Nine Ladies Dancing #3
“Because I wore hideous stuff like this?” I ask, removing a furry white vest from a hanger and fingering the pink plastic roses with rhinestone centers serving as buttons.
Magnolia shrugs and holds the tulle skirt up to her own hips. “All little girls like pink, but most of us don’t have adults in our lives who show us it’s okay to be so defiantly girlie when we grow up.”
“I don’t know about all little girls,” I say, replacing the vest.
She gives me a withering look. “You didn’t like pink when you were a kid?”
“I did,” I admit. “But some girls don’t.”
“Well, I’m not talking about those girls, am I?” she asks. “Can I have this?”
“Sure,” I say, shaking my head at the audacity of this kid.
I pick out a leather skirt in dark, dusty rose, but Magnolia shakes her head. “Wear something cuter for my cousin.”
“I’m not trying to impress him,” I say, glaring at her. “The opposite, in fact.”
“Oh, then wear your highest heels,” she says. “My friend Lara says guys hate feeling short.”
“I don’t think Preston cares that I’m tall,” I point out. “I wore heels all through high school, and it never scared him off.”
“This one,” she says, pulling out a sleeveless silk dress in a muted, medium pink shade. It’s simple, with a gathering at the bust and a lowcut neckline.
“Oh, that is pretty,” I say, running my fingers over the flowing fabric.
Once, I would have jumped at the chance to wear something so beautiful, but now I hear Nash’s voice in the back of my mind asking if I really need my shoulders on display.
I pull out a fuzzy, cream-colored shrug to wear over it.
Magnolia looks doubtful, but when I emerge from the bathroom in the dress, she jumps up and claps her hands. “You look amazing,” she gushes. “Oh my god, Preston’s going to die. Now, let’s do your makeup.”
“I don’t know what he told you, but I’m not here to win him over.”
“I know, but how cool would it be if you married my cousin? We’d be like sisters.”
My heart twists at the hope in her voice, the desperate loneliness vibrating through her like a note that she keeps holding long after the music has died.
For a minute, we’re silent, listening to a distant thudding from somewhere else in the house, like rapid footsteps. Magnolia doesn’t seem to notice.
“It must be lonely being the only girl here,” I say.
She gives me a dirty look. “Whatever. I just want to be related to a celebrity. Could you get me tickets to the Just 5 Guys reunion tour when it happens?”
“They broke up.”
“They’ll have a reunion tour,” she says, like it’s obvious. “Just wait a few years. It’s gonna happen. I bet you a hundred bucks. And you’re with the same label, right? That’s what Preston said.”
“Yeah.”
“I mean, obviously it’s too late for you and Devlin, but Preston must want you here for a reason.”
I shiver when I remember the other day in the hotel, when he refused to pull out. A little flutter of excitement builds between my thighs at the memory, but I shove the thought aside. “Can I ask you something?” I say, sinking onto the edge of the bed.
“Whatever,” she says, plopping down at the vanity and admiring her reflection from one side and then the other as she sucks in her cheeks and pouts her pretty lips.
“Where are your parents?” I ask, watching her in the mirror.
“They got divorced,” she says, pulling open the drawer. She hauls out a huge makeup bag and squeals with excitement as she sets it on her lap and slides the zipper around the rounded, rectangular lid.
“But where are they?” I press. “I mean, you seem pretty independent, but you’re still a kid. Why is Preston taking care of you, your ailing grandfather, and your brother, who seems like maybe he’s… Got a lot going on?”
“You mean fucked in the head?” she asks, popping a mascara and slowly drawing out the wand.
“That’s a rude thing to say.”
She huffs. “He’s my brother. I can say what I want. Besides, you’re not my mom. You can’t tell me what to do.”
“Exactly,” I say. “So where is she?”
“She split when she found out the Dolces were targeting anyone with a Darling name or Darling blood. She tried to get custody so she could take us away, but Dad fought for us and won. He said it wasn’t any safer if we left, that the Dolces would just track us down.
Mom changed back to her maiden name and moved to be closer to Sully, so she could visit him in the mental institution every weekend.
I stayed here with Dad.” As she talks, she pulls out handfuls of makeup and scatters them in haphazard piles on the surface of the vanity.
“Okay,” I say. “Where’s your dad?”
“He went off on some around-the-world honeymoon with some chick he met at the strip club,” she says, rolling her eyes.
“He left us with Grampa Darling, and Preston was living here, so now he thinks he’s the boss of us.
Like, just because he’s the closet relative we have, since our dads are brothers and our moms are besties, he thinks suddenly he knows what’s best for us. ”
“I’m sorry,” I say, but I’m thinking that’s the kind of incestuous, weird little circle that made me want to leave this town. The founding families are always marrying each other. One of these days, a generation of them will all be related, and they’ll have to stop. Until then…
“I don’t even like horses,” Magnolia huffs. “They stink. Plus, hasn’t he ever watched a horse movie with jumping? I’m obviously going to break my neck and end up paralyzed.”
I can’t help but laugh at that. “I think you might be overreacting.”
She fixes me with a haughty look in the mirror. “Are you going to let me do your makeup or not?”
I’m not sure I want a fourteen-year-old doing my makeup, but I’m reassured by the fact that her own makeup isn’t overdone.
My sympathy for the girl won’t let me say no, even if I’d rather do my own.
I remember being her age, rummaging through the makeup at the mall with Destiny, trying on a million colors of lipstick to find one that looked good on both my cool white and her warm brown skin tone.
Eventually, we found a shade of purple that worked.
I push that thought away, too. I still miss her, and less importantly, that happened way too close to the incident in this very room with Preston.
Not like it was her fault. She thought I was madly in love with Devlin—which I was.
I shouldn’t have cared about seeing Preston’s dick inside her any more than I cared about Colt’s.
The person in the wrong in that situation was Preston.
Wasn’t it?
I still remember the flinty look in his eyes when they met mine while he stuffed his cock into her. He knew she was my best friend.
But he didn’t owe me anything.
Maybe the only person in the wrong in that situation was me.
I held all the cards. I always held the cards.
Preston’s always been mine for the taking—if I wanted him.
Even when he was whoring his way through the entire school, in some way, he was always mine.
Just like Magnolia said, he was always there, waiting for me to notice him but respecting me and Devlin too much to make a move.
Except he did make a move. He just never told me.
It’s all too confusing to think about now. That’s part of why I left this town.
“All done,” Magnolia says, stepping back and looking me over.
I glance in the mirror, relieved to see that if anything, my makeup is much more understated that I would have made it. “That looks great,” I tell her.
“Yay,” says, giving a flurry of little claps. “I can’t wait to tell my friends I did makeup for the stars.”
“I wouldn’t call myself a star.”
She makes a face. “I liked the old, outrageous, pink sequin Dolly better than the modest one. You have a song on the radio. In this town, that makes you a star. Saying you’re not just makes us look like hicks for being star-struck around you.”
“You know I didn’t mean it that way,” I protest. “Didn’t your mama teach you any modesty?”
“She tried,” Magnolia says, rolling her eyes. “I don’t see why we’re supposed to believe it’s a good thing, though. If modesty was actually an admirable trait, they’d teach it to boys, too.”
“Oh boy,” I say, standing from the chair. “It’s getting late. Maybe we should go down to dinner.”
“Hm,” Magnolia says with a sniff. “Maybe you’re not a good fit with Preston. You’ve changed. You used to not give a fuck what anyone thought.”
“You keep that attitude as long as you can,” I tell her with a smile. “You’ll learn soon enough, you can’t just go through life doing whatever you want. Sometimes you have to choose between doing what you want and getting what you want.”
“I never get what I want, anyway,” she says, stomping out the door. “Otherwise I’d still be at school. I spent months trying to find a place at Willow Heights, and by the time I go back, my friends will have moved on and forgotten I exist.”
“I’m sorry,” I say, following her out. As we descend the stairs, I give her hand a squeeze.
“Then it’s good that you’re sure of yourself.
You’ll find a place again, even if it’s not the same one.
If that’s what you want, make it happen.
Like I did with music. Maybe you’ll change to fit in, or maybe you’ll stop wanting to.
Sometimes you don’t get both. If that means I’m not compatible with Preston, or you’re not with your friends, there are other paths that are still worth taking. ”
“Yeah,” she says. “I figure Preston needs someone more… Confident. Someone who just is who she is and owns it. Like you used to be. Oh, like Harper! I wish she’s picked him over Royal. Then I’d have a guaranteed friend at school and a badass sister-to-be.”
I grit my teeth and don’t respond. What does this kid know? She’s fourteen, for fuck’s sake. When I was fourteen, I thought I’d marry Devlin Darling and live happily ever after.
Still. It was one thing for her to say I wasn’t a good match with Preston—why should I even care?
—and another for her to say his ex was better than me.
I could live with the first one, tell myself I didn’t care if I’m no longer the same girl who fit with him.
I’m not trying to get with him. But to hear about how great this other chick is, a girl he’s still texting, sets my blood to boiling.
And what the hell is this about her choosing Royal over him? That must have devastated him. He didn’t even tell me. He made it seem like texting her was no big deal. The fact that she chose his mortal enemy and he’s still talking to her… That means he must love her a whole fucking lot.
So what am I doing here, exactly? I told him to move on, and obviously, he did. Why go to all the trouble to drag me all the way across the country if he already fell in love with someone else?