Page 126 of Prince of Masks
Serena’s voice murmurs from the chair to my left. “Who will you dance with first?”
If I turned my head, I would find her sitting there, just out of arm’s reach, two side-tables planted between us.
Behind me, someone drops a metal object. It clangs, and I feel it in my bones.
“I promised a dance to Dray,” I say, soft, but loud enough to reach over the rattle of makeup brushes on tables, the clinks of glasses, the clopping of heels hitting the hard floors. “So he might take first dance, I don’t know.”
Asta hears me. She scoffs, but that is her only response.
Serena doesn’t answer.
I find that whatever friendship we were once nurturing at Bluestone fizzled over the holidays.
At Rugby Sunday, it was promising.
Started out that way. But then she walked off, leaving me on the swinging bench, and since then, she hasn’t warmed again.
I don’t know what I said to offend her.
Frankly, I try not to worry too much about it.
I have bigger concerns in my life than Serena Vasile.
So I join her in this distance of ours.
I match her energy, and in silence, suffer the gruelling process of being prepared for the ball.
Grandmother said, earlier this morning, when I was dragged into the car with a puffy face and too many yawns to contain, ‘This is practice for your wedding day.’
That is an idea I cannot fathom.
I stare at my dress so long that I forget how lovely it is, like the striking beauty of it is fading before my eyes.
Mother is fussing over it, snapping orders at the seamstress, and the threads are being laid out on a small table—and so I know I’ll soon be sewn into it.
I can’t grimace at the thought, but the urge is there, tightening the muscles of my face. The makeup artist leaning over me, dabbing a damp sponge around my cheeks, pauses with a faint tut.
I school my face.
“No, that is far too dark,” Asta snaps.
My eyes cut to the side.
In my peripherals, barely, I can make out Asta sitting stiff on her chair, spine straight, and—a whirl of her hand cutting through the air.
She backhands the arm of the makeup artist.
“This is a ball, not a club,” Asta adds with a sneer, then slowly, leans back into her chair.
I eye the lipstick pinched in the makeup artist’s hand. The pink tone of the lipstick she chose is lovely, but like Asta said, for a club, not a ball. It has glitter in it.
The faint tap of a brush handle lures my focus back to my own, capable makeup artist. Then the soft stroke of a brush is soft on my jawline.
And I just want this all to be over.
“Serena, dear,” my mother floats towards us, balancing a silver platter of three pairs of heels. One glitters like crushed glass, one has a gilded stiletto heel, the other is shorter but appears to be made from actual crystals. “I have taken the liberty of picking out the three best matches to your gown.”
Mother lowers the platter to fit the shoes into Serena’s line of sight. Each of those pairs were gifted to Serena by Oliver. To see them placed on the platter like this, to see their wealth laid out, it burns a singe of envy in my gut. It would have been nice to have a fiancé to dish out gifts my way through the years.
