Lost in London (6 page)

Before I looked in the mirror, I told myself this was
the first glimpse of the new me. I could wash it off if I hated it. I just really wanted to love it. She spun the stool around. “Voilà,” she said.

I opened my eyes. “Wow!”

“I know, eh? There was, like, this totally cute person just waiting to come out.”

Well, she didn’t say that right, but maybe a compliment was hidden in there. The colors she’d chosen were natural. They brightened everything—my eyes, my skin. It looked really good.

“Wait till we get to the salon and I can do something with your hair.”

That definitely didn’t sound nice. I’d always liked my hair, but now I thought it could use a refresh to go with this face.

We spritzed the perfume testers as we walked by. We got back on the frozen escalators and walked up until we heard Hamlet humming on the floor above Shoes.

Caroline was drawn to the Shoe Department like a cat to a bowl of warm milk—which reminded me of how hungry I was.

She tried on several shoes that were on display, then approached a door behind the cash register.

With a display boot in her hand, she said, “The stuff in the back is always the be-all. Come on.”

I wasn’t sure about “be-all,” but I think she meant that the shoes in the back were really good.

She turned the doorknob, and we went in. She did something on her phone, and it let out a strong glow. “Flashlight app,” she explained. The light revealed towers and towers of shoe boxes. She grinned. “Hello there, my darlings. I’m here, and I’m going to try you all on. All you size thirty-sevens, that is.”

Thirty-sevens? Clearly they had different sizing in England than we did.

She showed me how to find the style number on the display shoe and then on the box. The boxes were well organized, so finding what we were looking for was easy.

Moments later I was strolling around in brown flats.

Caroline looked at the shoes I’d chosen. “I’ll pick some for you. Do you usually wear jeans like that?”

“Sometimes I wear leggings.”

“Of course,” she said, like leggings were not the be-all.

I found a mirror and studied my made-up face while I waited. Maybe I’d buy some makeup.

Caroline returned with three boxes. “Try these.”

I opened one, then the others. “These are all heels. I wear jeans.”

“Who says you can’t wear heels with jeans? It’s not like they’re stilettos.”

I hesitated, but I tried on the peepy-toed shoes. (I think that’s what they’re called.) I walked a bit. They weren’t bad. In fact, they were easier to walk in than I thought they’d be. My legs felt longer. I looked in the mirror. Heels looked good with jeans. Who knew?

I guess Caroline did, since I actually liked all three pairs that she had picked out for me.

Caroline tried on really outrageous boots, like with glitter. Somehow they worked for her. After trying a few more on, she came back into the room with a big paper shopping bag. “They look really good. You should take those.”

“What? Steal them? No. No way.”

“No. Not steal. There’s no need to nick. We have an account here. We can just set everything aside and ring it all up in the morning when the store opens.”

“Seriously?”

“Quite.” We continued to try on shoes—lots of them. I even snapped some pictures so that I’d remember the ones I liked but had left behind. I also shot a short video of our feet in different shoes walking up and down the aisle between the towers of shoes.

•  •  •

We continued to stay far enough from Hamlet as he went about his rounds. We made another stop in Teen Fashions.
Caroline picked out all kinds of clothes for me. I stayed in the dressing room, and she threw stuff over the top.

I paraded around like a runway model, feeling transformed. One shirt didn’t have straps (none!), another had swinging fringes, some pants were tight to the ankles, others swayed while I walked. I felt glamorous. Pretty. Totally un-boring.

After an hour of mixing and matching, I decided to wear a new pair of skinny jeans, a long tank top, and a wide belt that rested just below my waist. I added a pair of boots I’d just gotten. They were high—like horseback riding boots. I loved this outfit too much to take it off. Caroline managed to snip the tags and gathered them in a small bag, so that we could pay for it all later and get the security tags removed.

After a little while I’d filled two more shopping bags and taken another video of myself by holding my camera out and trying to capture the outfit.

Finally we were at the salon. Caroline added the flashlight app to my phone, so we had two. I sat in a beautician’s chair and spun around in it. She held up a device that looked like a small sandwich maker. “This is a flat iron. It should be your best friend.”

She took a section of my hair and put it between two pieces of flat metal, then clamped them shut, sandwiching
my hair in between. Then she pulled gently and the iron slid from the crown of my head to the tips of the hair.

“If you do that at home, it will come out pencil straight. Of course, it’s not hot now because we don’t have electricity.” I thought my hair was straight already. She brushed it out and sprayed it with some stuff that made it look supershiny.

Then Caroline took a small piece of my hair and rubbed a stinky-smelling cream on it.

I stiffened. “What is that? Chemicals?” I’d never had any chemicals in my hair. What if she didn’t know what she was doing?

“Relax. I’ve watched my stylist do this a hundred times.” She held up a jar of hair lotion that clearly said “blond” on it. “If you don’t like it, you can always put the color back in.”

“What? You’re taking color
out
?” Maybe I wasn’t meant to handle un-boring. My heart pounded.

“It’s all the rage. Trust me on this. I know what I’m talking about.”

A minute later she washed the small section of my hair in the sink and combed it out. I had a streak of blond hair. I couldn’t stop staring at it, because I didn’t believe it. . . . It looked fantastic, red-carpet fantastic. I
never
felt this glam. And I liked the way it felt. She put
in a couple of bobby pins, and the hairstyle looked even better.

On our way out Caroline took a flat iron and added it to my bag. That’s when we heard something.

Someone was humming “New York, New York.”

We froze.

With no time to hide, we clicked off the flashlight apps and stood perfectly still.
Perfectly.

Hamlet was an older man. He shuffled along without stopping at the salon, steadily proceeding to the next escalator, which he was forced to walk up, since it wasn’t moving. Once he was past us, Caroline said, “Do you know what that means?”

“What?”

“He has already checked all the floors above us. We can go all around now and not worry about getting caught.”

“Don’t you think he’ll come back?”

“Why would he? He’s done his thing. It’s not like people are just going to materialize and gallivant around dressing up and making over.”

“It isn’t?”

She laughed. “No. Now, let’s go to the Dress-Up Department and gallivant.”

“Like in dresses?” I asked.

“Not in any ordinary dresses. Wait until you see this.”

I followed her up another floor, to Formal Wear. The landing area was set up like a prom with a disco ball, and mannequins in tuxedos and glittery gowns. We ran past the racks of dresses until we got to a back corner that was a medieval castle. It wasn’t decorated to look like a palace; it actually
was
a palace built
inside
the store. Mannequins of knights stood guard.

Caroline walked over a bridge and into the palace. It was packed with trunks of crowns, necklaces, scarves, and scepters. Shelves of Styrofoam heads wore wigs: straight red hair, blond braids, jet-black pixie cut.

Along the walls were hanging displays of every kind of gown you could imagine. Some were bustled and bunched up at the back, while others had long trains draped behind them. There were also costumes for boys and men: a British policeman uniform; a yeoman uniform,
which was a one-piece black kilt with red trim and an embroidered red crown on the chest; and a royal guard with a red jacket, black pants, and a hat that looked like a giant black Q-tip.

This palace was like the biggest box of dress-up clothes imaginable.

I chose a wig that was a half mile high in tight brown curls, and a velvet gown suitable for a coronation, then disappeared behind a pretty white screen with little pink flowers painted all over it.

Caroline grabbed a tight, red satin dress with spaghetti straps and a hot pink wig. She played music on her mobile and we changed, and then we danced around in our fancy outfits.

I put my phone on a ledge and set it to video-record us dancing around. But the ledge was low, so I probably cut our heads off. I didn’t care. It wasn’t like this would go into the montage. I was having the best time of my life and I wanted it photo-documented. “I love this place,” I said.

“If you think this rocks, I can show you something even more fab.”

“No way. Better than this?”

“Follow me.” She went toward the Hole and paused. “Shh.”

I stood silently.

She listened. “No humming. No squeaky shoes. The coast is clear. Let’s move on.” She ran up the escalator.

I tugged up my dress and followed her toward the Children’s Department. I couldn’t imagine what we were going to do there until I saw it: a trampoline the size of my backyard. It was surrounded by an enchanted garden.

Caroline kicked off her shoes, climbed on, and started bouncing. I joined her, jumping higher and higher. Finally I held my breath and gathered the layers of my gown in one hand and flipped backward, landing triumphantly on my feet.

“Wow! How did you learn to do that?” she asked.

“Gym class, I guess.” I plopped on my butt and popped up. “Try that.”

She did, and she giggled the whole time.

I tried to get some real action videos with my phone, but with all the bouncing and wig hair, I’m not sure what I got.

I bounced myself sweaty and eventually flopped onto the springy floor, flat on my back as I tried to catch my breath.

“Something wrong?” Caroline asked.

“I’m pooped.”

“I’m a bit zonked myself,” she said. “I know where we can crash for the night . . . like real princesses.”

“Really?”

“The Furniture Department is just one floor up.”

“And they have beds?”

“Big, beautiful beds.”

“I’m there,” I said.

A few minutes later we were back in our regular clothes and tucked into side-by-side king beds. We chose two that couldn’t be seen with a quick glance from the hallway. And for a little extra insurance, we took a wooden screen like would be used to separate a room into two parts and relocated it to shield the beds.

I sank my head onto a feather pillow and almost fell asleep instantly, thinking about my first day in London. I had set out for an experience to change my life, but got so much more. I was changing my life
and
my image. This trip
had
become an adventure. It had been a wonderful day, trapped-in-a-mega-department-store-slash-carnival wonderful.

Caroline had started out not liking me, but now I thought she was my friend. “I had a great time today,” I said. “Thanks.”

She said nothing.

I turned to look at her. Her eyes were closed and she was breathing deeply.

I started falling into a dream about
The Wizard of Oz
, when I realized I wasn’t dreaming. Someone was humming “Over the Rainbow.”

I peeked under the oriental screen and saw Hamlet’s wet shoes making their way over to us. Apparently he didn’t go to sleep. He
did
go through his rounds a second time.

I grabbed a few big pillows and covered Caroline with them as my heart climbed into my throat. I did a good job, because I couldn’t even tell she was in the bed.

His steps got closer, and my panic rose higher in my stomach. I pulled the comforter back up so my bed would look made, and then I got down on my belly and crawled under it.