But still, Nicola was right. There was a difference between learning to swim in the shallow end while wearing water wings with the Zumba ladies and being thrown into a choppy, college boy–infested ocean.
Nicola put her hands on my shoulders. “I hate to tell you this, princess, but it’s time.”
If what she was talking about was what I thought she was talking about, I was in big trouble. “Do you mean—?”
She nodded. “Yup. The makeover part of the movie of your life. Complete with some nauseating up-tempo song sung by a pop star with a nose ring.”
I cringed. I hated those things. The makeover montage was so corny. It was one of the reasons why I preferred indie and foreign films.
“You know, you might actually end up having fun,” Nicola said.
I gave her a look.
“I mean, obviously it could be a total disaster, too,” she went on.
That was better.
“But you have a fifty-fifty chance.”
I sighed. “I guess you’re right.”
It was hard to think positively, though. I wasn’t exactly a happy-ending kinda girl.
Nicola took out a piece of notebook paper and pen. “Operation Falcon,” she announced as she wrote.
“What’s Operation Falcon?” I asked.
“It’s what we’re going to call the makeover. It makes it sound all top secret. Like some government thing. Plus, in case I lose this piece of paper, no one will be able to link you with it.” She looked up from the page to find me reaching into my left eye and taking out my contact. Gross to do at a lunch table, I know, but Nicola was used to it. Even after three years, I could never get them in right.
“That is disgusting. Number one,” she announced as she picked up the pen, “glasses.”
“Okay, don’t they normally go the other way—girl with glasses gets contacts? I’m already not liking this Operation Eagle thing.”
“It’s Operation Falcon.”
“Same thing.”
As she went back to making her list, I sighed. I didn’t have to be psychic to know this was going to be a very big makeover.
four
“Hey, Simone,” Brad said when we walked into One Person’s Garbage the next afternoon. “I got some great old evening bags this weekend from this estate sale in the Palisades of this woman who was an extra in a Bruce Willis movie.”
“Nope,” Nicola said. “No purses. No band tees. Today, Bradley, we are on a mission.”
I so did not like the sound of that. And I especially did not like it when she marched me over to the dresses.
“Okay, nowhere on that Operation Cardinal list did it say anything about dresses,” I said.
“Operation Falcon. And it said ‘new wardrobe.’ Dresses are considered wardrobe.” Flipping through the racks, she began to grab things. A black sundress with white polka dots. A blue Chinese silk one with a slit up the leg. A red one with little bows on shoulders. “Ooh—this is fun!” she squealed. “It’s like playing Barbies!”
“But you hate Barbies,” I said as she loaded up my arms with the stuff. “You did your oral presentation last year on why the Glamorista Barbie was responsible for setting the feminist movement back twenty years.”
“Yes, but you can be the cool Barbie—the one with a brain and killer taste in music.”
She walked toward the rack—the one that held the dress on it. “No! Not the blue dress!” I yelled.
“How come?”
“I can’t. Not yet. Let’s start with some other ones first.” If I tried on that blue dress and it didn’t fit, I’d feel awful. Unworthy. It was better just to stay away from it. If you didn’t have any expectations, you couldn’t get hurt.
“Okay, okay,” she grumbled.
When my arms were so full I could barely see over the top, she pushed me into a dressing room. Well, into the closet with the tacked-up sheet that made it so that the people on Abbot Kinney Boulevard couldn’t see you in your underwear. I never tried things on when I was shopping. I didn’t need to see how shlubby I looked. I turned toward the window and tried to gauge whether I could haul myself up and out to escape.
“And don’t think about climbing out that window,” she called out. “Because I will hunt you down using my brand-new Stalker GPS app on my iPhone.”
I sighed as I started to take off my cargo pants and New Order T-shirt. When the moment of truth came—the one with a lot of pasty naked skin staring back at me—I looked down at the ground. I was somewhat of an expert at that. In fact, I could even not look at myself in the mirror as I was putting on mascara (for the most part I was anti-makeup, but when you were as pale as I was, it was wear mascara or have your face completely melt away).
Although with Hillary in the house, it was next to impossible to escape the mirrors. They were all over the place now. But as I pulled the polka-dot sundress on, my eyes landed on the small mirror by accident. Weirdly enough, when I saw myself I didn’t cringe. Instead of focusing on everything about myself I didn’t like, I saw things I did. Like my nose, and the way it was a little crooked from when I was ten and it got broken when I mistakenly crossed Tim Klasky’s path as he swung a baseball bat, even though I had said, “Tim, don’t swing yet, okay?”
And my neck, which was on the long side but not so long that I looked like a giraffe. And my arms, which, ever since I had started Zumba-ing, had gone from these blobby sausage things to where you could see I had a shoulder, and then a tricep, and then a forearm. It wasn’t like I was going to sit there all day and admire myself. While I wouldn’t go as far as to say I was pretty, I had to admit I was kind of . . . interesting looking. Especially now that I had cheekbones.
But while I may have been interesting looking, from the amount of time it took me to zip the zipper (and only halfway up at that), one thing I wasn’t was a size 8.
“Let’s see,” Nicola called out.
Holding my breath, I walked out and stood in front of the full-length mirror while she and Brad checked me out.
Me. In a polka-dot sundress. With a poufy skirt. Who knew I could look so . . .
“Okay, you look like a dancer in one of those Disneyland shows,” Nicola said as she pushed me back toward the dressing room.
“Thank you. That’s exactly what I was going to say,” I said as I exhaled.
“Well, it did belong to a woman who played a teacher in that Shia LeBeouf Disney show,” Brad said.
“You know, I really think I should just stick to pants. In fact, I’ve decided I’m ready to move to jeans,” I said. “And I found this great Echo and The Bunnymen T-shirt on eBay the other day. It’s very colorful, so that will help with my look—”
She shook her head. “Nope. We’re not leaving here without something that shows your legs.”
“I hope you don’t take this the wrong way and sue me for sexual harassment, but you do have lovely calves,” Brad said.
I smiled. “Thanks, Brad.” Coming from a gay man that meant a lot.
Nicola reached for a flowery shift and shoved it toward me. “Try this one.”
As I looked at the tag, I wrinkled my nose. “This Lilly Pulitzer person sure likes pastels.”
“It belonged to Betty White’s stand-in back in her Golden Girls days,” Brad said.
I put it back and reached for a simple black sleeveless dress with a flared skirt. “What about this one?”
“That’s one of our more famous pieces,” Brad said proudly. “It belonged to an actress who played a villain in an episode of the original Charlie’s Angels.”
“I dunno. Looks a little boring,” Nicola replied. “Or like you’re going to a funeral.”
I shrugged and looked at the tag. “Yeah, but it’s a size ten, so maybe I’ll be able to actually breathe,” I said as I shut
the dressing room curtain.
Not only could I breathe, but I could zip the sucker up myself.
As I walked out, they both stared at me.
“It looks that dumb, huh?”
“No. You look amazing!” Nicola gasped.
“I think you look like you should be sitting in a café on the Left Bank of Paris,” Brad said.
I brightened. “Paris? Really?”
He nodded. “Yes. Drinking an espresso while some painter professes his undying love to you and apologizes for the time you walked in on him making out with the nude model he was sketching.”
As I turned toward the mirror, I couldn’t help but smile. It was the perfect dress for me. Simple, but elegant. Sophisticated, but not snobbily so. And the contrast between the dress and my pale skin and my lips was pretty cool.
“So what do you think?” asked Brad.
I slowly turned around so I could get the full effect. “I think I look like . . . such a girl.”
“And that would be . . . ?”
I shrugged. “Not so bad, I don’t think.”
I felt so girly that I half expected myself to start giggling. Which, if that happened, I’d have to give Nicola permission to shoot me.
Right then, the Edith Piaf song La Vie en Rose came through the iPod speakers.
“Is that a sign or is that a sign?!” squealed Nicola. “Wait—that is French she’s singing in, right?”
We nodded.
She walked over to the jewelry section. “It just needs a little something,” she said as she rummaged in a tray. She held up a giant gold snake bracelet. “How about this?”
“A little something? That’s the size of my entire forearm.” I wrinkled my nose. “Plus Hillary has something like that.”
“Forget it then.” She held up a long strand of pearls. “Can’t go wrong with pearls.”
“Yeah, if you’re going to some fancy cocktail party,” I replied. “Not to eleventh grade.”
She sighed. “I knew you were going to be difficult.”
I reached up and took out my contact. “I am not. But I’ll tell you what is difficult. These stupid contacts.” I sighed.
“Good thing ‘new glasses’ is part of Operation Falcon,” she replied.
Brad took out the tray of vintage eyeglass frames and placed them on the counter. He held out a pair of black-rimmed nerdish ones. “Try these.”
“Brad, we’re supposed to make her look hot,” Nicola said. “Not like a librarian.”
“Hey, I have some pictures of my mom wearing glasses like these,” I said as I put them on.
“Whoa. Color me wrong,” she said. “I think we just found the perfect accessory. Simone, you’re so . . . you!” she cried. “I mean, you were you before, but now it’s like you’re you you!”
With only one contact in, it was difficult to get the full effect, but I could vaguely make out that the glasses did indeed look good. Who knew the thing that made me me was a pair of nerd glasses? “But do I still look French?” I asked nervously. The French part really sold it for me.
“Yes,” Brad said, “but instead of a girl crying over her dumb painter boyfriend, now you look like an intellectual discussing philosophy at Café de Flore.” He smiled. “Like your namesake Simone de Beauvoir.”
I smiled. I liked that.
“You know, I don’t even think you need any jewelry now,” Nicola said. “The glasses are the perfect accessory. But shoes! We need shoes! I’m thinking. . . . red pumps,” she announced as Brad walked over to the shoe section.
“I’m thinking I’m way ahead of you,” he said, holding up a pair that, thankfully for me, weren’t too high. “These belonged to the actress who played Jaclyn Smith’s mother in a highly rated NBC miniseries back in the eighties,” he said proudly.
“Really?!” I asked excitedly.
“Who’s Jaclyn Smith?” Nicola asked.
I turned to her. “Um, Kelly Garrett, original Charlie’s Angel?” People may have considered me a bit of a snob because I liked French movies, but I also had a real thing for the original Charlie’s Angels, which was on TV back in the seventies. Especially Jaclyn Smith, who was the prettiest and nicest angel of them all.
“And they’re a—”
“Seven and a half? Yup,” said Brad as he handed them to me. I wondered if all gay men could tell a girl’s shoe size just by looking at them, or if Brad had a special gift.
“So what do you think?” Nicola asked as I slowly twirled around.
“I think . . . I might be able to get used to this,” I replied. Right before my left ankle gave out and I took down a mannequin that was wearing an outfit that had belonged to a woman who had played Cameron Diaz’s best friend in one of her dumber comedies.
By the time we left, I had bought (or, rather, my dad had bought me with his Amex) the black dress, the glasses, a red A-line swing dress, and a pair of black sandals with a tiny bit of a heel. (“They’re called kitten heels,” Brad explained, “but don’t ask me why. I’m gay, but it’s not like I have a PhD in fashion history.”) Out of guilt, I bought the glasses with cash and received a two-dollar Chinese paper fan in return.
“Why do I need a fan?” I asked Brad.
“Because I don’t have any singles in the register to give you as change,” he replied.
“Got it,” I nodded. Those types of things happened all the time in Venice.
Wearing my new dress and shoes (“Because you don’t have any experience wearing this kind of stuff, it’s going to take a lot of getting used to,” Nicola said), we made our way to an eyeglass store on Abbot Kinney so they could call my eye doctor and get the right lenses put in the vintage frames.
I turned to Nicola and smiled. “Do I have something in my teeth?” I whispered as the guy made the call.
“No. Why?”
“Because I feel like the guy keeps staring at me.”
“Um, maybe because you’re looking hot,” she hissed.
“Oh please. The only thing that’s hot is my face,” I said as I felt it turn red again. If they gave out grades for taking compliments, I’d get a D. It was definitely not one of my strong points.
The guy hung up the phone and walked back to us. “These are terrific frames,” he said with a very white smile.
“Thanks.”
“They’re vintage, right?”
I nodded.
“They don’t make them like this anymore.” Another smile. I wondered how often he bleached his teeth.
He was starting to creep me out. “Uh-huh. So, um, when will they be ready?”
“Three hours?”
“Thanks,” I replied, dragging Nicola to the door. “What was his problem?” I asked when we got outside.
“Dude, he was flirting with you!”
“He was?”
She rolled her eyes. “Yes.”
Okay, maybe getting used to it was going to take longer than I thought. “Can we have lunch now?” I asked hopefully. I was starving. I had no idea shopping could be such a cardio workout.
“Soon. But there’s one more thing we need to do first.”
“What?”
She pointed across the street at a hair place called Shear Genius.
I shook my long hair. “Uh-uh. No way.”
“But it’s part of the operation!” she cried.
I kept shaking it, to the point where the split ends whacked her in the eye. “Ow.”
“Sorry.”
“Why do you have to be so stubborn?”
“Do you know how long it took me to grow it to this point?!” I asked, holding it as far away from her as possible.
“Yeah, and do you know how long you’ve been hiding behind it?!”
I rolled my eyes. “I
don’t hide behind it,” I replied. “I just . . . pull it over my face for warmth. You know I get cold easily.”
She rolled her eyes. “Maybe I’d buy that if we lived in Vermont, but we’re in L.A. You know, I bet that’s five extra pounds right there.” She reached over and poked my head.
“Ow. What are you doing?”
“Feeling for birds.”
I sighed. It was either keep arguing with her and still end up losing while getting more and more hungry, or just give in. “Okay. A trim. Not a cut. Not something all style-y that I’ll need to put tons of goop in every morning. Not even something that needs to be blow-dried.”
She touched her own hair, which on that particular day was red and styled into some poufy French twist-looking thing and had real chopsticks sticking out of it. “So you’re saying you want something a little less fancy than mine.”
“A lot less fancy.”
“We’ll just let a hair-care professional decide,” she said as she hauled me across the street.
After walking around the chair and examining me from every angle, Kimmy, my “hair-care goddess” (“My life coach told me I’d attract more abundance to me if I called myself that rather than a plain old hair-care professional”) nodded. Although with hair bleached so blonde that it looked like it was about to break off and crumble, she didn’t exactly seem to be a walking example for healthy hair. “I’m thinking . . . Clara Bow. I’m thinking . . . Nicole Richie. I’m thinking . . . Katie Holmes when she went short, I’m thinking—”
And I was thinking . . . crazy. What part of “trim” did this goddess not understand? “Excuse me, not to be rude or anything, but all those people you mentioned—well, at least Nicole and Katie because I don’t know who that Clara person is,” I said as politely as possible, “have bobs.”
She nodded. “That would be correct.”
“But see, I just told you that all I wanted was a trim—even though, to be honest, I don’t think it’s all that necessary, and the only reason I’m doing it is to make my friend here happy so we can go eat,” I went on, “and bobs are . . . short. Like inches and inches shorter than my hair now.”
Wicked Jealous: A Love Story Page 8
