“I’ve got you taken care of, doll-face,” Sadie said. She abandoned my computer and went over to the bed, and started pulling clothes out of the duffel. “If this doesn’t get you the job, I’ll eat my phone.”
“I can’t wear your clothes,” I said. Sadie liked to insist that we were the same size and could share clothing, but she was definitely smaller than me.
She rolled her eyes at me. “This stuff will fit you, okay? It should be a little tight. You don’t want to look unattainable.” She shoved an indeterminate mass of fabric into my arms. “Try this on. Do you have any heels?”
“Like, one pair,” I said. “I think they’re buried in the back of the closet.”
“I’ll dig them out,” Sadie said, and got down on her knees to rummage around in my apartment’s single, over-stuffed closet.
I stripped down to my underwear and tried on the clothes she’d given me: a fitted black pencil skirt and a silky white blouse. The skirt hit right below my knees, and it was pretty snug, but I was able to zip it up. The blouse fit loosely. I tucked it in to the skirt and wiggled to make it lie flat.
“Found your shoes,” Sadie said behind me. I turned around and took them from her. They were your standard black pumps, nothing exciting—nothing like the dangerous-looking platform stilettos I’d seen on the internet.
Whatever. It wasn’t like I had any other options. “You’re sure this is cocktail-y enough?” I asked.
Sadie pursed her lips. “Well, not yet. But it will be. Let me do you hair and makeup.”
She steered me into the bathroom and had me sit down on the closed lid of the toilet. I waited while she rummaged around in her makeup bag. She pulled out eyeliner, mascara, lipstick, something I vaguely identified as an eyelash curler—all the things that most women learned how to use in middle school, and that I had never quite figured out. Lip gloss was pretty much the limit of what I could handle.
“Are you really going to use all of that on me?” I asked, a little concerned.
“Yeah, probably,” Sadie said. “Pay close attention, you’re going to have to do this on yourself on Friday.”
“Can’t you come over and do it for me?” I whined.
Sadie grinned. “I’ll be at work, baby girl. It’s just going to be you and the internet. Maybe if you spent less time reading those boring books...”
“I’m trying to educate myself,” I said, annoyed, and Sadie laughed at me.
The thing about Sadie was that she always made things look so easy. She explained what she was doing as she went, but I could only follow about half of what she was saying. Hold down my eyelashes so the liquid liner didn’t make them all clumpy, sure. Contour with taupe shadow along the underside of my cheekbones... what? I decided I would stick with the basics when I had to do it myself. Maybe, over time, I could work my way up to what Sadie was doing.
In took her about ten minutes to finish my makeup. Then she said, “Face the other way so I can do your hair.”
I spun around on the toilet seat and faced the wall, straddling the toilet backwards. Sadie worked her hands into my hair. I closed my eyes, enjoying the sensation. I’d always liked having my hair played with.
“There,” she said, after a few minutes. “Go look at yourself in the mirror.”
I went back out into the main room of the apartment and shoved my feet into the high heels. Then I wobbled unsteadily toward the full-length mirror on the inside of the closet door. I stood in front of it and examined my reflection.
I looked... like a grown-up. Like a sophisticated, confident woman. The waistband of the skirt hit right at my waistline, and the contrast of the fitted skirt and the more voluminous blouse made me look about ten pounds thinner than I actually was. Sadie had wrapped my hair into a sleek chignon, and my makeup was elegant and understated, sexy without being over-the-top.
I looked, frankly, like someone I didn’t even recognize.
“Wow,” I said.
Sadie came up behind me and looked me up and down. “I’d hire you,” she said.
“Are you sure this is right?” I asked. “Shouldn’t I wear something... skimpier? What if they think I’m not sexy enough?”
“You’re just going to have to trust me on this one,” Sadie said. “The internet never lies. This place is very mysterious, very exclusive, and very classy. You need to look like you’re worth about a million dollars.”
I gazed at my reflection. A million dollars seemed pretty far off the mark. Maybe a thousand.
Two days later, I woke up early to give myself plenty of time to get ready. I showered and dressed in the outfit Sadie had loaned me, making sure to wear my sexiest, laciest bra underneath the slightly-sheer blouse. I did my hair and put on the makeup I thought I could handle: kohl eyeliner, red lipstick, mascara. I screwed up the eyeliner a few times and had to start over from scratch, but eventually I got it looking more or less even on both sides. Good enough.
The lipstick was strange and sticky on my mouth. I felt like a little girl playing dress-up. I just had to make sure that nobody could see through my facade.
I took the subway to 8th Avenue and walked from there. Navigating the subway in my high heels wasn’t exactly easy, but I figured I should get as much practice as I could. If the interview went well, I would be spending every night tottering around in heels.
The club was in a building so nondescript that I pulled out the piece of paper I’d written the address on, just to double-check. There was a small bronze plaque beside the door that read, “The Silver Cross Club,” and listed the address. That was it. It was the kind of place I normally would have walked by without a second glance.
I tried the door. It was open, and I went inside, into a dimly lit lobby. It was very small, barely larger than my apartment, and contained nothing but a wood podium with a man standing behind it.
“Welcome to the Silver Cross Club,” he said. “Are you here for the audition?”
“Um, yes,” I said, and then inwardly cursed myself for saying “um.” Not sophisticated. The man said nothing, though, merely nodded and pressed a button on the wall.
Seconds later, a door opened, and a tall white woman dressed all in black appeared. She had long red hair arranged in a French twist, not a single hair out of place. “Right this way, if you please,” she said to me, and I meekly followed after as she led me into the club.