Chapter Text
Stacy tucks her legs underneath her, sets her phone down on the paper towel. She unscrews the nail polish, a sparkly hot pink. Candace collects Stacy’s hair and splits it into three sections to braid. The Betty’s new album plays in the background.
“Okay, would you rather… only eat eggs for a week, or have Ferb pick out your clothes for two weeks?” Stacy asks, painting her first nail with precision. Her tongue sticks out the side of her mouth, almost as pink as her nail polish. Candace thinks.
“Hmm. Ferb would probably make me wear a lot of funky patterns, but only eating eggs? You remember the candy cane incident, don’t you?” Candace says, pulling Stacy’s braid tight.
“Do I ever. I thought you banned us from talking about it?” Stacy asks.
“Oh, I did. I’m bringing it up to make a point,” Candace says, “So I guess I’ll go with Ferb. It’s better than Phineas, at least.”
“True that,” Stacy laughs. She blows on her nails and picks up her phone with her free hand. It dings with a new message. Stacy tenses. Her eyes widen as she scans the text. She bites her lip. Her hand hovers over her phone’s keypad.
“Woah, woah, woah, Stace,” Candace says, tying off Stacy’s braid, “What happened? What’s wrong?” Candace leans forward, resting her head on Stacy’s shoulder. Stacy leans into Candace for a moment, then pulls away. Stacy’s phone screen has gone black. Damn.
“It’s nothing,” Stacy says, curling one leg up against her chest.
“Stacy,” Candace says, looking her best friend in the eyes. Stacy sighs, looking away before she says,
“Samantha just canceled our date.”
Candace’s heart stops.
“Samantha?! Like Samantha from science?” Candace asks. Stacy nods almost imperceptibly. Samantha was in their grade, tall, with curly red hair and freckles. She seemed nice enough, but canceling a date through text? Way not cool.
Wait.
“I didn’t know you liked girls,” Candace says.
Stacy blinks.
“What? Dude, me and Wendy dated for like, six months last year. How did you not know about that?” Stacy asks. Candace flushes. She remembers Wendy: tall, cool, always wore plaid. She was also a redhead. Huh. Maybe Stacy had a type. Candace liked Wendy a lot, too, until she noticed how close Stacy and Wendy would stand. How much time they would spend together. When Stacy went to the Spring Fling with Wendy and not Candace, Candace hated her.
“Wendy?! I thought she had replaced me as your best friend!”
“What? No way! I’d never replace you,” Stacy says. She pauses, and a hint of a smile creeping onto her face, “Hang on. Is that why you threw out the pecan pie I made you for your birthday?” Candace flushes again and looks away. The Ducky Momo plushie on her windowsill stares at her knowingly.
“Maybe,” She admits. She shakes her head, “What happened with Samantha? Why’d she cancel?” Candace reaches for Stacy’s phone, but Stacy yanks it away.
“She didn’t say,” Stacy says, furrowing her brow. She taps out a message, probably to the offending girl. Candace’s heart squeezes. Stacy deserves better. Stacy deserves the best. Not some foul science flooze who flakes over the phone. When Stacy puts her phone down, Candace doesn’t reach for it. Instead, she reaches out and takes Stacy’s hand in her own.
“She’s stupid,” Candace tells her best friend, “Come on, I know how to make you feel better,” Candace smiles. Stacy manages a smile back, “What time is it?”
“Nine thirty-three,” Stacy says. Perfect. That gives them just enough time.
“Okay,” Candace says, her voice serious. She takes quick inventory of her room: makeup on the dresser, clothes hanging in the closet, Stacy’s sleepover bag dumped unceremoniously next to the bed. Perfect, “Stacy, finish your nails, then meet me in the bathroom.”
“Uh,” Stacy says.
“Nope, no time to explain.” Candace gets up, leaving Stacy’s warm hand behind, and grabs armfuls of makeup off the vanity. The bathroom has way better lighting. Let’s see, Candace has her own foundation, but it’s way too light for Stacy. Aha! Stacy left some here a few weeks ago. Okay, Candace has mascara, lipgloss, eyeshadow… All the essentials. Stacy’ll already have her nails done, so they don’t have to worry about that as long as she doesn’t touch anything.
As promised, a handful of minutes later Stacy wanders into the bathroom, her hands carefully at her sides. Candace is setting out the bottle of face mask solution when Stacy comes in.
“Oh good. Are your nails dry? We’ve got work to do and I don’t want you to have to re-do your nails,” Candace says.
“Uh, they need a couple minutes. What’s all this?”
Candace grins wide and straightens the face mask. The sink is covered with makeup supplies, hair care, half a dozen lotions and soothing salts, and one feather boa.
“It’s Missy’s Makeover Madness!” Candace says. Stacy eyes the countertop for a minute, then folds her arms, careful to not smudge her nails. She smiles at Candace, a little small and watery, but a smile. Candace’s face heats up, “Come on, Stacearoo, time’s a-wastin’!” She wraps an arm around Stacy and pulls her over to the counter.
The Rules of Missy’s Makeover Madness, as described in the official Betty’s Fanclub Zine Issue 13, are taped to the bathroom mirror:
1. You need two or more people to participate.
2. Participants in Missy’s Madness must be best friends. No siblings, significant others, or pets allowed.
3. Do your best friend’s make-up to the worst of your ability. Funky eyeliner, excessive glitter, and clashing colors are encouraged.
4. The goal is to look as atrocious as possible. Take no pretty people alive!
5. Have fun!
There’s some other stuff at the end of the article about how beauty standards are arbitrary and ever-changing, how real and true friendships are forged in the fires of shared experiences, how you don’t need to be attractive to be valuable, blah blah blah. Candace tells herself she’ll read it one day, but it’s been on the mirror for a year and she hasn’t yet. At least the makeup palette that came with the zine was glittery.
Candace ushers Stacy to the toilet seat and Stacy sits down, a smile tugging at the corners of her mouth with obvious effort. Candace clicks a remote, turning up the volume on the Betty’s album so they can hear it in the bathroom. She shakes the small bottle of Stacy’s foundation and dabs a couple drops on Stacy’s cheeks, rubs them in. Sure, the rest of Stacy’s makeup will look atrocious, but her foundation at least should be neat. Candace needs a clean canvas, and all that.
They near the end of the album by the time Candace is applying Stacy’s lipstick, a deep purple that wouldn’t look half bad if it weren’t for the long stripe of bright green eyeshadow and the orange-red blush also on Stacy’s face. Stacy dabs her lipstick off onto a wad of toilet paper, her lips sticking a little to the thin sheet. Candace tears her eyes away to get the pièce de résistance, a tall tube of glitter. Stacy takes one look at it and swears.
“No! No way, that’s not going near my face,” she says, crossing her arms. Candace puts on her best pout.
“But Stacy, that’s Rule Number Three! Excessive glitter encouraged!” Candace says, pointing to the list.
“No!” Stacy insists, clutching at her bow, “Glitter doesn’t come out for weeks! And this is my favorite hair bow!” Candace looks at it. It looks just like the dozen other teal bows Stacy has. But… okay. Candace is pretty sure one of the unwritten rules of Missy’s Makeover Madness is to not glitterbomb a best friend who doesn’t want it.
“Fine, okay,” Candace secedes, capping the glitter and leaving it on the sink. Somewhere in the background, the music stops.
“Thank you,” Stacy says, hands uncurling from her bow. Her voice echoes in the newfound quiet, “Well, let me see!” Candace helps her stand, and pulls Stacy in front of the mirror. Her makeup is truly atrocious: bright, clashing colors, eyeliner practically out to her ears, and a Ducky Momo sticker accenting her cheek. She takes a moment to take it in, and bursts out laughing. It’s music to Candace’s ears. Stacy clutches her sides, wipes an invisible tear from her eye, “Oh boy, Candace,” she says. She inspects herself from a couple different angles, still shaking with swallowed laughter, “You really know how to make a girl feel better.”
Stacy says it so softly Candace almost misses it. But the house has gone quiet, so Candace hears every word. Stacy touches her own face gently, smiling at Candace when they make eye contact in the mirror. Candace’s stomach flip-flops.
“That’s what best friends are for, Stace,” Candace says. She swallows. If her heart beats any faster, Stacy will hear it.
Stacy smiles at Candace again, a real smile. She looks into Candace’s eyes when she does it; her real ones, not the ones in the mirror. Stacy’s smiled at her before, all the time. Big wide smiles when they meet up at the mall. Little secret smiles as they pass notes in class. Watery smiles when Stacy’s fish ran away over the weekend and Stacy wonders if she hadn’t loved him enough. That’s what best friends do, smile at each other. But this one feels… different, somehow, standing together in the cramped bathroom. Have Stacy’s eyes always been this brown? This warm? Stacy inhales and Candace feels her own lungs fill with the quiet sound. Stacy smells like her vanilla hand lotion, and Candace wants, she wants— she wants…
Stacy looks away, surveying the carnage on the countertop. The spell is broken. A sudden cold blooms in Candace’s chest. What the hell?
“I’ve got to do your face now!” Stacy says, picking up a tube of mascara and inspecting it. Candace pushes the cold down. She can worry about it later. Candace smiles and submits herself to her spot on the toilet seat. There are more important things. Stacy rummages through a small bag of mascara. Candace sits with her hands between her knees, clutching the fuzzy rim of the toilet cover. Stacy’s eyes haven’t lost their deep brown. She radiates heat from her space in the bathroom. Candace swallows. Stacy has a smile tugging at one side of her mouth.
“Hey, Stacy?” Candace says, looking up at the ceiling to let Stacy apply her mascara. She’s close enough Candace can feel her breath as she hmms in acknowledgement, “You’re not, you know, still sad? About she-who-shall-not-be-named?” To her surprise, Stacy laughs. It ghosts over Candace’s face. Okay, ew, Stacy has pizza breath. But Candace won’t mention it. That’s what best friends do.
“God, no, I forgot about her around when you started on my eyeliner,” Stacy says. Something knotting up in Candace’s stomach relaxes.
“Okay, good,” Candace says. Stacy hmms a few more times, and Candace settles into letting her take the lead. The new feeling inside her stomach, thrumming through her skin, it can wait. Candace is here for Stacy. What else are best friends for?