“Damian,” Vanessa said.
“Brooke can’t cut her hair,” Jack said, “it’s her trademark.”
“Thank you, Jack,” I said, “I’ve had it this length all my life. And anyway, Douglas loves my hair.”
“Chop it off,” I could have sworn I heard Jack say under his breath just as we got to our floor.
Entering the suite, Damian got down to business. “Okay, first things first,” he commanded, “get that booty into the dress you’ll be wearing for tonight. I need to see it to figure out a hair and makeup concept.” He waved his arms out like a magician and gave a dramatic pause before saying the word concept — as if he should have been accompanied by a lone spotlight beaming down on him as he said it — and pronounced the word concept as if it were two: concept.
As I ran into my bedroom, giddy with excitement, Jack’s cell phone rang.
“Hello?” he answered. “Oh, hi there…. No, I’m actually not available today to do some work on that case…. Maybe you could get Michael to do it?…Well, I would come in today, but for the fact that I’m in L.A. for a wedding…. Yes, I am aware that we have an L.A. office…. Yes, I understand,” he said, making a play for our USA Today. Grabbing and ripping its pages, he brought the phone down to the newspapers he was tearing up. “Uh, Ronnie, you’re starting to break up…. I think that I’m losing you…. Oh, you can get Michael to do it? Great! Hello? Hello?” And with that, he slammed the phone shut. “Ah, technology,” he said. “It has made our lives infinitely easier.”
“This is why I love being a lawyer,” Vanessa said. “What case was that on?”
“The Healthy Foods case,” he said. “I’m going to order some snacks from their competitor from room service. Anyone want anything?”
“No, thanks,” Vanessa said. “Some of us are actually loyal employees.”
“You just had their competitor’s coffee an hour ago,” Jack said.
“No one said being a loyal employee was easy,” she replied.
Taking the dress out of its Barneys garment bag, I felt just like a little kid with a brand-new toy. I slowly unzipped the bag as carefully as a child opening a Christmas present (not like I would know what that’s like, being Jewish and all, but I unzipped the bag as carefully as I would imagine a child opening a Christmas present would). I admired the dress for a moment. It was just as beautiful as when I first laid eyes on it in the store. Sliding it on, I was beaming as I zipped myself up. I did a little spin in it before moving on to the shoes.
I removed my new shoes from their box and admired them, too, for a moment before sliding them onto my feet. The salesperson had called the color blush and the model name beauty. They were satin open-toe three-and-a-half-inch heels with enormous rhinestone detailing just above the toe. They were like an outfit in and of themselves.
I was sexy. I was sensational. I was elegant and refined. It was me, on the best day of my life. I walked out, ready for the compliments to wash over me.
“Very funny, girl,” Damian said, dismissing me with the turn of his head. Not the reaction I was going for.
“What’s funny?” I asked Damian, who was already walking toward the windows to take in the view. “What’s funny?” I then asked Vanessa, practically tripping over the fishtail as I spun to face her.
“Nothing, honey,” she assured me. “My cousin here is just being a Hollywood prick. See, this is why everyone hates L.A.”
“Don’t nothing me, girl,” he said.
“Shut up, Damian,” Vanessa said.
“For the love of God,” I cried out, “What. Is. FUNNY?”
“That dress,” Damian said. “That dress is funny. It’s a copy of the dress that Miss Ava wore to the Golden Globes last year.”
“That dress costs more than most people’s rent,” Vanessa said. “How can it be a copy?”
“Oh, my God,” I said, suddenly breathing much quicker than before.
“And it’s not even a good copy,” Damian said.
“So,” Vanessa said, “then maybe no one will notice that it’s a copy.”
“Oh. My. God,” I said, grabbing at my stomach to make sure that I was still breathing.
“It’s nothing,” Vanessa said. “Brooke, you’ll wear my dress and I’ll wear this one.”
“Not with that caboose, she won’t,” Damian said.
“Who the hell do you think you are talking to?” Vanessa demanded.
“I meant her,” Damian said, pointing to me.
“Oh,” Vanessa said.
“OH. MY. GOD,” I said, falling onto the couch and putting my head between my legs the way they tell you to on airplanes in case of a plane crash.
It was just like that scene in Rebecca. When the mean old maid makes the new wife dress up just like the dead first wife and go to a party with all of the dead first wife’s friends and everyone looks at the new wife and is, like, totally appalled. It’s like Nina is that mean old maid and Ava is the dead first wife and I’m the new Mrs. Winter. Or deWinter. Or whatever the hell their name was.
Maybe if I’d remembered Nina’s freaking name this afternoon this wouldn’t have happened! I am a bad person. I am a very bad, bad person….
“Everyone, shut up!” Jack said from the other side of the room, taking control of the situation. It was the way I’d seen him take control with tough adversaries, reluctant witnesses and difficult partners. For all of his constant joking around, when Jack meant business, people usually listened. The room was silent as we all sat waiting for what Jack would say next.
“Damian,” he said, “didn’t you bring other dresses with you? I heard Vanessa specifically ask you to bring an extra dress or two in case we didn’t have any luck shopping.”
“Well,” Damian said, “I brought one dress.”
“It’s fine,” Vanessa said. “It’s gorgeous.”
“We haven’t seen it yet,” I pointed out to her, looking up from my lap.
“Right,” she said. “Show us the dress.”
“Well, what size does little Ava over there take?
“Don’t be mean to her,” Vanessa said, “she’s having a total crisis here…girl!”
“Don’t say girl if you don’t know how to use it,” Damian said. “It doesn’t become you.”
“Um, let’s see,” I reasoned. “Usually I’m a ten, but I haven’t really eaten much in the past few weeks what with the breakup and all and then the stress about finding a date for the wedding…. So, I guess that makes me about an eight now.”
“Girl, this is L.A. I’ve got a six.”
“We’ll take it,” Vanessa said, and Damian walked over to his bag of tricks. He pulled out a dress — delicately, carefully — holding it as if it were a Fabergé egg.
It was a vintage Halston. I’d never seen one before. It was gorgeous. The epitome of what glamour is, was and always should be. Miles of whisper-thin black fabric perfectly cut to be more like a work of art than a dress. He put the dress in my hands and I, too, handled it carefully, as if it were a baby, as I walked back into the bathroom. I hung the dress onto the back of the bathroom door and couldn’t help but notice the superior workmanship, holding together a design so timeless that it was relevant even now.
It was a floor-length column dress, with a slit cut from the pool of fabric at the bottom to where I imagined the very top of my thighs would be (and Vanessa thought that no one would see my freshly waxed bikini line). There was a slit on top to match. I wasn’t sure which slit made me more nervous. The fabric bunched into an elegant knot right in the middle — I needed to suck in my stomach just to look at it.
I put it on. Well, I tried to put it on, anyway. I squeezed as much of me as I could squeeze and walked out for Damian’s harsh judgment. Parts of me were spilling out from every bare angle of the dress. I held my hands over my breasts, which were pouring out (and not in a sexy way). Damian motioned for me to remove my hand and I shook my head no furiously. We danced this little dance a few times until, reluctantly, I moved m
y hand.
“I can’t wear this,” I said.
“I beg to differ,” Jack said, turning around from across the room. “You are wearing that dress.”
“Never fear. Just a little bit of this and you will be all set,” Damian said. He was holding up a roll of something that resembled tape.
“What the hell is that?” Vanessa asked.
“You are not putting that on me,” I said. I wasn’t quite certain exactly what it was, but I did know one thing for sure. It was going nowhere near any of my important body parts.
“Double-sided tape,” Damian said, just as naturally as if he were saying “an antique broach” or “a safety pin” or some other thing that did not entail adhesive material latched on to my most delicate areas.
“You are not putting that on me,” I said again, just in case he’d missed it the first time.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” he said. “All of the actresses do it.”
“Do I look like an actress to you?” I asked him.
“No,” he said, “you do not.” And then, as if that were not insult enough, he began to put his hands into the dress to move things around. He was about two inches away from touching parts that I didn’t even let Douglas touch.
“Hey!” I screamed out.
“Please,” he said, “don’t be so parochial, Brooke. Jack, get your mouth off the floor and divert your eyes.”
“Well, I’m going to watch just in case something happens with the tape,” Jack said. “Like, if it becomes un-taped or something.”
“Yeah, no,” Damian said. I suppose you can’t blame a guy for trying. “So,” Damian said, “with the tape, it’s going to look like this.”
He surprised even me. I looked amazing. If I do say so myself, that is. Which I do! Maybe I really am a size six!
“So, that’s just to give you an idea of what the dress will look like once I tape you into it,” he explained. “Eliminates all of the sagging that you’ve got.” Sagging? Did that man just say sagging? So, maybe I’m not a size six.
“Dame!” Vanessa screamed. “Be nice to her. She’s practically having a nervous breakdown over here.”
“Nervous breakdown?” I asked, trying to be cool. Or as cool as one can be with a former cross-dressing gay man’s hands down one’s dress.
“Girl,” he said back, “that is a vintage Halston I’m about to tape your friend into. I am being nice.”
“Point taken,” I said. I thought it best not to infuriate the man who was now holding my breasts and later would be taping them into a dress.
“Anyway,” Damian said, hands out of the dress and now smoothing it out for me, “I knew that if I could fit into this dress, she could fit into this dress.”
“He can fit into this dress?” I mouthed to Vanessa. She shrugged her shoulders.
“Now,” he asked, “who’s ready to get gorgeous?” Vanessa and I both raised our hands.
Damian blew my long hair out straight and then put it in enormous rollers the size of cantaloupes to give it body and a bit of wave. He told me that he was going for a Rita Hayworth thing. For Vanessa, he went Jackie O, adding extensions and smoothing her locks into an elegant upsweep that defied gravity. He even put a bit of pomade into Jack’s shaggy hair to give him a look that could only be described as dangerously debonair.
He then dove into his bag of supplies to do makeup. I should have watched to see what he was doing, but instead, I just sat back and enjoyed the pampering. He started by air-brushing foundation and blush onto my face. Yes, air-brushing — the newest thing in makeup. All of the actresses are doing it (and, no, I did not fall into the trap again of protesting and asking Damian if he thought that I looked like an actress). It felt like a cool breeze being blown onto your face and was helping to relax me for the big night.
For eyes, he gave me Marilyn Monroe white eye shadow contrasted with black liquid eyeliner. On Vanessa, he opted for a smoky forest-green look that brought out the flecks of color in her eyes. Damian gave us both false eyelashes — each applied lovingly lash by lash — which, quite honestly, could have gone to the party by themselves. I worried for a second about how on earth we would be getting the glue off our eyes at the end of the night, but then chose to focus, instead, on how they made me feel like a goddess each and every time I blinked. I began practicing my slow deliberate blink in the mirror, imagining myself saying seductive things like “You know how to whistle, don’t you? You just put your lips together and blow.”
Damian gave us each a lipstick and matching gloss to bring with us to the wedding — a pale beige lipstick with a glossy nude finish for me, and a baby-pink lipstick and pink lip gloss with a touch of glimmer for Vanessa.
When he was done, Vanessa and I looked positively heavenly, with just the right amount of eyes and lips to be innocent and sexy all at once.
And then, of course, there was more double-sided tape. Which I really came to embrace after a while.
We were buffed, beautified and beaming. We were ready to go Hollywood.
17
As we walked up the steps to the Viceroy, on our way to my ex-boyfriend’s wedding, I had a feeling that nothing could go wrong. You know that feeling you get when everything seems to be right with the world? When the planets seem to be in alignment? That was exactly how I felt as I walked up the steps. I was wearing an impossibly sexy vintage Halston dress (if only two sizes too small) and brand-new stiletto heels (that I could almost even walk in), flanked on either side by my two best friends. Nothing could go wrong.
Well, sort of. My feet failed me, or I should say, my brand-new three-and-a-half-inch heels failed me and I tripped up the steps in my haste to get to the wedding in time.
“I’m okay,” I said, as Jack held me up. Always the gentleman. As he stood me upright, I turned to face him and Vanessa.
“First,” I said, “I just want to thank the two of you for hauling yourselves out to L.A. on such short notice.”
“You know we’d do anything for you,” Vanessa said. “And, also, I was invited, so I was coming anyway.”
“Right,” I said. “Then, Jack, especially you. It really means a lot to me that you’re here and that you’re helping me to perpetrate a fraud on the Scottish community.”
“Anything for my girl,” he said, putting his hand on my face. “You know that.” And I did.
“Okay, so try to remember your Scottish accent,” I said. “Don’t do that English one or that Irish one. Focus.”
“Got it,” he said. In a perfect Scottish accent.
“And do not slip into that freaking Australian accent,” I said, “because, A — I will kill you and B — you’re just not very good at it.”
“Right,” he said back, still in character with accent in tow.
“And say lots of Scottish stuff like I taught you.”
“For fuck’s sake!”
I smiled like a proud parent. What I was about to say next was “Try to be more like Douglas,” but I knew that it would hurt Jack’s feelings. “Okay,” I instead said, “try to be more good-looking.” Vanessa’s mouth fell to the floor. In hindsight I tend to think that maybe I should have just said the Douglas thing.
“For fuck’s sake, Brooke,” Jack said.
“Sorry,” I said, “I’m just nervous. I meant…”
“Maybe this will make you less nervous,” he said as he pulled something out of the inside pocket of his jacket.
It was the fake engagement ring — I hadn’t even realized that I’d forgotten it.
“Thank you,” I said and kissed Jack on the cheek.
We walked up the stairs to this fabulous Los Angeles hotel, and I felt like a movie star. Maybe that’s because my ex-boyfriend Trip is a Hollywood agent, and most of the guests actually were movie stars, but I digress.
Quietly decorated in creamy white and beige tones, the hotel looked more like a spa than a hotel. Delicious fabric hung from everywhere and soothing music surrounded you as you walked in. I even detected the
faint smell of vanilla mixed with spice — the familiar infused with the exotic. This being L.A., I went with it. Like the guests arriving for the wedding it was hosting, the hotel was fabulously elegant. Every inch of it, every last detail, was hopelessly chic. Even the bellhops’ uniforms were glamorous. I wondered what the rooms looked like.
There was a delicate pond in the center of the lobby and the sound of the water trickling down its tiny waterfall had the intended effect — I immediately felt serene and at peace. There were black stones all along and inside of the pond, which created a striking contrast to the stark white that enveloped most of the space. The reception desk was hidden in a corner — the couches and tables that boasted cocktail service were the centerpiece of the lobby. That it was a hotel seemed only incidental to the “see and be seen” atmosphere that was before my eyes.
The hotel was beautiful, my friends and I looked beautiful, and at that precise moment in time, I felt as if the world were beautiful.
Amid the crowd of movie stars and movie star wannabes, I saw a tall figure that seemed to be the center of attention. His dirty-blond hair had gotten lighter in the Los Angeles sun, but even before he turned around, I knew that it was Trip from the very way he stood. Back straight and shoulders at attention, he looked like the prep-school graduate that he was. Wedding guests were approaching him and hugging him and kissing him from every angle and I could see a line of people, three or four deep, jockeying for position.
“Maybe we should wait until we see him at the cocktail hour,” I said to Vanessa and Jack. “He looks too busy now.”
“Good call,” Vanessa agreed.
As we tried to make our way through the lobby, Trip turned around and made eye contact with me. For an instant, I didn’t recognize his face. I realized that we hadn’t seen each other since our law-school graduation. It struck me as sad that it was possible to barely even recognize someone with whom you had shared three years of your life. Someone with whom you had shared your bed.
“Brooke?” he called out from the eye of his tornado of wedding guests.
“Trip!” I said and walked toward him. He broke away from all of the other guests to greet us.
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