Page 58 of The Promposal

“An hour?” Much as she had yesterday, Ella pounced on me. I had only a second to notice the rollers in her hair and her totally made-up face before she said, “We’re running out of time! Let’s go!”

She shoved me into the bathroom and told me to take a shower and blow-dry my hair. I did as I was told, knowing better than to mess with my sister when she was this fired up. I stayed in the soothing hot water of the shower until Ella started banging on the door. Hard. “Come on, Mattie!”

Oh, she was serious. She was calling me Mattie. That meant she had entered the I’m-not-screwing-around portion of the evening. I got out of the shower, put on my robe, and towel-dried my hair. I then used her hairdryer to get the rest of the moisture out.

Apparently deciding my time was up, Ella opened the door and told me I was finished. She dragged me down the hall to her bedroom and had me sit in at her vanity table.

“Up or down?”

The world? A little bit of both at the moment. “What?”

“Do you want your hair up or down?”

I didn’t care, but I sensed that saying so would be wrong. “You choose.”

“Up. Definitely up. That way it shows off your back and you won’t get too hot while you’re dancing. Having sweaty hair stick to your neck is the worst.”

She ran her brush through my hair, gathering it up into a big ponytail. I kind of lost interest as she started curling the ends and using bobby pins to loop them under. The final effect was pretty, but I didn’t dare say anything to the currently muttering Ella.

She tackled my makeup next. I got eye shadow, blush, powder, eyeliner, mascara, the works. Makeup wasn’t really my thing, but I decided not to say anything while she wielded sharp objects dangerously close to my eyeballs.

She handed me some tissue and instructed me to blot.

Then she sprayed me with glitter.

That was a step too far.

“I don’t need to be bedazzled!” But all my protest got me was a mouthful of the stuff. It tasted terrible. I studied my reflection. “I look like one of those candy strippers sneezed on me.”

“Striper. And it looks great. Now go get changed while I finish up in here.”

Ella had made me all beautiful, like she did for every dance we went to. It always gave me an extra little boost of confidence. And much as I knew Jake enjoyed it, one of my favorite things about him was that he thought I was just as beautiful without all this stuff on my face.

He loved me for me.

I couldn’t believe how close I’d come to totally forgetting that.

As I looked at my prom dress, now hanging on my closet door, a thought occurred to me.

“Ella?” I yelled.

“What?”

“How am I supposed to wear a bra in this thing?”

“You’re not!” she shouted.

That made me go back into her room. “Are you serious?”

She was sitting at her vanity table, pulling the rollers out of her hair. “Yes. I’m serious.”

“I don’t really let the girls go free range.”

“First time for everything,” she said. “I put lining in there for you, which should help. I also have these cup things you can use where you stick them onto your skin to keep your boobs in place.”

“And how do you get them back off?” I asked, alarmed.

Her expression told me all I needed to know. Free range, it was. “What if I have a wardrobe malfunction?”

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