The girl chat turned into mostly memes after Sunday, Dan seemed to spend more time with us than with Leah, and he mostly said she was a busy woman, and no further digging could get more specifics.
My work week saw more and more work being offloaded from me. Before I was slacking off at work, now I was actually free from most tasks. I still showed up for meetings, but had no action points assigned to me. I was not tasked with any reviews, and all of my syncs and standups had been taken over by Jack.
On Wednesday I was playing some clicker game, while I waited for my next meeting to start when I saw my phone light up
Leah:
I have a thing I need to attend on Friday and I need a plus-one.
Leah:
Free food. Free drinks.
Leah:
Be my plus-one, Mia.
I stared at the screen.
Me:
You had me at Free.
The typing bubble appeared almost immediately.
Leah: Do you own an evening gown?
I frowned at the screen.
Me: No. It’s against my religion to eat those.
A pause.
Leah: Get dressed and meet me downstairs in fifteen minutes.
Me:
I am dressed.
Leah:
🤦 I’m sure you think you are. Whatever, it will do. Come downstairs.
I went downstairs after 10 minutes and Leah was already there.
“We are going to Bergdorf,” Leah said.
I waited for the rest.
“Who’s Bergdorf?”
She looked at me. “A department store.”
“You said it like he was expecting us.”
“From a certain perspective, he is.”
An Uber pulled up as she said this, and we headed across the river.
By the time we reached Fifth Avenue, I had decided Bergdorf was probably just a nicer Macy’s.
That was until I saw the building.
It sat across from Central Park looking less like a shop and more like somewhere rich people went to have poor decisions gift-wrapped. Huge windows, pale stone, gold lettering. Even the doorman looked like he had opinions about my credit score.
Leah got out without hesitation.
I stayed in the car half a second longer.
“You coming?” she asked.
“I’m pretty sure this place has a preferred tax bracket.”
“It’s a department store.”
“It has a doorman.”
Inside was worse. Polished floors, perfume in the air, people speaking quietly like loud voices might lower the property value. Leah moved through it like she belonged there.
By the time we reached the fourth floor, the place had softened into thick carpet, low voices and dresses spaced far enough apart that each one looked important. Leah walked straight past two displays and found a woman in black before I had finished wondering whether touching anything would trigger an alarm.
“She needs eveningwear,” Leah said. “Formal gala. Something fitted, not bridal, not sweet. She can carry colour.”
The woman looked me over once. Not rudely. Professionally, which was somehow worse.
“What size are you?” the woman asked.
I opened my mouth.
“Thirty-six, twenty-nine, forty, I think,” Leah said. “But measure her. That’s only my guess.”
The woman in black led us into a quieter section at the back, where the dresses were spaced far enough apart that each one looked important.
Another member of staff appeared with a tape measure and asked me to take off my jacket.
“Arms out, please.”
The woman wrapped the tape around my chest, then my waist and hips.
“Thirty-seven, twenty-nine, forty.”
Leah nodded. “Only an inch out.”
The woman raised an eyebrow. “That was a very good guess.”
“She wears too many baggy tops.
“What sort of event?” the first woman asked.
“Fundraising gala,” Leah said. “Formal, but not conservative.”
“Comfortable budget?”
I looked at Leah.
Leah looked at the woman.
“Let’s find the right dress first.”
Which was a rich-person language for ‘I don’t scare easily’.
The woman nodded as if this was perfectly normal.
“Color preference?”
“No black,” Leah said immediately. “She’ll disappear into it.”
“I look good in black.”
“You look safe in black.”
I lowered my arms. “I like feeling safe…”
Leah did not hear me and stepped closer, lifting a section of my hair between two fingers.
“Red,” she said. “Not bright red. Something deeper. Her hair is dirty blonde, her skin can carry it, and she needs a colour that does some of the work for her.”
“Dirty blonde?”
“That is what it’s called, Mia. I’m not insulting your hygiene.”
The woman gave a small professional smile.
“And silhouette?” she asked.
“Fitted through the waist and hips. Structure through the bodice. Nothing floaty.”
“Floaty?”
“Don’t worry, we are not doing floaty.”
Leah turned toward the rails, scanning them.
“Do you have anything with a deep neckline and a high slit? Possibly off the shoulder?”
The woman considered me again.
“We have several options. Satin, crepe, perhaps velvet.”
“No velvet,” Leah said. “Too heavy. Satin or something with a clean drape.”
They were speaking about me like I was a sofa they were trying to fit into a difficult room.
The woman disappeared and returned with an armful of dresses in red, burgundy and one dark green Leah rejected before it reached the fitting room.
“Too respectable,” she said.
“It’s a dress.”
“It looks like something a concerned mother would buy for her daughter’s debutante ball.”
She pulled out another, held it against me for three seconds, then handed it back.
“Too bridal.”
“It’s red.”
“It looks like something you wear to impress your extended family.”
By the time we reached the fitting room, Leah had reduced an entire floor of dresses to five. Deep red, fitted, structured, dangerous in ways I had not agreed to yet.
She pushed the first one into my arms.
“Try this.”
I looked at the price tag.
Then I looked at her.
“Leah.”
“Yes?”
“This dress costs more than my rent.”
“Then try not to spill anything on it.”
The woman handed me the first dress and pointed toward the fitting rooms.
Leah took the remaining four from her.
“Go on,” she said.
I looked at the dress in my arms. Then at the fitting room. Then back at her.
“You’re not coming?”
“I’ll be right outside.”
The curtain closed behind me.
For the first thirty seconds, I was confident.
It was a dress. I had worn dresses before. There was fabric, there was a hole for my head, probably some arrangement involving legs. Humanity had solved this problem centuries ago.
Then I unfolded it.
There were straps where straps had no business being. A zip ran down one side, stopped, then apparently continued somewhere inside the dress. The bodice had cups built into it, except they looked too high to be cups and too low to be shoulder pads. A ribbon dangled from the back like evidence from a murder scene.
I turned it around.
Then I turned it around again.
I found the label, which usually meant back, except that put the zip under my armpit and one of the cups somewhere near my kidney.
I tried stepping into it.
Wrong.
I tried pulling it over my head.
More wrong.
For a brief, humiliating moment I stood trapped inside several thousand dollars of red fabric with one arm above my head and my face pressed into the lining.
“Everything all right?” Leah called.
“Perfect, nothing to worry about.”
I fought my way back out before I tore something expensive enough to ruin my credit score.
The dress pooled at my feet.
I stared at it.
It stared back.
I opened the curtain two inches and stuck my head through.
Leah was sitting in one of the fitting-room chairs, legs crossed, scrolling through her phone.
“Leah.”
She looked up.
“How do I put this on?”
She lowered the phone slowly.
“The dress?”
“No, the fitting room. Yes, the fucking dress.”
Her eyes moved past me toward the red heap on the floor.
“You tried to put it over your head, didn’t you?”
“Only at first! I tried to step into it as well.”
“Was it the right way?”
“I don’t know. Come help please.”
Leah stood.
There was no mockery in her face, which somehow made it worse.
She stepped into the fitting room and closed the curtain behind her.
Leah stepped into the fitting room and closed the curtain behind her.
She looked down at the dress, then at me.
“Okay. Before we go further, take off your T-shirt and bra. Trousers too.”
I stared at her.
“All of it?”
“It’s a fitted gown, Mia. Not a tarp.”
“You could have warned me.”
“I assumed you knew dresses don’t have t-shirts and pants accompanying them”
I started undressing while mumbling “The T-shirt was not the issue.”
Leah waited.
There was barely enough room for both of us as it was. The mirrors covered three walls, which meant there were now at least four Leahs watching me fail to remove a T-shirt normally.
I pulled it over my head and dropped it onto the chair. The bra came next. I kept one arm folded across my chest while I worked my trousers down with the other, which made the whole process slower and much more dignified.
Leah looked at my arm.
“What are you doing?”
“Getting undressed.”
“You’re hiding.”
“I’m not hiding.”
“You’re using your own elbow as a curtain.”
I let my arm fall.
There. Fine. Tits. We had all seen them before. Not Leah, technically, but the general public had been given enough opportunities.
She did not look impressed or embarrassed. She barely looked at me at all. Her attention had already moved to the gown.
“Step into it.”
I lifted one foot.
“No, hold the side seam. You’re going to stand on the lining.”
“I knew that.”
“OK, but let’s not step on the lining going forward.”
I took the fabric from her and stepped carefully into the opening. Leah crouched, gathered the skirt and fed it up over my legs in sections, stopping every few inches to straighten something I could not see.
“Don’t pull.”
“I’m not pulling.”
“You’re pulling.”
“I’m assisting.”
“You are stretching the bias.”
“I don’t know what that means.”
“I’m sorry, I know, just let me do the pulling.”
The dress reached my hips and stopped.
Leah put both hands against the fabric and worked it upward with short, firm movements.
“Tight fit,” she said. “Breathe out.”
“I am breathing out.”
“No, you’re breathing very shallowly”
“I know how to breathe”
She put a hand on my stomach, “take a deep breath, and hold it”
I did, not sure what the point of this was.
She pushed slightly, “And now push all that air out”
I exhaled hard.
The dress slid over my hips, then tightened around my waist.
Oh, that was smart thinking
Leah moved behind me, pulled the bodice into place and started fastening something along my spine.
Her fingers were quick and impersonal. That should have made it less strange.
It did not.
I watched her in the mirror instead of looking at myself. She was close enough that I caught that same clean, woody scent from Saturday, with something faintly like tea underneath. Her breath warmed my shoulder while her expression stayed fixed on the construction of the dress. Hooks. Zip. Seams. Whatever other witchcraft was holding the thing together.
“Arms down,” she said.
I lowered them.
“Shoulders back.”
I moved them back.
“Not like you’re being arrested.”
“I have never been arrested.”
She put her hands on my shoulders and adjusted them to a position where it did not look like I was being arrested, and then adjusted the neckline, pressed the fabric flat against my ribs, then stepped away.
The dress was red, fitted and much too serious for the person inside it.
For a second, neither of us said anything.
Leah tilted her head.
“No.”
I looked at my reflection again.
“What do you mean, no?”
“The waist is good. The neckline closes you off.”
“Closes me off?”
“You have a nice collarbone and shoulders. This hides both.”
She reached for the zip.
“Take it off.”
I smiled while removing it.
The second dress was worse.
It had sleeves that made me look like I had wandered out of a very expensive funeral, and the fabric clung everywhere except the places it was supposed to.
Leah stood behind me, studying the reflection.
“No.”
“You said that about the last one.”
“The last one hid your shoulders. This one makes your whole upper body look heavy.”
I looked at myself again.
“Heavy?”
“The sleeves pull everything downward. You need cleaner lines.”
She unzipped me before I could defend myself.
By the third dress, I had stopped pretending I understood any part of the process. I stood naked except for my panties while Leah sorted through the remaining gowns.
Then she pulled out a deep red one and paused.
“Oh,” she said.
I looked at it.
The neckline dropped low enough that I could already see future problems, and one side of the skirt had been cut open nearly to the hip.
“That looks broken.”
“It isn’t.”
“There’s half a dress missing.”
“It knows what to show.”
Leah held it against me, eyes moving from the color to my hair, then down the line of my body.
“I have high hopes for this one.”
“Your hopes appear to involve public indecency.”
She gave me a grin, “Oh, you know me too well”
This one was easier to understand, mostly because Leah did everything. She gathered the skirt, guided my legs through, then worked the fitted fabric over my hips and waist. The bodice settled around me more cleanly than the others had. Low, structured, off the shoulders. The satin caught the fitting-room light every time I moved.
Leah fastened the back, adjusted the neckline, then stepped away.
I looked at myself.
Standing still, it almost looked elegant.
Then I shifted my weight and the slit opened along my thigh.
“Jesus.”
Leah smiled slightly.
“Yes.”
She moved closer and examined the side of the dress.
“Take off your panties.”
I looked at her in the mirror.
“What?”
“I want to check something.”
“What are you checking that requires my underwear to leave?”
“The line. Take them off.”
She said it like she had asked me to remove a price tag.
I hooked my thumbs into the waistband and pushed them down, stepping out of them while trying not to think about how many mirrors were involved.
Leah crouched beside me and lifted the edge of the slit slightly where it crossed my hip.
Not far. Just enough to see how the fabric moved without anything underneath it.
“Hm.”
That was not a reassuring sound.
She let the fabric fall back into place.
“You have underwear?”
“Of course I have underwear.”
Leah nodded, still watching the slit.
“Good. This one will need it. Otherwise you’ll most likely be flashing people when you walk around.”
I looked down at the opening.
“You picked it.”
“Yes.”
“You picked a dress that requires emergency underwear.”
“It’s only an emergency if we don’t have underwear, so I picked a dress that requires underwear. I thought you were against public indecency?”
She stood and smoothed the satin over my hip.
“This is the one.”
I looked at myself again.
Then I found the price tag.
“Leah, no.”
Leah was still adjusting the fabric at my waist. “No what?”
“No to all of this.” I held the tag toward her. “I cannot afford this.”
She glanced at the number.
“I know.”
“You know?”
“Yes.”
“Then why am I wearing it?”
“Because it suits you.”
“That does not make money appear in my bank account.”
“I’m paying for it.”
I stared at her.
“You’re doing what?”
“My parents asked me to attend. They gave me money for a new dress.”
“And you’re spending it on me?”
“I already have something.”
She smoothed the satin over my hip, checking the line again.
“Something I’ve been working on. I think I’ll use the event to show it off.”
“You made your dress?”
“Yes.”
“Like, from fabric?”
Leah looked at me in the mirror.
“That is generally what dresses are made from.”
I looked down at the red gown, then back at her.
“So your parents gave you dress money, you made your own, and now you’re using the rest to turn me into your expensive accessory.”
“Exactly.”
She said it without a trace of shame.
I should have objected.
Instead, I looked at myself again.
The dress was still impossibly red. Still cut low enough to require confidence I did not own and high enough at the hip to require underwear selected by committee.
But it fit.
Not in the way my clothes usually fit, meaning they covered the necessary parts and did not fall off. It made my waist look smaller, my legs longer, my tits looked amazing.
“You’re sure?”
“I wouldn’t pay for it if I weren’t.”
I should not have liked hearing that as much as I did.
When we came out of the fitting room, Leah handed the dress back to the woman in black with some instructions I did not catch.
Leah turned back to me and looked down at my shoes.
“Oh. How are you in heels? Proficient?”
“The shoes where you tiptoe, and if you walk wrong you twist your ankle?”
“Yes. Those..”
“I tried them once when I was eleven and decided to opt out for life.”
Leah nodded like I had confirmed a medical condition.
“Okay. Let’s get you some heels with training wheels.”
“I’m not wearing children’s shoes.”
“They’re platform heels with ankle support.”
“You called them training wheels.”
“Because unlike chopsticks, heels do require practice. We don’t have time for that now unfortunately. So we will cheat, until I can teach you.”
She started toward the shoe department.
I followed, because apparently she owned me until the gala was over.
The shoes took less time than the dress.
Leah found a pair of red platform heels with thick ankle straps.
“These.”
“They still look a lot like heels?”
“They match the dress.”
“I don’t think that makes them safer?”
“If I wanted safe, we would have gone with black. I wanted something dangerous, so we went with red.”
A saleswoman brought my size, and Leah sat me down while I fastened the straps. The shoes looked higher once they were on my feet. Much higher.
I stood carefully, waiting for my ankles to fold.
They did not.
I took one step.
Then another.
The platform under the front of the shoe meant I was not actually balanced on my toes the way I expected. The heel was thick enough that I did not feel like I was walking on two nails, and the straps held my ankles in place.
I made it halfway across the room without dying.
“Oh,” I said.
Leah looked up. “What?”
“This is easy.”
“It is easier Mia, don’t try to run in them.”
“No, I mean easy.”
“You’re walking in a straight line across carpet.”
“I was expecting immediate surgery.”
I turned and walked back, faster this time. My steps still felt deliberate, but not unstable. The shoes changed the way I moved without requiring me to know what I was doing.
Then I caught myself in the mirror.
My posture had shifted. My back was straighter, my shoulders pulled slightly behind me, and my hips sat differently. The shoes tilted everything just enough to make my legs look longer.
And my ass looked fantastic.
I turned slightly.
Still fantastic.
I turned the other way to verify the findings.
Leah appeared beside my reflection.
“You’re staring at your arse.”
“I’m checking the shoes.”
“The shoes are on your feet.”
“They affect the whole structure.”
Leah smiled.
“Look at you. Learning.”
I was still admiring the structural benefits when Leah checked something on her phone.
“Right. Next is a haircut.”
I turned away from the mirror.
“A haircut?”
“Not much. Shape, ends, soften the front.”
I touched my hair, “I think my hair is fine.”
“It is functional for day to day.”
“That sounds fine?”
“We are heading to a Gala, Mia, not a Macdonald’s.”
She started walking again.
I followed in the shoes, mostly because taking them off felt like surrender.
“Then after that,” Leah said, “do you shave or wax?”
“Shave or wax what?”
She looked at me.
I looked at her.
“Oh.”
“Yes. Oh.”
“This has become very invasive.”
“The dress clings through the hips.”
“So?”
“So body hair can show through fitted fabric, even with underwear.”
I stared at her.
“You’re telling me my bush has a silhouette?”
“I’m telling you satin is less forgiving than you are imagining.”
I folded my arms.
“And your underarms,” she added.
“My underarms are fine.”
“Do you shave them?”
“Sometimes.”
“How recently?”
“That feels like a level of friendship we haven’t unlocked yet.”
“So not recently?”
“It means mind your business.”
Leah nodded once, already typing something into her phone.
“Waxing, then.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
“I agreed to free food. This feels.. intrusive?”
“You agreed to be my plus-one. And it’s really not bad.”
“You are not really selling it.”
“A wax, or a sugaring I should say, is an experience in womanhood that you should not pass over when given the chance. You do like trying new things Mia, I recall you saying so. Also, you need to look intentional. We are building a full look.”
I do like new experiences… fuck.. She got me.
I stumbled a bit, but got out: “I look intentional now.”
She glanced down at my T-shirt, jeans and new heels.
“You look like three different people lost a bet.”
Then she turned and kept walking.
I followed, this food better be good.
We left the shoes with the same woman in black who had my dress. She promised they would be ready for collection on Friday.
I changed back into my shoes, and really wanted the heels back.
Leah checked her phone.
“Ok, we have Hair in 10 min, so lets hustle”
“Now?”
“Yes.”
“I thought we were shopping.”
“We are.”
“For hair?”
“For a version of you that knows what event she’s attending.”
We stepped back onto Fifth Avenue. Leah moved through the crowd without checking whether I was following. Apparently, I was now luggage with opinions.
“Where are we going?”
“Riccardo Maggiore.”
I waited.
She looked at me.
“Is that another department store?”
“No. This one is actually a person.”
“Good. I was worried all rich shops were named after dead European men.”
“He isn’t dead.”
“Feels temporary.”
The salon was only a few blocks away. Leah had already booked this, God knows when. This place sounded like a place you needed to book years in advance to get an appointment for.
Inside, everything was pale stone, mirrors and people whose hair looked expensive before anyone had touched it.
A receptionist greeted Leah by name from the booking.
“Leah Takahashi?”
“That’s me. This is Mia.”
The receptionist smiled at me.
“What are we doing today?”
I opened my mouth.
“Shape and movement,” Leah said. “Keep the length. Clean the ends, soften around the face, then a blowout.”
The receptionist nodded.
I looked at Leah.
“My hair has movement.”
“It falls downward. Gravity isn’t styling.”
A tall man appeared behind me and lightly lifted a section near my shoulder, studying it.
“When was your last cut?” he asked with enough theatrical patience that I suddenly wanted to tell the truth.
I tried to remember.
“Recently.”
Leah sat down in the waiting chair.
“Define recently.”
“There was no snow at the time?”
The stylist caught my eyes in the mirror.
“I’ll keep it conservative.”
“Thank you.”
Leah crossed one leg over the other.
“Not too conservative.”
I pointed at her reflection and looked at the tall man behind me.
“She is not in charge.”
The stylist looked at Leah and smiled.
Leah smiled back at him.
I don’t think either of them believed me.
The cut itself was disappointingly undramatic.
No huge piles of hair on the floor. No sudden fringe. No moment where everyone gasped and pretended I had become a different woman.
The stylist trimmed the ends, added shape around my face, then spent an unreasonable amount of time with a round brush and a dryer.
I watched the whole thing happen in the mirror and understood none of it.
Then he stepped back.
I looked at myself.
“Oh.”
Leah glanced up from her phone.
“What?”
My hair was still my hair. Same color. Nearly the same length.
But it sat differently.
The front framed my face instead of hanging beside it. My neck looked longer. Slimmer, somehow. My cheekbones were more obvious. Even my eyes looked sharper, like someone had adjusted the focus.
I turned my head slightly.
The shape followed instead of collapsing.
“This made my face better.”
The stylist smiled.
Leah stood and came closer, looking at me in the mirror.
“It showed your face properly.”
“My face was already there.”
“Yeah, I could see it, but hair was getting in the way.”
I lifted one side and let it fall back into place.
It did the thing again.
I looked more awake. More deliberate. Like I had meant to look like this instead of accidentally arriving inside my own head.
“This is bullshit,” I said.
Leah raised an eyebrow.
“How?”
“Hair should not be allowed to change this much.”
“It changes how people read everything around it.”
I looked at my reflection again.
The shoes had fixed my posture.
The haircut had apparently fixed my entire skull.
I was starting to understand why rich women were so dangerous.
Outside the salon, Leah checked the time.
“Waxing next.”
“Sugaring,” I said.
She looked at me.
“You said sugaring earlier, not wax.”
“I’m impressed Mia, you were listening.”
We started toward Third Avenue.
“It’s been three weeks since my last appointment,” she said, “so I may as well do mine too.”
I glanced at her.
“We’re doing this together?”
“A duo appointment. Efficient.”
“Misery does love company.”
“It helps.”
Leah kept walking.
“We both need to be clean for Friday.”
“I was under the impression I was already clean.”
“Smooth, Mia.”
“Then say smooth.”
“I just did.”
I shoved my hands into my pockets and followed her.
Three weeks, apparently, was enough for Leah to consider herself overdue.
I was beginning to suspect she maintained herself on a schedule.
The room looked like a doctor’s office designed by someone who wanted to pretend doctors were relaxing.
White walls. Soft lighting. A narrow padded table covered in paper.
The technician closed the door behind us and smiled.
“You can undress from the waist down. Everything, including underwear. Then lie back on the table. There are wipes there if you’d like to freshen up.”
“Freshen up.”
“Yes.”
“Because you’re about to inspect the area.”
Her smile did not move.
“I’ll give you a few minutes.”
Then she left.
I stood alone in the room, staring at the table.
A Brazilian, I had learned from the form, meant all of it. Front, underneath, back. Apparently civilization had spent thousands of years developing language only to arrive at front, underneath, back.
I took off my shoes and jeans.
Then I stood there in my panties, reconsidering every decision that had led me to this room.
Free drinks, I reminded myself.
There would need to be a lot of them.
I pushed my underwear down and used one of the wipes with the solemn concentration of someone cleaning evidence from a crime scene. Then I climbed onto the table and pulled the small towel over myself.
It covered almost nothing.
Excellent. A modesty napkin.
The technician knocked before returning.
“Ready?”
“No, but I understand that isn’t really relevant.”
She washed her hands, put on gloves and rolled a small cart closer.
“First Brazilian?”
“Yes.”
“Have you had a sugaring before?”
“No.”
“Only shaved?”
“Yes.”
“When was the last time?”
I stared at the ceiling.
“A while.”
“How long is a while?”
“I didn’t know there would be a quiz.”
She lifted the towel, looked down and nodded.
“That length should be fine.”
Wonderful.
My pubic hair had passed inspection.
She explained the process while warming the paste between her gloved fingers. Something about sections, pressure and pulling in the direction of growth.
I did not grasp it well.
She folded the towel back.
“All right. Bring the soles of your feet together and let your knees fall outward.”
I looked at her.
“Like a butterfly.”
“I know what the position is. I’m just mentally not there yet.”
She waited.
I put my feet together and opened my knees.
There was naked, and then there was lying under bright lights while a stranger assessed your pubic geometry. I had done plenty of things that should have made this easy. I had let Dan see me from every possible angle. Lin had put her face in places that would have made this woman’s clipboard burst into flames.
That was sex.
Sex had a purpose. Sex lets you pretend exposure was confidence.
This was maintenance.
The technician pressed the warm paste against my skin.
It was not unpleasant.
Then she pulled.
“FUUUCK!”
My whole body jerked.
She immediately pressed a hand against the spot.
“Try not to tense.”
“You tore out part of me.”
“Just the hair.”
“It felt load-bearing.”
She moved to the next section.
I gripped the sides of the table.
The second pull was not better. Knowing it was coming only gave my fear time to organize.
By the fourth, I had developed a system. Inhale while she applied it. Exhale when she pulled. Swear quietly enough to preserve the illusion that I had been raised indoors.
“Doing well,” she said.
“Compared to what?”
“Some people kick.”
“I was not aware that was an option?”
She smiled and kept working.
The front was humiliating but manageable. Then she asked me to hold one leg toward my chest.
I stared at her.
“This is safe?”
“Yes.”
“And people choose it?”
“Yes.”
“Every day?”
“Yes.”
I lifted my leg. “ok, let’s do this”
There were angles of my body I had previously believed required emotional intimacy or at least dinner. This woman approached them with the concentration of someone removing lint from a coat.
Every few minutes she asked me to shift, lift or hold something. I followed instructions because refusing halfway through would leave me with a designer landing strip nobody had requested.
When she finished underneath, she lowered my leg.
“Now turn onto your side and bring your top knee toward your chest.”
I stopped moving.
“No?”
She paused.
“No?”
“I need you to tell me what happens next without using professional euphemisms.”
“I’ll remove the hair from between the buttocks.”
There it was.
Plain English. Terrible English, but plain.
I rolled onto my side.
At least I could no longer see her.
The first touch made every muscle in my body clench.
“Relax.”
“There is a stranger applying dessert to my asshole.”
“It helps if you breathe.”
“I am using all available oxygen.”
The pull came.
I made a noise I had never heard before.
Then it was over.
“That’s it?” I asked.
“That side, yes.”
“There are sides?”
“A little more.”
Of course there were sides.
By the time she told me to roll back over, dignity had become an abstract historical concept.
She inspected her work, removed a few stubborn hairs with tweezers and applied something cool that made me nearly forgive her.
Nearly.
“Brazilian is finished.”
I exhaled.
“Underarms next.”
I had forgotten about the underarms.
Compared to everything else, they felt almost insulting in their simplicity. I lifted one arm, then the other. Two quick bursts of pain, neither remotely impressive after what my lower half had survived.
When she finally stepped back, she handed me a small mirror.
“You can check everything.”
I looked at the mirror.
Then at her.
“I trust you.”
“First-time clients usually prefer to check.”
I accepted it with the reluctance of someone being handed forensic photographs.
The result was startling.
Smooth. Completely, unnaturally smooth. No shadow, no roughness, none of the angry little bumps shaving sometimes left behind.
I touched the skin near my hip.
“Oh.”
“Everything look all right?”
“My friend said ‘clean’ when she talked about this. I think I understand that now.
She smiled.
“You may have some redness for a few hours. Avoid hot baths, heavy exercise, friction and sexual activity until tomorrow.”
That final instruction arrived with far too much confidence about my schedule.
“Sure.”
She left me to dress.
Pulling my panties back on felt strange. Every movement was suddenly noticeable, fabric sliding over skin that had never been this smooth before.
I put my jeans on carefully and studied myself in the mirror.
Same shirt. Same face. Better hair.
Secretly bald from the waist down.
Rich women were fucking weird.
We found a café a few blocks away that looked expensive enough for Leah and normal enough that I could identify most of the food.
Once we had ordered, she put her phone on the table and opened her calendar. It was set to a week view, and her calendar was packed. Every hour was color-coded. Even lunch appeared scheduled. It was upside down, and on a phone, but I knew a packed schedule when I saw it.
“All right. Friday.”
She zoomed into Friday only while I took a drink.
“You say that like I have an exam.”
“You do, socially.”
“Excellent.”
She ignored that.
“The gala starts at seven. We should leave your apartment around six-thirty.”
I saw the Gala Event already in place, marked in Red.
“Fine.”
“I’ll come over at four-thirty.”
I looked up.
“Why?”
She filed in a two and a half hour timeslot marked ‘Dress@Mia’ and marked it as Yellow with Red Streaks.
“To get ready.”
“It takes you two hours to put on a dress?”
“No. It takes me two hours to get both of us ready without rushing.”
“I already have the dress.”
“You have purchased the dress. That is not the same thing.”
She started counting on her fingers.
“I need to refresh your hair, do your makeup, check the dress after alterations, make sure the shoes still fit properly, and fix anything you’ve managed to do to yourself between now and then.”
“That last one feels personal.”
“Am I incorrect?”
I grunted.
Our food arrived. Leah waited until the plates were down before continuing.
“Shower Friday morning. Wash your hair.”
“I know how showers work.”
“Do you?”
I suddenly felt unsure if I had been showering wrong my entire life, “Yes?”
“No conditioner near the roots. Don’t put oil or styling products in afterward. Let it dry completely before I arrive.”
“Why?”
“Because if it’s damp, I’ll have to dry it before I can reshape it, and then we lose time.”
“I thought the haircut was finished.”
“The cut is finished. Hair does not remain professionally styled forever.”
“That seems like a design flaw.”
“We call that maintenance in the business.”
I took a bite and pointed my fork at her.
“This is the kind of information women are supposedly born knowing, isn’t it?”
“No. Some get it from their mother, some research it on their own, some get a friend who can teach them.”
I chewed harder than necessary.
With food in my mouth I said “What about makeup?”
Leah ignored my rudeness and said, “Don’t wear any.”
“I usually don’t.”
“I know.”
“That makes it sound like you are keeping a close eye on me?”
She gave me a look, “Mia, you are interesting to me. I pay attention to you and your behavior.”
Leah looked away and took a sip of water.
Interesting to me.
My stomach flipped.
I felt sixteen again, trying to work out whether I had just been flirted with or had misunderstood a perfectly normal sentence.
Leah continued, as if nothing weird had been said, “I’ll do yours first, then mine. Your skin should be clean and moisturised, but nothing heavy. No exfoliating Friday morning, no new products, and don’t pick at anything.”
“Clean, put on cream, no picking my face before you arrive. I got it.”
“I’ll hold you to that”
She scrolled down her list.
“I’ll bring everything else. Foundation, eye makeup, lashes if you tolerate them, setting spray, pins, emergency sewing kit.”
“You carry an emergency sewing kit?”
“To formal events, yes.”
“Why?”
“Because straps break, hems come loose, hooks fail, people step on trains.”
I thought of the slit in my dress.
“Does mine have a train?”
“No. You would kill someone.”
Fair.
“And food?” I asked. “You promised food.”
“There will be food.”
“Real food?”
“Passed canapés, small plates, dessert stations. It depends on the caterer.”
“So finger food.”
“Mostly.”
“How much finger food?”
Leah considered that.
“Eat a late lunch.”
“That is not encouraging.”
“It might be excellent. It might also be three miniature things on slate followed by an hour of speeches.”
“And the free drinks?”
“Real. Champagne when we arrive, wine with dinner if there is a seated portion, cocktails at the bars.”
“That sounds better.”
“Do not drink quickly because you’re nervous.”
“I’m a very fun drunk.”
“I know. I’d prefer to still have that fun drunk with me after the first hour.”
“Fine. Responsible pacing.”
“Thank you.”
I sat back.
“So, late lunch. Shower in the morning. Wash hair. No conditioner in the wrong geographic region. Let it dry. Don’t touch my face. Wait for you to arrive with a traveling cosmetics laboratory.”
“Yes.”
“You do your own makeup at mine?”
“Yes.”
“And then we Uber there?”
“Yes.”
“Why from my place?”
“Because I’m dressing you.”
“You keep finding new ways to say that.”
Leah smiled.
“This event is important for me Mia, I want it to go off without a hitch. I want you there because you are more interesting than Lillian, and bringing Dan would.. Not work. Please just let me help you through Friday, and I will be forever grateful.”
I looked at Leah and smiled, “I’ll… Try to be better”
Dress. Shoes. Hair. Skin. Makeup. Timing. Food strategy. Emergency thread.
There was apparently an entire hidden operating system behind looking effortless.
I had spent most of my adult life assuming women like Leah simply woke up expensive.