“You’re not going to wear a lot of makeup, and you’re definitely not going to look like you wear a lot of makeup,” she tells me now, as she carefully applies a coat of mascara to my lashes.
I try to keep from blinking, but I feel like she’s going to poke me right in the eye.
“Your everyday makeup is only intended to enhance your natural beauty, so you don’t want to use a heavy hand. For an evening look or a special occasion you can get a little more dramatic, but for a day at the mall?” She shakes her head. “Take Valerie, for example.”
I stiffen a little just hearing her name.
“Valerie is a very pretty girl, but she’s trying too hard; she needs to tone it down. The pale blue eye shadow she’s wearing today? No woman needs to own that awful shade of eye shadow. I did the same thing when I was your age, though,” she says, rolling her eyes. “Tried so hard to look pretty I just ended up looking like a clown. When I started modeling, I learned a better way, so I’ll just teach you now and save you the painfully awkward stage.”
I crack a smile. “I appreciate the effort, but I don’t wear makeup daily. I don’t really wear it at all.”
“Maybe not now, but you’ll probably start to soon. It usually starts around the time you notice boys,” she says lightly. She finishes my mascara and leans back, smiling at her handiwork. “Beautiful.”
“Can I see?”
She nods, screwing the cap back on the mascara and opening the powder compact she bought me.
I take it, checking out my reflection. I look the same, of course, but she’s right—somehow my eyes look even bluer with the mascara. “It looks pretty. Thank you.”
“That’s the thing about makeup,” she tells me. “It’s not always about looking good, it’s about feeling good. I just feel better when I wear it.”
I flash her a smile and close the compact, handing it back to her to put in the bag.
“You can put it in your purse.” She hands me the mascara, too. “We’ve got to condense bags and hide the evidence anyway, right?” she teases.
“Right,” I murmur, sliding the makeup into my purse.
She said it like she was joking, but as she folds up the bag, she echoes a question her son has already asked me. “Is your mom super strict?”
I shake my head. “No, not really. Aside from Sara, my mom’s my best friend. I think she’s just worried that I might be starting to like a boy, and she’s not ready for it,” I explain, even though it makes my face heat up to admit it—and to his mom, no less.
“I get that. My mom was the same way when I was your age, believe it or not. But the more restrictions she put on me, the more it convinced me that I must be missing out on something really exciting. It didn’t keep me from boys, just made me sneakier. I was a bit of a rebel,” she confides.
I smile faintly. “I’m not.”
“I can see that,” she says dryly.
Ordinarily, I would never dream of asking an adult to explain their relationship, but since Venus has shared so much with me already today, I try to think how to ask her what’s going on with her husband. Hunter is convinced she’s in the process of leaving him, but nothing I’ve seen and nothing she’s said today has backed that up.
At the same time, she has to be, right? He hit her son. He hit him so hard he had a black eye, and I saw the hostility between them the day I was over at his house. Surely it’s not okay with Venus that the man she’s in a relationship with dislikes her son so vehemently.
One time, my mom had a boyfriend that didn’t like me. It wasn’t that he was mean to me (and he certainly never laid a hand on me), but he seemed disinterested in getting to know me or interacting with me more than he absolutely had to. She thought maybe he was just being shy at first so she brought him around more to break the ice, but he always seemed mildly annoyed when I was around.
She ended up dumping him. Mom told me she couldn’t be with someone who didn’t treat her favorite person right, and that was that—we never saw him again.
Before I can figure out a way to approach it with Venus, though, Hunter and his friends find us in the food court. His mom just finished condensing everything she bought down to two bags, so she passes them to me under the table before asking us if we’re getting hungry.
“I am,” I volunteer, since only the guys have spoken up so far.
“Of course she is,” Valerie murmurs under her breath to her friend, who chortles.
I look at her, frowning mildly. “I’m sorry, was that supposed to be an insult?”
“Of course not,” Valerie says innocently. “It must be nice, that’s all. I’m on a diet so I’ll just have a salad.”
“Okay. I’m going to have bourbon chicken with a heaping plate of fried rice,” I tell her. “It’s going to be delicious.”
Hunter smirks. “That does sound good. I think I’ll have that, too.”
Valerie gets even pissier when everyone decides what they’re eating and Hunter and I walk alone to the Asian place with the bourbon chicken.
“You and Valerie seem to be hitting it off,” he jokes, grabbing two trays and passing one to me.
“She’s mean,” I inform him, not bothering to mince words.
“She’s a little mean,” he acknowledges. “It grows on you, though.”
“Why would I want it to? I don’t like her, she doesn’t like me—I’d say that’s that.”
He moves down the line, placing his tray on the counter. “Our moms are friends, so she’s kind of hard to get away from. We’ve always been pushed together since kindergarten. There was a brief period one summer when Valerie’s mom thought her husband had flirted with my mom at some cook-out and we stopped hanging out, but come August, everything was fine again.”
“Your mom is… interesting,” I tell him, placing my tray down beside his.
He smiles faintly, glancing back at me. “She is. She talks a lot. Has she been telling you stories?”
I nod my head. “Apparently you’re a bully, but your dad was also a huge jerk so you can’t help it and that’s okay.”
His eyes widen slightly and his eyebrows rise in genuine surprise. “Wow, thanks for talking me up, Mom,” he says sarcastically.
“She’s very honest.”
“You think I’m a jerk?”
Usually there would be an undertone of humor when we’re going back and forth, but there’s no amusement when he asks that. His gaze slides to mine and even though he doesn’t say anything more, I get the distinct feeling that my answer matters to him.
My heart gives under the weight of his gaze. I have heard things today that reinforce my previous belief that he might be a jerk, but he hasn’t been a jerk to me. I also don’t want to believe he’s a jerk because I like him. I don’t know what to say, though.
Before I have to answer, the lady on the other side of the counter interrupts to ask what we want. We don’t speak to each other while we’re ordering, then we slide down the counter to pay. I start to dig my money out of my purse, but Hunter tells the cashier we’re together and pays for both our meals.