The Stand-In(26)

Dusk?

I fumble for my phone. It’s almost nine and Sam’s coming in thirty minutes for dinner.

“No. Damn, no.” Fully awake, I leap out of bed, get tangled in the bedsheets, and fall over in a cloudy white lump before I stumble to the bathroom, trailing the sheets behind me like the most inelegant of wedding dresses. It’s too late for the refreshing shower I had planned, so I splash water on my face and do my best to brush my hair and teeth at the same time. The face. I groan as I mentally review the multistep Fangli Face process. I screw up the eyeliner twice and then poke myself in the eye with the mascara wand. This is not a good start.

At least the lipstick goes on without a problem, and I suck on my finger to make sure I don’t get any on my teeth, a tip from Mom back when I first started wearing lipstick. It worked for my first neutral corals and even better once I worked up to my ruby reds.

Since I slept in the dress I was going to wear—and in my bra, which I peel off for the relief of unsticking it and wiping my underboob with a towel—I need to find a new outfit.

“Are you ready?” Sam’s impatient voice comes from the living room. He’s early.

“Don’t look. I’m getting dressed. How did you get in here?” I yell back as I yank another dress out. This one’s black, so there’s no way it can’t be stylish, at least not in Toronto. “Do you have a key card?”

“Yes.”

I don’t like that. I’ll get it back over dinner. Dress zipped, I stuff my feet into the lowest heels I can find and launch myself through the bedroom door before Sam comes to pull me out.

Then I freeze. He’s all in black as well, with a collared shirt tucked into tailored black slacks and a black blazer. One hand is placed casually in his pocket and his hair is artfully tumbled. My eyes widen in appreciation.

This appreciation is not reciprocated when he looks me up and down. “You can’t be serious.”

“What?” I check the mirror. One eye is pink from where I introduced the mascara wand, and I guess I sneezed because black dappled lines decorate the skin under both eyes. I have marks from where I was sleeping on my cheek, and when I smile, I see Mom’s tried and tested lipstick trick has not worked because I look like a postprandial vampire. Also, I forgot the wig.

“Right.” I lick my teeth to get rid of the red lipstick as I rub under my eyes and dash back into the room to adjust my foundation to cover the sleep creases. I pull out the wig and arrange it on my head before I come back out with a little more Fangli attitude.

This time Sam gives me a long, appraising look. I smile Fangli’s smile and he nods reluctantly. “I guess it’ll do,” he says. “Perfume. She only wears Chanel because she’s their brand ambassador.”

“Good. I like No. 19 Poudre.” I don’t wear it all the time, though. I never liked the idea of a signature fragrance, not when there are so many options.

“What?” He’s startled I would know an actual perfume. “Mei says the fragrance collection is in the drawer under the mirror.”

Fragrance collection? How did I miss that? I go back in and gasp with delight at the lines of bottles. It’s like being in the Chanel store. “She has Les Exclusifs!”

“Les what?” He comes in and leans against the door like a black-clad demon as I rummage through the long, rectangular bottles labeled with that inimitable square Chanel font. There it is, Bois des Iles, which I bought once and couldn’t justify the expense to buy again. I spray it and start coughing from the droplets in the air. I breathed too soon. Sam looks tired as he watches me choke.

“It’s a special collection of fragrances.” I don’t know much about clothes but perfume has always been my thing. I have over three hundred samples logged on a spreadsheet with my ratings. Pathetic, I know, but scent is the sense that I’ve always reacted to most intensely. Even as a kid, I would have a fit if my parents changed their laundry detergent. Sam smells good, a faint fresh spice mixed with the fragrance of chipped stone. Sounds weird, but it’s appealing.

“You like that?” He sniffs the air with more caution than I did. “I smell sandalwood.”

“You’re right.” I recap the bottle. It gives a little magnetic click in the very satisfying Chanel way. “Sandalwood is my mother’s favorite perfume.”

“My mother’s as well,” he says, as if shocked we could have anything in common. “Can we go now?”

We walk to the elevator, and I have the pleasure of a steady stream of advice and criticism battering my ear. “Shoulders back,” Sam says.

I push back my shoulders.

“Not that far back. Smile more.”

Forward come the shoulders as I smile and hiss at him through clenched teeth. “Can you lay off? It’s an empty corridor.”

“With security cameras that record sellable video, housecleaning staff and people behind those peepholes.” He eyes me with pretend fondness. “You are never not watched.”

The elevator opens as I consider this. It’s like he and Fangli live in a surveillance state gone amok. We don’t talk in the elevator, and when we get out, he steers me away from the main door.

“We’re not walking?” The restaurant’s only about twenty minutes away and the summer evening is perfect for strolling.