The Perfectionists

Chapter 21

SATURDAY NIGHT, EVIE STEPPED INTO Maru's Sushi and shook the water off the plaid umbrella she'd just borrowed. It was raining buckets, but although Evie's house was filled with, well, everything imaginable, she couldn't find a single umbrella in any of the piles. However, she'd run into two groups of kids from school in the parking garage, and multiple people had offered to lend her an umbrella. One girl, a junior named Sadie, said she'd hold the umbrella over Evie as she walked the short distance to the restaurant. "You guys are so sweet," Evie had said, graciously accepting Sadie's Burberry umbrella and promising to return it on Monday. Popularity did have its privileges sometimes—it was the one bright spot in her otherwise collapsing world.

Now she looked around the crimson-and-gold restaurant. The air smelled like soy and ginger, her favorite scent combo. Paper lanterns hung over the tables, giving off a muted glow. Behind the bar a sushi chef stood frowning in concentration, his knife flying over the cutting board. She finally caught sight of Doug at a table in the corner, under an enormous Gyotaku-style print of a chinook salmon. He was looking down at the menu and didn't notice her. She still couldn't believe she'd let Mal talk her into this. "You deserve a dream date, especially after the past few days," she'd said, and had physically taken the phone from Evie and texted Doug back an emphatic yes.

"Hey," she said as she approached, nerves clanging.

Doug's bright olive eyes flicked up to hers, and he did a double take, standing up so fast his knees hit the table. Evie hid her smile. She was wearing her favorite black dress with faux-leather detail and big sparkly earrings. It looked like something Audrey might wear.

"Hi." He moved around the table to pull out her chair. "Um, you look fantastic." She loved the way his accent drew out the vowels. Fan-tas-tic.

"Thanks. So do you." He wore a gray blazer, distressed jeans, and a vintage T-shirt with a seventies-style graphic of a sunset over palm trees. Evie was acutely aware that every girl in the restaurant kept turning to ogle him, but she pretended not to notice.

The waitress sidled up to the table, pen poised over her pad. Carson glanced back down at the menu. "So what's good here?"

"Well, we definitely want some spicy tuna rolls and eel and salmon sashimi. And the ebi. Oh, and miso soup. And probably some inari," Evie said.

He started to laugh. "Just how much fish do you plan to eat?" "You've officially been warned. This is not amateur hour." She raised her eyebrow in a mock challenge, and he grinned up at the waitress."

"Okay. Bring us everything she said."

"And some edamame!" Evie added as the waitress started to walk away. "Please!"
She met Doug's eyes and smiled. He was so gorgeous, with the gold flecks in his eyes and his smooth dark skin. She almost couldn't believe he'd wanted to go out with her.

"So, Evie, tell me something about you that I don't know," he said, fidgeting with the straw in his water glass.

Evie blinked. There was so much he could never know. She spooled through her life details, looking for something innocuous. "I'm a lifeguard at the indoor pool at the Beacon Rec Center. It's just a lot of wild kids and old-lady lap swimmers."

His eyes twinkled. "A lifeguard? You sure you're not from Camelot?" "An honorary one, maybe," Evie joked.

"And, you know, everyone rides horses to school."Doug said sarcastically, his fist resting on his chin as he gazed at her.

"And here I was thinking people from Camelot just drove around the Outback, talking in cute mid western accents."

"You think my accent is cute?" His voice was low, and a smile played around his lips. Evie smiled back at him, filled with a sudden confidence. "The accent, yes. I'm still deciding about everything else."

"Well," Doug said, leaning forward and resting his elbows on the table. "Let me see what I can do to change your mind."

The waitress brought out their edamame, and they swapped stories, laughing almost the entire time. Doug told her about filming comedy sketches with his friends in Camelot, and about surfing in the Ocean. "One time, a great white shark circled my surfboard for forty minutes," he said, widening his eyes. "I had to just stay there and wait him out. I thought I was shark bait for sure."

"You think that's scary?" Evie teased. "One time, my friend Mal persuaded me to hitchhike to Charmington for a Taylor Swift concert. We spent hours on the highway with no luck. And then this skeevy guy picked us up. His car was full of bobbleheads—I mean packed—and he kept humming this weird song that sounded like it was from a horror movie. We were so creeped out we made him let us off at the next exit. And then this other car came along, and it ended up being Mr. Downing, our algebra teacher." She giggled at the memory. "Let's just say that we never made it to see Swift."

Doug reached for an edamame pod. "I've done some hitchhiking in Camelot and the outskirts—it can be dicey. Who's your friend you're talking about? Mal?"

"Uh-huh." Evie's smile dimmed a little. "Does she go to our school?"

Evie picked an imaginary ball of lint off her sleeve. But before she had to figure out how to describe Mal, the waitress walked up with their sushi and rolls, and the subject was dropped. Doug gasped in mock horror at the mountains of food on the table before them. "How are we ever going to finish all this?"

"Have you ever had eel?" Evie challenged. "Trust me. You'll be licking the plate." She reached for a piece with her chopsticks and dunked it in soy sauce. Doug grinned and followed her example.

After some more easy conversation, Evie stood up and excused herself. She slipped into the bathroom and checked her makeup in the big round mirror over the sink. Then she experimented with a big, honest, dazzled smile. Everything was going so well that she almost couldn't believe it. Maybe she really could do this. Maybe she could even have a relationship. It might be easy to keep her secret. Freddie had never come to Evie's house, and Evie had been friends with her for years.

She rummaged around in the depths of her purse for the petal-pink lipstick she'd bought just for tonight, thinking about how she was going to ask Doug more questions about life in Camelot. He was so playful and funny without being boastful or lame. She snapped the lid back on the lipstick and reached for a paper towel to blot. Then a face materialized in the mirror behind her.

Evie almost screamed. "Hello to you, too," Crystal White said, a cold smile spreading across her thin lips.

Crystal wore a short skirt that was at least a size too small for her. Her boobs peeked painfully out over the cleavage of her tight cashmere sweater. Her makeup looked almost exactly like Evie's except she'd gotten the shades subtly wrong—her foundation was too dark, and she'd managed to spread a glittery highlighter over her entire face. It was like looking at herself through a fun-house mirror, distorted and grotesque.

"W-what are you doing here?" Evie sputtered.

Crystal silently plucked Evie's purse out of her hands, pulling the lipstick out and applying it in the mirror. It was too light for her complexion, but she smacked her lips together approvingly. Then she dropped the tube into her own purse.

"Um, excuse me, that's mine," Evie said, staring at Crystal in disbelief. "But you're so nice, I thought you'd want to share," Crystal said lightly, tossing her hair over her shoulder.

"Well, I don't. Please give it back," Evie said, holding her hand out. That lipstick had cost her two paychecks.

But Crystal just looked at her challengingly. "No."

Evie shifted her weight, losing patience. She had enough to deal with right now; she didn't need a stalker on top of it. "You can't just go around stealing other people's things. Or looks," she steamed. "You're such a freaking copycat."

Instead of looking taken aback or ashamed, Crystal just smiled at her, looking oddly excited. "Copycat. What an interesting choice of words."

"Whatever, Crystal. Just get a life already and stop stealing mine," Evie said, snatching her lipstick out of Crystal's purse and striding out of the bathroom, proud that she'd finally stood up to someone. Maybe the police could push her around, but Crystal White couldn't.

And more important, she had a date to finish.