Chapter 16
AREZOO
Angelica's salon usually occupied just a corner of the living room in the home she shared with Edgar. It had a styling station, a manicure table, and a cabinet full of equipment that Angelica had purchased for her new establishment.
This morning, that wasn't enough, though, and she'd added another styling station using impromptu furniture.
She'd also set up an additional folding table for nail work and commandeered every available chair in her house, including a garden stool.
A portable clothing rack stood in the corner near the door, filled with garment bags and shoe boxes, the collective wardrobe for the evening's cocktail party.
Each garment bag and box was labeled with its owner's name.
The air smelled like hair product and nail polish and the rosewater cookies that Arezoo's mother had brought. The noise level rivaled that of a Taiwanese parliament meeting, just minus the physical violence.
In the mirror, Arezoo watched Angelica section her hair with clips, and behind the stylist, her chaotic family.
Her mother was sitting at the manicure table, where Angelica's cousin Frankie was painting her new fake nails a deep burgundy that complemented her dress.
Soraya was sitting very straight, her lips pursed, her expression suggesting that she wasn't sure whether she liked how her nails looked.
But Arezoo knew her mother well enough to know that wasn't what was going through her mind.
Soraya was overwhelmed with feelings, but she considered it a weakness and hated revealing her emotions.
Instead of smiling with happiness or shedding a few joyful tears, she just radiated intensity, but the fact that she had agreed to get fake nails for the occasion said it all.
For her mother, it was the equivalent of dancing on tables.
Rana was waiting for her turn with Frankie and occupying herself by sorting through the tray of treats she'd brought, rearranging the pastries and small sandwiches into a more aesthetically pleasing configuration.
Yasmin sat on the garden stool, admiring the pale pink nail polish she'd chosen, which was barely distinguishable from her natural color.
"This one would look good on you, Soraya," Parisa said, holding up a page in a hairstyling magazine, featuring an elaborate updo that looked like it required a box of hairpins in addition to an engineering degree.
"I don't like elaborate hairstyles," Soraya said. "And I like hairpins even less."
"It's so elegant, though," Parisa insisted. "And I don't think it requires that many pins. The structure is probably maintained with loads of hairspray."
"I don't like hairspray either," her mother countered.
Donya and Laleh were busy selecting nail colors, but after nearly an hour of deliberations, they were no closer to a resolution.
Donya wanted midnight blue, but Laleh thought that it was inappropriate for the occasion, and Arezoo agreed with her.
Laleh had chosen a pretty rose gold, but Donya had said that it was boring, and to that Laleh replied that her opinion was irrelevant because she had no taste.
Azadeh was sitting cross-legged on the floor between them and acting as mediator, but she was getting tired of being the peacemaker.
"Donya, get the blue if you want to, and Laleh, get the rose gold.
Neither of you has to like the color chosen by the other.
It's not like you are going to be looking at each other's nails at the party. "
"That's not the point," Donya said.
"There is no point." Azadeh threw her hands in the air. "That's my point."
"Sisters," Angelica said as she wound another section of hair around the curling iron. "Can't live without them and can't live with them."
"That's so true." Arezoo looked at the stylist through the mirror. "But I wouldn't change anything about either of them. I love them to pieces. All of them."
This was her family. Loud, opinionated, bossy, endlessly arguing about things that didn't matter as a way of expressing love for things that did.
Only mere months ago, they had been living subdued lives, diminished in ways they hadn't even realized.
Now they were crammed into an impromptu beauty salon, arguing about nail polish, and the normalcy of this newfound freedom was so precious that Arezoo had to take a slow breath to keep her emotions from spilling over and ruining the makeup that Angelica had already applied.
"Don't you dare cry." Angelica waved the curling iron. "I spent forty-five minutes on that face."
"I'm not crying."
Angelica paused with the iron midair. "I'm immortal now, remember? That means I can smell your tears before you shed them."
Arezoo felt her cheeks heating up. She had indeed forgotten about that particular trait. Angelica could smell much more than her tears. She could also smell her emotions, and so could every immortal close enough to sniff her.
Thankfully, the only other immortal in the room was Frankie, and she probably couldn't smell anything over the strong smell of nail polish.
"I know the tears are loading," Angelica added in a softer tone. "You have to hold it together, though. This is a cocktail party, and you are only allowed to cry at the wedding."
"I wasn't going to cry."
"Good. Because if you start, your mother will follow, and then your aunts will start bawling, and then I'll have to redo everyone's makeup, and you all are not going to make it to the party."
Arezoo smiled. "That's incentive enough to hold it in. Amanda will be furious if we don't show up after all the effort she's put into making this party happen."
Angelica released the curl and examined it critically before moving to the next section. "Are you excited?"
"Of course," Arezoo said. "I'm also scared because I don't like being the center of attention, and Ruvon doesn't like it either. We will probably go hide somewhere after the obligatory dance."
"Don't you dare." Angelica brandished the iron like a sword. "Not after all the work I put into making you look fabulous. You need to show it off, girl."
Frankie, who had somehow extracted herself from three simultaneous nail jobs, walked over to Angelica's station and admired Arezoo's reflection in the mirror.
"You are barely recognizable."
Arezoo frowned. "Is that a good thing? I don't want my fiancé to ask who I am and what I have done with the girl he loves."
Frankie chuckled. "It's still you, just better. I'm a great believer in presenting the best version of yourself at all times, but especially when you are the guest of honor at a party." She patted Arezoo's shoulder. "You will be unforgettable, which is the point."
Frankie didn't just preach, she always looked so well put together that every time she stopped by the store or the café, Arezoo asked her where she was going, and the answer was always, nowhere. She just liked to look her best at all times.
Her mate was one of the three gods who had recently arrived from Anumati, which was a fact that still made Arezoo's head spin when she thought about it.
"I'm done with Soraya and Rana," Frankie said to Angelica. "Who's next?"
"The girls." Angelica nodded toward Donya and Laleh. "If they've made up their minds about colors."
"Midnight blue," Donya said.
"Rose gold." Laleh glared at her.
"Wonderful. Come sit." Frankie beckoned them to the manicure table.
Soraya took Frankie's place behind Arezoo and put her hand over her chest. "You look like a movie star." She shook her head, and Arezoo knew that she was holding back tears. "My baby. The bride."
"Not today, Maman. Today is just the cocktail party, and Angelica says that we are not allowed to cry before or during the celebration. We are only allowed to cry at the wedding."
"Angelica is the boss." Her mother smiled at the stylist. "You are making us all look so much more beautiful than we really are."
Angelica smiled back. "I'm only helping bring out the beauty that's already there. I wonder what the guys are doing to look good."
"Probably nothing," Soraya said. "They only need to put on their suits, and they are good to go. Ruvon is going to look so dashing."
It was hard to believe that her mother had been so wary of Ruvon at first.
Well, Arezoo had also been scared of him because he was a former Doomer, and in her eyes, all Doomers were monsters. But Ruvon had won over both of them with his patience, kindness, and a willingness to let Arezoo set the pace of their relationship and Soraya set the pace of her acceptance.
By the time Angelica was about to finish her last hairstyling, two hours had passed, and the salon was beginning to resemble backstage at a fashion show, with half-styled women in robes and fully styled women admiring themselves in every reflective surface available.
Then the door burst open, and Drova made an entrance.
She didn't walk in, she stormed in the way a weather front entered a valley, changing the temperature and the pressure and the general atmospheric conditions through the sheer force of her presence.
As usual, she was wearing combat boots, black cargo pants, and a fitted black tank top that showed off skinny arms that, despite their appearance, could break and had broken bones.
Her black hair was pulled back in a ponytail, and she carried a garment bag over one shoulder and a duffel bag over the other, looking like she had come directly from the airstrip without stopping to change, which she probably had.
"I made it," she announced.
Arezoo crossed the room in three steps, barreling into her best friend and throwing her arms around her. The force of impact would have caused a human to stagger, but not Drova. She dropped both bags, caught Arezoo in a hug that lifted her off the ground, and held on.
"You're here," Arezoo said, and the tears that she'd been managing all morning finally breached the barricade.
"Don't cry on me. Your makeup will get on my shirt."
"I don't care."