Free The Color of Silence by Liane Shaw

her parents are waiting for us to have supper with them. Mealtimes are noisy and fun at Cali’s house. Everyone talks at the same time, and no one seems to be listening to anything anyone else is saying. And no one seems to mind.
    My dad and I eat pretty quietly. We mostly just talk about passing the butter.
    â€œDon’t worry about the dishes, girls. I know you have lots to do.” Cali’s dad smiles at us over the last crumbs of dessert. Cali gives him a big smacking kiss on the cheek.
    â€œThanks, Daddykins. I have to create my masterpiece now!”
    â€œOK. Good luck, Alex!” He grins at me, and I try to smile cheerfully back. I’m not so sure that being Cali’s masterpiece project is a good thing.
    Three minutes later I’m sitting on a chair in front of the bathroom mirror trying to memorize my face, just in case I never see it again.
    â€œRelax! It’s not scary. It’s called makeup. All of us big girls use it.” She picks up a tube of pale-colored cream.
    â€œI know what it is. I have used it before, you know.”
    â€œStage makeup doesn’t really count. This is the real deal.”
    â€œIt looks like mud.”
    â€œIt’s foundation. I have to work it into your skin. It’ll even out all of the splotches.”
    â€œWhat splotches?” I push her hand away and try to see what she’s talking about. She moves her body so that she’s between me and the mirror.
    â€œYou need to relax and trust me. I know what I’m doing. My mother taught me how to do my makeup when I was twelve. And I always look perfect, right?” I look up at her perfect face and shake my head.
    â€œYeah, right.”
    â€œOK then. Just shut your eyes—and your mouth. And let me work my magic on you.”
    â€œOK. Just please don’t make me look like Sarah Jane.”
    Cali laughs.
    â€œLexi, I like you. I would never, ever make you look like Sarah Jane Cooper. I’m pretty sure she puts her makeup on with a shovel. I’m going to make you look like a princess. Or maybe a princess’s assistant or something.”
    â€œA lady in waiting, you mean?”
    â€œWaiting for what?”
    â€œI don’t know. Waiting for the princess to stop talking and finish tormenting her, I guess.” I take one last look at my foundation-soaked face. Guess she’s trying to rebuild me from the ground up.
    I close my eyes and prepare to be reconstructed.
    Cali bustles around the table, picking things up and brushing them on my face while we both listen to music pouring out of the speakers that sit on the shelf. In the bathroom! I don’t have music in my bathroom at home. Cali has music in every single room of her house. It’s always playing when I’m here. She and her mother dance around the house all of the time, singing while they do whatever else they’re doing.
    I love coming to this house.
    â€œI feel like you’re pretending we’re in one of those Hollywood movies where the hot girl remakes her best friend, the geeky one, so that she’ll be hot too.”
    â€œOh, I love those movies!”
    â€œOf course you do. That’s because you’re the hot girl.”
    â€œI am definitely the hot girl. But I don’t think of you as the geeky girl! I mean, you are kind of a geek sometimes, but that’s not why I’m doing this.” Cali sounds mildly offended.
    â€œNo?”
    â€œNo! I’m doing it because I think you are totally pretty in your own way, and I’m just helping you to enhance what’s already there.”
    â€œYou sound like a makeup commercial.”
    â€œNah. I just sound like my mom. That’s what she told me about makeup. It shouldn’t be changing you into someone else. Just taking what you have and making it show more.”
    â€œUnless you’re Sarah Jane.”
    â€œUnless you’re Sarah Jane!” We both laugh.
    â€œAnyway, you’ll