Wedding Bell Blues - [48]

storm nor hail could budge it.

Lily patted her stiff bubble of hair. With a do like this, she could be perkily reporting the sixo’clock news. It was the perfect style for the image she needed to project, but looking at it still made herwant to cry.

“Is that what you wanted, honey?” Doreen asked, firing up another cigarette.

“Yeah, it’s perfect.”

“Now I don’t know if Sheila and Tracee told you or not, but I am a licensed Mary Kay consultant,so if you wanted some more makeup to complete your new look —”

“Sure. Why not?” Lily looked at Doreen’s horrifying Kabuki mask of cosmetics. “But let’s keep itlight and natural, okay?”

“Sure, hon.”

Lily’s “light and natural” makeover took thirty-five minutes. Sheila and Tracee returned from theirlunch break and watched Lily’s transformation, oohing and ahhing as if they were watching the ceiling ofthe Sistine Chapel being painted.

When Lily saw herself in the mirror, her newly painted mouth formed an “O” of surprise, makingher look not unlike one of those blond, blow-up sex-toy dolls. She would almost have preferred to bewearing Doreen’s Kabuki mask — at least it had a spooky, avant-garde quality. As it was, her cheeks weredusted with peachy blush, her lips painted with equally peachy lipstick, her lashes brushed with mascarato give her a wide-eyed, Mary Pickford appearance. She looked—she shuddered at the word —

wholesome.

“Doreen, you are a miracle worker!” Sheila squealed. “Come on, Lily, let’s go buy you some newdresses!”

A better name for the La-Di-Da Dress Shop might be Designed-to-Be-Dowdy, Lily thought, as shescanned through the racks. All the dresses were in the prim shirtwaist style preferred by Sunday schoolteachers and small-town librarians. Finally, deciding all the garments were equally vile, Lily closed hereyes and pulled two dresses off the “size eight” rack at random.

The oversolicitous saleslady went into paroxysms of joy. “Oh,” she crowed, “those are positivelythe real you!”

“Give it a rest, lady,” Lily muttered, marching toward the dressing rooms. “You wouldn’t knowthe real me if I bit you on the ass!”

“Lil-ee!” Tracee chided her. “You’re aw-full!”

But she had already shut the dressing room door behind her.

In her light blue shirtwaist dress, black Naturalizer flats, and stockings, Lily was totallyunrecognizable, even to herself. She was reminded of the scene in the movie Tootsie in which DustinHoffman first appears in full, dowdy drag.

When Lily went to relieve Jeanie of her babysitting duties, Mimi screamed at the sight of her. Thelittle girl eyed Lily suspiciously, then broke down in tears. “Where’s Mama? Where’s Mama?” she wailedhysterically.

“Mimi-saurus, it’s me. I’m your mama.”

“No! Not Mama!” Mimi screamed.

“Honey, of course it’s your mama,” Jeanie said. “She just went to the beauty shop. Don’t she lookpretty?”

“Not Mama!” Mimi shrieked louder.

Lily had to carry Mimi to the bathroom and show her her tattoos in order to convince the little girlthat the pristinely dressed, carefully coiffed creature before her was indeed her mother.

When Lily returned to the place she and Ben grudgingly called home, Ben took one look at herand cried, “Shit! Shiiit. Shi-it.”

Lily flopped down on the sofa. “Hey, now, no profanity in front of the baby.”

Ben shook his head like a wet dog. “Good god, you look like the president of the Junior League,and you say things like no profanity in front of the baby. It’s like you’ve turned into a...a...”

Lily put on a mock Cockney accent. “A real laydee? Just call me Eliza, Professor Higgins.” Shekicked off her shoes and began unceremoniously peeling off her pantyhose. “We got any beer?”

Mordecai emerged from the hall and eyed Lily suspiciously. He approached her, sniffed her, and,satisfied as to her identity, settled down for an ear-scratching. Ben backed out of the room, still fixated onLily’s transformed appearance. “I’ll...I’ll get you one.”

“Thanks,” she said. “You’re a good husband.”

Ben returned with their beers and sat down on the couch. “Say, why don’t I drive over to Callahanand pick us up a pizza for dinner? You can’t be in the kitchen cooking, looking like that. You’ll feel likefucking Harriet Nelson.”

Mimi looked up from her shape sorter and joyously exclaimed, “Fuckin’!”

“Mimi, that’s a grown-up word.” Lily leaned back on the couch and sucked down some beer. “Alot of good it’s gonna do me to change my entire image if my daughter’s gonna have the vocabulary of alongshoreman.”

“Don’t worry; she won’t have to testify.” Ben flipped through the Versailles/Callahan phone book.

Ripping that phone book would be no feat of strength, Lily thought. Mimi could probably do it.

“So...” Ben said, “mushroom, green pepper, and black olive?”

“Sure.” Lily was astonished at the tiredness in her voice.

After Ben went to fetch the pizza, Lily made a bowl of oatmeal and a slice of toast for Mimi,whose idea of good eating was breakfast three times a day. Lily tied on Mimi’s bib, sat down with her,and began to spoon the warm cereal into the little girl’s mouth.