Pushing Perfect. Michelle Falkoff

the dress showed just enough cleavage and created the illusion of hips, which she didn’t really have.

      She slipped on a pair of shockingly high-heeled black shoes with bright red soles—I had no idea how she could walk in them—and twirled around. The skirt flared a bit, but not too much. “Yes?” she asked.

      “Hell yes,” I said.

      “Now you.” She kicked off the shoes and started going through the dresses again. “The height thing is going to be a problem. We might be better off with a skirt-shirt combo here—I’ve got some stretchy skirts that might do it.”

      “I’m putting myself in your hands,” I said.

      “I know! Isn’t it exciting?” She grabbed a black pencil skirt with a slit in the back and threw it at me. “Try this. It’s knee-length on me so it will be totally hot on you.”

      I didn’t really want Alex seeing my old underwear, but she was so busy digging through the clothes for a top that I figured she probably wouldn’t notice. I pulled off my jeans as fast as I could and put on the skirt. It was tight, but the material had some stretch so it fit okay, and she was right about the length—it hit me just below midthigh.

      Before I could even look in the mirror she’d tossed me a black camisole and a sheer silvery sweater. The camisole was Lycra, skintight and low-cut, and made it look like I actually had boobs, which was inaccurate, and the sweater was lightweight and kind of slinky and amazing.

      Alex looked me up and down. It reminded me of Isabel, but without the judgment. “Yup. Go look.”

      There was a full-length mirror hanging on the bathroom door. Alex had a good eye—the silver of the sweater made my gray eyes look almost silver too, an effect I could emphasize with good shadow, and the skirt made my legs seem super long. Except I was barefoot. “I didn’t bring the right shoes,” I said.

      “Not a problem. Go in the closet and pick something. We’re about the same size, aren’t we?”

      I wouldn’t have thought so, given the height difference, but she was right—if anything, her feet were a little bigger, so I rolled up some Kleenex in the toes of a pair of metallic platforms and practiced walking around. “You won’t let me fall over, right?”

      “I’ve got you,” she said. “Nothing to worry about. Your turn now—make me gorgeous.” She pointed to the train case.

      I’d never actually put makeup on another person before, but I figured it was just like putting it on myself, only mirrored. That turned out to be wrong—I knew how to keep my eyes still when putting on liner, for example, but with Alex I had to get more aggressive, using my thumb to hold her lid flat. I gave her a modified cat eye that emphasized the fabulous shape of her eyes. “Open,” I said, and checked my work, just like in calculus.

      Perfect.

      “Can I see?”

      “Not yet. Close again.”

      “You’re so bossy,” she said with admiration.

      White liner on the bottom to make her eyes pop, gold powder in the corners for emphasis, several layers of mascara for her almost-nonexistent lashes, and the finishing touch: red lip stain, covered with gloss.

      “All done?”

      “All done. Stand up.” I stepped back to look at the full picture.

      Nailed it. If I didn’t get into Harvard, maybe I could get a job at a MAC counter.

      “You’re smiling! Show me!”

      “Go look,” I said. “But in the full-length, with the shoes—it’s about the overall effect.”

      She put on her heels and tottered over to the mirror. For a second I thought she was going to be mad at me; she pursed her lips and turned her head from side to side, as if she wasn’t sure what to think. Then she twirled around again and held her hands out as her skirt flared. “Dude, you’re a genius.”

      “The Prospect will be powerless to resist you,” I said.

      “Eh, if not him then someone else.”

      I loved how casual she was about it—she was totally having fun. So different from the obsessive crushes Becca and I used to get, which, when I thought about it, weren’t really fun at all. “Let me do mine real quick.” I went back over to the train case, put on a whole lot more makeup than I usually did, and brushed out my hair.

      “You need to show off your face more,” Alex said. “Here, let me try something. Sit down.”

      I sat on the edge of the bed and she sat behind me, her hands moving through my hair and pulling at my scalp. I felt so exposed, my face open to the air; it reminded me of back when my hair was always in a ponytail or a bun, and I’d feel the breeze on my cheeks when I went outside. “Check it out,” she said.

      My turn to look. Alex gave me a hand mirror so I could see the back of my head in the full-length. She’d given me a fancy French braid, one that started on the right side of my head but then moved diagonally down my scalp until the tail of it sat on my left shoulder. It was loose and a little sexy and I loved it.

      But that meant we were both ready, which meant we would be leaving soon. My stomach churned, the headache started, and my pulse started to speed up. I’d been kidding myself that this would be okay. So many things could go wrong, things I couldn’t predict, things I couldn’t control.

      “What is it? You don’t like it?”

      “It’s great,” I said. “I just need to sit down for a minute.”

      “Oh, right,” she said. “It’s time.” She opened a drawer in her nightstand and pulled out a little baggie with a few mint-green pills in it. “Here’s the thing: it’s all going to be fine. I know you’re nervous, but think of it like a costume party. We’re just playing dress-up, and it’s all to help you with the test. It’s going to be okay.”

      “I guess,” I said, but my head was still hurting.

      “I promise,” she said, and handed me a pill. “You need water?”

      “No, I’m good.” Was I really going to do this? Had I thought about all the pros and cons, the things that could go wrong? Maybe I hadn’t covered all of them, but I’d thought about them a lot. I always did. And where had that gotten me?

      “Bottoms up,” she said, and swallowed hers.

      I had nothing to lose. Nothing I cared about, anyway. I put the pill in my mouth and swallowed mine too.

       8.

      The party was at the house of some guy whose dad was apparently employee number three at Twitter or something like that. Which meant they were loaded, even by Marbella standards. Usually when someone hit it that big, they moved to Atherton or Los Altos, but they’d decided to stay here, and had bought a bunch of land to build this ridiculous house, according to Alex. And “ridiculous” was definitely the right word. I’d never seen anything like it.

      I pulled my car into a circular brick-paved driveway that was already filling up. Lots of little red Priuses like mine, along with some BMWs and Audi convertibles. The driveway was big enough that at least twenty-five cars could fit in it. But it was dwarfed by the size of the house itself, which stretched around the driveway and beyond, almost like it was wrapping the brick circle in an embrace.