“Let’s not get her in the habit, Kev.”
“Speaking of which, I was hoping to hear ‘Habit’ last night. And no ‘Simone’? What was up with that?”
Adrian’s eyes met mine above our soup bowls. For all Kevin knew about his beloved band, there was still so much he didn’t know, and might never know. Especially when it came to Simone. Rick wasn’t ready to let the world pry into his loss just yet. And the fragile footing he and Adrian had established in their friendship didn’t need the added strain of sore feelings, where “Simone” was concerned. Besides the band and their ex-manager, I might’ve been the only other person privy to the identity of its chief songwriter.
Adrian cleared his throat.
“What’d you think of the new song, Kev?”
“What did I think?” My brother was clearly thrilled to be asked. “Balls out, just about the best thing I’ve heard in a decade! Heavy, melodic . . . it had it all. Loved the guitar solo in the beginning.”
“I’m all about new beginnings, mate.” Adrian’s legs twined with mine under the table, and his smile warmed me like the morning sun over Central Park had this morning in his bed.
Arise and drink your bliss!
The trill of the doorbell startled the soup right off my spoon. No intercom or Batphone preceding it indicated another tenant within the building had come to call. Adrian played footsie, his bare foot caressing my ankle, and made no move to get the door.
“Liz, would you mind getting that?”
She rose, slow and unsure, but assented. “No problem.”
I watched her back. Kev watched her backside. Adrian’s attention was back to his meal.
A shriek pierced the high-ceilinged foyer.
***
“Mindy Carmichael! Through your peephole!” Liz clutched her chest and reported back to us, like she was playing a jacked-up game of I Spy. “Even through a fisheye lens, she’s gorgeous,” she huffed, leaning against the wall.
“Mindy Carmichael,” Kev mulled the name over. “Sounds familiar. Porn star?”
“Even better,” I answered. “Reality TV star.” Mindy Carmichael was part of the team who performed some serious magic on Liz’s favorite show, Makeover Manipulators. How on earth did she know Adrian?
I had a feeling she wasn’t here to borrow a cup of sugar.
“Well, don’t just leave her standing in the hall!” Adrian rose to remedy the situation.
“Oops! Sorry,” Liz peeped. She trailed behind him, and Kev and I brought up the rear.
“Hey, stud!” Mindy was into the apartment with a breeze of perfume that smelled like summer air. As Liz had reported, gorgeous. And I would go one step further to even say luminous. Her heart-shaped face boasted eyes shining with inner joy. Each blue-black curl cascading down her back was perfectly formed and frizz-free. The dress she wore was Goddess-worthy, clinging and flowing as she glided in. “Terrific show last night.”
“Thanks, luv. Come, meet my friends. This is Liz . . .” Liz gave a miniscule wave and I thought she looked ready to curtsy . . . or pass out. “. . . and Kevin . . .”
“You’re . . . you’re a Corpse fan?” My brother was captivated. After years of online chatting with other like-minded metal aficionados, the majority of whom were male and closing in on middle age, he didn’t know how to take the creature before him. Had she even been born when the band formed?
“I’m no poser. My dad played their records all the time when I was little. There was no way we’d miss the opportunity to finally see a show together . . . and my favorite neighbor.” Mindy grinned tiny pearls in Adrian’s direction. “Oh my,” she breathed. “This must be Kat.” Everyone stepped away, and I felt exposed. “You weren’t kidding about those eyes, Adrian. Emerald City!”
She clasped my hands in hers and said earnestly, “We are going to have so much fun.”
Makeup hadn’t been fun for me since the sixth grade, back when Marissa used to steal teal eye shadow from Colby’s Five and Dime. We’d apply it way more liberally than necessary and vie for spots in the bathroom mirror to marvel over our transformation. After that, makeup became just another weapon in the teenage arsenal. Tucked into our Bermuda bags, right next to the emergency tampon and the Velamints.
I wondered if Mindy Carmichael had ever even had the need for a Velamint.
“We were just finishing up lunch,” Adrian said. “Are you hungry?”
“No, no. You guys go ahead. I’m just gonna set up my stuff.” Mindy hoisted a fist, and I realized she had brought her makeup kit, a black and silver-clasped affair only slightly smaller than Adrian’s touring road case. Holy cosmetology, Batman.
My appetite suddenly diminished. Mindy Carmichael spent her days on Makeover Manipulators, transforming underappreciated ugly ducklings before sending them off to huge reveal events: the high-school wallflower turned into a blooming beauty just in time for her class reunion, for example. Or the black sheep of the family, groomed to gorgeous for the wedding no one expected her to attend. It was full of head-shaking, jaw-dropping, holy shit revelations. And tears. And craziness.
I was a little scared of what I had gotten myself into. Or precisely, what Adrian had gotten me into.
Excusing myself, I pleaded full and thanked Kev for the amazing lunch, before ducking upstairs. I needed a few minutes and deep breaths to process. And I needed to brush my teeth, so I wouldn’t exhale salmon on Mindy Carmichael as she worked her magic on me.
Hasn’t this year been transformation enough? The woman in the reflection from the medicine cabinet mirror just raised eyebrows over tired, green eyes.
“You tell me,” I said to her.
Parenthood had creased laugh lines into the corners of my smile and squint lines that I wouldn’t trade for the world. But I’d be in denial if I didn’t say the rigors of single parenthood had deepened them.
In my mind’s eye, I saw Marissa at our weekly coffee conference last April, urging me to get rid of my marriage bed. Convinced that it was detrimental to my mojo, and that ditching it was the remedy. “One step at a time for this one,” she had said. “First the bed . . . then the accoutrement.”
So I had moved, one step forward, one foot at a time. Donating the bed. Locating the singer my daughter adored to perform at the library. But then I had fallen swiftly for him. With Adrian, I hadn’t been afraid to jump right in, feet first. Diving into his present, digging into his past, loving him . . . and finally allowing myself to be loved again. For who I was, for who I had been. For the here and the now.
“Thought we lost you there for a second.” Liz joined me in the mirror, curling iron in hand. “You okay, girlie?”
I’d been focusing so much on my inner journey that I’d dismissed the outer one as frivolous. But now it occurred to me that our shells were important, too. The thought of Abbey’s moonrise shell, given to her by Rick, surged to the forefront of my mind. Looking back, I’m sure it hadn’t emerged that way, perfect, from the ocean. No, once it was dredged up, someone took the time to separate it from the others and wash the debris away, before going over it with the equivalent of a fine-tooth comb to reveal its true beauty and spirit.
“Yeah,” I finally said, turning to her. “Just a little freaked-out by all this attention.”
“Come on. It’s not like there are any cameras or anything. She’s just being a friendly neighbor.” With a clamp of the curling iron, she began to attack my temporary, pin-straight tresses, adding wavy volume back.
“True,” I admitted.
“You know what Marissa would say if she were here, don’t you?”
“Um . . . she’d probably tell me to kiss her lily-white ass . . . and get mine downstairs in that chair.” I smiled at the thought of my best friend, always telling it like it was.
“Exactly,” Liz pressed, coaxing out another perfect ringlet.
“Do you thi
nk I need to manipulate anyone, or be manipulated, with all that makeup?”
“Trust the professional,” Liz said. “Ow! Motherfucker.” She jabbed her index finger into her mouth. “That burned. I should stick to making bagels.”
I frowned, but a laugh also broke through. “Thanks for putting yourself in danger, at my expense. It looks great.” I gazed into the mirror as she ran a wide paddle brush through the wiener curls she had created, and pulled a small can of hairspray she’d hitched in the waistband of her low-slung jeans.
“Voilà! And va-va-va-voom. You’re one sexy bitch.”
Downstairs, Mindy was waiting with her stash of womanly weapons. “Oh, jeez. We’re not even going to need this.” She tossed her eyelash curler back into her kit and gave me an envious smile. I think I liked her a little more already.
The clinking and spray of dishes being washed was our soundtrack as she began to prime my face. “Just us chicks in here,” she murmured, dabbing here and there. “With the men in the kitchen . . . where they belong.”
Liz laughed. “Damn straight.”
“So, Kat. What are you looking forward to most tonight?” Mindy twirled a long makeup brush, not unlike Jim twirling his drumsticks last night. She was a rock star in the world of makeup, and exuded a cool confidence as she got to work.
“I don’t know,” I said, wiggling my nose where the powder tickled me. So far, the Library Lions gala had been more an abstract concept than anything else.
I thought of its namesakes, Patience and Fortitude, holding stony court by the regal stairs. I imagined sophisticated food and soft lighting and a stellar Who’s Who of the literary world partaking in drinks and dancing. But it was all just pale backdrop and props for a night out with my man. Plain and simple.
“Looks like we have no need for this, either,” Mindy joked, tossing the blush she was about to use back into her case.
“She’s already thinking about the post-ball activities, I’m sure.” Liz cackled demonically. Mindy grabbed an angled brush and swept it through her bronzer with a grin.
“Very funny, Red. I’m excited for the entire night. But most of all, I’m looking forward to just being out with Adrian. He has this way . . . this way of insulating us, no matter how maddening the world gets.” I thought back to the time he took me to that sold-out Dead Can Dream show at the Hammerstein Ballroom. Even when surrounded by thirty-six hundred headbanging fans, we had been in our own little world together.
“Yes, but that was before the world realized Tigger was Digger,” Liz reminded me. She’d once referred to him as the bouncy cartoon character, due to the fact that, thanks to me, he had been hanging out under the radar as a highly entertaining figure to the sippy-cup set. “You may have to share him a little with the mad, mad world now.”
Liz’s words of wisdom weren’t meant to smart, but the slow burn of them sunk deep and got me thinking. It was all fairy tales today, but what if Adrian went on tour? How could I deny him what he loved doing because of selfish fear?
I looked in the mirror and my heart shriveled. It had taken the intervention and kindness of a half dozen conspirators to get me looking this good, while nubile twenty-year-old fans with crow’s-feet two decades in their future would be throwing themselves at Adrian every night on the road.
Mindy swooped in with shadow, so I tried to relax and let her brush away my negative thoughts. “I love working in jewel tones this time of year,” she explained. “And you, my dear, are the perfect canvas.”
“You know,” Liz said, reaching to swivel up a violet lipstick. “I always thought Leanna would make a great subject for Mindy’s show.”
“Le? How so?” I asked, relieved to have a change in subject. Our friend had joined my, Liz’s and Marissa’s fab four posse in ninth grade, and was a petite Korean beauty.
“Admit it, she was an angry black swan in high school. Pretty, but she’d tear your head off.”
I laughed at Liz’s observation. “Leanna was a bit of a punk, wasn’t she?”
“She’s toned down the look, but her outlook still needs help. Perhaps if she had the master makeover manipulators on her side . . . ?” Liz shrugged and capped the lipstick once more. “Maybe she’d leave that sad excuse for a husband.”
“I have a feeling it’s slightly more complicated than that,” I said. But thanked Mindy just the same as she passed us the business card for the show’s producer. We chatted some more about our favorite episodes, and Mindy regaled us with stories from the inner sanctum of the television studio.
“I’ve got a tip to share,” she said, staring into my eyes. I know she had to do that in order to smudge the perfect amount of eyeliner above my lash line, but it still felt like Mindy Carmichael was looking deep into my soul. “Channel your inner mermaid.”
“My inner . . . say what now?” Here I thought she was going to give me some top-secret cosmetic intel, beyond making a fish-face when applying bronzer, or refrigerating your lipstick.
“Think mermaid when you get in and out of the limo.” A few more deep stares, a few more light strokes, and she stepped away to view her work. “The first time I rode in one, I ducked in headfirst. E! network had the red carpet exclusive on my big sequined butt.” She laughed, twirling her eye pencil through the sharpener before using her hands for emphasis. “Not glamorous in wide-screen HD, believe me.”
Up until that moment, I hadn’t thought about a limo. Or much about a red carpet or cameras of any kind. Instantly, my palms began to sweat and my mouth dried to a pucker. “Thanks,” I managed, as she began to prime and plump my lips.
“You’ve already got that mermaid allure going on,” she added. She pressed her own lips together, prompting me to do the same.
“You think?”
“Totally. You’ve got a confident, beautiful energy. But you’ve got an alluring mystery about you, too. Very muse-worthy, Kat . . . with the emerald eyes.” She gave me a wink.
It seemed Adrian’s new song had yet another vote.
She pressed a tissue to my mouth, but instead of blotting, she dusted powder right on top of it to set the color, before whisking it away. “My little secret for perfect lips. Velvety and totally kissable.”
“Kissable is crucial,” I heard Adrian murmur.
“How long have you been standing there?” I demanded, smiling up at him. All he could do was raise his shoulders and hands in a helpless gesture and grin. Liz gestured for him to come closer, but he declined, claiming he didn’t quite trust himself.
“We know Adrian has a weakness for sirens.” Mindy referenced another of his songs with a wink. She gave a few more joyous sweeps of her big brush and stepped back for the last time.
“I love using makeup to help transform a woman’s attitude about herself. It’s all about enhancing her natural beauty, and empowering her to embrace it. But you, sister.” She shook her head. “You’ve been rocking it all along. Look at you!” She presented me with a mirror. My expertly made up eyes widened. She had played up all my strengths in ways I never could have. Coupled with Liz’s dynamic ’do, I was certainly on my way to being red-carpet-ready.
“Thank” came with my inhalation, and “you” was exhaled happily. My eyes danced across all of their faces in turn, including my brother’s, since he had finished kitchen duty and joined us.
“It was Mindy’s idea,” Adrian supplied. “I ran into her in the elevator the other day.”
“Yeah, he was carrying his tuxedo from the dry cleaner’s . . . and I had to ask what the occasion was. I figured he wasn’t going to wear that on stage!” Mindy’s teasing was affectionate and adoring, like a little sister’s.
Adrian’s eyes sparkled a blue patina. “So I told her about the Lions gala . . . and you.”
I don’t know if it was due to the fact that he’d written dozens of songs, but Adrian had a way of making the simplest of words convey multipl
e meanings. As “you” dropped from his lips, he breathed life and love into it, and made me feel like the most cherished object in the room.
Until Mindy’s mention of the tuxedo sank in.
Adrian would be dressed to the nines, and I still had zero wardrobe possibilities that could begin to do this event justice. I thought back to my own closet, just about an hour’s drive away. Past the piles of laundry waiting for me, I probably had two dresses from my B.C. (Before Child) wardrobe hanging in there that could pass muster: the teal dupioni silk bridesmaid dress from Leanna’s wedding, and the black velvet cocktail number I wore way back when I accompanied Pete to that United Nations Association awards dinner. I wasn’t even sure if either still fit me, and truthfully, I had no desire to ever don either of them again.
Adrian was eyeing me. Whether he detected my dilemma, or whether he had just been waiting to make the next move, I couldn’t tell. But he bit his lip in anticipation. “One more surprise, luv.”
“Just one more? You sure about that?” Everyone laughed. “I don’t know if my heart can take it.” It was my attempt at a joke, but I was seriously verklempt at all their efforts. My heart filled to bursting.
“Come now,” Adrian tilted his head toward the stairs. “You lot may want to see this, too.”
***
The four of us trooped after him, spiraling up to the second floor. My brother, who could never deal with heights or spinning, used Liz’s belt loops for leverage, much to her delight. I followed behind Mindy, whose butt wasn’t nearly as big as she made it out to be.
“Omigoddigger’sbedroom,” Kev hissed in Liz’s ear. I had to laugh. He had had a similar starstruck moment when we walked backstage last night and he had seen Abbey in Adrian’s arms. Now I could see him pretending not to gawk as he scoped out the sleeping quarters of rock royalty.
At least I had remembered to make the bed.
“For she who claims she has nothing to wear to the ball.” Adrian approached the closet.
Even Mindy, who had seen all levels of high fashion, gasped.
Deeper Than Dreams Page 4
