Scot on the Rocks

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 my 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