Madeline Carter - 01 - Mad Money (15 page)

“And, anyway, just in case, I have a friend
in Santa Monica who’s a make-up artist. He’ll
completely
disguise your appearance.” That’s the other thing about Em: again,
consider the business she’s in. From the little I’ve discovered
about Hollywood types, it doesn’t matter if they’re the “talent” or
they work behind the camera or make sandwiches for the set: there’s
a reason they’ve aligned themselves with show business and not some
other. That theater thing again. All of them love to pretend. They
love the opportunity to be more or less or just somehow other than
what they usually, normally, are.

Our new plan was put in place very quickly.
I know we had an elegant if hurried dinner, though I couldn’t tell
you what it was. Mine was sumptuous and beef-based and unlike
anything I’ve ever heard described as Mexican food before. The few
bites I had were delicious and so I felt a little ashamed at just
pushing everything around on my plate quite purposefully, but I was
just too nervous to eat. Emily’s food was similar, but sans beef —
she’s a vegetarian — and we dispensed with desserts or coffees and
certainly after dinner drinks. “There’ll be time for all of that at
the Hyatt,” she told me wisely, as though we’d been planning it
this way all along.

Then we roared off in Emily’s SUV — a big,
black, shiny beast of a thing whose only way of going forward is at
a roar — to Santa Monica where her friend Brian lives.

Brian, Emily told me as we roared, works on
a lot of the same not-quite-schlock movies on which Emily makes her
living. She’d called him on her cel before we left the restaurant,
told him an abridged version of our plan — which included my
appearance change, but not why — and he’d said to come on over: it
all sounded
too
fun.

And really, it was. While we were on our way
to his house, Brian had made his living room into a makeshift
studio. I gathered from the conversation he and Emily quickly
launched into that this was something that happened fairly often:
playing dressup at Brian’s house. In addition to movie work, he
also dresses a few minor — but, he hastened to add, not
insignificant — stars for awards presentations and so on. I also
surmised from the look of his nearly shaved pate, flawlessly
trimmed eyebrows and long, pearlesent-tinted nails that our man
Brian was a crossdresser, or something rather like it.

Just as we settled in, the doorbell rang and
two of Brian’s friends appeared bearing a bottle of wine. Robert
was slender and dark and sharply effeminate and I could barely see
a trace of Carmen’s masculinity at all. Though it was apparent if
you looked closely, he — she? — was Asian, over six feet tall and
completely willowy. Carmen had a complexion like a peach and an
incredible mane of platinum hair. Like our host, these two looked
as if they knew a lot more about women’s evening wear than either
me or Emily, or even both of us combined. Brian explained our
mission to his friends as the wine was opened and poured all around
and the trio fairly crackled with excitement at the project before
them. We were their willing canvases and it was apparent they liked
the challenge.

Good, I thought, if you’re going to have a
makeover — and that’s rapidly what this was turning into — who
better to do it than guys who regularly transformed themselves in
women? After all, if they could make themselves look like girls,
what could they do for bona fide members of the female persuasion?
I put myself into my team’s hands and they went to work.

Brian unearthed a long, straight black wig
for me — like Veronica Lake in a dark period — and a creamy, beaded
sheath that he assured me was one of his more conservative dresses.
It was beautiful: full length but with a slit almost to the crotch.
It looked expensive, and not slutty, but definitely more suited to
the Oscars than whatever do was doing at the Hyatt.

“It’s an evening affair,” Brian sniffed when
I questioned him about the appropriateness of the dress. “It
will
be evening wear.” Robert and Carmen nodded agreement
and lent assurances and it had all been said in tones that brooked
no argument and so, even though with the wig in place and the dress
on my back I thought I looked more like a promiscuous Cleopatra
than a corporate keener, I kept my mouth shut.

Emily was transformed, as well. Because she
didn’t need disguising, Brian had opted not to cover her hair,
instead he somehow miraculously pulled her unruly mop into a sleek
and sophisticated chignon. He’d done her makeup expertly and
lovingly and Emily’s look was entirely well-bred evening elegance.
“I’m beautiful,” she breathed when she looked at herself in the
mirror. Brian looked gratified. “You are, darling Emily,” he said
to her quietly. “Never doubt it, mon cher. You always are.”

He’d dressed her in a straight black skirt
and a white blouse unbuttoned to a point daringly low, but with a
high collar that framed her face. And he provided both of us with
evening shawls that complimented our respective outfits and black
evening shoes with mercifully moderate heels. From somewhere in his
seemingly endless store of supplies, he even produced little
evening bags. And everything was perfect. Everything fit perfectly
and looked perfect. I could have shopped for a month and not found
an ensemble that fit me so well. I imagined a room somewhere at the
back of this house dedicated entirely to gorgeous evening clothes
just like this in various sizes: from petite five footers to
professional basketball players who were also closet queens. It was
an image to smile at and I did.

“I’m too beautiful to operate a motor
vehicle,” Emily proclaimed and so we called a cab, which meant
first determining which Hyatt we were aiming at. A single phone
call confirmed Emily’s accurate guess: the event was being held at
the Hyatt Marina Del Rey and, she was assured by the hotel, it was
currently in full swing, being held in the Bette Davis Ballroom
and, she was discreetly reminded, it was by invitation only.

“Of course it’s at the Marina,” Emily told
me when I asked how she’d been able to guess. “It’s the closest
posh hotel to their office, and it would probably be cheaper to
hold an event there than somewhere downtown or strictly west side.”
An easy deduction to someone wise in the ways of LA party planning
or crashing, neither of which, obviously, are my fortes.

Brian, Robert and Carmen saw us cheerfully
to the door, with cries of, “Break their hearts, you lovely
flowers” and “are you sure you don’t want us to come?” Which, on
another day, to another function, would have actually been pretty
fun. I imagined some of the corporate events I’d been to in New
York: the tightly buttoned executives and their carefully coifed
wives. We would have made a stir arriving with Robert, Carmen and
Brian at an event like that. The thought tickled me and I resolved
to make it happen some time if I could.

Once the cab had deposited us at the hotel,
Emily knew the way to the Bette Davis Ballroom. “Just trust me,”
she said conversationally as we moved through the hotel. “And do
what I do.”

Though there was no uniformed guard posted
in front of the ballroom doors, there was someone sitting there
waiting to check invitations: A bell hop-dressed young man who
looked properly bored at this assignment.

Emily held us back for a couple of minutes
while the door was empty, then as a flurry of people came out, she
manipulated us into their midst. “Excuse me,” she said to the bored
attendant. “Can you direct us to the ladies room?”

Once she had the requested directions, we
were underway again, following them. I marveled at how effortlessly
she’d pulled it all off. And, no: we weren’t in yet. But we may as
well have been. She’d angled her cleavage in such a way and struck
such a bold pose, there was no way the kid wouldn’t remember that
we’d come out of there a second ago, even though we actually
hadn’t. Brilliantly simple. There seemed to be no end to Emily’s
talents.

And I was right: when we got back to the
“official checkpoint” the kid returned Emily’s smile and pretty
much waved us through. And me: I’d been so nervous about the actual
getting in part, I hadn’t bothered to waste any nervosity on what
we were going to do once we were there. Now that we were, it all
washed over me in a big, unpleasant rush.

As far as ballrooms go, this wasn’t a huge
one. But it was LA, not New York, I reminded myself. Not that I
needed much reminding: one whole side of the room was open to the
night and, beyond the room’s bright lights, I got a sense of the
Pacific Ocean whispering at a balustrade. Beautiful and
spectacular. It’s so amazing when you can hear the view.

Perhaps three hundred people were involved
in various levels of corporate-type schmoozing. There were round
tables with the signs of dinner recently completed still upon them
while wait staff moved silently removing plates and debris. Most of
the partygoers were either still at their tables, talking in their
head office-assigned clusters. Some were beginning to get up and
mingle a bit or hook drinks from the servers who were circulating
with trays intended for that purpose. And a few were heading out
onto the aforementioned terrace. I was relieved to see that Brian
and Robert and Carmen had been right: our attire was perfect.
Everyone was dressed in what was clearly evening wear and all of
the women wore get-ups not that different from mine and Emily’s. We
didn’t stand out.

“So what now?” I asked Emily, conceding to
her superior knowledge of how crashers are supposed to act in order
to not be detected as such.

“Do you see him?”

“Which him?”

“Your Ernie.”

“Don’t call him that,” I said, while I
scanned the room again, hopeful and apprehensive at once. “Nope.
Not a sign.”

What would Ernie have said if he saw me
here? I couldn’t even imagine. And, of course, the other thing I’d
noticed in my fast inspection was that there was no sign of
sharp-eyed receptionists. I exhaled.

“Well,” she considered, duplicating my scan.
“First we grab a drink, over there,” indicating a waiter
circulating with a large tray. “Then, out to smokeland. You had
success with that tactic earlier and I like the way that sounds. We
can eavesdrop or bond with the locals while we inhale.”

“I don’t smoke,” I reminded her.

She grinned. “Neither do I.” And off we went
to execute her short term plan. She secured a glass of champagne —
or at least, a glass of some champagne-like substance. I opted to
be more conservative and held out for the white wine. If they’re
not in water I can get somewhat suspicious of bubbles. Then we
headed for the terrace, which proved to be every bit as beautiful
as those open doors had suggested. You could smell the big, burly
city that surrounded us on three sides. You could catch the odor of
the ocean and all of its fishy promise. Inevitably and — for me
inexplicably — the scent of flowers wafted to us from some unseen
place, as they always seem to do in Los Angeles at night.

Dinner wasn’t long past, so a number of
people had made their way outdoors for their after-food smoke or
just because being out can sometimes be better than being in. I was
guessing that, for a lot of the players — especially the more
senior ones — it was a turning into a pretty tense party. It would
be difficult to keep up a celebratory mood when the reason you’re
celebrating has vanished into thin air. And if, as I suspected,
some of these people knew more than they were saying, that would
make things more difficult, not less.

The terrace was a relief and it wasn’t
surprising to see a lot of youthful and less tense faces out there.
Where inside there was a sort of smoglike cloud of
not-quite-rightness over the proceedings, out here there were the
happy sounds of people having fun: laughter, glasses tinkling and
unstrained conversation. By unspoken consent, Emily and I
maneuvered ourselves over to an open portion of balustrade and
settled in to sip our drinks and see and hear what could be seen
and heard.

I hadn’t actually expected to recognize
anyone, much less be recognized, so it surprised me, after about
one and a half sips of wine and a single glance over the assembled
revelers, to see a familiar face. It was even more surprising to
see him looking back at me with probably the same look of mild
surprise and pleasant recognition on his face. I shouldn’t have
been surprised: he belonged here. I didn’t. But he was in evening
dress — all black tie and crisp white shirt and... well he looked
amazing.

“You look amazing,” he said as he
approached, echoing my thoughts about him so neatly, for a second I
thought I’d spoken them aloud. “The Cleo getup threw me for a
minute, but it suits you. You’re beautiful.”

I am not beautiful. At least, I would never
think of myself as such. I’m too tall, for one. I know my eyes are
set too widely apart to allow me to be strictly beautiful. I think
my neck is too long: like a blonde giraffe. With effort, I can,
perhaps, be elegant. I can work my way up to a look of
sophistication. And, on the right day, at the right time of the
month and in the right light, I think I can sometimes even lay
claim to being striking. But beautiful? Not so much.

There are times when I suspect that I’m
beautiful on the
inside.
Like when I cry at sad endings in
movies or I have a mad desire to rescue all of the world’s
abandoned kittens or I read the newspaper and some colossal
injustice makes me truly sad and embarrassed to be human. That’s
when I suspect myself of inner beauty. But then usually something
happens — someone cuts me off on the freeway and I shout and give
him the finger or a stock goes down when it’s supposed to go up and
I feel like ripping someone’s head off — that makes me suspect even
this internal beauty I would love to be able to lay claim to.