How My Brother's Best Friend Stole Christmas

1

Sophie

You know what’s bullshit? Those scenes in movies when a girl gets all dressed up. And she’s got on high heels and makeup, and a tight dress that shows off the ass and boobs she’s been pretending she doesn’t have because she doesn’t know what to do with them. Then, with the ass and boobs on full display, she walks into a big fancy party, and the guy she’s been secretly pining for most of her life sees her and instantly falls in love.

Like fake eyelashes and a push-up bra were what he needed to finally see her for the total fox she’d always been.

Total bullshit, right?

Well, guess who was putting on a push-up bra and a pair of high heels that were probably going to break her ankle.

Yeah. Me.

This was what fifteen years of Sam Porter in my life had reduced me to: a Christmas Eve makeover.

I was officially that girl.

My phone buzzed on the edge of the desk, but I ignored it. I could really only do one thing at a time right now. And all my energy was on this—my mental breakdown.

“Okay,” my friend Joy said. “It’s time to go look in a mirror.”

“Can’t I just take your word for it?”

“Well, you haven’t yet.”

She marched me from my desk in the big main room of the Kane Co warehouse down the small hallway to the employee break room, which had a mirror for making sure there wasn’t food in your teeth after lunch.

Joy was all zen and easy because Joy was all zen and easy. And she was glamorous in a low-key way that made me believe she knew what to do with eyeliner and a curling iron. Until I found out she was about as clueless as I was and she just got lucky with all that low-key glamour, which probably came with the gig of being an artist. Joy was the head glass artist at Kane Co.

We make holiday ornaments. Well, she does. I ship them.

You know what kind of glamour comes with the gig of warehouse supervisor? None.

So…makeover.

Joy was a dream with the hair and makeup but as clueless as me when it came to the dress and the shoes, so we’d gone shopping a week ago and gotten professional help. Shopping was not at all my thing, but Joy got me a bubble tea every time I wanted to bolt from the mall. It was an expensive, fattening day. But we got the job done and I bought a dress of blue sequins that made me feel like a beautiful disco ball. Joy got a dress too. She had a whole embarrassed thing with her boobs, which were amazing, but tonight the two of us were ignoring our mother’s voices in our heads and years of not knowing what to do with ourselves and we were going all out.

Joy was wearing a strapless black cocktail dress that made her look like a Bond Girl.

“Shoes,” she said, pushing a pair of strappy, glittery high heels in front of me.

In for a penny and all that shit. I put the shoes on, and because I couldn’t bend over in my dress without popping the seam over my ass, I let Joy buckle the shoes.

She stood up and put her hands on my shoulders. She was trying hard not to smile.

“Are you laughing at me?” I gasped, shocked she would do that, but she wasn’t the first and totally wouldn’t be the last.

“No, no, honey. Never. I’m smiling because you look…”

“Ridiculous?” I put a hand to my hair, which was like an explosion of corkscrew curls over my shoulder held in place with glittery barrettes. This was why I wore ponytails and ball caps, because my hair was the worst and Joy had spent, like, an hour on it.

“No. Honey. Look…”

She stepped to the side and turned me around to face the break room mirror. And the person looking back at me was…

“Holy shit,” I breathed, stepping forward to look closer in the mirror. “That’s me.”

I’d worn the dress at the mall. The shoes. But the whole package was something…else.

Those were my eyes. My terrible hair made into something…fun. I wore a tight blue sequined dress that was held up by a strap on one shoulder, and my arms, strong and toned from my work in the company, looked pretty damn good. Freckles and all. My nonexistent boobs had been given an existence and my ass…I mean my ass. “Look at my ass!”

“Total knockout,” she said. “But let’s…” She stepped in behind me and then reached out and pushed my lips up into a smile. “There. Now. You are a total fucking knockout.”

If I’d been the kind of twenty-five-year-old who giggled, I would have giggled. That’s how good I looked. How good I felt. Which I had not expected to come from this makeover.