Zoe shrugged. “Me and my sister used to do makeovers for each other when we were kids but I get the feeling that’s not what you’re talking about.”
“Probably not.”
The statuesque blonde woman who examined Zoe looked to be about thirty percent original parts -- everything else having been replaced, enhanced or removed altogether -- but that was probably what you wanted in a makeover professional. She wandered around Zoe, looking closely at her face, making a lot of clicking, tutting, and sucking noises that Nick recalled his mechanic making last time he took his car to be serviced, just prior to shaking his head and saying ‘this won’t be cheap’.
The woman stepped back from Zoe and shook her head. “I fear this will not be inexpensive.”
Nick nodded – close enough.
“What exactly is ‘this’?” asked Zoe.
“You seem to be sweating,” said the woman with distaste.
“That’s because I’m human.”
“We can fix that.”
The blonde Amazon woman’s name proved to be Ilke, and Nick wondered if it was something about this industry that it attracted people with the most ridiculous names. As she assembled her tools, Nick thought back to his garage trip again – some of these had to be just for show! He picked up one contraption with wires and lights dangling off of it.
“Don’t touch that.” Ilke said icily. He dropped it like he’d burned himself. He sensed that one did not want to get on Ilke’s bad side.
“What are you going to do?” There was more than an edge of concern in Zoe’s voice.
“There are problems,” Ike explained. “Particularly here,” she pointed. “here, and here, and especially here.” She poked Zoe in various places, eliciting a strangled ‘Ow!’ from Zoe’s outraged lips.
“I don’t know what this is,” She gestured toward Zoe’s bushy eyebrows, “but we’re better off without it. We can’t fix everything – I’m not a miracle worker. But we can make it all hold together until you can upgrade to something better.”
“Are we still talking about my face?” asked Zoe, unsure whether to be confused, insulted or scared. “What exactly are you going to do?”
“A little touching up here and there (and especially there),” said Ilke comfortingly. “Exfoliating, plucking, skimming, scouring, greasing, singeing, massaging, re-touching, concealing, peeling, sealing, stretching, sculpting, modeling, stripping and burning.”
“Burning?!”
“Just a little acid.”
“Acid?!”
“And fire. Then a touch of make-up and you’re done.” Ilke turned to her tools. “This may hurt a little. For the next hour or two.”
But, again, you couldn’t argue with the results. Zoe’s face looked like it had been photo-shopped into a cover girl. Not a blemish or line remained. Her eyebrows had been modeled to arched perfection, her lips were a plump crescent of come-hither scarlet, her cheek bones – which had barely existed before – were clearly delineated and contoured, her eyes framed in delicate windows of mascara and long fake lashes.
“You look stunning,” said Nick. And she did.
Zoe admired herself in the mirror. “I do, don’t I.” She lifted her chin to see herself from every angle.
“I would recommend going for a lower maintenance model next time,” Ilke confided in Nick. “With her, you’ll spend more money on upkeep than you would in replacing her.”
Zoe continued to stare into the mirror. “I don’t even look like me anymore.”
Nick heard the small tinge of regret in her voice – and strangely enough, he felt it himself.
“You’re welcome,” said Ilke.
Nick pulled out his American Express card and handed over.
Clothes shopping was next.
Although he was a little ashamed to admit it (as most bartenders would be) Nick had a great eye for women’s fashion. He did not spend a lot of time reading up on the subject, he did not keep up to date on what was in and what was out, he simply had a natural flare for what color and design worked best with a woman’s overall look and body-type.
“It’s quite tight,” said Zoe.
“It’s supposed to be.”
“I can hardly breathe.”
“You’ll get used to it.”
Zoe looked in the mirror. There was a note of awe in her voice. “I look amazing.”
And she did.
“Next dress, please.”
Again Zoe stared disbelievingly in the mirror. “Are we sure these boobs are all mine? I really don’t remember having them before.” She pushed them together and then released them, watching them bounce perfectly with the new, properly fitting bra she’d been sized into.
“Presentation is everything.”
“It feels like there’s more scaffolding than the Eiffel Tower digging into my ribs but you can’t argue with the results.”
Nick nodded – you really couldn’t.
“Have we got anything that will make my legs look longer?”
“Next dress, please.”
This time Zoe was a little unsteady as she looked into the mirror.
“Why would higher heels make my legs look longer?”
“It’s an optical illusion. And the skirt helps.”
“You don’t think the skirt is too short?”
Nick shook his head. “It shows confidence.”
“If I try to sit down it’ll show a damn sight more than that!”
“You don’t like it?”
She looked at him. “Do you like it?”
Nick took in the unexpectedly lengthy expanse of Zoe’s legs. “We’ll need to get you a better color shoe to go with it. But yeah, I like it.”
“Then I like it.”
“Next dress, please.”
And so it went on, from business-like and professional (‘I could run for congress in this!’) to fancy eveningwear (‘Cinderella can suck it!’). After a while Nick wondered how many dresses Zoe could really need for the few days that she was going to have to pretend to be Vanessa, but it was surely better to be over-prepared than under-prepared. Besides, she seemed to be having fun trying on stuff that she could never have afforded. And, truth be told, he was having fun watching her. It was nice to turn his talent for women’s fashion to something practical – he had started out by turning Zoe into Vanessa, but now he was turning her into something even better.