Am I Pretty Yet?

Chapter One

This chapter has been edited 07/28/16.

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"Did you want the red carnations or the purple lilies, ma'am?" I asked with bated breath, my eyes watering. The customer's perfume, a strong gust of watermelon mixed with cherries, was a little too strong for my poor nostrils. Not to mention her hair had clearly been hosed down in a can of hairspray.

"How much are the lilies?" she asked, fishing through the contents of her bright purple handbag.

"Fifteen dollars and twenty two cents," I answered. The girl's eyes boggled. I took note of her spidery lashes, thick from multiple coats of black mascara. She stopped fumbling past a pack of Kleenex and a granola bar, her head snapping up at me in astonishment.

"What?" she shrieked. "But they're so small!"

I sighed, wishing I was spending my Friday night anywhere but here. I wished I was at home, studying for the Geometry exam I had coming up or watching reruns of Starcrossed on TV. Instead, I was here: at the flower shop, right after school, 4:15 on the dot.

"That's our price for the lilies. They're our most popular selection."

"But the size," the girl pointed out again, placing a hand pointedly on her hip and frowning. I felt my own hip give in, leaning against the counter in defeat. You would think that customers at a flower shop would be friendly and courteous. People who bought flowers were surely people with class and refined taste. Alas, there were customers like this young girl who clearly had never purchased flowers before. Everything about her screamed this assumption of mine: her hand bag with the various makeup brand buttons pinned onto its exterior, the zipper holding a pink Victoria's Secret keychain that glittered in the fluorescent lighting, and her french tip manicured nails that were now clutching onto an envelope sized wallet.

She wasn't a nature shopping kind of girl.

"This is the only-" I tried again, but I was cut off.

"Is everything alright over here?" a warm, familiar voice asked. I froze. Everyone in the whole shop froze, especially the people near the refrigerated section. They were already freezing to begin with.

I swallowed, my throat suddenly dry. The young girl no longer seemed as assertive now, her expression blank and her eyes as big as a fish.

"Nina?" the voice asked again. A careful palm pressed into the small of my back. Already knowing full well who the voice belonged to, I looked up at my mother and there was absolutely no question as to why everyone in the shop stopped. She was beautiful.

"She was just wondering about the price for these lilies," I mumbled quietly in her ear, which held dainty pearl earrings.

"Fifteen twenty two," my mom answered promptly to the customer, like reciting the lines of a play.

"And the size," I added. The girl had the nerve to shoot me a glare. I shifted my gaze to the ground.

"This is the only size of our purple lilies," my mom said, sending the girl her wide and gentle smile that everyone was familiar with. "If you want, we'll add in a bottle of our flower spray." The customer was already nodding and smiling back, under the trance of Flora Gregory's Beauty Pageant Spell.

"Flower spray would be wonderful," the girl said cheerfully, shoving her credit card at me with a vengeance while grinning like an angel at my mother, who added the spray bottle into the plastic bag along with the pot of lilies.

"Come again!" she exclaimed, then turned to me, placing a hand on top of my head. "You okay?"

I nodded. "Yeah."