Page 101 of Festive in Death

“Done. Take a look.” She swiveled Eve’s chair around to face the mirror.

It was a shock but not a jolt, which was something anyway. Her face mostly looked like her face. Her lips were kind of red, but the dye was sheer and pretty subtle. And no glittery stuff on her eyes, so that was a big plus. Instead she looked more defined, she supposed, and fussier with the pale gold on the lids, and all the darker stuff blended in wherever.

But she could recognize herself.

The hair wasn’t like her hair. Was it? Scooped back, higher on the top, fussier again with a little bit of curl.

“You’ve got to see the back,” Mavis told her, and grabbed a big hand mirror. “It’s all about the back.”

Mavis held up the mirror; Trina angled the chair.

Eve saw now the higher top and little bit of curl held up with the comb. A few more little curls dangled down with the rubies and diamonds.

“It’s... girlie.”

“Be a girl tonight. It won’t kill you. The do fits the comb and the dress.”

“How do you know it fits the dress? I don’t even know what the dress is.”

“How am I supposed to do you up if I don’t know what you’re wearing? I saw the dress. The do and the rest of you are designed for the outfit.”

“And it’s fabulolicious,” Mavis assured her.

“Why don’t you get it, Mavis? Roarke said it would be front and center of her closet, shoes and accessories with it.”

“I’m all over that!”

“You look good.” Trina began packing up her tools. “My work always looks good. I’d leave you the lip shine, but you wouldn’t remember to slick it up anyway, so I’ll leave it with Mavis. She’ll remind you. Your man’s going to look strip-me-naked good ’cause he was born that way. You need to look good.”

“I don’t want people to strip naked when they look at me.”

On a bray of laughter, Trina continued to pack up. “They’re going to look at you and think: That’s one frosty bitch cop. Maybe you were born the bitch cop, I added the frosty. It’s what I do.”

“I can live with that. For a party.”

“This is the max,” Mavis cooed as she came back out of the closet. “The maximum mag. It looks like somebody melted old gold coins and made a dress. That’s my Leonardo.”

Eve studied as Mavis held it up. A pale, luminous, somehow watery gold with what looked like a very low-scooped neckline and long thin sleeves. She wouldn’t have called it—quite—teeny-tiny like Mavis’s dress. But it definitely earned tiny.

“Is that all of it?”

“You’ve got the body for it. Runway model but with muscle tone.” Trina closed two satchels, the size of the Dakotas—North and South. “The fabric’s why I used the Gold Dust shade of body glo.”

“You’re going to look awesomillion,” Mavis declared. “Want help getting into it?”

“I can get myself dressed.”

“Step into it, pull it up,” Trina ordered. “Don’t put it on over your head. Come on, Mavis. We’ll find a spot and I’ll do your temp.” She shouldered each enormous satchel, picked up the small gift bag. “Thanks for the candles. I really like burning the fragrance, like there’s one for each season.”

“No problem. I didn’t really—”

“Thanks.” Trina cut her off. “We’ll have the chair and table out of the way after I do this temp.”

“Right behind you, Trina.” But Mavis scurried over to Eve as Trina walked out. “You helped her.” She kissed Eve’s cheek lightly.

“I didn’t do it on purpose.”

“Maybe not, maybe that’s even better. See you at Party Central at Party Time! And we’ll all woo to the hoo!”

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