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“Gee, can’t imagine who said that.” Cilla’s voice was wry. “You know, if you just ditched the T-shirt and jeans and spruced yourself up a little, people would be so busy staring at you, no one would give Amber a second glance.”
Trish flicked her gaze to the ceiling. “I don’t want people staring at me, thanks, and I like wearing a T-shirt and jeans.”
“And they like you,” Cilla said smoothly. “But at a party? You’ll feel more comfortable if you’re looking your best.”
“Come on, Cilla, a little makeup isn’t going to change things.”
“Mmm. I had in mind something a little more radical,” Cilla stated, walking into her bedroom and pulling open the closet door.
“If you think I’m going to be able to fit into anything of yours, you’re dreaming,” Trish said, coming in after her. “I’m three sizes larger than you are.”
“Give me a break.” Cilla grabbed a handful of the cloth at Trish’s waist. “You could take these jeans off without ever unbuttoning them. Why are you still buying clothes for someone you were ten years ago?”
“They’re comfortable,” Trish muttered.
“So’s being naked, but I don’t see you walking around like that.”
“This is ridiculous.”
Cilla pulled out garments at random, humming to herself. “Humor me.”
Trish tried again. “Cilla, no one’s going to care whether I’m in costume or not.
Cilla turned to her and smiled. “Trust me. They will when I get through with you.”
“LET ME SEE.”
“Stay still.”
“I just want to make sure you’re not going overboard.”
“I’m not.”
“I don’t believe you,” Trish said, trying unsuccessfully to rise from her perch on the toilet seat.
“You’ll see when I’m done. Now sit,” Cilla ordered, pushing her back down. She brandished the mascara wand. “Look toward the ceiling and try to keep your eyes open wide.”
“That’s the third coat of mascara you’ve put on,” Trish pointed out. Makeovers exasperated her. Good, bad or ugly, she was who she was, and all shining-up her act was going to do was make her expect things that were never going to happen.
Yeah, she’d learned that the hard way.
Trish reached out for the hand mirror on the counter but Cilla fixed her with a look. “You take one peek and I’m not giving your jeans back. Ever.”
“Come on, Cilla, I’m feeling like your personal Frankenstein monster, here. I can put on my own lipstick.”
“Uh-uh.” Cilla came back from her makeup drawer with a lipstick the color of ripe cherries. “I want you to get the full impact.”
The full impact was what Trish was worried about as she worked to keep her mouth still under the tickle of Cilla’s lipstick brush. Simple, low-key and in the background, that was the way she liked it.
Cilla finished and set the lip color down, then she stepped back with her hands on her hips and studied her friend. “Now that’s a sight to see,” she said in satisfaction, and then laughed. “That was the most scared I’ve seen you look since that time we ordered a male stripper for your birthday.”
“Just tell me I don’t look like Tammy Faye.”
“You don’t look like Tammy Faye,” Cilla assured her. “Okay, upsy daisy, but don’t look at the mirror in here.” She covered Trish’s eyes until they got into the bedroom. “I want you to get the total effect all at once.”
“I’ll get the total effect if I trip and break my neck.”
“Almost there, almost there…okay, you’re in front of the mirror. Are you ready?”
Despite herself, Trish felt a little tingle of anticipation. “So show me.”
“Ta-da,” Cilla sang and dropped her hands.
For a moment, all Trish could do was stare. And a gorgeous stranger in the mirror stared back at her. The other “her” stood with a silky waterfall of absolutely smooth red-gold hair flowing to her waist and a mouth as tempting as chocolate. The features that had always seemed too delicate in comparison to her sister’s sun-tossed California blond looks were suddenly vivid and underscored with some special importance. Expert makeup played up the hollows in her cheeks and rendered her slate-gray eyes dark and somehow mysterious. “Wow.” She raised her hands to the soft strands of her hair. “Wow,” she said again.
“Do you like it?”
“I’m…wow, Cilla, really. I’m amazed.” With a little surge of excitement, Trish turned to and fro to get the full effect. And, she had to admit, in the outfit she wore, it was some effect indeed. The evening required a bold statement, Cilla had decreed. Digging in her closet, she’d come up with her best studded-leather dominatrix look. To Trish’s amazement, she’d actually been able to zip it up, although taking a deep breath made her breasts swell upward alarmingly. The leather bustier molded her waist, the skirt fit her like a second skin. Fishnet tights and high-heeled red ankle boots completed the ensemble. It might have been couture, but it looked like something out of an S&M club.
And it looked really fabulous.
Still, she wasn’t sure she was such a good judge of party wear. “Are you sure this isn’t a little over the top?”
“Are you kidding? At a do like this?” Cilla sniffed. “You’ll be tame. Too bad we couldn’t get you a whip,” she added thoughtfully. “It would add that little extra touch.”
“For that ‘you’ve been a bad boy lately’ look?”
“Like I said, you never know. You might enjoy it.”
Trish rolled her eyes. “Hardly. Although it feels like the person I’m dressed up as would.” She turned to inspect herself from behind.
“That’s the fun part, isn’t it?” Cilla said cheerfully, slipping into her nurse’s costume. “Haven’t you ever wanted to do that, be someone else just for a night?”
Trish’s standard answer was that who she was would have to do. If she wasn’t one-hundred-percent thrilled with life, that was only to be expected. She’d shed the crazy expectations of being a siren, of having men tumble at her feet, of finding true love with Mr. Right. She just wasn’t built for it. Her friends could tell her she was a hopeless romantic all they liked. Wanting love and believing that it had any place in her life were two very different things.
For one night, though, maybe it could be different. Maybe for this night she could be someone else, see how the other half lived.
Slowly the corners of her mouth curved up into a smile and she vamped in the mirror. “Be someone else, li’l ol’ me?”
“Why not?” Cilla slicked her dark-gold hair back behind her ears and hung a stethoscope around her neck. “In this getup, you could have yourself a time. What do you think?”
Trish grinned at her reflection. “I think we’d better get to the party.”
FORTY MINUTES LATER, as they stood outside Sabrina’s house, the notion seemed altogether less brilliant. Sabrina lived in Venice, a small neighborhood south of Santa Monica. An ambitious developer in the thirties had built a neighborhood of houses along a series of narrow, criss-crossing canals dug into the California soil. Now, newly dredged and fashionable, the neighborhood held echoes of the real Venice or Amsterdam, with its small arched bridges and houses next to the water.
It definitely didn’t go with dominatrix-wear. “I can’t believe I thought this was a good idea,” Trish murmured, pulling futilely at her skirt as they made their way up the walkway to Sabrina’s house. It was one thing to be wearing the outfit in Cilla’s bedroom; it was another to wear it in public. Not even the silk duster she’d thrown over the top helped.
“Stop picking at your clothes,” Cilla scolded.
“It’s too tight.”
“It’s Gaultier. It’s supposed to fit like that.”
“How come I’ve never seen you in it, then?”
Cilla shrugged and twirled her stethoscope playfully. “You know couture. You can get away with wearing it once, but that’s about it.”
“So this is my one big chance?”
“Make the most of it,” Cilla advised, then groped in her candy-colored Louis Vuitton Murakami bag as her cell phone burbled for attention. “Hello?”
Trish walked a few steps away, adjusting her bustier. Okay, so maybe she felt like the lead actress in some 1960s French sex farce. She just needed to get into character. It wouldn’t be her walking into the party, it would be her alter ego, the one who loved being outrageous and living at the center of the whirlwind. It would be okay.
“You have got to be kidding,” Cilla burst out from behind her. “What happened to the escort? On second thought, I don’t care. Send her a limo. I’ve got a party to go to.” Cilla paced a few steps, tension vibrating in every line of her body. “All right, all right, fine,” she said shortly. “I’m in Venice. I’ll be there in twenty minutes.” She ended the call and cursed viciously.
Trish stared. “What was that about?”
Cilla turned to face her. “Apparently our designer for the couture show tomorrow isn’t satisfied with our events coordinator picking her up at the airport and taking her to dinner. She’s insisting that I do it.”
“Why you?”
Cilla blew out a breath of frustration. “We’ve met once or twice at her shows.”
“Not to mention the fact that your family owns Danforth’s and the entire Forth’s chain and has more money than God.”
“Please.” Cilla rolled her eyes. “The show coordinator says she’s threatening to walk. I don’t really have a choice.”
“What do you mean?”
“I’ve got to go get her.”
“But…but what about the party?” Trish asked with a spurt of panic. “I thought we were going together.”
“I have to do it,” Cilla said apologetically. “It’s only for a little while. If necessary I’ll haul her back here—there is no way I’m missing Sabrina’s documentary.”
“Maybe I can go with you,” Trish tried, despising the tone in her voice.
Cilla shook her head and buttoned up her coat to hide most of her costume. “I can only imagine the fit she’d have if you show up in Gaultier. Prima donna doesn’t begin to cover it. Besides, someone has to tell Sabrina. Hey, you look fabulous.” She gave Trish a quick hug. “Go in and find the rest of the gang. You’ll be fine.”
Trish watched Cilla hurry off to her car and she glanced down the alley to the canal bridge glimmering at the end. If she could only snap her fingers and be back in her nice, quiet apartment for the night. She’d light some candles, pour a glass of wine, and maybe watch a movie or work on the screenplay she was writing.
Instead, shyness was going to smother her in rooms full of strangers, while she tried to look as though she had something more to do than go to the bathroom again and again because it was a place to hide for a few minutes. Home, even if she had to walk, sounded infinitely more appealing.
But Sabrina was expecting her. More to the point, Sabrina was expecting them, and Trish really ought to go explain.
And one way or another, she had to find a ride home or at least get a taxi.
All the good reasons in the world didn’t mask the fact that walking through Sabrina’s door was about the least appetizing prospect she could imagine. If she’d been in her normal clothes, it would have been bad enough, but going inside all alone, wearing the most revealing outfit she’d ever worn in her life? Looking at it from above, the bustier was outrageously low-cut. Her breasts billowed up out of it like newly risen bread. Cilla couldn’t expect her to do this, Trish thought desperately. What if she were the only person in costume? What if she looked as ridiculous as she felt? The memory of the Trish she’d seen in Cilla’s mirror receded to a pinpoint and the Trish in the now just stood on the porch and swallowed, feeling miserably conspicuous.
Sabrina, she reminded herself. This was Sabrina’s special night and she wanted her friends there to celebrate with her. It wasn’t about Trish, it was about Sabrina.
It was about being a good friend.
“Oh, don’t be such a wuss,” Trish muttered to herself. No one was going to care what she looked like. They’d probably all be too busy worrying about themselves. Besides, odds were she’d never even see most of these people again. “Just do it,” she told herself fiercely.
And rang the bell.
When the door opened, though, it wasn’t Sabrina there. It was a sandy-haired boy who looked no more than sixteen or seventeen, the top of his head approximately at her eye level.
She couldn’t possibly in her panic have walked up to the wrong door, Trish thought wildly. Please, God, let her be at the right house.
“Wow,” he said appreciatively. “I guess you’re here for the party. My name’s Lee. Wanna run away and elope?”
Despite herself, she laughed. He looked barely old enough to drive, let alone put the moves on her. “Give me a minute or two to get the prenup in order.”
“Fair enough. Come on in and we can discuss it.” He stepped back and swung the door wide.
Sabrina’s living room surged with activity. A woman in neck-to-ankle red latex was tangoing with a man wearing a dog collar. A Wild-West saloon girl leaned over a shirtless construction worker sprawled on a couch. There were hookers, police officers, Catholic schoolgirls, sheiks, a pizza-delivery boy, and even what Trish assumed was a Marquis de Sade in a pale-blue frock coat and wig.
“Let me take your coat,” Lee said, whisking it off her before she could protest.
And then she stood in front of the room in just her outfit.
One head after another turned to look at Trish. She stifled the urge to flee. Maybe a seam had split, she speculated, feeling her face heat. Maybe one of her breasts had popped out entirely. It would be just her luck. Or maybe her outfit was just too much, period. Granted, most people were in costume, but she hadn’t really seen anyone in quite as outrageous a getup as hers. Then, across the room, she saw a sleek, exotic-looking woman dressed in eye-popping leather.
With a start, Trish realized it was her reflection, thrown back at her from an ornate mirror hanging on the wall.
Giddiness rushed through her. Sabrina’s guests weren’t staring because she looked ridiculous, they were staring because she looked good. Gaping wouldn’t do, and yet Trish wanted nothing more than to rush over to the looking glass and drink it all in, gawk at her image until she could convince herself that it was really her. For tonight, anyway.
But oh, what a night it would be.
Sabrina’s home was built vertically, the rooms rising around a central atrium, each side offset half a story from the other so that the rooms stairstepped up from one another. Trish glanced up and found her gaze snagged by that of the Marquis de Sade, who leaned carelessly on the waist-high barrier of the open loft overlooking the living room. Thin leather strips dangled from the ebony handle of his flail. An ornate silver mask covered his face from the hairline of his white-powdered wig to below his nose. Trish could see only his mouth, defined by the clean lines of a modified Vandyke. And she could see his eyes, looking out through the holes in the mask.
Staring directly at her.
Trish glanced to either side to see if he was looking at someone else, and then back up to find his gaze still pinned to hers. Something skittered through her veins. The thing was not to get embarrassed. She looked good, she knew it. Better than good. Maybe that was why he was staring, or maybe he was admiring her outfit. Maybe he was into Gaultier. Perhaps, she thought with a smile, he thought he was looking at a kindred spirit.
Lee the doorman nudged her. “So, can I get you a drink?”
“What?” Trish blinked, dragging her gaze away from the Marquis. “Um, actually I should probably find Sabrina first.”
“My cousin? I saw her a couple minutes ago. I’ll show you.”
“Are you even old enough to be at a party like this?” Trish asked, squinting at him.
“Are you kidding?” He gave her an affronted look. “I’m at UCLA. I’m almost nineteen.”
It wouldn’t do to smile. “Oops, my mistake.”
