Bookishly Ever After

by Isabel Bandeira

  “I don’t know...” I wasn’t really paying attention to her anymore. My fingers reached for my copy of Golden. I was already always asking myself WWMD—What Would Maeve Do? So why not actually try to apply it? Or act like another one of my favorite heroines? “I…have to go. I’ll see you tomorrow?”

  “Of course. And then you can tell me all the details about Dev and books and milkshakes.”

  Golden’s dust cover glittered as I absently flipped it around in my hands. “Right.”

  “’Night.”

  “’Night.” I clicked off the phone and stared at the tower of books shoved on my “favorite” bookshelf. There had to be some way to become more outgoing or interesting. The kind of girl who guys like Dev asked out.

  Marissa from the Hidden House books was like that. She was sassy and there was that scene with Cyril after she got trapped in the mirror with him...the heat rushed to my cheeks as I shook my head and fanned myself. No way could I do anything like that. My eyes moved to Meet Me on the Edge of Midnight. Nope, Saila was linked to Tarak. I didn’t think a psychic connection would automatically spring up between me and Dev.

  Golden. Maeve. She was brave and smart and witty. And she had to go undercover and not be herself to help Aedan. She’d be perfect. Except for the fact that she was a little bit aloof sometimes…

  My focus drifted back to the Hidden House series. Okay, so maybe a little bit of Marissa mixed in with the Maeve wouldn’t hurt.

  I picked up my phone and typed a quick text to Grace. Time to make some changes.

  The Hidden House series book 1: Hidden PG 147

  My eyeliner is perfect, making my eyes look dark and mysterious. Ditto my red lipstick. With one last check in my phone, I shut off the camera and yank my hair out of my ponytail. It falls down my back in wild curls. No straightener today.

  “You look like a harlot.” I turn and smile at Cyril, who is scowling at me from the mirror.

  “Maybe in your century. Now, it’s just considered hot.” I say back to him with a wide grin. I push my peasant top a little bit more off of my shoulders1 and step back to show him the whole outfit. “Do you think this will get his attention off the house?”

  “I think I don’t like this idea.” But his eyes wander appreciatively from my legs up, up slowly to my face. He shakes his head and his expression grows even sterner.

  “Which part don’t you like, the mini skirt or the fact that I’m going to be romancing Daniel Shen until he believes there’s no point in continuing his investigation here?”

  “Both.” Eyes that match the silvering of the mirror bore into mine. “I may have been trapped in here for a century, but I doubt what you are about to do could be considered right on any moral scale.”

  “It will be if it keeps him from ghost hunting you into oblivion.” I tell him. I grab my messenger bag—backpacks are such a bad idea with minis—and throw my lipstick in the front pocket. “Besides, it might be fun to be the Mata Hari of Brookview High.”

  “Who?”

  Right. He’s pre- World War One. I raise one perfectly arched eyebrow at him. “I’ll tell you about her later.” Getting into character, I blow a little kiss at the mirror and saunter2 out of the room, putting a little bit of merengue into my hips. He follows me through the mirror on the stairway and the hall mirror, but I ignore his protests and push through the front door.

  It’s time to save his hot, mirror-trapped self3.

  10

  Makeovers in books and movies looked like so much fun. Not so much in real life.

  “Would you please stop manhandling me?” I dug my fingers into the velvety vanity seat cushion as Grace, her own hair flowing down her back in a perfect rose gold sheet, yanked another handful of my now brown-again hair and started threading it into a spiral-y tube roller thingie.

  Another tug, this time hard enough to make my eyes water. “You’re way too sensitive. Trust me, this is nothing. Wait until I tackle those eyebrows.”

  My hand reflexively went up to my eyebrows. “You’re not touching me with any sharp objects. I take care of them.”

  “I didn’t say that you don’t. But I can make them better. Geometry actually comes into play if you do it right.” One last pull at my hair and she stepped away, letting me see myself in the mirror. Between the pore strip across my nose and the spirals of curlers sticking off of my head, I looked like something out of Star Wars. “Besides, you’re the one who changed her mind about the makeover. I could totally get a few blackmail photos of you right now,” she said with a laugh. “Don’t even joke about that.” I took a deep breath. “So, what’s next, oh guru of Fifth Avenue?”

  She reached forward to yank the pore strip off of my nose and I cringed at the sharp skin-tearing feeling. “Clothes. I’m going to reevaluate your wardrobe later, but a makeover isn’t a makeover without that moment where you walk into school and everyone stares at you. We need the full effect tomorrow.” She grabbed my hand and pulled me over to her massive walk-in closet. “I think I might have something that will work for you.”

  Right. Grace was built like a dancer. I…wasn’t. But I let her pull me along, anyway. As she rifled through hangers filled with designer clothes, I shifted from one foot to the other nervously. “What do you think about what Em’s been saying about me and Dev?” My words were a little more halting than I had hoped.

  Grace looked up with a frown, her dark eyes studying me for a minute before saying in a measured tone, “A bit of advice? Never let anyone tell you what you should or should not do or who you should date. Em and I are like this…” she held up two crossed fingers, “but sometimes she gets so carried away with things that she forgets it’s your life, not hers.” She held a plaid skirt up against me. “Well-meaning people are going to always try to butt into your life and make you fit their idea of what’s best. Believe me, I know. But if you try to make everyone else happy, you’re going to end up miserable.”

  I tried not to frown as she paired a white, cabled sweater with the skirt. I would look like a preppy cheerleader wannabe, and the commercial cabling was just plain uninspired. I could cable a better pattern in my sleep.

  “I know. But I also get that I’m socially inept and don’t always catch things, like that social mirroring stuff you were talking about.”

  Grace pursed her lips, shook her head, tossed aside the sweater, and reached for a black top instead.

  “Yes, you are socially inept. You also have this incredibly big heart, which is so much more important than being socially savvy. It’s all part of what makes you Phoebe and why we love you.” She dropped the outfit on a chair with a pair of dark tights and made her way towards the bathroom door. “Okay, put that on while I get all my hair stuff ready. You’re curvier than me, but they should fit.”

  “Thanks,” I said dryly. I changed into the clothes, yanking up the skirt when it caught on my hips and alternating between pulling up the deep v of the shirt and tugging it down to reach the skirt’s waistband. With more than a little bit of trepidation, I slowly made my way in front of the full length cheval mirror and stared at myself in shock. What was schoolgirl prep on Grace was punkier, shorter, and tighter on me. I looked kind of badass. And I’d never shown this much leg outside of gym class. “Are you sure I won’t get in trouble with the dress code police?” I called in the direction of the bathroom.

  “As long as it’s fingertip length, you’re okay.”

  I straightened my arms at my side. The tips of my fingers just passed the bottom of the skirt. “I have freakishly long monkey arms, remember?”

  “So, scrunch your shoulders a little and you’ll be okay. This isn’t a Catholic school. Nuns aren’t roaming the halls with tape measures.”

  “I don’t know.” I wandered into the bathroom, turning a full three-sixty in the doorway.

  Grace looked at me from head to toe. “You’re hot in that. I’d do you.” As I blinked at her, unsure of what to say, she grinned. “Actually, I wouldn’t, but you have to
admit it sounded a lot less egotistical than ‘I am the most awesome stylist ever.’” Grace pointed at the vanity seat with her hairbrush.

  I grimaced as I sat, squirming a little in my seat. “You know that weirds me out. It would be just as freakish if Alec suddenly said something like that.”

  “I know. It’s fun to see you freak out sometimes.” She started sliding out the curlers until my head was a mess of Shirley Temple-like ringlets. “But I’ll try to be better, oh delicate one.”

  As she messed with my hair, fluffing and spraying at the curls, I tapped my fingers on the top of her spindly white and gold vanity. “I ran into Dev at the mall yesterday. Well, actually, he ran into me while I looked like an idiot in my costume.”

  “I’m sure you were very adorably Phoebe,” she said gently. “And what happened?”

  “I don’t know. He was actually really sweet.” My tapping turned into a staccato rhythm. “I’ve known him for, what, five years? And I never really realized how his eyes kind of sparkle when he says something funny.” My heart did something strange when I thought about that grin.

  “Okay, stop or I might die from all the saccharine.” Grace turned me away from the mirror, saying something under her breath about my not needing foundation. Instead, she came at me with an eyeliner pencil. “I know you’re not big on makeup every day, so I’m not bothering with anything fancy.” I tried not to flinch as she practically touched my eyeball with that thing. “Now, it sounds to me like someone’s developing a crush.” Just when I thought she was finished, she grabbed another pencil and attacked my eyes again. As she drew around my eyes, her mouth made a little O of concentration.

  It was hard to talk while fearing an imminent blinding poke in the eye. “Is it really bad if I say I don’t know?”

  Grace shrugged. She took a step back and studied me for a second before pulling out a tube of mascara. “It’s not like you have to know right now. It’s a lot more important for you to take your time figuring out how you feel than to just jump into something because you think everyone expects it.” She wiggled the mascara into my eyelashes. “But, you know, it might be good to figure it out eventually. Until then,” she turned me back around, “you can rock a look like this.”

  The black and copper eyeliners made my grey eyes actually bright and not stone-like. My hair fell around my face in pretty spiral-y curls and waves. I looked like I’d stepped out of the nineteen-forties, in a good way. “Woah. It doesn’t even look like me.” I could be a different person, not just bookish knitting Phoebe. There was so much potential.

  Grace grinned. “It’s definitely you, only more dramatic. I can’t wait to see what people think. Things are going to get really interesting tomorrow.”

  11

  Marissa had Operation Save Cyril. This was day one of Operation Figure Out Dev.

  Standing in the doorway of my A.P. English class with about sixteen pairs of eyes staring at me was pretty much on par with those nightmares of realizing you’re naked in a crowd. Makeover reveal scenes always had the character growing bolder and happily glowing with the attention.

  Marissa even sashayed her way into her classroom. I wanted to hide behind my color-coordinated binder. Instead, I took a deep breath and, imitating Maeve’s badass walk into the Fae court, pulled back my shoulders and headed for my desk.

  Like Marissa in Hidden, I casually slung my messenger bag over my shoulder as I stepped into the classroom, but, unlike Marissa, messenger bags and miniskirts didn’t mix on me. Five steps in, I had to stop and tug on my skirt to keep it from riding up into suspension territory. Ten steps in and I resorted to holding the hem of my skirt down with one hand while walking.

  “Cute outfit, Phoebe,” “Since when did you start channeling slutty?” and “Nice boots” followed me to my seat. But I didn’t pay attention to any of that. My lungs were already compressed into a golf-ball-sized lump somewhere in my throat.

  I passed Dev’s desk and tried to make my hair bounce so it would fill the air with the scent of the cherry blossom shampoo I’d borrowed from Trixie. But instead of leaving behind a cloud of flowery prettiness, strands of my hair got stuck in the lipgloss Em had pushed on me the second I walked into the lobby. Ducking my head, I swiped at my face and hoped I didn’t pull pink streaks of gloss all over my cheeks.

  I barely made it to the front of the classroom between fussing and tugging and feeling tempted to turn around and dart to the nurse’s office. It was just Dev, the same Dev as always. So, why were my palms all sweaty?

  Maybe he’d see me differently, now that I looked different. Maybe he’d see me dressed like this and ask if I wanted to grab a water ice at Marranos after school or something?

  Never in a million years.

  I focused on the new binder Grace had given me as an ‘accessory,’ my finger tracing the cute little teal skulls. Leave it to her to think of details like this that fit me perfectly. One skull even sported a pair of oversized glasses and a giant bow.

  I didn’t hear him at first. The skull and crossbone Converse entered my line of vision and I looked up. Dev dropped his bookbag onto the floor and slipped into the seat in front of me—which was going to annoy Sarah, who had had that seat since September—and turned around to wave a book at me.

  I took it out of his hands and studied the cover. “Sentinel Eighteen?” It was the latest YA dystopian novel, number two on the New York Times bestseller list for weeks. I passed the book back to him, but not before catching that he was a dog-earer. It hurt my heart to see page abuse like that, but I’d deal.

  “You told me to pick up a book or two and call you in the morning. I didn’t have your number, so I figured this is second best.” He flashed that grin again, the one that had gotten under my skin on Saturday and now made me speechless. What was wrong with me? Maybe it was the way he held the book, with his thumb absently running over the raised swirls on the cover. It was kind-of hot. Sarah appeared over his shoulder and glowered over both of us before making a grumbly sound and moving up to an empty seat no one ever took because they said a kid died in it. She was too much of a kiss-up to take a seat in the back of the room. “I also picked up Ghost Warrior.” Dev added, like he was prompting me for a response.

  Ohmigod, Phoebe. Talk. I forced my jaw to move. “Nice picks. I’ve heard awesome things about both of them.”

  “It’s really good so far.” He slipped the book back into his backpack and leaned closer in the process, his eyes scrunching a bit as his smile grew wider. “So, how did the signing go? Did the crazy girl behind you tackle anyone for cutting in line?”

  His comment caught me off guard and I let out an embarrassingly loud non-Marissa-like snort. “No, but she almost shoved me out of line to get to Niamh.” He raised his eyebrows, as if prompting me to keep speaking, and so I added, “And the signing was really good.”

  “You got your bow signed?”

  I nodded. “I did, and she said she loved my costume.”

  “Definitely sounds like it was good.”

  “It was.” My manners kicked in and I quickly said, “Thanks for hanging out with me in line.”

  “It was fun. When I’m done these, we’ll have to hang out again so you can give me some more book suggestions.”

  Ohmigosh. Was he asking me out or did he mean just a lunch table/band/the next time he bumped into me at the mall kind of “hanging out?” I hunted for something to say. Something Marissa-like. Flirty or witty or just anything. Like tugging on his shirt and saying it made him look as hot as the model on the Sentinel cover. Or pretending to fakesteal his book so he’d have to reach into my bookbag to get it back. But then my mouth defaulted to book-geekery info dump. “Maybe. Sounds like you’re into sci-fi/dystopian.”

  “Um, okay…”

  I smiled as the late bell rang and Ms. Zhdanova stood up. Marissa always glanced up winsomely through her eyelashes. I tried, nearly crossed my eyes, and had to blink a few times to see straight again. “I’m paranormal and fantasy, my
self. Well, mostly. But I’ll think about it and let you know.”

  Dev turned to face the board, but threw his answer over his shoulder in a stage whisper. “Aren’t those books about girls who make out with vampires or ghosts?”

  He caught me off guard with that one and I gave off a snort-y laugh that made Ms. Zhdanova pause midsentence and look right at me. I covered my mouth and waited until she went back to talking about Brave New World.

  I never talked in class, but I couldn’t help one last answer. I leaned forward and whispered as seriously as I could. “Leprechauns, actually.”

  Dev’s shoulders shook with silent laughter.

  12

  “Wait. Say that again?” Em pretended to study her sheet music while Ms. Osoba ran the clarinets through their section for the fifth time.

  “He said he didn’t have my number so he wanted to show me the book he bought.” I told her, trying to keep the annoyance out of my voice. Why she insisted on dissecting every tiny conversation was beyond me.

  Em frowned at me. “So, did you give him your number?”

  My brows knit together. “He didn’t ask for it.”

  The clarinets stopped and Em looked over at Osoba. Happy that the band teacher was absorbed in chewing out every clarinetist one by one, including Dev, she leaned closer and hissed,

  “Yes, he did. When a guy says something like that, you’re supposed to then say, ‘Oh, here’s my number for next time.’”

  “Are you sure? He really didn’t ask.”

  “Hello, I’m fluent in flirt, remember? Next time, you just reach over, grab his phone—”

  “What if his phone is in his pocket?”

  “That will definitely get his attention.”

  “Eww, Em.”

  She grinned. “You asked. Anyway, you grab his phone and—”

  Just then, a shadow fell over us and Em let out a little curse under her breath. Ms. Osoba stuck her head between ours and we both sat up ramrod straight. “Phoebe and Ephemie. If the two of you used your tongues to practice hitting those staccato notes as if they were actually staccato instead of flapping them around all of the time, you might someday sound like decent musicians.”