Joelen’s question, “I wonder what happened to that dress?,” brought Deirdre back to the present. Joelen raised her eyebrows at Deirdre. Ask, she mouthed.
But before Deirdre could form a question, Bunny swept her arms like a conductor silencing the instruments. “Magic,” she said, gazing out in front of her, eyes unfocused, as if watching the word hover before her. “It’s all about misdirection. Make the audience attend to what you want them to see. What will be compelling enough to divert their attention or, in our case, make them tune out—that is the trick.”
Delicately Bunny tapped her chin with long red fingernails and stared at Deirdre in the mirror. She opened one closet door, then another, and another, finally emerging with a half-dozen garments slung over her arm. None of them were cocktail dresses. “Stand up straight. And, please, would you take off that appalling top. It’s making my teeth itch.”
Obediently Deirdre pulled off Henry’s Harley T-shirt and stood there in her bra and drawstring pants.
“Hmmm.” Bunny held up what looked like a gray cotton mechanic’s jumpsuit and squinted. She pursed her lips in disapproval and dropped it on the floor. A pale purple sweatshirt minidress with a hood met the same fate. A black-and-gold floor-length African dashiki joined the pile. Next she held up what looked like a stewardess uniform—navy pencil skirt and tailored jacket. “Maybe,” she said, and set it aside.
Finally Bunny considered a simple shirtwaist dress, starched and pressed gray cotton with an A-line skirt, white snaps up the front, a white collar, and short white-cuffed sleeves. She held the dress under Deirdre’s chin, narrowing her eyes as she gazed into the mirror. Then she broke into a smile. “Perfect, don’t you think?” She didn’t wait for an answer.
Fifteen minutes later Deirdre was seated at the makeup table, wearing the dress with a pair of saggy white opaque tights and orthopedic nurse’s shoes. She’d stuffed the toe of one shoe with Kleenex to keep it from falling off her smaller foot. Bunny tucked Deirdre’s hair into a hairnet and secured it with a hairpin. She applied a foundation much darker than Deirdre’s natural skin tone and brushed powder over it, then created hollows beneath Deirdre’s eyes with dark eye shadow. Finally she gave Deirdre a pair of glasses with black plastic frames.
Deirdre put the glasses on. The lenses were clear.
“Up,” Bunny commanded.
Deirdre leaned on her crutch and rose to her feet.
“Stoop,” Bunny said.
Deirdre hunched over.
“Not that much. Just kind of roll your shoulders and stick your head out. Think turtle.”
Deirdre adjusted her stance. The mousy woman gazing back at her from the mirror looked like a Latina version of Ruth Buzzi’s bag lady from Laugh-In. She started to laugh. “This is ridiculous. It will never work.”
“Hey, what’s going on?” a man’s voice called from Bunny’s bedroom.
“You don’t think it’s going to work?” Bunny said to Deirdre. “Watch this.” She handed Deirdre her crutch and led her into the bedroom, then threw open the door to the hall. Out on the landing stood the young man Deirdre had seen earlier. He was barefoot and wearing jeans and a stretched-out black T-shirt.
“What’s up with you?” Joelen said.
“I . . . what? Why are you two looking at me like I did something?” he said.
“It’s not what you did. It’s what you’re not doing,” Joelen said, pushing past Deirdre.
“What are you talking about?” The man looked from Joelen to Bunny.
“See?” Bunny said, turning to Deirdre. “Not a single glance your way. It’s as if you’re wallpaper. I’d say the disguise is working.”
“Disguise?” the man said.
Joelen took the man’s hand. “Dear, meet Deirdre, my best friend all through high school. Deirdre, may I present Jackie Hutchinson. My baby”—her voice seemed to caress the word—“brother. Is he adorable or what?” Joelen gave him a loud wet kiss on the cheek.
“Would you cut that out?” Jackie pulled a face and made a show of wiping off the kiss. “I’m twenty-one, for God’s sake.”
“God help us. Just turned twenty-one,” Joelen said. She chucked him under the chin and he pushed her away.
Of course Deirdre could see the resemblance. Jackie and Joelen both had Bunny’s legendary electric blue eyes and heart-shaped face. But Jackie had dark curly hair, a dimpled chin, and beaky profile—not features he’d have inherited from Bunny or Bunny’s late husband, Derek Hutchinson. Hutch, as he was called in the fan magazines, had a longtime starring role in a hospital-based soap opera, but he’d been much more Dr. Kildare than Ben Casey.
Recovering himself, Jackie offered Deirdre his hand. “Pleased to meet you. I’m sorry. I thought you were . . .” His voice trailed off. He seemed painfully young and he made Deirdre feel painfully old.
“Go on,” Bunny said. “Say it. You thought Deirdre was the new maid.”
Jackie nodded sheepishly and Joelen said, “And the prize for best disguise goes to—”
“Sorry,” Jackie said.
“Don’t be,” Bunny said. “It’s very gratifying. That’s just the effect I was aiming for.”
Jackie smiled a perfect toothy smile. “So my sister was your best friend?”
“From sixth grade,” Deirdre said, “until . . .” Her voice trailed off.
Jackie narrowed his dark eyes at Deirdre. “Was she crazy then, too?”
“Crazy?” Joelen gave him a shove. “Look who’s talking.”
“Not exactly crazy,” Deirdre said. “I’d say fearless. She did some pretty wild things and I followed her. So I guess I was the crazy one.”
Joelen snorted a laugh. “Remember thumbing a ride home from the five-and-dime?”
“Miraculously without getting abducted.” Deirdre remembered the black Cadillac that had stopped. The man had leaned across the passenger seat and opened the door and they’d hopped in. Just like that. All the way to Deirdre’s house the driver lectured them about the dangers of getting into cars with strangers, explaining in graphic detail just how bad things could go. Deirdre had been relieved to get out of that car.
Joelen picked up the thread. “Hey, it was raining and we’d have been soaking wet by the time we got back. So we get a ride home and Pollyanna here insists on walking all the way back to the damned store in the downpour, so she can return the stupid lipstick she pilfered.”
“I stole it? Ha!”
“What ha? How did it end up in your pocket?” Joelen was all wide-eyed innocence.
Passionate Pink. The tube had felt as if it were burning a hole in her pocket—once she realized it was there. “I think you know the answer to that.”
“Me?” Joelen turned to Jackie. “So then she gets arrested trying to put it back!”
“I did not get arrested.” Deirdre felt a flush rising from her neck to her forehead. The dweeby J.J. Newberry security guard had squeezed her arm as he dragged her to the back of the store and propelled her up a smelly staircase to an office with windows that looked down over the store’s vast aisles. He’d sat her down and made her give him her name and phone number. Thankfully neither of her parents had been home to take his call. But before that asshole let Deirdre go, he made her sign a paper promising she’d never set foot in the store again. As if she would have. But the worst part was when he’d taken her picture and pinned her humiliated face to a bulletin board along with about a dozen other shoplifters.
“You must have been quite the pair,” Jackie said.
“The original odd couple,” Joelen said. “She was Miss Goody Two-Shoes.”