Julie turned around and glared at Flat Finn. "Every girl has a right to painted nails, so you better get settled quick, Flatty."
Celeste giggled. "Oh, he didn't like that name one bit."
"Tough. OK, give me your fingers now. Different color or the same?"
"I have no idea."
"Here, this one will be nice for you. It looks sort of orange in the bottle, but it's a nice muted red when it's on."
Celeste gave Julie her hand. "I trust you. Although Flat Finn has his doubts because he thinks the color resembles tangerines."
Julie grabbed a shirt from the nearest box and flung it at the figure, landing the shirt perfectly on the cardboard head. "There. Now grumpy boy doesn't have to watch. This is girl stuff anyway." Julie opened the bottle and started on Celeste's fingers before she could protest. "So, it's Saturday night. What are you doing?"
"Flat Finn and I are going to read All Creatures Great and Small."
"Sounds like an outrageous evening. Hey, whose piano is that off the front hall? I haven't heard anyone playing." Julie looked at Celeste. "I mean, besides Flat Finn."
"Oh. The piano. I used to play. Not anymore."
"Got bored?"
"Not bored so much as disenchanted. What is your party going to be like?"
Julie shrugged. "Drunk boys, crying girls, loud music." She smiled. "But it'll be fun anyway."
Celeste's eyes widened. "What are you plans for the drunk boys?"
"I'm going to sit them down and give them a long lecture on the unappealing nature of overindulging in beer and Jell-O shots. Then, I'll ground them and send them to bed. Alone."
"That is not what I meant. How will you protect yourself?"
"I don't need a plan. They'll be harmless and mildly cute in a pathetically boozy way."
"What if one of them wants to be your boyfriend? What will you do then?"
"I wouldn't worry about it. I'm not looking for a boyfriend, anyway." Julie blew across Celeste's nails. "Don't touch anything for at least fifteen minutes."
"Why don't you want a boyfriend?"
"I don't know. Maybe I do. I'd just have to meet the right guy. Someone who isn't ordinary. Someone who gets me. Someone I fit perfectly with. I want heat, chemistry, an undeniable connection. You know what I mean? I want it all. I'm done with ordinary and mediocre."
"You believe in true love," Celeste stated.
"Maybe. I don't know yet."
"So you think that you're going to find true love at this party tonight?"
"Doubtful."
"Why are you going then?"
"For fun. To meet people and make friends. To be eighteen and silly. To escape the existential dreariness of the real world," Julie added dramatically. She set her makeup in front of the floor-length mirror, knotted her hair on top of her head, and started putting on mascara. "Mostly to go flirt. I have to keep my skills honed because I might need them one day."
"I bet it's easy for you," Celeste said, as she examined her fingers and toes.
"What? Flirting?"
"Yes."
"Depends. There's flirting," Julie said, jokingly pushing her chest out, "and then there's flirting." She tapped the side of her temple. "It's the second one that's hard because you're putting more of yourself out there."
Celeste moved to stand next to Julie and looked at herself in the mirror. She turned sideways and then forward again, holding her fingers splayed in front of her so she wouldn't smudge her polish.
"Here. Try this on." Julie handed her a sheer lip gloss.
Celeste took the gloss and examined it as if it were a specimen from the moon. "I really do not think that this is necessary. I do not think that Flat Finn will view this positively."
"It's not necessary. But it's what thirteen-year-old girls do. You've never worn makeup?"
Celeste shook her head emphatically. "I cannot begin to imagine what Finn would think."
By the time Julie had turned thirteen, she'd already experimented with numerous disastrous shades of shadow, framed her eyes with crooked streaks of black liner, and infuriated her mother with her embarrassingly large collection of lipstick.
"Here, I'll do it for you." Julie got up and put one hand under Celeste's chin, steadying her face as she dabbed some sheen onto her lips. "A little lip-gloss on you won't kill Finn. He'll deal with it."
Celeste's already pale skin became nearly translucent and her eyes glistened. Julie pulled back. "What's wrong? What did I do?" Great. First Erin and now Celeste. Either this family was insane, or Julie was causing some sort of panic reaction in everyone she came in contact with.
Celeste clamped her hand onto Julie's arm and looked at her. She turned to face the mirror and rubbed her lips together. A single tear rolled down her cheek as she continued to clutch Julie's arm.
Julie, with the lip-gloss wand still held in front of her, felt her hand tremble slightly. Something was happening to Celeste, something she didn't understand. Julie closed her eyes for a moment. "See what Flat Finn thinks." She pulled off the shirt that she'd tossed at him. "Does he approve?"