Page 93 of Some Like It Hott

“Can’t answer that,” Reggie says, giving a steely look to her friends. “Go. Get in the shower, wet your hair, and plant your ass in this chair.” She indicates the desk chair.

My eyes narrow. “You don’t think I can do my own hair and makeup?”

“You’re going to turn down the opportunity to have it done by trained professionals?” Reggie asks.

“For a ‘concert-thing’?” I tease.

“This isn’t just any ‘concert-thing,’” Ivy says. “Take my word for it. You want the full treatment.”

Which is why, a few minutes later, having swiftly showered, I’m sitting in a hotel desk chair having my hair and makeup done by my friends, trying to guess where they’re taking me.

“Is it one of those picnic-in-the-park events?” I ask. There’s a whole series on the Rush Creek green in the summer. Local bands play, and you can spread out a blanket or chairs and listen. It would definitely qualify as a concert-thing.

“Um,” Ivy says. “Maybe morethingand less concert than that.”

“Good, because I was starting to get afraid we were going to see one of those rock legends of the eighties performing live at the local casino.”

“Hey,” Reggie says grumpily. “There was good music in the eighties.”

She’s a little older than the three of us. Not old enough to have listened to a lot of music in the actual eighties, but old enough to have heard a lot more of it than the rest of us.

“You’re not taking me to seeHamilton, right?” I ask.

“Nope,” Sonya confirms. “Now stop trying to guess, because we’re not going to tell you.”

Reggie fusses over my face, and Sonya piles my curls on my head, and Ivy mopes over the meager contents of my closet, saying, “Seriously, Natalie, you own exactly one summer dress?” To which Reggie says, “We’re fixing that first thing tomorrow.”

49

Natalie

When they’re done dolling me up, Sonya, Ivy, and Reggie hustle me down in the elevator and out to the parking lot, where they blindfold me.

“What the hell?” I ask.

“Just—go with it,” Reggie says.

“This concert-thing better be good.”

“The best,” Ivy says, and she sounds a little giddy.

We walk for a long time, but not a very long time, and then they guide me over a threshold and across a wood floor. And then Sonya says “Ta da!” and unties my blindfold.

I blink into the sudden light as my vision resolves

The whole Hott Springs Eternal barn has been done up as a kid’s birthday party. Balloons, piñatas, streamers, colorful plates and napkins. And the room is full of people. I turn my head slowly, letting all the faces sink in. It’s disorienting because the people—they’re my people but from all different moments in my life. Two of my elementary school friends who I’m still in touch with on Facebook. A couple of my high school friends. Coworkers from the nursing home. Tons of Wilders and Hotts.

Then, stepping forward, an anchor in the storm: Preston. Tall, broad shouldered, wearing a pair of dress slacks and a button-down shirt and looking better than birthday cake.

Holding his hands out to me.

“You’re invited,” he says, “to a party just for you.”

And I start to cry.

“Oh, God!” he says. “I’m sorry, Natalie. I thought?—”

And as impulsively as Preston Hott ever does anything, he wraps me in his arms. Tight. Squeezing me. He’s hard and muscular and warm and smells like him, and I cry harder.

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