Page 22 of Eye of the Beholder

“Lyd?” I call, waiting for an answer. There’s no response. “Lydia,” I call again.

I take the stairs up two at a time and head to Lydia’s room, directly across from my own. Her door is closed, so I knock. There’s no answer. She’s either at church or—more likely—listening to music so loudly that she doesn’t hear me. Praying she’s fully clothed, I open her door and stick my head in.

Sure enough, she’s sprawled on her bed, flipping through a magazine, her headphones in. She looks up when I enter.

“Hi,” she says, and she pulls out one headphone before looking back down at her magazine.

I don’t have her interest yet, but there’s one word that always gets Lydia’s attention.

“I have a potential project for you.”

“Ooh,” she says, her eyes widening and lighting up. We don’t look exceptionally alike—she doesn’t look like she’s had her nose broken ten times—but we do have the same dark eyes and the same coloring. “I love projects. What is it?” She holds up a hand. “If it’s football-related, I’m not interested.”

I grin. “Not football. Do you want to help me be a matchmaker?”

Her eyes widen even further, if that’s possible. “Yes. Yes! Who are we setting up?” Then her face changes, and she frowns. “Wait. Why areyouplaying matchmaker? That sounds like your worst nightmare.”

Normally, she would be right. I have no desire to meddle in other people’s relationships. High school relationships don’t matter, anyway. But since I don’t want to tell her about the teaching experiment or about my low ACT score, I keep it vague. “I owe Mina, and she’s got a thing for Jack.”

Lydia wrinkles her nose. “Really? She likes Jack? He’s so…superficial.”

He is, a little, but I shrug. “She’s liked him forever. And she could do worse. It could be Marcus. At least Jack is nice.”

Marcus is just…well, kind of creepy. The way he looks at girls makes me uncomfortable. I mean, I appreciate female beauty. But Marcus seems to appreciate it too much.

“Ew,” Lydia says. “Marcus is gross and should not be allowed near women anywhere.”

“I would not recommend him,” I agree. “Are you in?”

She bites her lower lip. “What would this entail?”

“I don’t think she really knows how to…you know. Do hair or makeup or stuff.”

I watch Lydia’s face, and I know what she’s thinking—Mina has to be her makeover dream. Lydia loves projects, she loves fashion, and she loves making people happy. Setting up a happy couple has to be right up her alley, right?

“I would love to get my hands on her hair,” she says, sounding thoughtful. “And I could help her fill in her eyebrows so you can see them; I bet they’re great. Just look at her sisters. And I bet she’s hot when you do something about the wardrobe—”

“She is,” I say without thinking, remembering the way her jeans and shirt hugged the curves I didn’t know were there.

Lydia’s eyebrows shoot up.

Crap. I’m not going to live that one down. “Are you in or not?” I say, hoping to move past it.

“But there’s no way Mina’s going to go for any of that, Cohen,” she says, although she’s still looking at me suspiciously.

I sit on her bed. “We have a deal,” I say.

“Go on.” Lydia finally puts down her magazine. “What kind of deal?”

I hesitate. “She’s tutoring me,” I admit. “And this is how I’m paying her. I told her I’d try to help her with Jack. She took some convincing, but she actually seems okay with it now.”

“She’s tutoring you?” Lydia says, frowning. “Are you getting bad grades?”

I so don’t want to talk about this, but I just say, “It’s ACT stuff. So are you in or not?”

Lydia considers me. Then she shrugs, smiling. “If Mina’s okay with it, I’m in. I love playing fairy godmother.”

“Great,” I say, relieved, although I have no right to be relieved yet. If anyone is going to veto Lydia’s help, it will be Mina, and that seems likely. But she tried on some new clothes, and even though she didn’t say so, I could tell she liked it. She wouldn’t have shown me otherwise. “Thanks, Lyd.”

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