could have tripped so easily—and I found out by checking the school website that they weren’t even allowed).
“Are we supposed to leave now? I thought you had us on a schedule,” Silas called from downstairs.
I stood up from the little velveteen stool. “What do you think?” I asked Lyra, smoothing my hands over my dress.
“I think you’re the prettiest girl I ever saw,” she told me, and I felt my jaw drop. “But you always say that looks don’t matter.”
Again, she had me. “They don’t, but thank you,” I answered. She was already reading as I walked down the stairs carrying my shoes. Then I paused at the bottom to get them on.
“Are those too small or something?” Silas asked as he watched me struggle. “Why is it so hard?”
“I’m trying to fasten the little buckles without wrinkling my dress or messing up my nails. I can’t pull on the straps because they’re delicate and I can’t find the hole for the pokey part…darn it!”
“Such language,” he chided. “Let me do it.” He knelt in front of me and put my foot up on his knee. “Hold still.”
“You almost tipped me over backwards!” I said as I grabbed the banister. Also, was he able to see up my dress? His attention was focused on my slingback, though. “I guess you’d be good at tiny buckles with all your origami,” I mentioned as his big hands carefully worked. I had several of his creations on my desk, because I found them soothing to look at.
“Yeah,” he agreed. “In fact, for my next job, I’m looking to move into professional shoe buckling.” He patted the top of my foot, very gently for someone so strong. “You’re good.”
I was a little shivery, actually, probably due to the excitement of a night out. It had been a while since I’d gotten dressed up in a fancy outfit that I liked and that I had chosen for myself. Club nights had been all about Dax…but I had already decided that I wasn’t going to think about him. We said goodbye to Lyra and her babysitter, and I put my ex out of my head and focused on Silas instead.
“I’ve been thinking about it,” he mentioned as I reversed into the street, and he certainly didn’t mean Dax either. “I’ve been thinking about my next job.”
“Do you want to change careers?”
“Three part-time gigs don’t add up to a career,” he said. “I’d rather be like you.”
“Me?”
“Your voice goes so high when you’re surprised,” he noted, and he switched into an upper register to repeat something I’d said recently. “’Silas, were you really going to put soy sauce and cheese onto that?’”
“You would have thrown up,” I informed him.
“I happen to like both soy sauce and cheese. Who’s to say that they wouldn’t go well with chocolate cake?”
“I say.”
