She caught Franco’s smile under his hand and glared at him.
‘Green eyes. No, let me see—’ she twisted her face some more ‘—more like turquoise. Hmm, interesting. Blonde hair—could go a bit blonder. Needs highlights—no, low lights, I think. Note that down for the salon.’ And then she stepped back to take all of her in. ‘Size … ten. Eight possibly, but those curves …’ She shook her head as she stood back to consider Holly’s hips and breasts. ‘No. Let’s not be too positive. Let’s start with size ten and see how we go. We don’t want to be disappointed, do we? All right, girls, bring me …’ And Queen Penelope issued a stream of instructions that had her princesses running around in their perfectly high heels.
‘I’ll leave you to it,’ said Franco, despite the fact he was looking altogether too much like he was enjoying this, and leaving Holly to the clutches of the woman and her helpers as she was undressed and redressed and her hair tied up this way and that and she was ordered to swivel and parade while walking on stilts.
Not a high school principal at all, Holly reconsidered as she watched her wield her power, mostly over her. Penelope was more a high priestess of fashion and her assistants, her vestal virgins, priestesses in training.
She wondered what they’d have thought if she’d turned up in her usual Purman Wines attire.
Although maybe that would have been a bridge too far.
It took the best part of two hours. Coffee, water and pastries had to be sent for twice. The women bolted down the coffee and sniffed at the pastries and merely sighed. Holly reached for a pastry at one time to be met with a collective gasp. She reached for the water instead.
But finally they seemed happy. They stood in a circle around her, examining her for any flaw, any bulge. There couldn’t possibly be anything bulging, Holly figured, not with the industrial-strength restraining device they’d shoehorned her into that seemed to squeeze all her organs into the space air once took in her lungs. Which probably explained why she was finding it so difficult to breathe.
‘Well?’ the high priestess asked of her coven. ‘What do we think? What is our verdict?’
Definitely queen speak, Holly thought, amending the call once again.
‘I like it,’ said one, and Holly would have sighed with relief if only she could breathe.
‘The colour is perfect,’ said another, ‘for those eyes.’ This time Holly found a smile.
‘And it does wonders for her figure,’ said a third. Holly ignored her. That was probably all down to the boa constrictor she had on underneath anyway. ‘I think it’s the one.’
‘Done!’ the high priestess declared. ‘That’s settled then. Pack up, girls.’
Holly blinked. ‘Do I get a horse in this race?’
‘Excuse me?’
‘Do I get to have a look in the mirror and see if I like it?’
Apparently nobody had ever asked Penelope this question before. ‘If you must,’ she agreed, appalled that her authority might be questioned. A cheval mirror was found and duly wheeled up, and the head priestess sniffed again. ‘Of course, you have to imagine it with your hair and make-up professionally done. At the moment you look quite underdone in it, so you’ll have to make allowances.’
Holly was only too happy to agree to those terms. She just hoped she liked it or there’d clearly be hell to pay.
She looked at herself as the mirror was adjusted from side to side, looked at the reflection staring back at her and wondered what miracle had been performed that she, grape-wrangler from the Coonawarra, could be transformed into a fairytale princess.
The dress was one-shouldered, with a diamante clasp over the collarbone that sparkled like diamonds when she moved the slightest fraction, and it skimmed over her breasts to a cinched-in waist, while the skirt seemed inspired by the ancient Greeks, the fabric draped to fit elegantly but not in the least way cling.
But the best thing was the colour. It was the exact turquoise of her eyes and even ‘underdone’ as she was they seemed to glow with it.
‘Well?’ snipped Penelope-don’t-call-me-Penny behind her, back in pen-tapping headmistress mode.
‘I love it,’ she said. ‘I can’t believe it’s me.’
Penelope sniffed and scratched an imaginary itch behind her ear. A physical ‘go figure.’ ‘And now we can pack up, girls.’
And with the destructive force of a cyclone they set about doing just that, packing away shoes into crates and dresses onto racks to be wheeled away by the porters while Holly was left to get changed in her own time.
She didn’t rush. She stood in the bedroom staring into the mirror for a while after they had gone, thinking about a girl who had grown up more like a boy and who had never once thought she might have reason to look like this, even if it were ever possible she could.