“I think you’re right.” Parker, her straight-as-rain brown hair a glossy waterfall down her back, nodded. “It’s waif with an edge. What do you think, Em?”

“I think we need to play up the eyes more, go drama.” Emma’s eyes, a deep, dreamy brown, narrowed in thought. “I can do this.”

“Have at it.” Mac shrugged. “But don’t take forever, okay? I still have to set up for our group shot.”

“We’re on schedule.” Parker checked her watch. “We’ve still got thirty minutes before ...” She turned, caught sight of Laurel. “Hey. You look awesome!”

“Oh, you really do!” Emma clapped her hands together. “I knew that was the dress. The shimmery pink makes your eyes even bluer.”

“I guess.”

“Need one more thing.” Parker hurried to her dresser, opened a drawer on her jewelry box. “This hair clip.”

Laurel, a slim girl in shimmery pink, her sun-shot hair done—at Emma’s insistence—in long, loose sausage curls, shrugged. “Whatever.”

Parker held it against Laurel’s hair at different angles. “Cheer up,” she ordered. “You’re going to have fun.”

God, get over yourself, Laurel! “I know. Sorry. It’d be more fun if the four of us were going to the same dance, especially since we all look seriously awesome.”

“Yeah, it would.” Parker decided to draw some of the curls from the sides to clip them in the back. “But we’ll meet up after and party. When we’re done we’ll come back here and tell each other everything. Here, take a look.”

She turned Laurel to the mirror, and the girls studied themselves and each other.

“I do look great,” Laurel said and made Parker laugh.

After the most perfunctory of knocks, the door opened. Mrs. Grady, the Browns’ longtime housekeeper, put her hands on her hips to take a survey.

“You’ll do,” she said, “which you should after all this fuss. Finish up with it and get yourselves downstairs for pictures. You.” She pointed a finger at Laurel. “I need a word with you, young lady.”

“What did I do?” Laurel demanded, looking from friend to friend as Mrs. Grady strode away. “I didn’t do anything.” But since Mrs. G’s word was law, Laurel rushed after her.

In the family sitting room, Mrs. G turned, arms folded. Lecture mode, Laurel thought as her heart tripped. And she cast her mind back, looking for an infraction that might have earned her one from the woman who’d been more of a mother to her than her own through her teenage years.

“So,” Mrs. Grady began as Laurel hurried in, “I guess you think you’re all grown-up now.”

“I—”