Incidental Contact (Those Devilish De Marco Men) by Eden Connor Page B

hand from beneath the plastic cape, waving uselessly against a sudden fog of hairspray. At last, Dee spun the chair toward the mirror. Amy squinted, trying to see through the chemical stinging her eyes. When her vision finally cleared, her mouth fell open.
    Running her fingers through her shorn locks, Amy marveled at the way Eric’s former girlfriend had turned her cowlick into an asset. The cut seemed to spiral around her head, in the direction dictated by the hated whorl.
    “I don’t own a hairdryer,” was all she could think to say. The difference in her appearance was too enormous to absorb all at once. She kept staring, feeling light-headed, in every sense of the word.
    “You can just wash it and let it air dry, if you like.” The beautician tugged the abbreviated bangs on Amy's forehead. “I wish I could see Eric’s face when he sees you.” Amy glanced at Dee. What a nice thing to say. Dee whisked the cape from around her shoulders. “She’s all yours, Dani.”
    Amy exchanged her seat at Dee’s station for a stool in front of the makeup girl’s counter. She tried to memorize the way Dani made her eyes seem all smoky and her lips look like glazed berries, but she soon lost track of all the pots, potions, and pencils. Through the onrushing flurry of brushes and sponges, the only thing keeping her in the chair was the idea of not walking across the stage with her graduating class in May.
    Right. This has nothing to do with the Eric experiment.
    “Voila!” Dani finally cried, stepping back. Amy heaved a sigh of relief at having her personal space vacated.
    “Eric’s flat-out gonna love the way you look,” Dee stated. “Amy’s seeing Eric De Marco,” she explained.
    “Oh, I saw them together last night.” Dani nodded, cutting a glance at Amy. “You might as well know right now, the words ‘love’ and ‘Eric De Marco’ do not belong in the same sentence.”
    Amy took a deep breath. She was no good at catty conversation. “He and I watched the snow fall from his hot tub last night.”
    Dani rolled her eyes. “Hot tub, my ass. His idea of a hot tub is probably burning wood in a wheelbarrow parked in the middle of a blow-up kiddie pool.”
    What a stuck-up bitch.
    The redhead arched her brows. “Unless he’s spending that insurance money? My, what good timing you have, Amanda.”
    Amy turned her attention back to the mirror so she didn’t poke Dani in the eye. With her foot.
    To her amazement, her face appeared thinner. Who knew cheekbones could be painted on? They had to be, she decided, angling her head. She didn’t have cheekbones. She had detestable, apple-shaped appendages on her face, but there they were. Cheekbones. With hollows.
    Running her tongue around inside her mouth, Amy checked to be sure this pair hadn’t drugged her somehow and pulled her back teeth. Stranger things had happened at the mall in the last twenty-four hours. She reached to touch those elegant bones, but Dani slapped her hand.
    Her nose itched from the unaccustomed layer of goo, but a woman stared back at her from the glass, not a little girl.
    Dani dismissed the subject of Eric with a wave of her fingers. “We do good work, Dee.”
    “Thanks, Dani. I’ll think about which items I’d like to buy, but I have an appointment in just a few minutes.” Amy only felt a tiny bit bad about using the girl’s talent and supplies. Besides, it’d been Dani’s sarcastic offer of a free makeover that gave her the idea. Well, that and the fact she didn’t own any makeup.
    Dee moved behind her. “I always regretted Eric and I broke up. We dated toward the end of our senior year—ancient history,” the beautician confided with a laugh. She folded her arms, but not before Amy spied her wedding band.
    “What happened?”
    Deanne shrugged, unfolding her arms and plucking a few of the small bottles off the shelves around her station and slipping them into the pocket of her smock. “He got a job building engines for a NASCAR