Free Bulletproof Mascara: A Novel by Bethany Maines

“Tito’s team is gonna whup ass!”
    “Oh,” said Nikki doubtfully. “The girl’s are really going to go for that?”
    “I know it’s a little odd,” Ellen said, “but once you know a little something about fighting, you do kind of get into it.”
    Nikki nodded but found it hard to believe that the entire group of women was really going to be happy about tuning in for the Extreme Fighting Challenge . But after dinner, the common room was packed, and the smell of popcorn and mint pedicure lotion filled the air, along with the sound of a dozen conversations. Nikki was having a hard time concentrating.
    “You know, it’s that sound?” asked Jenny. “When you get hit really hard? Sort of a squeak and a ting at the same time, only silent?”
    Nikki stared blankly at Jenny, who was sitting on the couch across from her eating popcorn. She hadn’t really been paying attention—she’d been thinking about how to offer Dina ILL001 and not seem suspicious.
    “Don’t bother,” Sarah said. She leaped over the back of the couch and landed with a jarring impact on the cushions next to Jenny, bouncing the bowl and throwing popcorn into the air. Jenny threw Sarah a dirty look and grabbed the bowl before it upended entirely. It was hard to take Jenny seriously when she was wearing a Strawberry Shortcake T-shirt, two ponytails, and a face covered in green goo.
    “She has a hard head,” Sarah continued. “She’s probably never heard the sound.”
    “What sound? You guys are making this up,” said Nikki irritably.
    “No, it’s when you get hit so hard that your senses sort of separate. You hear, but you can’t see,” Jenny assured her, her blond hair bouncing.
    “That makes no sense,” Nikki said.
    “Told you,” Sarah said. “She has a hard head. I hit her so hard in sparring the other day I thought I was going to cause some sort of permanent damage, but she just walked through it.”
    “It wasn’t that hard,” protested Nikki, remembering Sarah’s reaction rather than the actual punch. “Well, I mean, I’m sure you punched hard, but it didn’t connect hard. I kind of ducked a little. It probably looked worse than it was.”
    “No, I’m pretty sure you just have a hard head,” Sarah said, grabbing a handful of Jenny’s popcorn.
    “Shhh,” commanded Carmella from across the room. “The fight’s starting.”
    “I’ve got more face mask!” Ellen said, coming out of the kitchen with a blender full of green stuff. “Or possibly veggie dip.” She dipped a finger in and sucked off the liquid.
    Something about Carrie Mae training still seemed unbelievable. The other women walked through days filled with classes and physical training and never seemed to notice, but Nikki was still experiencing profound moments of incredulity.
    She glanced down at the pile of flash cards she was supposed to be studying during the commercial breaks. The chemical compounds in Specialty Items were way beyond the basic chemistry she had taken, and she didn’t want to fall behind. She idly flipped through the cards, with one eye on the blender full of face mask as it was passed around. She didn’t want to miss this batch.
    Ellen had taken over the seat next to Jenny’s, and Nikki looked at the pair curiously. They were her friends now, but sometimes Nikki wondered if it was real friendship or the kind that only existed because everyone had to be friends with someone. Nikki scrutinized the two. Ellen had the clean accent of a newscaster and occasionally used the fragmented and overwrought language of someone “encultured” in higher education—a holdover from her days as a professor’s wife. Her darling Dale, an astronomy professor, had passed away two years ago of a heart attack. Jenny, Southern and proud, but still class-conscious, yin-yanged fromsweet to crass in a matter of moments, her linguistic choices clearly displaying her own uncertainty about where she belonged.
    Nikki felt a similar doubt and tried to watch