Massie Read online

  “Ehmagawd,” Massie squealed. “And her favorite color is purple because it’s the color of royalty. Same and same!” She ran her index finger down the page and continued reading. “‘Anastasia’s beauty philosophy sets her apart from all the rest. “I believe that people are most radiant when they let their inner beauty shine through,” she says.’”

  “Clear polish!” Massie tapped Rita’s wrist with her toes. “Is it too late to switch?”

  Rita sighed and reached for her glass jar of cotton balls.

  The remover felt ice-cold against Massie’s skin, but she barely flinched. She was too fired up. “Listen to this! Anastasia is looking for girls to be a part of her exclusive Be Pretty Cosmetics sales team!”

  Massie read the details aloud, the excitement frothing up inside her like Bumble and Bumble shampoo lather. The more she read, the more enthralled she was. Each time one of the Be Pretty Cosmetics salesgirls broke the current sales record, Anastasia applied a purple streak to the high seller’s hair. Flash the streak to anyone, anywhere in the world and it meant no wait lists necessary. No reservations required. No lines ever. It was an all-access pass to the five-star lifestyle. And it was priceless.

  “I found my jobby!” She tossed her notebook on the freshly swept limestone deck.

  Massie reread the article—to herself, this time— skipping the boring part about the importance of inner beauty. If she was going to become the top-selling Be Pretty Cosmetics girl, she didn’t have time to waste on feel-good philosophies. Everyone knew that “inner beauty” was code for “good personality but not so hot on the outside.”

  After reading the article a third time, Massie dialed the Be Pretty Cosmetics headquarters in Manhattan.

  “Be Pretty,” answered a smooth female voice.

  “Anastasia Brees, please,” Massie blurted.

  Rita giggled at the rhyme.

  “I’m sorry, but Miss Brees is unavailable,” the girl purred. “Can I help you?”

  “I need that get-started package sent to my house priority overnight.”

  “I’ll need a credit card to cover the shipping costs,” the voice explained.

  Massie reached for her bag, then stopped herself. Her entire body blushed. She kicked her foot to get Rita’s attention, then mouthed, “Do you have a credit card?”

  Rita shook her head no.

  Massie rolled her eyes and sighed.

  “Um, I don’t trust FedEx. Can I pick it up?”

  “Sure, we’re on Spring Street in SoHo. Open till six.” The receptionist hurried, as several phone lines rang in the background. “Will that be all?”

  “Yup, I’ll be right there.”

  Massie jumped off the chair and pulled the blue foam wedges out from between her toes. “Rita, I gotta find Isaac. I have a meeting in Manhattan. Can you come back tonight after dinner and finish up?”

  Rita rubbed her tired eyes. “How about tomorrow?”

  “I can’t tomorrow. I have a jobby!” She beamed, and then waddled away on her heels. “See you at seven!”

  CURRENT STATE OF THE UNION

  INOUT

  Teen Vogue Horse & Rider

  Be Pretty Cosmetics Be an employee at the beach club

  Purple streak Blue ribbon

  THE BLOCKS’ SOUTHAMPTON ESTATE

  DRIVEWAY

  Monday, June 15

  6:19 P.M.

  Traffic was bumper-to-bumper all the way into the city. But after the five-hour round-trip, Massie and Isaac were back in Southampton, with a huge royal purple glitter–covered crate packed with beauty products, motivational CDs, and sales tips.

  “What do you think?” Massie jumped out of the car and hurried across the gravel to the back of the silver Range Rover. She held a purple metallic BE PRETTY bumper sticker against the rear window, sliding it left. “Here?” she asked. Then right. “Or here?”

  Isaac folded his arms across his chest. “Are you sure your mother will approve of this?”

  “Puh-lease.” She smoothed the sticker into place above the left taillight. “This whole job thing was her idea, remember?”

  “It’s crooked.” Isaac sighed.

  “And please unfold your arms. Otherwise no one can see your T-shirt.”

  He dropped his hands to his sides, revealing a purple muscle T-shirt with BE STRONG scrawled across the chest in gold glitter script. “That was the whole idea.”

  Massie wielded a spray tube of Be Glitzy like an eager Saks perfume girl and misted gold sparkles all over the Range Rover. She stepped back to admire her work.

  The silver SUV sparkled under the setting evening sun. It reminded Massie of Brownie and his game-day glitter. If it hadn’t been for the bounty of new beauty products waiting to be unwrapped, she would have teared up at the memory.

  “What have you done to Rover?” Kendra called from the gleaming white doorway, her hands on the waist of her cream-colored slacks.

  “Mom.” Massie pushed back the bell sleeves of her colorful knit Missoni wrap dress. “I’m a Be Pretty Cosmetics girl now. And all of this is part of the job—a job you wanted me to get, remember?” She pulled the heavy crate out of the car, hurried toward her mother, and dropped it by her fresh pedicure.

  Massie sat down cross-legged in the foyer, removed her leopard-print Manolo slides, and used one kitten heel to pry open the wood flap. “You’re nawt going to believe what’s inside,” she said, tossing handfuls of gold packing peanuts over her shoulder onto the black-and-white checkerboard floor.

  “Inez!” Kendra shouted.

  The Blocks’ longtime housekeeper burst through the swinging kitchen door clutching a trash bag. She dropped to her bare knees and began scooping up the mess.

  “Do you know how to use all of this?” Kendra tapped an acrylic fingernail against her ultra-white teeth.

  “Given.” Massie rolled her eyes. “I watched the instructional DVD on the ride home. But it was mostly about the company’s philosophy.”

  “Which is …” Kendra lifted an opalescent glass jar of Be Young wrinkle filler and scanned the directions.

  “Just a bunch of stuff about real beauty being on the inside and how makeup should enhance what we were born with, not try to cover it up.” Massie clipped the purple satin brush holster around her hips and admired her new professional self in the round hallway mirror.

  Really, she was everything a Be Pretty Cosmetics high seller should be: stylish, sophisticated, and ready to make over the world, one brassy highlight at a time. And Southampton in the summer was teeming with potential customers. Sunburned lips, dry hair, oily complexions, and last year’s eye shadow were as common as crab cakes.

  But not for long.

  “Massie!” Ellie Neufeld appeared in the open doorway wearing an XL SOUTHAMPTON KIDZ KLUB T-shirt that fell over her bulky B-cups and skimmed her scraped knees.

  “Surprise!” Trini sauntered in with a toss of her stiff orange hair. She dropped her orange Fendi on the marble credenza and spread her arms, inviting the blasting air-conditioning to cool her underarms. “Who wants to see my new Burberry—” Her wide green eyes stopped dead on the crate of makeup. “Hold. I thought Saks was tomorrow afternoon.” She pouted. “Did you and Mona sneak off without me?”

  “Of course not.” Kendra stood and smoothed her navy silk Elie Tahari blouse. “My daughter just became a Be girl,” she said proudly. “Massie, why don’t you take Ellie up to your

  room while Trini and I visit?”

  “But I have so much work to do.”

  “I’m sure Ellie will find your new job very fascinating.”

  Kendra shot her an and-that’s-an-order smile. To which Massie responded with an eye roll and a foot stomp. But until she got her Visa back, Massie was a slave to her mother’s infuriating demands.

  “Can I help do your job?” Ellie asked as she followed Massie and her crate into her bedroom.

  “How can you possibly help? Your style is worse than …” Massie paused, her amber eyes zeroing in o
n Ellie’s chapped, cracked lips. Then her watery blue eyes. Then her dull complexion, her limp red hair, and her thin brows. “Of course you can help.”

  Massie reached into the crate and pulled out a purple makeup caddy. It was fully stocked with towers of purple boxes filled with lipstick, eye shadow, blush, gloss, and eyeliner. The she popped the Be Motivated CD into her Bang & Olufsen player and turned up the volume. It sounded New Age-y—like a female alien singing, “Be, be, be,” while a pan flute whistle-moaned in the background.

  “Do you want me to do your makeup?” Massie hurried to her apple green chaise by the window, where the natural light was best, and wave-invited Ellie to join her.

  “Could you make me as pretty as you?” Ellie asked.

  “I’m a makeup artist, nawt a plastic surgeon.” Massie orangey-red bangs from the crime scene, and took a long hard look.

  She unscrewed the cap of Be Clear and squeezed a dime-size ivory dot onto the back of her hand. “I’m going to start with some foundation. It will balance out your uneven skin tone.”

  Ellie nodded solemnly and let Massie get to work.

  “Now for some Be Rosy cheek stain to keep the morgue from hauling you away.”

  “Do I really look that pale?” Ellie touched her face.

  “Stay still,” Massie insisted. “And close your eyes.” She brushed some smoky gray Be Sultry eye shadow on Ellie’s fluttering lids. “This will totally cover those gross red veins. And this …” She penciled in her sparse brows with Be There brow pencil in chestnut brown. “… will keep you from looking like an extraterrestrial.”

  “Can I see now?” Ellie bobbed up and down on the chaise.

  “Freeze! I still have to apply the Be Bold eyeliner.” Massie rubbed the sharp tip over her wrist to check the color.

  “What are you doing now?”

  “Stay still.” Massie tilted Ellie’s head toward the light, then began lining her lids with dark blue pencil. “This will make your eyes look a lot less … missing.”

  After two coats of Be Dramatic mascara, Massie took a step back to admire her work.

  “Perfect!” She beamed. “I am so good at my jobby.”

  “Let me see,” Ellie begged.

  “Almost done.” Massie dusted Ellie’s cheeks with translucent powder, added a touch of cheek shimmer to highlight her low cheekbones, and topped it all off with a thin coat of clear gloss over her flaming red chapped lips.

  “Owwww, it stings!” Ellie whined.

  “Breathe through it.” Massie tossed the probably infected wand straight into the trash. “All done.” She proudly handed Ellie the Be Reflective hand mirror.

  Ellie grabbed it. Her blue eyes sparkled and her even skin radiated a healthy blush. She couldn’t get enough of herself.

  “You look good for you.” Massie lifted her iPhone and snapped a picture of her first client. “I would actually be seen with you now.”

  “So would I!” Ellie beamed. “Thank you so much!”

  “Of course, you’ll need to keep this look up every day if you want to lose your LBR status.”

  Ellie lowered the mirror. “How do I do that?”

  “Easy. Just buy the products I used.”

  “Then what?” She removed the headband and finger-fluffed her limp red hair.

  “I’ll e-mail you this ‘after’ picture so you can copy what I did. No charge. Just get your mother’s credit card and—”

  “Visa. Number four two three eight …” Ellie rattled off Trini’s digits as if she had been reciting her own cell number. Massie quickly scrawled them down on her order pad and then calculated the total on her iPhone. “Two hundred and eighty-seven dollars,” she announced, and then forwarded the number to the Be Paid address.

  Done. Done. And done.

  Then she lifted the mirror and checked her own reflection, trying to decide where, exactly, her purple streak should go.

  THE BLOCKS’ SOUTHAMPTON ESTATE

  THE DINING ROOM

  Tuesday, June 16 9:07A.M.

  “Truth is beauty.” Massie lifted the sterling silver orange juice pitcher and filled her crystal glass. “At Be Pretty Cosmetics, we believe that being true to one’s self is beautiful.” She had memorized the opening speech the night before, after finding the script at the bottom of the crate. And now, after practicing it so many times, she could almost say it with a straight face.

  “Bravo.” William put down his New York Times and applauded. “Brains and beauty,” he gushed while spooning a heap of muesli. “How did I get so lucky?”

  “You like my outfit?” Massie stood and twirled, showing off her violet BCBG shirtdress—cinched at the waist with a pink-and-green grosgrain belt—chunky white gold bangles, and Marc Jacobs kitten-heel sandals in cobalt blue. The semi-clash of the shoes and dress boldly stated, “I’m not afraid to experiment with color,” which, in her opinion, was a good message for a makeup professional to convey.

  “It’s a nine,” William offered.

  Massie’s stomach lurched. “Why? What’s wrong with it?”

  Her father rubbed his bald head in confusion. “I thought you told me a nine was great.”

  “It is, but I texted my outfit to the Pretty Committee this morning, and they all gave me tens.”

  William shook his head and chuckled to himself. “I can’t win.”

  “Isaac is waiting for you out front.” Kendra bounced in wearing her tennis whites.

  Massie pushed aside her uneaten scone, blew kisses to her parents, and retrieved the Be Polished makeup caddy from under her chair. “Come say goodbye, Bean!” she called. The pug’s polished purple toenails tapped against the floor as she raced to wish Massie luck.

  Outside, the sky was blue and the sun was bright—perfect for spotting people’s facial flaws.

  “Ready?” Isaac called as he wiped glitter off the Range Rover windshield.

  Massie lifted her purple caddy to show that she was. He opened the door and she slid onto the tan leather.

  “So where are we headed?” Isaac asked, adjusting the rearview mirror after he climbed into the driver’s seat.

  It didn’t take Massie long to remember Frizzy Lindsey from the Green Party.

  “Foster Crossing. The Kearns estate.” Massie leaned forward and popped her version of a Be Inspired CD into the car’s player and stabbed at the buttons—enough of the pan-flute-alien music. She leaned back in her seat and began tapping her kitten heels to Fergie’s “Glamorous.”

  “Flying first class, up in the sky …” Massie sang along, cranking up the volume and ignoring Isaac’s pained expression. “Poppin’ champagne, living my life in the fast lane …”

  Isaac lowered the music.

  “By the way …” Massie leaned forward, breathing in his minty aftershave. “… where’s your BE STRONG shirt?”

  “What?” Isaac cranked up the volume. “I can’t hear you!”

  Massie giggled, staring out the window at neat rows of grapevines and occasional glimpses of ocean. American flags blew from gray-shingled beach estates, and vintage Mercedes sat parked on their crushed shell driveways.

  They pulled onto Foster Crossing and drove past the NO SOLICITORS sign. Then straight up the Kearns’s long—but not as long as the Blocks’—tree-lined driveway.

  The long ranch house was made entirely of floor-to-ceiling windows. A wall of nine-foot manicured hedges surrounded their vast property to keep potential stalkers from seeing inside, but once you passed those, it felt like the Kearns were on display at some sort of futuristic people-zoo.

  Isaac parked behind a hunter green Jaguar. Massie smoothed out her Theory shirtdress and grabbed her purple caddy.

  “Wish me luck!” Massie skip-shuffled up the bluestone pathway and arrived at the smoky glass doors. She pressed the intercom button and announced herself.

  Frizzy Lindsey answered wearing an athletic light blue tankini top and lace-front board shorts with a dizzying Hawaiian print. She’d wrestled her brittle blond hair into a f
rayed topknot and had stuck a soy sauce–stained wooden chopstick in it.

  “Hey, Frizzy.” Massie flashed her best Be Glossy grin.

  “It’s Lindsey,” she snapped, her bloodshot green eyes narrowing to a hateful squint.

  Massie cleared her throat and began reciting the script.

  “Truth is beauty. At Be Pretty Cosmetics, we believe that being true to one’s self is beautiful. Let Be Pretty Cosmetics help you find the woman you were meant—”

  Frizzy Lindsey held her ocean-pruned palm up to Massie’s face. “Are you trying to sell me something?” A vindictive smile formed at the corners of Lindsey’s zinc-streaked lips. “What is this, like, a summer job?”

  Massie clenched her fists, determined to stay professional. “Inner beauty is more important than outer beauty,” Massie told her, but the words tasted wrong in her mouth, like a latte made with whole milk and real sugar.

  She pushed past Lindsey and entered the ultra-modern sun-drenched home. If she could just find a place to set up, the products would speak for themselves. She spotted a white plastic coffee table in the living room and hurried toward it. “At Be Pretty Cosmetics, we’re not trying to cover you up with abrasive, animal-tested products. Quite the opposite. We want the world to discover the real you—”

  “Enuff, dude.” Lindsey flip-flopped across the espresso-colored wood floors, following Massie into the living room. “What about all that stuff you said? You know, like how summer jobs are for losers?”

  “Um, first of all,” Massie said, flicking open her makeup caddy, “I’m nawt a dude. And second of all, I’m nawt trying to sell you something. I’m just trying to help you discover your inner beauty.” She swallowed hard.

  “The sign out front says NO SOLICITORS.” Lindsey smirked.

  Massie’s stomach lurched. More than anything, she wanted to barf a mouthful of insults all over the surfer’s peeling skin. But the training DVD devoted three whole minutes to leaving a “no go” with grace. So she held back. For Anastasia.

  “In that case”—Massie closed her caddy and headed for the door—“thanks for your time, and enjoy your beauty.”