Page 21 of Eye of the Beholder
I turn to hand him his tacos and see him giving me a funny look. “What?” I say. “I’m not going to eat a burrito and drive at the same time.”
He just shrugs and unwraps his food. We’re halfway through our food when I see someone unexpected coming out of the restaurant.
Virginia and Jack.
My stomach does a weird combination of a jump and a plummet. I smack Cohen on the shoulder—harder than I mean to—and say, “Lean your chair back. Jack and Virginia are here. They might see you.”
He stares at me, looking like he’d like to say something if his mouth weren’t full of sour-cream-free taco.
I roll my eyes. “They would have something to say about you being in a car with Wet Willy. I’m doing this for you and your reputation.”
Cohen swallows and then says, “It could be good foryourreputation.”
But he knows that’s a lie, and so do I. I gesture at myself and say, “Not like this, it wouldn’t. Maybe if I looked good. Right now it will do nothing. Just lean your chair back.”
“I don’t care, Mina. And I can’t eat if I’m leaning back.”
I grab his taco from his hand. “Just do it,” I say, because he may not care, but I do. He grumbles under his breath but reclines his chair all the way so that none of him is visible to anyone outside the car.
“I can’t believe her,” I say as I watch Virginia. “She always says she doesn’t eat carbs.”
“She doesn’t eat much of anything,” Cohen says. “But she’ll follow a cute boy anywhere.”
“Does Jack know you think he’s cute?” I say, still watching Virginia and Jack. Virginia is saying something, looking irritable with her face all scrunched up, but Jack is just staring at her as though entranced by her beauty.
“We have heart-to-hearts about it,” Cohen says, and I smile.
I wait for them to get in their car, and when they’re finally pulling away, I say, “They’re gone. You’re good.”
Cohen sits back up. We finish our food and head to our neighborhood. Cohen cranes his neck, I assume to check if his dad’s car is gone, and then he breathes a sigh of relief.
“Thanks, Mina,” he says as I park on the street in front of my house. “Let me know about your work schedule?”
“Yeah,” I say. “But you said weekends are good? Do you want to start tomorrow? I usually don’t work Saturdays.” I’m strangely nervous as I ask this, probably because actively attempting to hang out with someone is completely foreign to me.
“That would be great,” he says, getting out of the car. “Let me check on some things, and I’ll call you.”
“Sounds good. Thanks for the food.”
“Yep.” He waves at me, and I watch him until he disappears through his front door.
8
Cohen
Well, that was a surprisingly pleasant distraction. Or maybe I should call it a rescue. Mina never seemed like the rescuing type to me, but today she stepped up.
The tacos were a bonus.
Finding out that there was real potential under all Mina’s baggy gray-and-white mess was a bonus, too. I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised; her sisters are all pretty. Ruby is unbelievably gorgeous. It would make sense that Mina is attractive, too. It was a bizarre experience, actually—for just a minute when she stepped out of the dressing room, my brain forgot she was Mina and only recognized that Jack wouldn’t need much convincing. Then I got my head on straight.
I can’t help a grin as I step through the front door and kick my shoes off. Virginia would kill to have hair that’s naturally that blonde.
I bet I could get Lydia to help Mina put on makeup. I used to think all makeup was the same, that putting it on worked the same for everyone, until Lydia set me straight and spent a solid thirty minutes showing me pictures of poorly done makeup. Now I know better.
How did Mina get so skilled at playing all that down? If she “dressed for her body” (that’s how Lydia says it), did something with her hair, put on some makeup—she’d be attractive.Reallyattractive. Even just the clothes were a major and somewhat eye-opening improvement.
Which I can say, as her mentor.
