Thirteen Read Free Page B

around.
    â€œOh, Winnie ,” Dinah said.
    â€œSheesh, girl,” Cinnamon said. “You’re a babe!”
    I looked at myself in the mirror. My eyelashes, which I’d never spent much time thinking about, curled in a dark fringe around my eyes. The pink glitter dust didn’t look awful, as I’d feared. It made my eyes sparkly. And the gloss—again, pink—made my lips shiny and soft.
    I’d never thought of myself as a pink kind of girl…. but maybe I was.
    â€œYou like?” Aimee asked.
    I nodded. I did like, very much.
    Cinnamon and Dinah put their faces down by mine so that all of us were visible in the mirror. We were ourselves, only fancier. The heaviness in my chest lifted and floated away, all but the teeniest tendril.
    â€œThree beauties,” Aimee pronounced.
    â€œAren’t we, though?” Cinnamon said. “We are foxy .”
    Dinah and I giggled. I was filled with love for both of them, and I felt guilty for not always being only filled with love. When it came time to pick out which product we each wanted to buy, I told Dinah she really should get the lip stain.
    â€œIt makes you look fifteen at least,” I say.
    â€œOh,” she said. Then, “Do I want to look fifteen?”
    I hesitated. Didn’t she? Didn’t we all?
    â€œOf course,” Cinnamon said. She turned to me and tut-tutted. “Kids. What can you do?”
    â€œOh, please,” Dinah said. “Like you’re so much older.”
    â€œEons and eons, sweetie ,” Cinnamon threw back.
    I smiled, but I wondered who was right: Cinnamon for wanting to move forward, or Dinah for wanting to stay put? And where did I fit in?
    â€œGet the lip stain,” I said decisively. “And I’ll buy the Rock Star glitter dust.”
    â€œBut—” Dinah started.
    â€œNope, no arguing. And Cinnamon, you should get the color brick, because you can get green eye shadow anywhere.”
    â€œNot this exact shade,” she protested.
    â€œFine, get the eye shadow,” I said.
    â€œOkay,” she said happily.
    Dinah said the Bobbi Brown products were the best birthday favors ever, and I teased her for calling them “favors,” as if I was five again and handing out cellophane bags filled with candy and those cheapo soundmakers that unfurl when you blow them.
    At the photo booth by the food court, we posed for three different strips of pictures, some goofy and some for real. Later that night, when we were back at my house, we cut the strips apart and divvied up the pics. I picked one, then Cinnamon, then Dinah. Then all over again until every photo was claimed.
    â€œYou have got to give that one to Lars,” Cinnamon said of one in particular. In it, I was laughing, and my hair was swished back in a particularly flattering way. My eyes were bright and happy.
    â€œI don’t think so,” I said. We were in my bedroom, all three of us sprawled on our stomachs on the carpet. The pictures were spread in front of us.
    â€œWhy not?” she said.
    â€œBecause it would be too obvious, that’s why. What, I’m just going to whip it out and say, ‘Here, this is for you’?”
    â€œUh…yes.”
    â€œUh… no .” I glanced at Dinah for support. She tittered.
    â€œDon’t you want him to see how hot you are?” Cinnamon said.
    â€œNot if I have to be the one who shows him!”
    â€œThen I’ll do it,” she said, deftly exchanging my swished-hair picture for one from her own collection.
    â€œHey!” I protested.
    â€œYeah, whatever,” Cinnamon said. She stacked her pics and slipped them into her back pocket, where I couldn’t grab them without being a perv.
    My cheeks got hot, because she knew and I knew and even Dinah knew that I did want Lars to see. Just as long as Cinnamon was subtle about it…. which, given the fact that she was Cinnamon, was totally a crapshoot.
    But