“Wait,” Peter says, looking at me. “I can’t believe my ears. I was making the absolute opposite point.”
“Which was then reinterpreted by an artist,” Georgia says.
“Before, I wasn’t focusing on the right things,” Lily says. “But as soon as I tried Peter’s idea of looking at myself as an object, bam! I gained a sense of distance from myself, which freed my mind to come up with this new solution: depth. So that’s what I went for. The music enables you to see past my unfortunate physical appearance.”
“Past it? So what are we looking at?” Jack asks.
Lily doesn’t answer. Her silence is puzzling until I understand what she’s reluctant to state because of her modesty.
“Her soul,” I say.
“Her inner beauty,” Georgia adds.
Blushing slightly, Lily says, “Yeah, it wasn’t shining through. Not even slightly. I don’t know why. My physical appearance is very opaque, in addition to being ugly — an unfortunate combination.”
“So you performed… a kind of… musical peel?” Penelope asks.
“Yes, exactly.”
“What now? Do you have a plan?” Georgia asks.
“I have a fantasy. One of you will call Strad and offer to set him up on a blind date. He will agree. He and I will have our date at the Barnes & Noble in Union Square, in the coffee shop on the third floor. I will ask the store to play my beauty music on that day, instead of my book music, which they usually play. That’s how the whole thing would begin.”
“The whole thing? So you’re thinking there will be a ‘whole thing’?” Penelope asks.
“Well, that was the point, wasn’t it?” Lily says.
“How can you have a relationship with someone if the music always has to be on?” Peter asks. “What if he wants to take you out where no music is playing? Is this stuff covered in your fantasy?”
“Yes. I’d wear a mask.”
“A mask?”
“Yes. Or just avoid going out. But if I can’t avoid it, I’d wear a mask.”
“Won’t he find that strange?” Peter asks.
“Perhaps. But in my fantasy, he accepts it. And plus, people are often strange.”
“And you wouldn’t mind living your whole life this way?” I ask.
“Maybe not. And that’s an interesting question coming from you, Barb.”
“What if he finds out the truth?” Peter says. “What if you’re at home with him one day and for some reason the music stops and he sees you’re Lily?”
“Maybe his love could survive the truth.”
“What if it couldn’t?” Penelope asks.
“Maybe it won’t be the truth anymore.”
“What do you mean?” Jack asks.
“Maybe by then I will have improved the music to make its effect permanent. Even through silence.”
Georgia claps her hands once. “Okay, who’s going to make the call? I hope it’s not me because the thought of setting you up with that creep is hard to bear.”
“I’m not quite ready yet,” Lily says. “There are two things I have to take care of first.”
AN HOUR AFTER my friends leave, I’m surprised that Lily comes back to my place to speak to me one on one.
She asks me if I could make a mask for her to wear sometimes, if she’s ever out with Strad. She says she wasn’t able to find a nice one that fits her because her eyes are too close together for any normal mask. She says there’s only one she found that fits her, and she pulls it out of her bag. To my horror, it’s a mask of the Wicked Witch of the West, from The Wizard of Oz. The face is hideous green rubber with a hook nose topped by a big mole. The witch is wearing sunglasses — cheap sunglasses attached to the mask. I turn the mask over and see that each eyehole is huge, the size of the entire lens of the sunglasses, which explains why she bought it. Big eyeholes can accommodate a greater variety of distances between people’s eyes.
“You’re right, this is not exactly the kind of mask you want to be wearing when you’re hanging out with Strad,” I say.
“I’m going to wear it at the start of my first date with him.”
“Why?” I ask, stupefied.
“I want to experience what you experience when you take off your disguise at bars.”
I PUT EVERY other project on hold to make the mask. I shouldn’t, but I can’t help it. I’m so excited by what has happened. And it’s all thanks to Peter. Lily will have a chance to taste one of life’s greatest joys: romantic love; unrequited love suddenly requited — something she might never have been able to experience if it hadn’t been for Peter helping her access her greatest powers. He was her source of inspiration. And he wasn’t even trying. He was trying to do the exact opposite — convince her to give up her insane project and unhealthy obsession with Strad. If he’d succeeded at that, it would have been good. But this new outcome is even better. It may not be as healthy, but it’s much more delicious.
I could make a perfectly decent mask in an hour, but I want this mask to be inspired. I want it to be jaw-droppingly beautiful, ethereal, majestic. And most of all, I want it to be white. I have a vision of Lily in a white mask, which doesn’t make it easy for me because white is my weakest color. White masks always come out bland at my hands. Especially the feather ones, which is the kind I want Lily’s to be. I try to talk myself out of that color, but fail.
I work on it all night. Can’t stop. It always makes me feel good to do things for Lily, and she never asks for anything, so the opportunities are rare.
In the morning, I sleep for a few hours and then get back to work on the mask. One reason it’s taking so long is that I keep pausing to daydream about Lily wearing it and taking it off for Strad while the music is playing.
I continue working all day, and by the evening, I’m practically done. This white mask rivals — possibly even surpasses — my most beautiful colored masks. I had to make the eyeholes close to each other, though doing so would reveal Lily’s biggest facial defect. So I made the eyeholes huge, touching in the middle and extending far to the sides, in a sort of infinity symbol, which turns out to be the mask’s most stunning feature. I covered the eyeholes with a mirrored surface (the type of glass used for mirrored sunglasses). It’s essentially the same concept as the mask she already has — but attractive. Lily will be able to look out, but anyone trying to look in will only see themselves.
THE SECOND THING Lily takes care of is asking Barnes & Noble for the special favor she is hoping they’ll do for her. They refuse, claiming a whole day is too long to play her mysterious “other” music instead of her brilliant book music, and that their sales would suffer excessively. But then Marcy Singer, a very kind store manager, succeeds in getting permission to play that “other” music, as a “very special favor,” from two to three o’clock, on any afternoon of Lily’s choice — but only one single afternoon.
Lily is pleased. One hour seems more than adequate to get her fantasy started.
THE TIME HAS come to make the phone call. No one wants to be the one to make it, though everyone wants to listen, including Peter, so we gather at my place to decide who will do it.
But first, I can’t resist showing Lily and the others the white mask I’ve almost completed. When they see it, they gasp.
To my great pleasure, Lily says, “I never expected you to make something this amazing!” She touches it lightly with her fingertips.
They all stand there admiring my mask, which cannot go on long enough for my taste.
“It’s reminiscent of a mask one might find in Venice, only more unusual,” Penelope says.