All the Best Liars by Amelia Kahaney

Author:Amelia Kahaney
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Flatiron Books

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It was totally out of Chase’s way to drive from his house to the gas station and then to Rain’s, so I claimed the Fiesta for my own that night to get to the party. Before I left work, I locked the doors and changed clothes in the Shell bathroom. Under the fluorescents, I caught glimpses of my pale body as I wriggled out of my old T-shirt and jeans and into some of the new clothes Rain had bought me. The new shirt was much skimpier than what I normally wore, a camisole kind of thing Rain had insisted on giving me a couple of weeks ago that had to be worn without a bra. Standing on paper towels so that my feet didn’t touch the bathroom floor I’d mopped a half hour ago, I pulled on a pair of jeans from Rain that had cost $165 and were full of intentional rips and weird seaming. I stepped into the platform sneakers Rain had gotten me (“in case you need to be a tall bitch sometime”). I was now three inches taller, teetering on the fake self-confidence that came from the clothes.

“Oh, this?” I whispered into the mirror as I applied some of the makeup Rain had bought me. “Just grabbed it off my floor.” In truth, I’d hung the jeans up in my closet and made sure none of my other clothes touched them, as if they were a religious artifact or a precious work of art. When I was done applying the so-not-me red lipstick Rain had told me was to be worn with the camisole, I tried to fluff up my hair a little. It was still neither brown nor blond, neither short nor long. My face was still neither pretty nor ugly, my body still neither smokin’ nor objectionable. But these clothes were like armor, and armor was what I needed. Because not only was I going to get my friend to remember I existed, but tonight might be the night I would take things further with Chase. My legs and pits were freshly shaved. I had on black underwear with three tiny red silk rosettes along the top seam.

See you soon, I texted Chase from the car. The Fiesta smelled like Mom’s Jergens and sweaty shoes, but I’d reapplied deodorant and had the all-new clothes, so I reasoned I could rise above my smelly car and my gas-station weariness. I would get through tonight on sheer willpower, no matter what weirdness Brie might bring to the mix. I plugged my phone into the cigarette lighter and put on Nina Simone’s version of “I Put a Spell on You” and willed myself to think more about Chase than about Brie and Rain.

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