Masquerade

Chapter 4

“All right then!” Patricia said turning away from the door and back to me.

“All right.” I sighed.

“Well first things first. I need to let you know that next week on Thursday, so that’s six days from now, you will be attending your very first party with us. Okay?”

“And?”

“Don’t make any plans, okay? It’s important.”

“Oh right. Sure.”

“Oh good. Well now that I know you don’t have any plans, we’re going to go shopping and buy you an outfit for the occasion!” Then she did this weird clappy thing and motioned me to the door.

I stepped outside, where a ridiculously attired man handed the keys to evil Aunt Pat. I looked at him with a look of utter pity. He looked like one of those monkeys that busked on the streets in those old cartoons. The ones with the vests, the funny little hat and the tin can for tips.

My eyes drifted to the car before us. A typical spoilt rich bitch car. Shiny, sleek, new and black. No scratches. Beige leather seats. Convertible. If this doesn’t scream “I have lots of money to burn” I don’t know what does. Then, of course, Pattycake said to me, “All right sweetheart. This is a Mercedes. Say it?” She’s still treating me like a child. I’m not a child. Furthermore, I’m not an idiot. Everyone knows what a Mercedes is.

“Car,” I responded, rather defiantly. I know, I know. Real mature right?

“No. Lacey, it’s a Mercedes,” she crosses her arms.

“Nope. It’s a car. Gosh, I thought you would have known that. You know, with your superior ‘everything’ to me,” I paused briefly. I hadn’t intended to say, “Okay, Patty, does it have four wheels?” but I did.

“Yes.”

“Excellent. The thing counts. Right, well, does it have an engine?”

“Yes.”

“Does it look like a car? You know, with doors, and a roof, and a windscreen?”

“Yes,” she trailed off.

“Excellent. So it’s a car. Except this one cost you a little more, depreciates in value a lot faster, costs you more in fuel, and if you’re really wanting to get into details, costs you more in servicing. In simpler terms, it’s one big, fat, waste of money. Even if you do claim to have money to burn, the reality is, it’s just one really really terrible investment in something you will have for maybe three years (and that’s stretching it). God forbid that you have a three year old car! The humanity! Seriously. Think about it. It’s just another type of shitty car.”

I open the door and slide into the passenger seat. Even though I just blew up in Patricia’s face over this car being a waste of money, the seats were just beautiful. They were definitely amazing.

I watched Patricia skulk to the driver’s seat. To be honest, I was surprised to see that she didn’t have the man dressed as a monkey drive us wherever we were going.

“So, darling, we’re going to Rodeo Drive to find you something suitable to wear to the party at the Chaseling’s for Thursday. Now what’s the significance of the event?” she asked me in expectation.

Shit. I thought to myself. I did recall very vaguely, something about this party, but when Patricia was talking about it I had been imagining stabbing her with her own nail file. “Uh… It’s their… son’s… engagement?” I asked hopefully. Long shot, but better than total silence.

“Yes!” she shrieked. “Their oldest son’s engagement to his college sweetheart! Isn’t that just the most romantic thing? That could be you in a few years time! Just think, married to some rich and successful lawyer or doctor… Wouldn’t that just be absolutely divine?”

“Yea… or, you know, I marry for this wonderful new thing called love. I hear that it trumps all difficulties like being a person of middle income. Of all terrible things,” I replied sarcastically. If I was to spend the rest of the summer break with her I was going to become quite fluent in this vicious form of humour.

We literally tried every dress store on the strip before she found something that she deemed appropriate for such a remarkable event, with shoes and accessories to match. She insisted that I wear a red dress because it was ‘my colour,’ whatever that means. The dress literally had ruffles everywhere, and I found it difficult, in some areas, to determine where I began and the dress left off. To complement that monstrosity, I was loaned a diamond bracelet, a rather chunky diamond necklace, and incredibly heavy diamond teardrop earrings. The earrings were actually really beautiful, I couldn’t find any fault with them. The shoes were just a simple and plain black pump, at my personal pleading. Patricia wanted to go with some stripper looking shoe. I refused, and then the shop assistant said they didn’t even have my size. I guess it helped that my pumps were more expensive anyway.

If I thought that the shopping was terrible, I really had not considered that after the shopping would come preparation for tonight. Patricia seated me down in a chair in front of the mirror. She looked intensely at me, and then over at the dress, and then back at me. She was thinking of a style of makeup for me. I just had to hope that it would be anything but pure black on the eyelid to accentuate the ‘lovely’ brown eyes I had hidden beneath my bare eyelids most of the time.

She picked up her foundation brush. This was it. Bye bye normal face. Hello, Drag Queen Lacey.