Waking Beauty (14 page)

So, dinner. Yes. I had my fun. At a quarter to eight I was already messing with Virginie’s mind by digging in the dip every time she turned her back. I’d rake a piece of celery through it, she’d smooth it out with a knife. I’d dip again. She’d smooth again. Dip. Smooth. Dip. Smooth. A blue vein pulsing in her neck by the time the front doorbell rang.

“Hey, ya bastard.”

“Hey,” said Fraser, chuckling hearty. “C’mon in. How the hell are ya?”

“I’m well. Hey, what’s that thing on your chin?”

“This? It’s a goatee.”

“Well, Ethan Hawke called. He wants it back.”

A blast of mirth from Fraser/Virginie as the mystery guest breezed into the kitchen, all blond and lanky and smiling wide, and it was as if someone had pulled a curtain aside and let a little more light into the room, as if a zingy vibration had suddenly entered the atmosphere. And there was George. The only man I’d ever seen—outside of a biblical movie epic—who looked good (and heterosexual) in sandals. He greeted Virginie with a kiss on each cheek, French style, and slid a bottle of wine into her hands.

“Wow,” she said, gaping at the label.

“Hi, I’m George.”

“I’m Allison.”

“Pleased to meet you,” he said, and he did look pleased, the wide mouth smiling, the blue eyes shining. He reminded me of a young Peter O’Toole. Lithe. Good bone structure. He was dressed in fine clothing that hung loose on his lean frame, and he exuded an easy confidence. He didn’t seem at all discomposed by Virginie and Fraser, who were darting around, pulling out chairs, mixing drinks, unwrapping
appetizers, and apologizing for the state of the apartment and the wrong kind of highball glasses. George settled serenely onto the padded armchair at the head of the table, and I got the feeling that he was accustomed to being catered to and orbited. Perversely, I decided to deprive him of my attention for the remainder of the evening.

I proceeded to flirt with Fraser in a sneaky and subdued manner. Virginie responded by flirting outrageously with George—giggling giddy at his every joke, exposing boob or panties at every opportunity. George ignored her frequent flashings and flirted exclusively with me. It was like a Russian play, minus the intelligence. By the time the curried coconut shrimp had been cleared away, Virginie was seething and significantly sloshed, Fraser was all goo-goo-eyed and practically popping boners at the table, and George was offering to show me around town, in a new Aston Martin Vanquish, to be delivered on the morrow. George, I managed to glean from various snippets of conversation, was George Thomas, son of Nigel Thomas and nephew of Frank Thomas, the real-estate developers, the Thomases, one of the wealthier families in the city. George had taken a break from working with his father to try his hand at becoming an independent movie producer. That’s how Fraser had met him. George had ponied up enough cash to be called an associate producer on the last feature Fraser had worked on. He bought himself the right to hang around the set and see what was what when it came to producing. I noticed how his eyes sparkled with excitement as Fraser recounted an anecdote about Mimi Rogers, who had had a part in their film.

“She was married to Tom Cruise,” said Virginie.

George and Fraser nodded. They both knew this to be true. I noticed also how George’s eyes lost their sparkle when Virginie and Fraser considered him warmed up enough to start their pitch. George wasn’t stupid; I could see he was expecting it. He smiled tolerantly and listened respectfully
while they went on about a documentary project they had dreamed up—something about the Déné Indians in northern Manitoba. Not that they had any connection to the Déné in northern Manitoba, it was just something they had dreamed up.

“Well, it sounds like a worthy project,” said George politely. “But at this point, I’m primarily interested in funding narrative films, not documentaries.”

“Yeah,” said Fraser. “I told Virginie you wanted to make real movies.”

“Not movies about real people?” I said.

George smiled. He asked if I was an actress. I told him no, I wasn’t. He asked what it was that I did. I told him I was between jobs. He asked what I was doing in Toronto. I told him I was just visiting. He said he would be happy to show me around in the brand-new Aston Martin Vanquish. Fraser said that he would like to go for a spin in it and that maybe he could come along. And Virginie said, “Well, who’s ready for dessert?” in a voice pinched with suppressed rage.

Throughout the evening I had kept a careful watch on the kitchen clock, having gotten it into my head that I might Revert back at midnight. At 11:40, I excused myself and headed to the bathroom. I wanted a moment alone with New Allison before she (possibly) disappeared forever. As I gazed at my reflection—made more alluring by the alcohol-induced flush to my cheeks—I bemoaned the fact that I hadn’t slipped into a photo booth to document the Miracle. Then I remembered Fiona Ferguson’s offer: “The agency will pay for your photos.” The notion of Allison Penny as model seemed beyond outlandish, but the idea of having professional photos, a souvenir of my time of beauty, appealed to me, especially if someone else was proposing to pay for them.

When I returned, minutes later, to the kitchen, Virginie and Fraser were busy wrapping up food and clearing away dishes. I said good night and thank you, and a “Nice meeting you” to George, who followed me to my bedroom door and,
whispering, asked if he could see me again. I said maybe and that I wasn’t sure. Which was true.

I undressed and slid naked between the sheets. I stared at the clock and listened to the dinner party wrapping up outside my door. I heard George say good night and take his leave. I watched the second hand tick slowly and ominously toward the twelve. I braced myself for the worst, but nothing happened. Midnight came and went and I did not Revert. I realized that Reversion would probably occur while I slept. I thought about getting dressed and going out somewhere, staying awake for as long as possible to make the most of it. But as I lay in bed, waiting for Virginie and Fraser to finish clearing and head to their room, I plummeted into a deep and dead slumber, as if I had been drugged.

When I opened my eyes it was noon on Sunday and I was still New Allison. Disoriented, unusually well rested, and still beautiful. I caressed my taut body under the covers. It had not been a dream.

I felt relieved, pleased, and immensely perplexed. Why had this happened to me? What was the purpose? Was my transformation part of a larger scheme? Did I have some sort of beauty duty to perform? And if so, what would it be? Posing naked for a PETA billboard? Administering blowjobs to ugly outcasts? I wondered if this sort of thing had happened to others. Was there a secret society of gorgeous people who had undergone the Change? I thought about supermodels like Elle MacPherson and Cindy Crawford. I seemed to recall hearing or reading interviews in which they had claimed to be wallflowers and beasts when they were growing up. Had it happened to them?

Almost everything I thought I knew about reality had been upended into uncertainty, if not entirely jettisoned. But instead of pondering the great mysteries of life and metamorphosis, I found my mind straying to commonplace, even
trivial matters, like how I was going to spend my day, and about the dinner party with George on the previous night. I had never participated in anything like that before. The last time two men drooled over me was when I purchased a pencil from the retarded twins in the subway. And the closest I had come to partying with wealthy types was sneering at their festive faces on the society page of the weekend newspaper. It was strange to watch Virginie and Fraser fawning over George. Stranger still to watch George fawning over me. George was rich and connected and powerful, yes, but I felt as if I was the one with the power in the room that night.

Oddly enough, I was the one with the power.

4    

The apartment was Sunday quiet. Virginie and Fraser
had gone out. No surprise there. I suspected that for “the next couple of days” (i.e., until I was safely on my way back to from whence I came), Virginie would keep Fraser as far away from me as possible.

I made coffee and toasted a couple of waffles. I was eyeing the unread weekend newspapers stacked on top of the fridge when the phone rang. It was so rarely for me that I never picked up. I forked a chunk of freezer-burned Eggo into my gape as the answering machine kicked in: “Hey, this is George calling for Allison. So, listen, I know it’s last minute, but I was wondering if I could maybe take you to dinner tonight? There’s this restaurant called Tribe—it’s, like, the new hot place—and I’m pretty sure I can get a table. Actually, I am sure, I already checked. The chef is sort of a buddy of mine. Anyhow, let me know. I was thinking eight o’clock for dinner, so I could grab you around seven-thirtyish if that’s good for you. It’s upscale casz. So if you get this message, give me a
call at 555-9171 or on my cell at 858-5623. Ciao for now.” Beep.

That was fast, I thought, chewing waffle. Clearly, when George saw something he wanted, he wasted no time in going after it. My contrarian instinct was to deprive him of his wish, to be the first hottie in history to say nay to eligible George. It wasn’t that I disliked him; he was actually quite charming. But it annoyed me that I should have entrée to his world because of the way I suddenly looked. Would he be inviting Old Allison to dine with him? On the other hand, it intrigued me that I could go where no fat, ugly girl had gone before: into an exclusive restaurant, on the arm of George Thomas. I thought: Now that I have temporary access to a new realm, shouldn’t I at least explore it? After years of solitary cave-dwelling in my peeling-ceiling room, should I not take the opportunity to experience something foreign and potentially pleasurable before Reverting? I had never been asked out on a date before, let alone to a fancy-pants restaurant. What would be the harm in having a look around? I could be like an anthropologist in a leaf-covered pith helmet taking a meal with an alien culture, or like a Method actor researching a part—in this case, the part of the quietly avaricious trophy girlfriend.

As long as I didn’t disappear into the role, I would be fine, right?

Of course, an actor requires costumes and makeup, which settled what I was going to do with my day. I was going to do something countless young women do every sunny Sunday in spring. I was going to finish my breakfast, get myself dressed, and head to the mall.

Seven hours and just over five hundred dollars later, I was pacing the apartment, waiting for George to arrive. I ducked into the bathroom to check my hair (faux-tortoiseshell hair grabber: $18.95), makeup (blush, lipstick, eyeliner, mascara:
$63), and appropriately “upscale casz” outfit (white blouse, black palazzo pants, strappy high-heeled sandals: $285). Sundry purchases—undergarments, nail polish, etc.—had eaten up the balance of five hundred smackers and put a serious strain on my credit card. This being attractive was proving expensive.

Speaking of which, a disturbing thing happened at the mall that day, a thing that had nothing to do with the fact that every person there seemed to be staring at me, or that two teenage girls, all giggly and nerved out, approached me in a shoe store to ask for my autograph (I insisted I wasn’t famous; they didn’t seem to believe me). It was something else that happened that was alarming. How can I describe it? Well, put it this way: I’d always hated the mall. I hadn’t been to the mall in more than three years. It wasn’t as if it was a particularly obnoxious mall—there were no roller coasters or wave pools or mini-zoos with Lithium lions and Prozac penguins contained therein. It wasn’t the dead Muzak, the ugliness of the architecture, the homogeneity of the chain stores, or the faux-ethnic food court cuisine that particularly bothered me. It was the sheer volume of merchandise. Store after store pushing pile upon pile of product, and superfluous product at that—foot baths, earmuffs, pen holders,
egg
square-ers—a half-mile of boutiques that specialized in everything from sunglasses to knives, bookended by giant department stores containing absurd amounts of the same wares. It seemed excessive and obscene, and even just trundling through it made me feel voracious and overfed, like a typical North American consumer. So I stayed away from the mall, and prided myself on being an anticonsumer, someone who pretty much stuck to the essentials. Sure, I spent every penny of my (meager) paycheck each week, but I spent it on food, rent, and justifiable cultural items such as books, CDs, and DVD rentals. In short, I sneered at materialistic types—anyone who owned more than four pairs of shoes—and considered
myself, if not righteous, at least deep. So here’s the disturbing thing: I discovered that it might not be true, that my anticonsumerism might have less to do with my principles/character, and more to do with the way I looked. Because suddenly all the products that Old Allison had deemed superfluous seemed not only desirable, but sometimes also necessary to New Allison. For example, as I loitered around the makeup counter area, it occurred to me that my bar of Ivory soap and jumbo jar of Nivea weren’t going to cut it anymore. My flawless skin suddenly deserved, nay demanded, a comprehensive four-step system. I wanted the Splash Foaming Cleanser, the Clarifying Exfoliant Lotion, the Clean-Finish Purifying Toner, and the Oil-Free Moisture Surge. I felt it would be unwise not to include the Antigravity Firming Lotion and the Advanced Night Repair Recovery Complex. And that was just the skin on my face. What about the rest of the epidermis? What about cosmetics? Didn’t my pretty new pout merit a lipstick or two? Certainly every shade I sampled looked appealing. Even brown. I wanted lipstick. I wanted many lipsticks. What about my hair? Were elastic bands and a box of bobby pins really adequate accoutrements for such lovely locks? Shouldn’t I have hair clips and headbands and high-fashion fasteners? What about lingerie? Looking the way I did, was it not likely that I would be undressing in front of somebody in the near future? Could I really make do with a week’s worth of serviceable cotton gotchies? As I wended my way through the lingerie boutique, I knew for a fact that I could not. I saw at least a half dozen items that I instantly required, and countless others that I merely wanted. Shoes, handbags, scarves, belts, jewelry, hats, hosiery, sunglasses…Everywhere I went in the mall that day, I saw things that I wanted and needed (including a metal contraption for curling eyelashes, and a box of temporary tattoos). It was completely out of character, and it made me wonder if the external Change might be causing some kind of internal
shift. Could the inner be so determined by the outer? If anatomy is destiny, was I destined to become a vapid shopaholic supermodel?