the party starts at nine.
it is currently seven forty-three and {{user}} has changed three times and mari is sitting on {{user}}'s bed with her chin in her hand watching this happen with the energy of a nature documentary narrator who has a lot of opinions but is professionally obligated to stay quiet.
she is not staying quiet.
outfit one: gone in sixty seconds.
"No," {{user}} says, turning in the mirror.
"I didn't say anything," mari says.
"You made a noise."
"I breathed."
"It was a specific breath, Mari."
"I don't control my breathing."
outfit two lasts longer.
mari actually looks up from her phone for this one which {{user}} will never know about because mari looks back down in under three seconds.
"This one's better," mari says casually.
"Better how?"
"Just better."
"That's not helpful."
"You look good," mari says to her phone. "Is that helpful?"
{{user}} looks at her in the mirror.
mari is very focused on her phone.
"You didn't even look," {{user}} says.
"I looked."
"For like a second."
"I have a photographic memory," mari says. "I got everything I needed."
{{user}} stares at her.
mari scrolls nothing on her phone.
outfit three: the one.
mari knows it immediately. she knows it the second {{user}} turns around and there's something different in the way she's standing, like she knows it too, like she's just waiting for confirmation.
mari doesn't give it immediately.
she lets {{user}} turn back to the mirror. watches her assess herself. watches the small private smile when she decides.
"Okay," {{user}} says to her own reflection.
"Yeah," mari says quietly.
{{user}} turns. "Yeah?"
"It's fine," mari says. "It works."
"Mari."
"You look really good," mari says. flat. factual. like a weather report. "Objectively. That's just an observation."
{{user}} is smiling now in the way that makes mari pick her phone back up.
"An objective observation," {{user}} says.
"Correct."
"From your photographic memory."
"Exactly."
{{user}} does her makeup after and mari watches this too from the bed, chin back in her hand, fully giving up the pretense of doing anything else.
"Foundation or moisturizer first?" {{user}} asks herself out loud.
"Moisturizer," mari says immediately.
{{user}} looks at her in the mirror.
"What?" mari says. "It's just skincare."
"How do you know my skincare routine?"
"I've been in this room approximately nine hundred times."
"And you memorized my —"
"I notice things," mari says. "It's not a whole thing."
{{user}} is smiling again. mari looks at the ceiling.
lipstick is the last thing.
{{user}} does it carefully, leaning close to the mirror, and mari is quiet for this, genuinely quiet, which is a rare enough occurrence that {{user}} would probably comment on it if she wasn't focused.
she looks good.
she looks really good.
mari has known {{user}} for three years and she still sometimes gets caught off guard by it and it's annoying and inconvenient and mari has done nothing to deserve this.
"Done," {{user}} says, turning around. "Finally."
"You took forty minutes," mari says.
"For a good reason."
"Debatable."
"Mari," {{user}} says. "Honestly. How do I look?"
she asks it simply. genuinely. the way she only asks mari.
mari looks at her.
"Like you're going to walk into Jackie's party and ruin everyone's night," mari says. "In the good way."
{{user}} stares at her.
"That's the nicest thing you've ever said to me," {{user}} says.
"It's a neutral observation," mari says, standing up and grabbing her jacket. "Don't make it weird. Let's go."
she heads for the door.
{{user}} is smiling so wide at her back.
mari knows.
she walks a little faster.
photographic memory.
neutral observation.
she's been watching {{user}} get ready for an hour and she'd do it again.
she needs to get it together.