Holding Out for a Hero Read online

  I still don’t think I’m the Basket Case, but I’ve always liked Ally Sheedy’s character. At least until they did the makeover.

  The front door rattles. It’s Dora and Finn.

  Oh God, the makeover.

  CHAPTER 3

  ‘Who’s That Girl’

  Madonna, 1987

  Seriously, who is that?

  ‘I don’t see why Dean had to warn you,’ Dora says, then puckers in her compact mirror to apply cinnamon plumping gloss. Light catches the reflective surface and a flash bounces to my eyes, causing me to squint.

  ‘I’m still here, aren’t I?’ We’re at Fringe, Dora’s fancy-schmancy super-expensive salon on Park Avenue. Clip-n-Snip’s would’ve done just fine, if you ask me – not that anyone did. The only reason I’m playing along with this whole makeover-dating-Eighties-intervention thing is because Jas was standing right there when they showed up. When I refused to participate, Dora spiked her brows and unloaded a bomb of embarrassment, telling Jasper everything. So I was on the spot: accept him as my date, or happily accept theirs.

  I mean, God.

  Finn flips through a magazine, commenting on how ghastly everyone is dressed. It doesn’t matter whether we respond: he gabbles his commentary regardless, as if he’s on a panel with the Fashion Police. ‘Oh dear Lord, no . . . just no,’ he says with a scowl, holding up the page for my review.

  Yeah; I have no idea who that is. I sniff, then rub at my nose from the stench permeating the place. They’re burning lemongrass incense to cover the pungent ammonia smell, and it isn’t working.

  Dora closes her compact with a loud snap. She eyes my outfit. ‘You know we’re going shopping after, right?’

  I stink-eye her and frown. We’re not kids any more. I stopped listening to her expert clothing advice a long time ago. Plus, I’m dressed fine. The sweatshirt’s comfy. It’s big, hangs loose off one shoulder and has that broken-in soft feel from being washed a zillion times.

  Finn’s more himself today, dressed all in grey except for the muted yellow of his man-scarf, and Dora looks like a waitress in black pants and crisp white tunic shirt. It makes me itch just looking at it. Guess there’s a drab dress code and I missed the memo, because my Eddie Grant Electric Avenue blue fights with the monochrome theme. Even the salon is papered in rigid black and white patterns and stripes.

  ‘So, this poor guy you’re setting me up with? Who is he, what does he do?’ They’ve told me nothing except he’s picking me up for a light dinner at seven, and he’s Dora’s choice. That’s why she gets to coordinate my outfit.

  Apparently the Eighties intervention has rules.

  ‘Theodore Spalding,’ Dora says, as if the name should mean something. It doesn’t.

  ‘He’s the brain – an anesthesiologist.’ Finn says. ‘Think Anthony Michael Hall from Weird Science.’ His eyes pop like I should be impressed.

  I’m not. ‘In that movie, Anthony Michael Hall was a teen geek who couldn’t get a date. And an anesthesiologist puts brains to sleep, so it doesn’t mean your guy is one.’ I pop my eyes back, waiting for this logic to sink in.

  ‘Well, he’s brilliant. He’s a friend of Dean’s,’ Dora says with arched brows.

  ‘And Dean’s brilliant?’ I ask, making Finn snicker.

  Dora casually assesses her nails. ‘Well, they play racquetball together.’

  ‘Well then, that explains – wait . . .’ I sit up. ‘If he’s Dean’s friend, who’s Dean setting me up with?’ Dean doesn’t have a ton of friends besides us. This is something to worry about.

  Dora wrinkles her nose. ‘I don’t know, but I called him first, so Theo’s my pick . . .’ She’s staring at me – or rather, my hair. ‘Have you considered going blonde?’

  ‘Or maybe deepen the red so it’s not so bright and angry?’ Finn asks, leaning around me to see Dora. ‘I swear, it’s like Annie Lennox from Eurythmics, only it’s not sweet, and not a dream.’

  ‘Careful, you’re walking on broken glass.’ I smirk, thinking I’m clever. Sitting between them is maddening. ‘How about we just shave it? Remember Sinead O’Connor? She was lovely bald.’

  ‘Your head’s the wrong shape.’

  My eyes pinch. ‘Really, Finn?’

  He gives me one of his famous withering looks. I swear he reminds me of a chicken: rounded eyes, and a straight protruding beak he sticks in everyone’s business. He does have great plumage, though. Silky locks the colour of tawny creamed corn.

  ‘Yeah, I don’t think I should go blonde,’ I add, thinking back to the earlier suggestion.

  ‘You said, word for word,’ Dora says, lifting her hands to make air quotes. ‘I need a new look, something fab and fresh.’

  ‘First, I didn’t say fab. I don’t say fab. And I meant maybe a trim or something, that’s all, nothing drastic.’

  ‘Well, what about lowlights? That’s not drastic,’ Dora says, touching my hair. ‘That could really bring out your features.’ Finn nods, and they’re off.

  I let my head fall so it clunks against the window behind me, and tune out their jabbering. I’m starting to have serious second thoughts. I’m also not sure what a lowlight is. Black lights, I understand.

  Don’t let Dora change you, Ollie had said, and I haven’t. I’m still exactly the same. Even when Dora adopted the popular sloppy grunge style, I held onto my Eighties retro vibe. The entire decade was fun and peppy with movies like Can’t Buy Me Love, The Lost Boys and Dirty Dancing. Malls became Tiffany and Debbie Gibson’s concert venues, and damn it, parents just didn’t understand. But really, how could they?

  They were so old.

  But then Y2K rolled in and although the world didn’t end, mine may as well have. Ollie was gone. Everything after that was a mess. I missed him terribly. We’d been going out solid for almost his entire senior year. In teen years, that’s beyond forever.

  I call it my ‘End of the Innocence’ phase. Don Henley sang, ‘Let me take a long last look before we say goodbye’. I didn’t want what was good to end, so I never really said goodbye. To anything, really. As the song says, that was my best defence. Maybe my only one.

  ‘Dora?’ A young woman in her early twenties, dressed in the required black tapered pants and white blouse, approaches. Her make-up is smoky and layered thick. Her straight hair is tied back tight. She looks like one of those girls from the Robert Palmer videos – the bored ones who play guitar – only she’s smiling. Still bored.

  They air-kiss before she turns to Finn with the same forced almost-smile. ‘And are we waiting on Libby?’

  Finn shakes his head and points to me. I stand.

  The woman’s face drops.

  At her station I’m directed to take a seat, so she can have a ‘look-see’. She fumbles with the clasp of my banana clip, so I reach up and unsnap the top and yank it out. I watch her confusion in the mirror, Finn’s impatience, and Dora’s embarrassment. They’re so serious. It’s hair, and really, aside from a much-needed trim –

  ‘It’s a tad dry.’ Finn flicks my teased tresses.

  ‘And the colour’s somewhat brassy,’ Dora adds, almost apologetically.

  ‘Oh, and she needs a pluck – no, a –’

  ‘A wax,’ they finish together, both nodding, wide-eyed.

  ‘What are we waxing?’ I ask, mentally checking off body parts. Eyebrows? Lips? Nothing else is visible. Do they even do that here? What have they promised this date?

  The stylist spins the chair so I’m facing the occupied station across from me. I hold back a laugh and the urge to sing Styx’s ‘Mr Roboto’. The woman’s entire head is covered in tin foil packets.

  ‘Yes, now, what about going short?’

  My head snaps up at the stylist’s words. ‘You can only cut an inch,’ I say, setting a firm boundary while giving Dora my frostiest death glare. I’ll be a good sport – after all, I did tell Dora I wanted a change – but I never said I wanted it all hacked off. That’s something else entirely.

  Finn speaks softly
. ‘Maybe just start with a shampoo, and see what you have to work with?’

  I’ve been washed, snipped, darkened and blown-out, all with Dora and Finn gabbing commentary from the side. I’m now under the care of Shauna, a make-up artist, while the poor unnamed stylist sneaks a ciggie outside. She looks a bit frazzled. Her tight ’do has undone and the perfectly applied mask of make-up is splotchy from perspiration. She’s gone from ‘Simply Irresistible’ to simply irritated.

  A chime sounds, and Dora checks her phone. ‘Oh, it’s a text from Dean,’ she says. ‘He wants to know how it’s going. I should take some photos.’

  ‘Tell him—’

  ‘Stay still,’ Shauna says in a tone reserved for four-year-olds, nearly jabbing a liner pencil into my eye.

  Dora shoves her phone in front of my face. Snap-flash.

  Shauna jerks my head back. ‘OK, almost . . . just need . . .’ She feathers a huge brush of powder across my nose. ‘Done.’

  Another snap-flash, this time from Finn’s.

  Dora’s phone chimes again and she squeaks with laughter. ‘Dean asked me who’s in the picture. He doesn’t even recognize you!’

  ‘OK, that’s it.’ I’m up, turning and – whoa, who is that girl? I step closer to the mirror, turning my chin left and then right, a bit confused. ‘Why do I look like—’

  ‘It’s great, isn’t it?’ Dora’s literally bouncing. ‘I love it! Don’t you love it?’

  We’re the Wonder Twins. Do we fist-bump and declare our powers to activate? Maybe we already did. Shape of . . . Dora. I’m seriously styled just like her: same make-up, same cut, only longer. I move so that I’m inches from the glass.

  My super-long frizzy curls are now just past my bra strap and smoothed to a barely-there wave. The firecracker red is now a tame auburn with copper highlights. And my face? You can’t even see my freckles under all this gunk. Seriously weird.

  ‘Oh, Dean says you look divine.’ Dora shoves her phone at me so I can read the text.

  ‘He says I look like you.’

  ‘Exactly, and he thinks I’m divine.’ She smiles, flipping a hand through her dark bobbed hair. Dora turns to the stylist. ‘I was thinking you could pull it to the side, wrap it in a loose bun, so she has a more studious look. What do you think, Libbs? That’s not too much, right?’

  I’m not sure how to answer; I’m still in shock.

  Finn and my clone discuss options with anyone who’ll listen. I’m not one of them.

  ‘She has a date with an anesthesiologist,’ Dora adds, ‘and we’re now running a bit behind. We still need to get her styled.’

  I glance up. Oh God.

  Apparently my Dora makeover took too long, so shopping was out. I’m now dressed in Dora’s clothes. Not clothes like hers – not even clothes from her apartment, since we’re at mine – but Dora’s maternity clothes from today. Her black slacks, although heavily gathered and belted, and the itchy, re-ironed and freshened white tunic blouse.

  There is one amusing thing that almost makes it worth it: if I’m in her clothes, guess what she’s wearing? And she hates it. Hates it. She keeps pulling up the dropped shoulder.

  I shove it over to expose her ridiculously frilly bra strap. ‘See? It should just hang down.’

  Dora huffs, ‘It should be burned,’ and gathers the excess material in her hand, clasping it near her neck.

  Snap-flash. Finn has his phone in camera mode again. Why he doesn’t turn off the fake shutter sound is beyond me. He pushes a hand through his flaxen hair, changes the direction of the phone, squints and . . . snap-flash. That one was a selfie.

  ‘Your apartment’s kind of dated, you know that?’ Finn says, looking round and nosing through my movie collection. ‘Even your DVDs are old.’ He starts reading them off, his nose turned up. ‘St Elmo’s Fire, The Breakfast Club, Pretty in Pink . . . all Eighties, and all Molly Ringwald. Bleah.’

  ‘She’s seen those all a million times,’ Dora says, without looking up from her phone.

  ‘You should redecorate,’ Finn says, already moving on before I can defend my collection.

  ‘Don’t even think about it. My apartment’s great.’ I lucked out and nabbed a corner unit in Peter Cooper Village Community, better known as Stuytown. Located only six blocks from Pretty in Pink, it’s perfect, all 750 square feet of it. And it’s not layered with memorabilia like the shop, but it does have an Eighties charm, which means you have a few options: chintz, farmhouse, south-western, mauve pastels, or bold. I chose the last.

  The small sectional is colour-blocked, the tiles’ geometric patterns and the coffee tables are oversized Rubik’s Cubes collectable limited editions. I had them specially ordered. If you remove the glass top trays, they even work, how cool is that? Not that I could ever solve it. I was one of those people that peeled the stickers off and re-stuck them.

  Snap-flash.

  ‘Finn, stop it!’ I duck from view. ‘What in the world do you need so many photos for anyway?’

  ‘Instagram. Twitter.’ Finn shrugs. ‘We’ve started a hashtag: #80sIntervention. People have started posting their own horrible Eighties pics and voting. It’s going viral.’ Snap-flash.

  ‘I’m gonna go viral, if you don’t stop it.’ I swipe for his phone but miss. ‘I need a drink,’ I say to myself, and start searching for the wine bottle I’ve all but drained. This is the first time I’ve really felt nervous. My hands are starting to tingle. What if this guy’s hideous? Or has a lazy eye? Then where do I look?

  ‘What time is it?’ Finn asks, looking to the wall clock then rolling his eyes. ‘That thing’s still not working, Libbs.’

  ‘That thing’ is an actual converted 45 record featuring The Smiths’ single ‘That Joke Isn’t Funny Anymore’. I think it’s hilarious. I found it online and couldn’t resist.

  Finn looks at his phone to check the time instead. ‘Dora, you did give him the right address and tell him promptly at seven, right? ’Cause it’s almost time.’

  ‘Yeah, Dean just texted, saying he rang him and he’ll be here any minute.’ Dora props her swollen feet up on my end table and sighs, looking at them. ‘I used to have ankles,’ she says, more to herself than to us, but then holds one up for group scrutiny. ‘Are they really so bad?’

  Finn wisely ignores Dora and approaches me in the kitchen with his empty glass, wanting a taste.

  I give him a little, then drain the rest straight from the bottle. I don’t need a glass; I need a hefty dose of liquid nerve. ‘Are we all going out with the brain guy? Seriously, why are you guys still here? I can handle this.’ They’re making me crazy. I set down the bottle, push up my sleeves and scratch violently at my forearms. What is Dora’s shirt made of?

  ‘Don’t talk about music or politics. You know how you can get.’ Finn’s playing with his phone while pacing.

  ‘Wait.’ His words jolt me. ‘How I get?’ I push at my sleeves again, then glance at the smirking Kit-Cat clock in the kitchen, the one that works. Less than ten minutes.

  ‘You get really opinionated, so don’t talk about anything, you know, too controversial,’ says Dora. She takes a small drink of her water with lemon. ‘Just let Theodore steer the conversation, and be agreeable.’

  My newly shaped brows furrow. ‘Well, I don’t agree with that.’

  ‘Well, he’s really shy, so I told him . . .’ Dora looks at Finn, then glances back at me.

  ‘What?’ My arms cross. Shit, I didn’t even consider what they told these guys about me. Desperate spinster, never married, has multiple cats, easy? Yeah, nothing’s easy about me.

  Snap-flash.

  ‘Stop it, Finn.’ My heart starts pounding, heavy in my chest. I unfold and scratch my arms again. ‘Did you say I was shy, too? Because I’m not shy. I’m not sure how to even play shy.’ Do I bat my lashes, smile and look away? Oh God, do I have to giggle? I look at the clock again. It’s five to seven. ‘You’d better not have said I’m shy, Dora. I mean it.’

  ‘Well, no, I didn’t say you
were shy exactly . . .’ She flips the heavy bangs from her eyes, then intertwines her fingers over her baby bump. ‘I said you were . . .’

  ‘What? Quiet? Demure?’

  ‘Mute.’

  ‘What?’ Choking on the word, I look to Finn. ‘Did she say mute?’ I shake my head to rattle the meaning. My head swivels back in Dora’s direction. ‘I’m mute, as in I do not speak. Not a word?’

  She nods. ‘Mm-hmm.’

  I blink. She blinks. She’s serious?

  ‘Are you off your hormonal rocker?’ I’m talking quite loudly for someone who can’t speak. ‘So, what, you told him I’m, like, missing my tongue? ’Cause that’s attractive.’

  ‘No, I said you might have . . .’ Her shoulders hike, her lips pull up, she’s bracing herself.

  ‘Have what?’

  ‘A brain infection.’

  ‘Hah!’ Finn whoops a laugh, then snorts.

  ‘I have a brain infection?’ I spin towards Finn. ‘Did you know? Are you part of this?’

  ‘No, no.’ Finn’s shaking his head, but laughing harder. Another snort. ‘Oh my God . . . oh, shit. Dora, what in the world?’

  ‘OK . . .’ I refocus, trying to stay calm, speaking slowly and enunciating every syllable. Maybe I don’t understand. ‘Dora.’

  Her eyes widen.

  ‘You told Theodore I have a brain infection?’

  Dora nods, with a nose-wrinkle. Finn’s now bent over, a hand covering his eyes, shaking his head. He may be laughing.

  Snort.

  Yup, he’s laughing.

  I take another step, my lips curling into a dangerous smile. ‘So, like, something’s wrong with my mind, is that what you told him?’

  ‘No. Noooo . . .’ She shakes her head adamantly back and forth. ‘I would never, ever imply it to mean that. I only meant, well, because he studies the brain, that maybe you’ve somehow contracted a rare virus that impairs speech . . .’ She chin-nods with a hopeful expression, as if her explanation actually makes sense.

  It doesn’t. My face folds as I try to work it all out. ‘So, I’ve somehow contracted a rare brain cold that’s caused me to lose the ability to speak? Is that it?’