Chicks in Chainmail (44 page)

I showed her what I had in my room and. in the bathroom, and I told her she could borrow whatever she wanted. "Just don't touch my mother's things."

"
For sure. They're probably not my style anyway. Let's just see what
you've
got." From long experience I knew that absolutely
nothing
would be good enough for Maureen, even if I had brought Max Factor and Coco Chanel back from the dead to give her a hand. She rummaged around in several shoe boxes filled with my basic makeup arsenal, making these little disparaging non-word sounds
.

She looked at a plastic bottle of invigorating spruce elemental essence for the bath. "Aromatherapy, Bitsy?
Like
duh."
That didn't stop her from dumping most of it into the tub as it was fitting
.

"I have a chamomile after-bath gel for improving the skin," I go. "I don't Know how well spruce and chamomile fragrances mix."

"Don't worry about it, Bits." She lowered herself slowly and carefully into the steamy hot water. "My skin's just fine, thank you very much."

"How I envy you," I go, in like my flattest voice.

"
Loofah," she goes. I handed her the loofah. "Pumice stone." I gave her the pumice stone. It was like being on the set of
General Hospital.

I'll skip the rest of the ritual, except to say that Muffy spent half an hour soaking in the tub, then another ten minutes washing her hair under the shower, and the better part of another hour doing a wax-on wax-off routine on every visible hair between her nostrils and the floor.

Then she started in on the actual paint job. She goes, "Bitsy, what
is
all this stuff? Don't you remember
anything
I taught you? Let me just say a few magic words: Givenchy, Lancôme, Princess Marcella Borghese. You've just
got
to stop buying your makeup from door-to-door ladies
."

I shut my eyes tighty-tight as I struggled to keep from ripping her lungs out. I even helped her do her nails. After all the coats of base, polish—Flame Scarlet, one of my own favorite shades
—
and clear varnish had dried, I slued a small gold-foil Olde English "M" on the nail of her left ring finger and a little rhinestone on the right ring finger. If you ask me, I thought that was just too much, but Muffy never asked my opinion and I didn't volunteer it
.

There was lots more, but the only real crisis came while she shuffled through my perfume collection. She picked up one bottle, sniffed it, and grimaced. "This is just so
drugstore,"
she goes. "Who in their right mind would
—"
She stopped abruptly, and her expression-changed. "It's just that no matter how long you
hang on to this cute novelty bottle, sweetie, it's
never
going to be a collectible." She settled for Paloma Picasso's Satin de Parfum. Mums had given it to me and I'd forgotten I even had it
.

By the time she was dressed and ready to rush into Prince Van's brawny yet tender embrace, she'd spent more than three hours getting made up. To tea the truth, though, she did look almost spectacular. "In a hurry," she goes. "Gotta run. Say hi to your mother for me. Thanks for
everything,
Bitsy. This may be the last time we ever see each other, but please don't grieve. Be happy for me instead, okay? I'll leave the shopping bags of gold and jewels with you
—
I can always come back from Mars if I need them. In the meantime, they're yours. Kiss kiss
!"

I opened the front door for her. I heard birds singing, and the breeze smelled of freshly-cut grass. Three neighborhood boys were playing Pickle-In-The-Middle on the sidewalk. It was a gorgeous day, except that the cab was gone. Maureen just stared at the empty driveway for a long time.

"The driver said he'd take you anywhere you wanted," I go. "You should've gone straight to Mars and not stopped here. That used up your one magic-taxi wish."

"
Oh hell." If I didn't know her so well, I could've
sworn
she was on the verge of tears. She let out a deep breath, shrugged, and turned to me. "Know any good restaurants that accept rubies?" she goes
.

Grace under pressure. That's my pal, Muffy.