Page 8 of He Has Game (Boston Brawlers Hockey)
“Don’t worry,” Pierre says. “You have an appointment tomorrow for permanent eyelashes and liner and we’ll have our best artist work with you on the shadow and the rest.”
Evidently that’s the end of the discussion as Mary nods and takes the mirror from my hand. We move on to the next store as I bury the bubbles of uncertainty, attempting to play the new me, but without losing the key bits of the real me.
“Do we really need to go to Victoria’s Secret?” I ask. This store borders on that losing-the-real-me territory. I don’t do lingerie. Same as I don’t do one-night-stands. I’m not an impulsive person. Except this morning—was it only this morning?—when I jumped up and volunteered to be the fake fiancée of Finnegan Reed, star hockey player.Thatcould be classified as impulsive.
No. It wasn’t. It was opportunistic. It was brave. Now I need to scrape up a last vestige of that bravery and use it.
“You’ll thank me later.” Hauling me into the store because I’m not fast enough for her, Mary gives me one of her suspicious sideways glances. “Not that anyone’s going toseethe lingerie—especially not Finn—but these babies,” she says as she picks up a lacy black bra from a rack, “will help you fill out the slinky evening wear. You’re going to need to compete with models and socialites Saturday night at the St. Jude’s Gala Benefit and make them believe Finn would choose you over them.”
I nod and push my glasses up on my nose, almost too hard. Heat burns my face and I use the drape of my new haircut across my face to hide it. Compete with models? There’s a lump in my throat bigger than a first edition Webster’s Dictionary because I can’t admit there’s no way for me to compete, can’t show that I’m intimidated. She’s my boss. And this was my stupid, ridiculous idea.
The bed I made and now I have to lie in, every uncomfortable, lumpy part of it.
If Finn is in the bed with you, who cares?Must be my naughty alter ego coming out of hiding, the one that drinks margaritas and drools over hunky hockey players, the one who secretly dreams about touching their bare-naked chests . . .
“Try these on. Five minutes. We have more shopping to do.” Mary extends her hand with the lingerie and I scoot off to the dressing room. Five minutes? Looking at all the pieces of clothing I have on—the boots, the tights, the skirt, the sweater and my own underwear, I’m going to have to move like a magician. But I don’t consider for a second blowing her off or not bothering to go for it.
I’ve been called a trouper, and this is why. Flinging clothes off and pulling on the new undergarments, I look in the mirror, shriek inside, and then open the door a crack to peek my head outside to stop her timer. There she is. I mean, right there. At the dressing room door.
“Let me see. Open the door.” When I hesitate, she rolls her eyes and pulls the door from my hands, opening it wider as she stands there blocking any outside view and looks me up and down. Then she smiles, that evil Mary the Mastermind smile.
“I’mgood,” she says. “The size is spot on. I could tell even under those baggy clothes what you were hiding. Now get dressed and let’s go.”
Blushing furiously, I close the door and heave a sigh. My reflection glares at me, showing my oversized breasts heaving, plump and high thanks to the over-the-top glamorous push-up bra. This is the exact kind of thing I’ve avoided since I hit puberty too fast and furious for my comfort almost ten years ago.
But then maybe it’s high time I get comfortable with my body the way it is instead of hiding it. As I dress, I realize there’s so much about this pretense—professional or not—that I didn’t think through. Not that I’m regretting it. I’ve had more giddy rushes today than I have in the past three and a half years of college. Holding my hand against my chest as I come out of the changing room, I hope my heart will hold out.
At L&T, we pick out three dresses, some sweaters, skinny jeans, heeled boots, and a faux fur overcoat. Each item she places on the counter for the saleslady to hold for us ratchets up my nerves and I struggle to keep my fingernails from between my teeth.
“Mary,” I say. She turns to me, clutching another sweater and a very short skirt with a question and a little dare in her eyes. I don’t want to dare, but I have to dare. So I blurt, “I don’t think I can afford all these clothes.”
“You aren’t paying for them. Consider the clothes a bonus for going above and beyond your duty.” She tosses the last two garments on the counter with the rest and nods at the thrilled saleslady who looks like she wants to marry her.
“Is that everything? What about a nightgown—?”
“That won’t be necessary,” Mary says. She gives me that sideways glance again and, in a low voice for my ears only, says, “There won’t be any sleepovers.”
Clearing my throat, I say, “Thank you for all the . . . bonus clothes. About work, how—?”
“You can do your job from home or a coffee shop, but not the office. We can’t let anyone know you’re working for us. You can take the laptop home and I’ll get you set up on our system remotely. I’ll make sure you have whatever you need. When we need to meet—because we will be meeting regularly so you can report on Finn’s behavior—we’ll do it somewhere out of the way.”
“All this intrigue,” I say, less hopeful than ever that I’ll be able to share thisarrangementwith my parents.
“You better believe it. But we can carry it off. Twelve weeks max. You’re the one who insisted she could—”
“Of course, yes. No problem.”
“You’ll need to put your life on hold, to keep this secret for the duration. You tell no one, and I mean no one. Not your best girlfriends, not your family. Not even your real boyfriend—do you have one of those?”
“No, no, of course not.”
She takes the two large bags from the saleslady and hands them to me, her eyebrows shooting up.
“I mean, I wouldn’t have volunteered if—”
Stopping at the double glass doors before we head back to her car, she stares long and hard, not one of those intimidating or suspicious looks, but the stare of a mother—or more like an older sister because there really is nothing motherly about Mary Delaney. She’s the epitome of a totally committed career woman.
“Vivian.” She shakes her head, takes my arm and hurries me to her car. By the time we get inside and close the doors, my stomach is in knots and I’m wishing for Tums right now. Or maybe a margarita.
“Vivian,” she starts again, same look, and I’m anticipating a speech, a warning not to get my hopes up, heck, not to think of Finn as my real boy—fiancé. The same lecture I’ve been giving myself all day since the fateful meeting that morning.
“This is all business. For you, it’s more of an acting job than anything else. Except maybe since we’re talking about Finn, it’s also a babysitting job. You must not get involved emotionally. Sure, you’ll need to get along with him, get to know him, but no more than if he were a work colleague. We have a strict nonfraternization policy here.” She pauses, gives me a chance to react, but I feel too sick to speak. “Plus, I wouldn’t want to see you get hurt.” She turns away abruptly, starts the car, throws it into drive, and steps on the gas.
With my heart racing faster than her car, she takes me to my tiny studio apartment in the North End. I was lucky to sublet it for the semester because the commute from Chestnut Hill without a car would be killer. And of course, I don’t have a car.
“You live alone?” she asks. I nod.
“Good. You won’t have to explain anything to a roommate then.”
Guess I didn’t need to worry about that commute from B.C. to the Garden after all.
