He Strikes at the Hotel

Chapter Thirty One

Zachery and Pierre became quite the due during our morning get together. They were laughing and bantering along together as if they were long lost brothers. It was such a surprise to see Pierre in a different light to his usual quiet and reserved self, but to Nerissa it was just seeing the side of him that she already knew, and loved.

Zachery on the other hand, showed a side to himself that was new to all of us. He was jolly, cracking jokes one after another, talking with Pierre about everything that came up, and listened intently when Pierre was speaking, silently nodding along. He was a brilliant people person, but seemed to stay reserved a lot of the time, for whatever reason, I do not know. Maybe it was because of his standing in society, or maybe he just genuinely enjoyed observing people from afar.

Nerissa and I departed from the two men at lunch time so that we had adequate time to get ready ourselves without panicking over anything going wrong last minute. If anything dared to go wrong after all of Nerissa's careful planning over this, I would genuinely be fearful of her.

We went back to my room to get ready as that's where the gowns were, plus, my dressing table was pretty grand if I do say so myself, so we would both be able to sit alongside each other whilst sorting our make up out, giving each other compliments, with the odd sarcastic comment over the choices the other makes...

We first started with our hair, as we had both had it in curlers last night, so we put them back in to keep the long waves out of our face until we were finished with everything else we had to do. Once the curlers were in, we both sat down at my dressing table and opened up our make up bags to sprawl everything out in front of us in one big heap, it was a free for all now. The pile in front of us soon dispersed into a bigger mess than what it started as, we were picking through the products one by one, like picking out a needle in a haystack fit for the purpose we intended. Between the two of us, we had way more facial products than anticipated, making it more difficult for us to choose. At least if there wasn't much to choose from, we would have to deal with the cards we were dealt, and get on with it. But the sheer amount of beauty products in front of us was overwhelming, even for Nerissa, who was the one who always gave me a helping hand in making up my own mind. This was going to be tricky.

Once we both decided that it would be best to keep it simple, we had to commit to that decision, to save our time and our sanity. This was the first time I was grateful for Nerrisa's persistence that we needed this long to get prepared for the evening, because we must have spent an hour alone scavenging out the necessities on the dressing table, which now looked more like a bomb has hit it. We applied a light layer of make up to our faces, adding a bit of extra colour to our already black lined eyes, and delicately dabbing pale blush pink tones onto our fingers to smudge into our lips sparingly. It took a while, with a lot of ummm's and uhhhh's coming from both of us, staring into the mirror hoping that our reflections would reach out to us and shake some sense into us, telling us to snap out of the ridiculous uncertainty we had gotten ourselves into. This was so unlike us, it was a rarity for either of us to even put this amount of make up on, let alone worrying over we have applied the correct colours or amounts. We were not the stereotypical women who spend hours over our appearance each morning. Most mornings we both turned up to work with our hair still wet and day old mascara running down our face.

We took our hair out of the curlers and let the loose waves fall across us. Nerissa's dark locks looked radiant, looking glossy as ever as the light made it shine around each new wave. My hair was a dark blonde, so it never had the same kind of shine that Nerissa's did, but admittedly, it did still look nice, and it did have the sort of shine to it which made it look well cared for. I may do this more often...

Nerissa stood up and put her hands on my shoulders to keep me sat down in the chair.

"I'm keeping my hair like this - but for you - I want to give you a beautiful up-do to really let your features stand out. Trust me." Nerissa said, as she looked me in the eyes through the mirror's reflection. She gave me a coy smile as if she was planning something, which made me slightly nervous, but I couldn't help but love the fact she wanted to do this. I've never been very good at doing my hair myself. I either let it all loose, or tied it up in a bun. If I was feeling really adventurous, I may even put my hair in a plait, but even then it was extraordinarily messy, far from elegant.

Nerissa pulled her fingers through my hair to de-tangle any knots forming, tousling the ends with a fair degree of force, but she stopped this quickly once she saw me wincing with each time she lifted her hand back towards my head. She pulled out a few hair pins of her own before grabbing mine off of the corner of the dressing table that hadn't been rampaged.

"Now... Close your eyes until I tell you otherwise. This must be a surprise." Nerissa told me, giving me a supportive grin, before prodding my cheeks until I closed my eyes tight so she could begin her magic.