CHAPTER EIGHT
Staring at the bizarrely dressed mannequins, Joe asked, “Tell me again why we’re at Macy’s?”
“You know why.”
“Well, count me out, honey.”
With difficulty, Marie restrained herself from seizing him by the lapels and giving him a good shake. “You’re going to help me do this or I’ll tell your mother you made a pass at me last night.”
Joe’s gasp wasn’t entirely unfeigned. “Vile harpy!”
“She’d be mad?” Curtis asked.
“She’d be thrilled.” Marie said this with a very dry smile, wondering why Curtis had tagged along. She supposed she could put up with him until Joe came to his senses.
“You’re so ruthless when you’re not getting your way,” Joe complained. “And there’s nothing wrong with the way you look.”
“That’s the whole point. I look too healthy and normal. I need to look cadaverous. Brooding and complex. I need to look like a Serious Writer. And I absolutely cannot be recognizable as Jessica LeFruit.”
“Yeah, but...a disguise?” He looked doubtful. “For how long?”
“As long as it takes. And you’re going to help me. You know everybody in this industry, and you go to all my promotional stuff. You’ve got to have a contact for me.”
Joe got a funny look on his face, took out his wallet, and extracted a business card. “What are you, a witch? I got this just the other day. Nice enough guy and his mom—of course, you completely blew them off because you’re a jerk and a snob and incapable of acknowledging your good fortune because it would cut into valuable bitching time, but—”
She snatched the card and read it. “Mutch and Munch. Perfect.”
“Perfect if you’re a nobody. They’re teeny and nobody’s heard of them.”
“That’s the whole point. If I give them a serious manuscript and look like a serious writer, a serious nobody writer they’ve never heard of, I’ll get a contract. Or at least an open-minded editor to read my book. Heck, I’d settle for that—it’s better than what I have now.”
“But what about your contract at the other place?” Curtis asked.
“Romance novels by Jessica LeFruitLoop are under contract, not me,” she explained. “My contract stipulates they get first crack at romance novels. I can shop any other genre to any publisher.”
Joe was already shaking his head. “This isn’t an episode of I Love Lucy, you dour moron. Disguises? Tricking people? Think about what you’re proposing.”
“‘Fortune sides with him who dares.’ Virgil.”
“Yeah, okay, that’s relevant.”
“It’s from The Aeneid, and it’s my new motto.”
“What happened to ‘I’ve fallen and I can’t get up’?”
“Quit with the jokes already. Now let’s get to it!”
“Get to what?”
She managed not to shriek. “Pay attention! I need a new look.”
Incomprehension and confusion were now being replaced with irritation. “What, because we’re gay we can help you with a makeover?”
“Your sexuality is irrelevant.”
“What?”
“I mean, it’s got nothing to do with you being gay, and everything to do with the fact that you dress better than I do.”
“That’s a low bar. In high school you were voted Most Likely to Be Mistaken for a Homeless Persona”
“My point! I need you.”
“We’re not your gay fashion police, okay?”
Wait, we? Curtis wasn’t invited to this meeting. “You want me to quit bitching all the time? You want me to count my blessings? Then help me do this.”
That did the trick. And later, Marie couldn’t believe the transformation. An hour in the hair salon had left her frizzy blonde hair straightened and slicked back into a bun. Joe had dug up some antique letter openers from who-knew-where; they were now sticking out of her bun with just the right kooky-artistic touch. She was clad head to toe in black, all the way down to her ballet slippers. Another kooky artistic touch—Marie couldn’t plié if someone stuck a gun in her ear.
“Nice work,” she said, beyond satisfied. She looked weird, she looked tormented, she looked long-suffering, she looked like she took herself too seriously. Nothing like a romance novelist.
You know you’re exchanging one cliché for another, right? Absently, Marie told her inner voice to hush. “This is perfect!”
“Not quite.” Joe handed her a pair of dark sunglasses, which Marie obediently put on. As she got out of her chair, she tripped and would have brained herself on a table if Joe hadn’t steadied her.
“Never take them off,” he warned.
“I can’t see shit!” Despite the grumble, she didn’t remove them. “This is going to work.”
“Almost.” He went back to speak to the receptionist, then came back with a cigarette.
“A final touch. How can you be brooding and tormented if you don’t have a filthy life-destroying habit you can’t give up?”
“This is why I love the man with all my heart,” Marie informed Curtis. He laughed, but she could only manage a small, very dry smile.