Page 23 of Melt With You

‘I like to keep myself busy,’ Dori replied. ‘It’s a relief to be away from New York for a little while, but I’m lousy at relaxing. I don’t want to rattle around in that house for four weeks all by myself.’

‘I don’t imagine you’ll be by yourself for long …’

As Bette said the words, she looked meaningfully to the left. Dori turned as well, and spied the delivery boy – one with long emerald-streaked dark hair, which he wore pulled back in a ponytail. One with a silver skull ring on the middle finger of his left hand. One she’d fucked the night before.

Oh, God, it was Ozzy.

He was dressed all in black, and had a tight braided leather collar around his neck, and he stood facing the rear of the store, scanning a clipboard balanced on top of a cardboard box. He hadn’t seen her yet.

Bette lowered her voice. ‘Van’s delicious, you know. If you like them young. Of course, he’s not mature yet. Not fully ripe. You could have him for a snack and still be hungry for dinner later.’

Van. That was his name.

Oh, Jesus. Dori squeezed her eyes shut for a second. This was too weird. Had her boss slept with him? And what was Van doing here, anyway? She understood now why he had seemed so familiar the night before. But had they ever worked at The Beauty Box at the same time? She’d quit before going to London, had he started after she’d left?

Dori tried to remember the gossip from her youth. But her time working at the beauty supply was so long in the past. Her brain had replaced those tawdry tales with other, more modern memories. She watched as Van headed out the rear door with his dolly, and then she looked back at Bette, who was talking to her again.

‘So when can you start?’

‘Right now,’ Dori said. Where else did she have to go? She remembered that the salon had gone through make-up artists the way the band Spinal Tap went through drummers. Nobody ever stayed for long.

‘Why don’t you warm up on me? I’m going to a party in the city tonight. I’m good with make-up, of course, but you know, it’s always such a treat to have someone do you.’ She grinned at Dori. ‘Pun intended.’

Dori felt herself smiling back. She remembered this life, remembered this world. There were framed pictures displayed around the make-up station, photos of Cyndi Lauper, Grace Jones, and Debbie Harry. It had been so long since Dori had done 80s make-up, she felt grateful for the glamour shots to look at for reference, although, like driving, this came naturally to her. Dori had always been the one to do her friends’ make-up before parties or dates. She had spent hours perfecting the rock ’n’ roll look of the goddesses her friends wanted to emulate, like Joan Jett and Madonna.

Bette closed her eyes and settled back in the chair as Dori looked at her, seeing her former boss as if for the first time. How would she apply the make-up? What sort of transformation would she attempt?

‘Do you have any ideas?’ she asked. ‘You know, what you’re looking for.’

‘Make me gorgeous,’ Bette said, eyes still shut.

You are gorgeous, Dori wanted to say honestly. Bette was a natural beauty. Candy-floss blonde hair with the colored tips, pale porcelain skin, big blue eyes. She would have looked lovely with no make-up on at all, the way that Pamela Anderson did. And Marilyn Monroe. But natural wasn’t Bette’s style. She liked the artifice, looked at cosmetics the way an artist looks at a palette.

Instead of telling Bette she’d be prettier bare, Dori asked, ‘How far can I go?’

‘All the way,’ Bette said softly, eyes opening for a quick peek. ‘You show me what you can do.’

When she was done, Dori turned Bette toward the mirror. Her boss moved forward, inspecting herself, turning her head this way and that before throwing back her head in her trademark full-body chortle. The laugh of an evil queen, pleased by her loyal subjects. ‘Beautiful,’ she said, clapping her hands together. ‘You’re a magician.’

Nina came closer to look, too. She was a retro diva, with an inky-black beehive hairdo sprayed into permanent submission and a different poodle skirt for each day of the week. ‘God, Bette. Is that you?’

‘I think so.’

‘You look amazing.’

Nina gave Dori a cautious smile. She hadn’t seemed so pleased when Bette had hired her. But now, seeing that the girl had chops, she appeared mollified. ‘Me next?’ she asked shyly.

Dori recalled this form of entertainment from her youth, as well. Whenever they were slow at the beauty supply, the women would do each other’s make-up, sometimes going for a specific theme – the gilded beauty of a 1920s silent screen star, at other times simply playing with the palette of colors. Her father had disapproved of this job, especially when she came home looking thirty instead of sixteen. But working at The Beauty Box had been excellent training, hadn’t it? Dori had gone on to college, at her parents’ insistence, but she’d dropped out and headed for beauty school at twenty, because that’s what she loved best. She’d never gotten over her love of cosmetics, for the way they could not only transform your face, but your whole mood.

Over the next few hours, she did the make-up for each of the women, and for several customers as well. And when she was done, she sat behind the counter, reveling in the atmosphere. The tape deck played a heavy rotation of her favorite singers and bands: Prince. Oingo Boingo. Soft Cell. The Cure. There were other tracks thrown in, bands she couldn’t name, but songs she remembered. ‘Obsession.’ Oh, how she’d loved that one. And ‘Kiss On My List.’ Who was that? Hall and Oates. Who would the women be playing today? Gwen Stefani, Pink, Justin Timberlake. Bette would have loved the Future Sex disc, but Timberlake must have been a Mouseketeer in the 80s, right? And what about Britney? Britney would have been a toddler drinking milk rather than a twenty-something wearing a MILF T-shirt.

At closing, she went to the back room to get her purse, and Bette stopped her.

‘We’re all going to the city tonight,’ she said. ‘Have you ever been to a Rave?’

Dori shook her head.

‘Come with us, Emma. You’ll love it. I swear.’

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