Page 16 of One Wild Night
‘You’re just not right,’ she tells me. ‘I’ve done my best but…’
Kitty’s voice trails off and I can’t help but feel like she’s trying to tell me that I don’t look good enough for the photos, and the insinuation is that this is down to something that shethinks is wrong with how I look, rather than how well she has applied my make-up.
‘Can I take it off then?’ I ask.
‘No,’ Kitty says quickly. ‘I want my mum and dad to see. We’ll be having dinner soon. You can keep it on until after that, right?’
Again, what choice do I have?
‘Sure,’ I reply.
‘And you’re sure I can’t cut your hair?’ she checks.
‘I’ve never been more sure,’ I say firmly.
Kitty smiles at me, which completely catches me off guard, because she’s been generally hostile towards me otherwise.
‘I will cut that hair of yours, before you go,’ she tells me.
Oh, over my dead body… which doesn’t seem beyond the realms of possibility.
God, I cannot wait to get out of here – ideally with everything I arrived with intact.
Chapter 8
By the time I’m walking into the dining room, more than ready to sit down for dinner, I have almost forgotten that I have a face full of make-up, courtesy of Kitty. Almost, that is, until the boys see my face.
‘Shit, Nic, what happened?’ Dylan asks. ‘Are you okay?’
‘Erm, yes?’ I reply, although it sounds more like a question than a statement because I’m not sure what it is about the way I look that has him so freaked out. Perhaps Kitty stuck a knife in my back and I’m yet to notice for some reason.
‘Your face,’ he says simply.
‘Oh, Kitty did my make-up,’ I reply. ‘She’s training to be a make-up artist. What do you think?’
Dylan’s face drops.
‘Erm, yeah,’ he says, which is neither here nor there, but I can tell from his reaction that it must be bad.
‘It’s really nice,’ Mikey says with a tactful smile.
‘Striking,’ Trish adds – even she doesn’t look convinced by it.
I take a seat next to Dylan. As I scan the table, I notice that Jamie isn’t here yet, so I’m not the last person to arrive. The food is already out though, waiting patiently under sliver cloches in the middle of the table – a table that looks fit for royalty right now.
It’s a large dark wooden thing, with a red runner, and what looks like their best silverware – not that I would know good knives and forks from bad ones, but there’s something so ornate and fancy about these.
The room lights are dimmed in favour of old-fashioned candelabras that sit on the table. Flickering candlelight is alwayskind of creepy, and I haven’t felt at ease since we arrived here, so naturally it’s making everything seem even more spooky. But it’s silly, I know, because it’s just dinner. There’s nothing to be scared of.
Dylan prods me in the thigh with something under the table. I glance down and see that it’s his dessert spoon.
I stare at him for a second, puzzled, but somehow through a series of eyebrow movements I realise that he’s trying to tell me to look at my reflection in the back of the spoon.
I laugh to myself as I hold it up, taking in my new look – a new look given to me by a trainee make-up artist, no less.
Oh. My. God.
I mean, no one looks great in the back of a spoon, right? It stretches your face, throwing off your proportions like a funhouse mirror. What it doesn’t do, however, is give you thick black eyebrows that are so close together they’re almost merging, pale blue eyeshadow that hasn’t done the rounds since the millennium, and blusher that would make a clown, well, blush. Oh, and don’t get me started on the tarantula legs that have replaced my eyelashes.
