The Chaos of Now by Erin Jade Lange

Author:Erin Jade Lange
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

CHAPTER 25

The next night, I upgraded my company from Seth and Mouse to Isabel. I stood outside her front door for three whole minutes before working up the courage to ring the bell, and when I finally reached for it, the door swung open.

“Why are you just standing there?” a woman demanded. The look in her eye was part teasing and part suspicious of the creeper loitering on her porch.

Awesome first impression.

I started to stammer out a response, but Isabel rescued me by pushing around the woman and dragging me into the house by the wrist.

“No interrogations, Mom!” she barked.

I managed to call a “nice to meet you” over my shoulder as Isabel ushered me down a long hall to a room half-full of exercise equipment and half-full of cameras and lights on tall stands.

“This used to be our gym,” she explained, gesturing to the workout gear shoved up against one wall. “But my mom was hanging clothes on the exercise bike more than she was riding it, so she said I could turn it into my studio.”

She flipped a couple of switches, and the lights illuminated a large white desk buried under makeup and mirrors. Behind the desk, two high-backed chairs were covered with leopard- and zebra-print fabric.

“Wow,” I said, letting my backpack fall to the floor.

“Pretty cool, huh?” Isabel dropped into the zebra chair.

I sat on the leopard pattern, instantly warm under the heat of the lights. “It’s really professional.”

“Thanks. I got a lot of equipment for Christmas and my birthday. I have a couple advertisers on my vlog, but not enough to pay for all this.” She gestured around at the cameras and piles of makeup. Then she hesitated and began rearranging things on the desk. “I guess it looks a little messy.”

“No, it reminds me of my own desk,” I said. “Except instead of makeup, it’s wires and computer chips. Probably looks like chaos to everyone else, but it makes sense to me.”

“Yes!” Isabel said. “Exactly.”

But she was still organizing jars and tubes into slightly neater piles. As she worked, a sheet of paper emerged from under the mess. It was a sketch of a lion, his face and mane painted entirely with makeup.

I lifted it off the desk. “Cool. Is this for a video demo? It looks kind of like the ones you did for Halloween last—I mean, it could be for Halloween, if you ever—if you wanted—”

“You watched my videos?” Isabel’s smile was shrewd. I’d just given her the upper hand.

“I might have checked you out,” I said. “I mean, them—checked them out—the videos.”

I suck at this.

She smiled wider and plucked the paper from my hand. “This is for school. I’m doing makeup for the musical.”

“Oh yeah. The Wizard of Oz, right?”

I’d seen the Emerald City posters up around school.

“Yep. I love doing stage makeup.”

I scanned the desk for more evidence of her work and caught a glimpse of myself in one of the mirrors. I pulled a face. A zit I hadn’t thought was a big deal at home was suddenly an oozing red dome of disgusting.

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