Page 83 of Double or Nothing
Despite it being Christmas Eve, Platinum is packed tonight.
“No moving,” she says, holding my chin firmly in place. “I will tell you when to view my masterpiece.” She carefully smooths the hair down on both sides with her hands and smiles at me. “Perfect! Now you can see,” she says, handing me a big mirror to check the back of the wig.
I draw in a surprised breath at my reflection, barely recognizing the girl gazing back.
Who knew a wig could make such a big difference? My long hair is now hidden underneath the red wig that barely brushes my shoulders.
Natasha had also insisted that I wear colored contact lenses instead of glasses to change my eye color to blue. They’re uncomfortable and scratchy. I blink rapidly, hoping to lubricate them, but it doesn’t help. The long, false eyelashes she applied aren’t making the situation any better.
“What do you think of your new style?” she inquires with an expectant smile.
I hate it.
Not that I’ll be rude and tell her. She’s worked hard to change my appearance. She spent over an hour artfully applying makeup to contour my cheekbones and slim my nose. Or I assume that’s what she’s trying to do.
Eva felt it was important to not only alter our hair and eye color, but also to change the shape of our faces. We know the casinos are using facial recognition software, and we need to trick the cameras into not recognizing us.
Luckily, Natasha knew a man who specializes in a scary technique called ‘instant plastic surgery’. The combination of words ‘instant’ and ‘surgery’ was enough of a warning to me.
She had called him up yesterday and told him it was an emergency. He’d hurried over with a black suitcase full of liquid injectables. As soon as he began pulling out syringes with sharp needles and placing them on Eva’s desk, I’d backed away fast.
“Don’t worry,” he said to me. “If you don’t like the effects of the injectables, I can put in a syringe of a solution to dissolve it later. It can be gone in twenty-four hours.”
“No way in hell,” I told him. “I’m not injecting a foreign substance into my face for any reason.”
Natasha knew me well enough not to argue. She willingly sat down in the chair before him. Without wincing once, she’d allowed him to inject the volume enhancing liquid into her lips and cheeks. Not enough to be noticeable, only enough to slightly alter the shape of her face. The solution had plumped up her lips and increased the definition of her cheeks.
As interesting as it might be to watch, the process gave me the creeps.
Now that it’s time to finally put our plan into place, I’m having second thoughts and wondering if my disguise is good enough. Maybe Ishould’vesucked it up and let the fake doctor plump up my face.
“You didn’t answer my question,” Natasha says to me again while I stare at my reflection. “Do you like it?” She smiles patiently at me, waiting for my approval of her makeover. When I don’t answer, she frowns at me. “You don’t. Remember, for tonight, you are someone different. Not Jade.”
“You’re right. If I must be someone new, then this is perfect.” I give her a grateful smile. “The hair style will grow on me. Where did you learn how to do makeup?”
“From some of the older girls at the orphanage where I grew up.” She lets out a humorless laugh. “Certainly not from my mother, since she dropped me off there when I was five. We were very poor. There was not enough money for two people to eat. When she left me, she said she would be back. I waited for many years until one day I realized she would never return for me.”
The hurt and pain are clear in her voice.
“She never came back for you? Did something happen to her?”
“I don’t know,” she admits. “I barely remember her, but I understand she didn’t have a choice. Times were tough, and a single woman could not raise a child on her own.”
“I’m sorry,” I say softly, reaching over to touch her arm.
“I survived,” she says with a shrug. “I learned to depend on myself for everything. To depend on someone else is to be weak. I watched and taught myself many skills; makeup, sewing, cooking. I begged people to teach me what they knew. The ladies at the orphanage told me I would have a better chance of being adopted by good parents if I learned a musical skill, too.”
“You can sing?”
“No, I play the cello. I practiced for hours every day when I was young, hoping to impress someone enough to take me home. Then one day the music stopped. The day Dimitri began to visit me. He taught me many new skills. Much more suited for survival than playing the cello.” She picks up a can of hairspray from the counter and shakes it furiously. “Enough talk about me. Don’t breathe,” she warns before coating my head with a cloud of toxic chemicals.
“Thanks for the warning,” I gasp, choking on the chemical smell when I accidentally breathe in the mist. “Hairspray is poisonous.”
“You are perfect,” she says, beaming at me. “Now for the dresses.”
She hands me a white, sleeveless bodycon dress to put on first. I make sure the male strippers have left the dressing room before slipping out of my jeans and sweatshirt. I slide the white dress over my head and stretch the clingy fabric down my body until it barely covers my ass.
“I can’t go out in public in this dress,” I say. “My boobs are falling out of the top and my ass is hanging out from the bottom.”
