"Help you?" the man said, barely lifting his eyes from his horse racing form.
"One ticket to Dallas, please," Ariana said, sliding the cash into the dip below the window. The dip that reminded her suddenly of the ditch Rambo had dug for her. The thought made her smile.
"What're you so happy about?" the man asked, not unkindly. He slid her ticket and change over to her.
"Nothing," she said, the smile widening. "You should bet the six horse."
For the first time his heavy eyelids raised a fraction of a centimeter.
"Yeah? Why's that?"
Ariana placed her ticket in the inside pocket of her backpack along with what was left of her money. Right next to the box of auburn hair dye she had purchased at the drugstore down the street.
"It's my lucky number," she replied.
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She checked the schedule on the screen behind the man's head and saw that she would have just enough time to dye her hair before her bus began to board.
"Oh?" he asked, glancing down at the sheet again. "You feeling lucky today?"
"Very," Ariana said with a nod. "Trust me. It can't lose."
The man raised his bushy white eyebrows and circled the six horse on his racing form. Ariana turned and headed off for the private handicapped bathroom with a bit of swagger in her step. She had just done her good deed for the day.
64
SNAP DECISIONS
"Those colors really suit you," the perky blond Chanel cosmetics clerk said, grinning from ear to ear.It was Friday morning and Ariana was staring at her reflection in the magnifying mirror that sat atop the gleaming glass counter at the Dallas Neiman Marcus. The gray shadows and black mascara that the girl had expertly applied really made her blue eyes pop. After looking at her eyes sans liner and mascara and only in mottled mirrors for more than a year, Ariana had forgotten how gorgeous they could be. The auburn hair was, of course, throwing her off, but the clerk had swept it back in a headband, and if Ariana tilted the mirror just so, she didn't have to look at it. Then she could see only herself.
And she looked beautiful.
Not bad for a girl who had just spent hours and hours on a Greyhound bus trying in vain to sleep as the loudmouthed man across the aisle gabbed on his cell phone. Unable to get a single moment of
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peace, Ariana had occupied herself with daydreams of what her life would be like now that she was on the outside. After securing her financial future, she would go back to Virginia and get Kaitlynn out of the Brenda T. Then the two of them would flee to Australia and lie low for a while before building a dream home near the water and living their lives as beach bums. It meant giving up the original dream--the Princeton, New York, Vanity Fair dream--the thought of which made her heart ache. But at least she and Kaitlynn would be together. At least they would be free.
Once she had the whole plan solidified in her mind, the jerk with the phone had finally passed out in his seat, but it had been too late for Ariana to sleep. The bus had pulled into the station ten minutes later, and Ariana had trudged into the Texas sunshine feeling exhausted and cranky. But with each passing moment under the soft lights of Neiman Marcus, surrounded by all the opulence and luxury, she was growing more and more comfortable and calm.
This was the moment she had been longing for all those months. The moment she began to feel herself again.
"Well? What do we think? Should I wrap it all up for you?"
According to her name tag, the clerk's name was Kelsi, which totally fit her annoyingly in-your-face demeanor. But Ariana had chosen her for a reason. The eager ones were always the most gullible.
Ariana looked down at all the tiny black lacquer compacts and tubes the girl had assembled before her. What she wouldn't have given to just whip out her old Neiman's credit card and buy the whole lot. But that wasn't an option. Instead, she was going to have to play the
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g
ame. She leaned forward to avoid a group of gabbing girls her age, all laden down with packages. Still, one of them managed to whack Ariana in the back with the corner of one of her bags. She winced as her cut burned.
"I'm just not sure," Ariana said with a sigh. "I don't know if I'm ready to change my entire color palette."
"Oh, well, you don't have to change everything," the girl said quickly, brightly. "Sometimes a new gloss and a blusher do just the trick!"