Chapter 6 - An Everything Shower

Tammy’s house was warm and a little chaotic in the way houses were when they had three younger siblings running through them. Her bedroom, by contrast, was almost aggressively organized: cream colored walls, a meticulously made vision board in the form of a corkboard covered in magazine cutouts, and neatly arranged stuffed toys.

“Well, the two of you have been here before, so you both know where the bathroom is if you need it.” Tammy said, dropping her bag at the foot of her bed. “Help yourself to snacks in the kitchen, but if either of you get crumbs in my bed, I’m literally going to wring your necks with my bare hands.”

“I took an everything shower in preparation for tonight’s party. I’m not going to spoil it by bloating myself with snacks.” Maya said, letting the last word slip out of her like she found it vile. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to raid your closet; you literally have the best shoes.” And with that, she disappeared into said closet.

With Maya out of the way, Tammy turned to Asteria. “And then there were two. What makeup look are you going for tonight?”

“Uh… normal?” Asteria said unsurely.

Tammy snorted. “I think you mean light. Normal is relative by person, so it’s not exactly a makeup look. If we spent more time with each other, you’d know that.” She said as she ushered Asteria towards the vanity.

She moved around for a bit, placing makeup palettes, brushes and other things on the table.

“I’m sure there’ll be loads of time for us to spend together, like holidays and such.” Asteria said. “Speaking of holidays, what did you get up to this summer? Meet up with anyone interesting?” She asked, trying to catch Tammy’s eyes in the mirror.

“No.” Tammy said too quickly. “I spent my summer drinking matcha and trying to wrangle my three brothers.”

“This is going to be great. I’ll do your makeup, and if Maya hasn’t completely turned my closet upside down by the time we’re done, we can figure out what you’re going to wear.”

“If I lose the tie, I could just go in my uniform.”

“I’m not letting you go to the first party of the year in your uniform. I’m putting makeup on you, you’re wearing nice clothes, and that’s the end of that.” She said with an air of finality, slipping a scarf over Asteria so the makeup wouldn’t stain her clothes.

It took the better part of an hour and the sun had already started to dip past the horizon, but eventually, Tammy finished up the look with a light mist of setting spray. “And there we go.”

At that moment, Maya walked out of the closet. The other two girls had heard her on the phone for that entire hour, consulting with her other friends Olive and Gemma on her outfit choices. Together, the three girls made up Blackwell Academy’s infamous “OMGs”. The nickname came from the initials of their names, though most students agreed it suited their dramatic personalities just as well.

“Olive, I think you should go with the black heels.” Maya advised. “The nude ones would make you look too approachable.”

She was evidently still on the phone call. She crossed the room to Tammy’s three-way mirror and propped her phone against a perfume bottle, so Olive and Gemma could see.

She turned slowly from side to side, admiring the outfit she’d put together. She traded her school uniform for a tiny black corset top that hugged every curve and a low-rise leather mini skirt that barely reached the middle of her thighs. “See, this is exactly what I mean when I say that Tammy has the best closet. Perks of having a fashion designer as a mom.” She said.

Then her eyes found Asteria’s face in the mirror, and she pursed her lips. “You’ve worked a miracle on her face, but is there anything that can be done about that hair?”

“I rather like her hair.” Tammy said, fluffing up Asteria’s hair a bit. “It’s got a nice volume to it.”

Maya scoffed. “Volume? Okay. If you say so.” Muted snickers on the other end of the call were heard from Olive and Gemma. “I’ll see you when I get to the party, girls.” She said then hung up.

Then she turned fully to face Asteria. “Since you’re all dolled up now, come be useful for a second. I need to lace this top, but I can’t do it with these nails.”

Her words hung in the air. It was posed as a request, but Asteria knew better than to mistake it for one.

For a second, she considered pretending she hadn’t heard. But she pushed herself off the vanity stool and crossed the room without another word.

Maya turned her back to her, gathering her hair over one shoulder to give Asteria room to work the ribbon through the eyelets. Then she tugged each row evenly and tied it up in a neat bow.

Maya examined herself from every angle, no doubt looking for something to complain about, before she decided that there was none. “Now all that’s left for me is makeup. Do you think you can manage something to also do mine or would you be too swamped with yours?”

“That won’t be a problem because I’m not going to the party.” Tammy said. “I can do yours.”

“That has to be a joke. Tell me you’re joking.” Maya asked.

“It’s not a joke. I can’t go to the party. I have homework.”

“Homework? New flash, Tammy. I don’t give a fuck about that right now, and frankly, neither should you.” Maya argued. “It’s the first week of school.”

“It’s also our senior year. So it’s important to get started on everything early, including homework.”

Maya stared at her for a long moment before she scoffed again. “Tammy, you have never once done homework on a Friday in your life. I once watched you party an entire weekend away and then speech-to-text write your English essay while you drove to school on Monday morning.”

“To be fair you also partied that weekend away.”

“The important thing remains that we partied the weekend away together.”

Asteria watched the exchange with the specific fascination of someone grateful that the attention wasn’t currently on her. Though she had a strong suspicion that wouldn’t last.

“Look, I don’t know what’s going on with you, and right now, I don’t care.” Maya said, her tone softening a bit. “This is the first party of our senior year, and you’re my favorite cousin. We always go to parties together. That’s like our whole thing.

“But our thing is only going to last as long as we’re in high school because we’re going to different universities, so I’m not going to let you sit at home pretending to care about homework or some other bullshit excuse. Get dressed. We’re leaving in forty minutes.”

“But…”

“Forty minutes, Tamara.”

There was something in the finality of the way Maya said her full name that made Tammy sigh in defeat.

“Fine, whatever.” Tammy groaned. “Since you’re forcing my hand to go for this party, one of you should text Damian or Oliver to let them know that they don’t need to come all this way to pick Asteria up. I’ll just drive us to the party.”

“Sure thing. I’ll text Damian.” Maya said excitedly.

“I’ll go get dressed.” She said. “But first, a shower. I had one after cheerleading practice, but that was a school shower. Asteria was kind enough to not mention it while I did her makeup, but I one hundred percent believe I could smell better.” And with that, she disappeared into the bathroom

“Glad that’s all settled.” Maya said. Then she eyed Asteria up and down and sighed. “Make that an hour. I know you believe otherwise, but we have to do something about that hair. I’m not going to spend the rest of my night looking at that awful rat’s nest.”

“My hair’s not a rat’s nest.” Asteria said, patting it subconsciously.

“It kinda is babe.” Maya retorted. “Although, now that I think of it, it’ll be better if you show up looking like this. That way I’ll just look all the more enticing next to whatever drab nonsense you have going on.”

And with that, Maya slinked off to the vanity to start with her makeup.

Asteria fleeted around the room unsure of what to do but perfectly aware that Maya was most definitely gossiping about her in whatever group chat she had with the other members of the OMGs.

It didn’t take long before Tammy was out of the shower, her bath robe knotted securely around her waist. “Why are you still in your uniform, Asteria?!” She groaned. “Come on. Into the closet. Let’s find something to wear.”

She dragged Asteria into the closet and then lowered her voice into a whisper. “Did you text either of the guys that they didn’t need to drive down here?”

“No. Maya said she would.”

“Maya said she was going to text Damian.” Tammy sighed, rifling through a rack of shirts. “We both know that Damian is not particularly enthused by the idea of Maya.

“Sure, that mood deviates depending on how horny he feels, but he can’t be trusted to open any of Maya’s texts. I’m not going to say that to her face because she’s my cousin and I don’t want to hurt her feelings. Just text him yourself, so the guys know not to drive down here.”

“Uh sure.”

“Great, now that that’s settled, let’s get dressed before Maya blows a gasket.”