I grew fiercely jealous of pedestrians who seemed to be flying by on the sidewalks. I intensely hated all drivers around me for choosing to drive on this street at this time. I sent them evil wishes with my cut eye. Indeed, my blood pressure rose with my anger and frustration. I helplessly watched the clock climb closer to 5:30 pm.
After fifteen minutes of this unbearable non-activity, I realized with a panicked gasp that I would have to drive directly to Berkley Church, leaving me no time to transform into a vixen. There was only one person who could rescue me from this dilemma. I called Stevie on his cell and work phones endlessly until he answered. Stevie, even whilst crashing and burning, could not resist a fashion emergency.
He finally picked up his work phone after my seventh attempt. “Darling, this better be an emergency.”
“Worse, it’s a fashion emergency!” The stress of sitting in traffic had amplified the urgency of my situation.
Stevie’s gasp was a perfect match to my earlier gasp. He urged me to share my predicament. “I have the most fabu outfit in mind. Don’t worry about the price – we’ll leave the tags on and you can return it later if you don’t love it. But trust me honey, you’re gonna love it. What size are you again?”
“I’m a 2!” I exclaimed in excitement.
There was a pregnant pause on the other line. “I’m a 6,” I corrected, my excitement deflating momentarily.
“OK, meet you at the church at 6:00 pm.”
“Thanks Stevie. You’re the best.” I breathed a deep sigh of relief and inhaled a lungful of traffic smog and congestion. A taxi driver cut me off, as suddenly as one can when traveling at five miles an hour. “Watch it, asshole!” I yelled, my blood boiling. Luckily, all the windows were up to protect me from detection and retaliation.
“Where are you?” Stevie’s tone reflected his gentlemanly distaste of my unnecessarily loud profanity.
“Oh, I’m just sitting in traffic. It’s horrible. Can you stay on the phone and keep me company?”
“No.”
I arrived at the FedEx office an excruciating two minutes before it closed, parked illegally and dashed as quickly as I could in my three inch heels into the building. The FedEx lady I had bribed with makeup helped me load the seven heavy boxes into my car. I ripped open a box and offered her a few handfuls of makeup, which she accepted, acting surprised, as if she had pulled a favour solely out of the goodness of her heart. She described the shortest route to Berkley Church and I attempted to race off only to be halted to a dead stop, once again by traffic. I banged my head against the steering wheel.
When I finally arrived at Berkley Church, it was quarter past six which gave us only forty-five minutes to pack two hundred swag bags and make me gorgeous, the latter likely taking longer given my frenzied state. Sydney and Stevie greeted me outside and helped me haul the boxes of swag to the basement. They had devised a packing strategy and had accordingly set up the swag bags into rows. We sorted the products into separate boxes and formed an efficient assembly line, packing the swag bags in record time. Ecstatic with our mad swag-bag packing skills, we high-fived each other and ran the swag bags triumphantly up to the event planners who joined our cheering. We collectively celebrated as if we had just found out that all the swag was actually for us.
We got shushed by a senior manager from the event planning company. While we were slaving away in the church basement, Caden was being interviewed by MTV. He was strategically standing in front of the Gi-Spot branded makeup stations. A gaggle of female bartenders and servers posed behind him, bound in intimidating dominatrix gear. He was confident and completely at ease in front of the bright lights and cameras. I stared at him as he charmed the crew as effortlessly as he had allured me. Even at a distance I was captivated by his gorgeous manliness.
“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” One of the event planners asked.
I snapped out of my reverie, embarrassed to have been caught openly lusting over my boss, but then realized that she was talking about the venue. I looked beyond Caden and realized that the event planners had done a phenomenal job at transforming Berkley Church into their vision of the Seven Deadly Sins. It was stunning – dark, twisted and edgy.
“It’s amazing,” I agreed, nodding in admiration. My praise was cut short when Stevie and Sydney grabbed me and pulled me into a bathroom to get ready.
The party dress that Stevie had purchased for me was breathtaking and fit me perfectly.
“Stevie!” I gushed, admiring the dress in the mirror. “It’s so hot!”
“You’re hot! Just don’t look at the price tag,” he winced. Sydney had heated up a curling iron while I was changing and Stevie demonstrated his unexpected hair styling prowess, as he expertly curled my hair into soft waves. “Frederico is going to do your makeup.”
“Who’s Frederico?” I asked.
“You don’t know who Frederico is?” Stevie asked, shocked. I looked at Sydney’s reflection in the mirror to confirm whether I was living under a rock and she shook her head and shrugged. “Frederico is pure genius. He’s the Makeup Director of GiGi Cosmetics. It’s an honour that he can perform at this event for us.”
“Oh, well…wow, thanks. How did you manage to get him to do my makeup?”
He smiled and winked at me.
“Oh my gosh, Stevie, what did you do?” I asked, looking at Sydney with concern.
“Don’t worry, I didn’t sleep with him,” he rolled his eyes and then giggled. “Not that I don’t want to.”
“Shame on you for having such sinful thoughts in a church,” Sydney teased.
“What about Jamie?” I asked, practically outraged.
Stevie shrugged.
“What does that mean?” My outrage growing.
“Enough about me,” Stevie set down the curling iron and fluffed my hair. “Gorgeous girl.” Stevie, hands on hip and head cocked, admired his work like a proud prom parent.
“Way to change the topic,” I assented.
“We gotta go. You clean up good, kid. Just one last thing,” Sydney spritzed a recognizable fragrance in the air and made me walk through it. It was my favourite smell – bull shit.
“Vanity’s stressful!” I proclaimed as we exited the bathroom and linked arms to join the party.
Chapter 18: Party
While it was certainly not enough to turn me on, Stevie was right that Frederico was pure makeup genius. Frederico was fun and wild, in an overtly gay Latino way. And with a name like Frederico, you’d better be fun and wild. Despite his Latino flavour, I was surprised that Stevie was so enamoured by him. He did not seem to be Stevie’s type, and makeup genius aside, he was no match for Jamie. I did not approve.
As my face progressed into a level of vixen I could only dream of, so did the level of Stevie and Frederico’s shameless flirting, to the point where I felt uncomfortable to be seated in between them.
“OK, guys, you need to get a room,” I finally said, squirming in my seat.
Stevie responded with a raucously loud and fake laugh as he pounded me on the shoulder. “Oh, Veronica, Frederico is in a long-term and loving relationship with Hunter, the Makeup Director for Gisele. I swear, could you dream of a more wonderful couple?”
Frederico raised a sculpted eyebrow.
“Just like you’re in a loving relationship with Jamie,” I replied. I turned to Frederico to reinforce the statement. “He’s in a loving relationship with Jamie.”
“Keep still, keep still, darling, and go like this with your lips,” he smacked his lips together in an over-exaggerated fashion and what I hoped to be extremely unattractive to Stevie. “Hunter and I are no longer together. It is tragic but I hope to never see him again. It would not be pretty.” His eyes darkened. Next stop: check tonight’s roster of makeup artists to ensure Hunter is not on the list.
“Oh no!” Stevie gasped, hand to his heart.
“There, you are done and you are gorgeous, my love,” Frederico spun me around so that I could admire his work in th
e mirror. Now both Stevie and I had our hands to our hearts. I noticed the word Vanity above his makeup station spelled out in an embellished handwriting script in tiny Swarovski crystals.
“Stevie was right, you are a makeup god.”
Stevie and Frederico beamed at one another. “Hey, eyes on the prize,” I snapped at Stevie. Now I knew what it felt like for Stevie and Sydney to distract me from Caden.
“Oh, Veronica, you’re so needy,” Stevie joked at my expense. “You’re gorgeous, you’re gorgeous. How many times must you hear it to believe it?” He held up his hands in exasperation and looked at Frederico like a puppy dog desperate for his master’s attention.
“How about you tell me some more as we have a drink at the bar?” I asked.
“Beauty comes from the inside and radiates out,” Frederico said. Indeed, ironic words from a makeup artist. “There is nothing more beautiful than a confident woman when she smiles.”
“Right, tell that to my boss,” I laughed. Frederico pointed to my smile in approval.
“Ronnie, you go ahead without me, I’m going to try and soak in more of Frederico’s genius. Teach me!” Stevie made bowing worshipping gestures in the direction of Frederico.
This was certainly worrisome. There were very few things that Stevie favoured to free alcohol.
I joined Heidi and her entourage, Chloe and Jasmine Tit, already paying respects to Gluttony, affixed above the bar in a rope of black velvet.
As soon as Chloe saw me, her frown deepened. “Ugh, it’s so hot in here, I’m sweating like a whore in church!”
“You said it, not me,” I replied. I thought I saw Heidi stifle a laugh.
“Congratulations, it looks great,” Heidi offered me an uncharacteristic compliment in front of her entourage. Her makeup was so natural that I wondered whether she forgot to apply it.
“Oh please, do you think Veronica has anything to do with this?” Chloe practically snarled. The drink in her hand sloshed over the side of the glass and Heidi had to swerve out of the way to avoid getting splashed. “The event planners did everything.”
“Chloe, did you remember to take your medication today?” Sydney appeared beside me. “Seriously, I have something that can take the edge off.”
“My boyfriend says that painkillers are the most addictive drug,” Jasmine piped up. We all stopped and looked at Jasmine Tit with confusion.
“Really? Is that what your boyfriend says?” Chloe exploded. “I’m so sick of hearing what your stupid boyfriend thinks! What do you think? Do you even have an opinion or a mind of your own? If I wanted to know what your boyfriend thinks, I’d ask him. But I don’t. You know why? Because I don’t give a shit what he thinks!”
The world was suspended for a moment as we all looked at Jasmine Tit with wide eyes and bated breath for her response. Jasmine Tit inhaled deeply and stood a little taller. “Well, I just thought it was a nice way of saying that you have a serious problem with painkillers.”
Our mouths all dropped open simultaneously.
“They make you such a bitch,” Jasmine Tit added, as if what she said previously didn’t make enough of an impact. I noted the gaping absence of ‘my boyfriend thinks’ at the beginning of the sentence.
“This is awesome,” Sydney said under her breath.
“It explains a lot,” I agreed, also under my breath, and then added loudly: “We’re going to go. This is probably, you know, a private conversation.”
Sydney looked at me, disappointed, rooted to the spot.
“We need to attend to an emergency,” I motioned to Sydney. She followed me grudgingly, and I filled her in on the Frederico-Hunter situation.
“Beware the wrath of a gay makeup artist scorned,” she agreed.
“Speaking of gay scorn, could you check on Stevie? I’m worried that he’s going to do something stupid with Frederico.”
“Stevie’s a big boy, he can take care of himself,” Sydney dismissed my concern. “Besides, Frederico’s a professional. He needs to work this event.”
“I don’t know…”
I flagged an event planner, easily identifiable sporting a headset and clip board, and asked her whether Hunter was scheduled to work the event. Unfortunately he was, but fortunately he was running late. I instructed that Hunter be escorted directly to the makeup table the furthest away from Frederico. The event planner nodded and scurried away as if high profile gay makeup artist break-ups were a normal occurrence in her line of work.
“I hope we can keep them apart the whole time,” I asked Sydney, growing uneasy about the potentially disastrous encounter.
“I got it,” Sydney assured me and left me on her quest to fend off the Frederico-Hunter showdown.
I stood off to the side for a moment to enjoy the fruits of my labour. The church had already filled up with the city’s most beautiful and well-dressed young socialites. Despite the abundance of beautiful people all around, I noticed that a few men were checking me out. Wow, Frederico really was a magician. I smiled confidently and played flirtatiously with my hair. My inner beauty must really be radiating out. It wasn’t often that I was the object of men’s admiration so I might as well enjoy it. I realized in my confident woman glory that quite a few men were now unabashedly staring at me. Hmmm…this was a little too unusual. I looked down. Was my dress see-through? Was a boob hanging out?
I turned around and realized that I was standing in front of a massive screen that was playing the GiGi soft porn TV ad. It seemed that I was blocking it and in fact men were staring at me, but in the hopes that I would get the hell out of the way. I gingerly stepped out of the way, appropriately humbled. I was standing uncomfortably off to the side when Sydney came to fetch me for the fashion show which was already set to begin. Wow, time flies when you’re humiliated.
Sydney and I headed upstairs to get a good position in front of the runway. The word Envy was emblazoned above the runway in bright lights. I spotted Caden, surrounded by an unlovely display of women who were smothering him with their fake boobs, desperate flirtation and mindless giggles. It was so obvious, they practically had dollar signs in their eyes. Somehow, he did not seem to mind. I reserved a spot for Sydney and me at the end of the runway as she grabbed drinks for us at the upstairs bar.
“I hope they fixed the runway,” Sydney told me, handing me a martini glass. “During the dress rehearsal the models were slipping everywhere.”
My eyes widened as the lights dimmed to complete darkness. Oh God, another potential disaster – model down. Someone screamed as an immature joke. There was spotty laughter throughout the room. Rock music suddenly blasted and spotlights simultaneously hit the runway, flooding it with white hot light. One spotlight was quite unstrategically directed right into the eyeline of the models. They strutted, blinded, down the runway, happily unaware of how close they were coming to walking off the end of it. I prayed every time a model came alarmingly close to the edge that she stop. Many of them tested my faith by stopping within inches of the end of the runway. I was poised to catch their frail little bodies if they careened over the edge.
Not only were the blinded models freaking me out, but sure to Sydney’s warning, the models were slipping in their slick-soled stiletto heels. Some shoes were too big and their little toothpick legs were wobbling as they fought to keep their shoes on. I hoped I was the only one that noticed these glitches because I was painfully aware of it. Sydney and I gasped and grabbed each other’s hands as one model, outfitted in a gorgeous evening dress, turned to walk off the runway stage left and took a headfirst plunge backstage. All we saw was crinoline and heels in the air. I looked furtively around to see if anyone else noticed.
I heard glass breaking and winced, praying there was no blood. Happily, someone had broken their martini glass all over the eye-level runway. I immediately had visions of models stomping on the broken glass and shards flying into the faces of eager onlookers, I shoved all the beautiful people out of my way, admittedly unnecessarily roughly, to find an e
vent planner. I flagged down the same event planner that helped ward off the clash of the scorned gay ex-lovers. As calmly as if I had told her there was the threat of a gay ex-lover apocalyptic showdown, she radioed back stage to tell the models to avoid the broken glass and then radioed security to push the people away from that section of the runway.
If only I could radio in to the higher powers that be to clean up all my life’s screw-ups and regrets. Veronica to Lord Almighty. Messy break-up last night. Please erase inappropriate comments about lovemaking skills from ex-boyfriend’s memory. Veronica out. “Where can I get one of those?” I pointed to her headset.
She laughed. “Thanks, good catch with the broken glass.”
“I don’t know how you do this and maintain a healthy blood pressure.” I yelled back.
“I love every minute of it,” she gushed. “It’s like an adrenaline rush!”
I was envious that at such a young age she had landed a job that she was truly passionate about. I wish I could say the same of my job. My job was a means to an end and the only thing I was passionate about, I realized, was the end.
I scanned the room for Caden. If I couldn’t enjoy the party, at least I could enjoy Caden enjoying the party. And there he was – enjoying the women enjoying him at the party. Protected by the darkness, I stared at him talking intimately with a woman who seemed to be a doppelgänger of his last girlfriend. I made a face. It seemed Caden had a type and it was Gross Barbie Doll.
“You have a hot boss,” the event planner had noticed my not-so inconspicuous staring.
Jolted out of my shameless love trance, I tore my eyes away from Caden and the Gross Barbie Doll. “Yeah,” I replied as nonchalantly as I could.
“Two words for you: Don’t date him girl dot com.”
I blinked. “Those are like, five words.”
“No, it’s a web site. Dontdatehimgirl.com. Check it out. He’s on it – there’s twenty pages from like, seven ex-girlfriends dedicated to him.”
Why I Love My Gay Boyfriend Page 15
