Page 57 of The Starfish Sisters

“Of course.”

Chapter Fifteen

Phoebe

Getting ready for my date with Ben, I have to face my feelings of insecurity with my body. My too-big hips and breasts that don’t sit anywhere close to where they once did and the wrinkles at my throat. How much do I hate those wrinkles?

“Stop it,” I say. I’d never want Jasmine or Stephanie to talk to themselves like this. Instead, I run a hot shower and step under the spray. I touch my arms, my throat, my breasts, my thighs and thank each one. I think of Ben’s face, his glittering eyes. A swell of hope makes the world feel light and shiny.

In a special bag in one of my bathroom drawers is a collection of exquisite makeup brushes Suze brought me from Paris a few years ago, along with high-end cosmetics that, while they can’t make me into a star, can definitely make the best of what I’ve got. At first, I was reluctant to use them, but she encouraged me to think of my face as one of my canvases, which turned makeup into something fun.

The year she came to Portland at spring break, the year we were thirteen, we’d had makeovers at the mall.

The whole week was one of the most fun times I ever had. My dad took us to the movies, twice, and to the zoo, and on Thursday, he dropped us off at the mall so we could get ready for the party onFriday. My mother had insisted and we were having some kids over for a pool party.

Suze was like a kid at the circus when we got to the mall, wide eyed and so full of longing.

One of the cool things we’d discovered early on was that our birthdays were five days apart—mine on May 20 and hers on the twenty-fifth, which made me a Taurus, her a Gemini. School wasn’t out until June 6, so I wouldn’t see her during “our” week, and we decided to celebrate each other now. We wandered the entire mall, looking at earrings and books and trying on eye shadow at the cosmetic counter. One lady was so taken with Suze’s eyes that she made her up all the way, with foundation and blush and this subtle aqua eyeshadow and dark-blue eyeliner and thick mascara. “There you go, sweetie,” she said. “You look like a model. Maybe you should go to New York. Those girls make a lot of money.”

Suze gave me an amused glance. She squeezed my hand. “Now do Phoebe.”

“Sure,” she said, but I could tell she was not enthusiastic. As my grandma always said—not about me, obviously, because she thought I was gorgeous—you couldn’t make a silk purse from a sow’s ear.

“That’s okay,” I said. “We want to keep shopping.”

“No!” Suze protested. “I want to see.”

So I reluctantly submitted to the same full makeup treatments, and when she spun me around—surprise!—I didn’t look like a model.

“I love how that makes your mouth look so sexy,” Suze said.

The makeup had made my freckles disappear, and my eyelashes looked great, but I was still just me, not a presto chango version like Suze. “It’s nice,” I agreed. “Can I buy the mascara?”

“Of course,” the woman answered. “Anything else?”

“No.”

We cruised through the fashion shops, trying things on, low-rise jeans in saturated shades of red and purple and green, some so low I was afraid my butt crack would show if I bent over. We tried on bodysuitsto go with the jeans, and I was pretty happy with the way my shape was displayed with those low jeans and clingy sweaters. Like my grandma, like my mother, I was curvy. Suze looked like a stick in those clothes, but when she tried on a silky blouse in blues and greens, she looked like a future version of herself, some person she’d have to grow into, and it was amazing.

We passed a jewelry store and stopped to admire the diamonds. “What kind of engagement ring would you want?” I asked.

“Not a diamond,” she said. “Maybe a ruby.”

“I think that might be bad luck.”

“Superstition.” She waved her hand dismissively. “Emerald would be fine, too. How about you?”

“Something super simple, but very sparkly.” I pointed to a pear-cut solitaire. “That one is pretty.”

But Suze had moved on to the bracelets. “Wow,” she cried. “Look at this one!”

It was a delicate tennis bracelet, set with small, square-cut jewels in the colors of the rainbow, red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple. It was set in silver or maybe white gold, and it shot fire from every stone.

“That is the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen,” she breathed. “What kind of wife would be lucky enough to have a bracelet like that?”

“It’s beautiful. Maybe it wouldn’t be a wife, but a mistress.”

“Imagine having something that was so beautiful. For no reason except beauty.” She touched the glass, and I could feel her yearning like a fire. It made me wish I could buy it for her myself.