Suddenly, the classroom door flung open. Imogen raced into the room with Wynonna falling leisurely behind her, crying with laughter.

“Sorry, Holden, I’m stealing your boyfriend,” said Imogen. She grabbed me by the hand and practically whipped me off the desk. Towed me out the door behind her. “We’re taking the limo, but we’ll send it back for you. PS: You guys should get a hotel or something. That’s Mr. Gunther’s desk, and he has some scary-bad dandruff. Like, winter wonderland–themed.”

She closed the classroom door behind us.

“Where are we going?” I said.

Imogen grinned. “We’re doing Ed Wood.”

“Tonight?!”

“It’s the most important night of the year for teenagekind! Of course, we’re doing it tonight!”

Her smile was infectious. I caught it.

“Let’s go angora sweater shopping,” I said.

We bought the outfit almost entirely at Marshalls—except for the angora sweater, which we snatched at Nordstrom Rack right before they closed, and a blond wig, which we found at a high-quality wig store and spent a small fortune on. Imogen had the gall to bring both the wig and the sweater into Marshalls but was sure to let her favorite cashier, Phoebe, know about it. She explained that I was going to walk out of this store looking like “a nineteen-fifties goddess.”

“Mmm, girl, you better,” said Phoebe. “I’ll call security if you don’t.”

“Question,” Imogen said to me. “If you did your own makeup in every single one of those videos, how are you with, like, makeup?”

We decided to find out. I brought the necessary makeup items into the dressing room with me. (I was going to pay for them, relax!)

Here were the facts:

• I had inherited the steady surgeon hand of Mark Slevin. This thing was as steady as Willow’s relationship with My Chemical Romance.

• I knew the natural contours of my face like a fully indexed topographical map.

• I really wanted this.

When I was done, I was wearing black pumps, a below-the-knee pleated skirt, and the most comfortable sweater I had ever worn. Or maybe it was just emotionally comfortable. All I knew was that I dug it. A lot. The blond wig was a little jarring against my eyebrows, but otherwise, it served its purpose well, framing my art like a divine architecture. Like the Sistine Chapel.

I didn’t just feel beautiful. I was.

Either that, or I was as deluded with myself as Ed Wood was with his god-awful filmmaking career.

I had that sudden thought the moment I stepped out of the dressing room. Felt a spike of panic. Imogen was going to turn around, and she was going to let out a little snort of laughter, and tell me I looked “adorable,” and then I would be ruined. Ruined forever.

That wasn’t what happened.

Imogen looked a little startled when she saw me.

“Damn,” she said.