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klieg-light glow. There is no doubt: I
will
look fat. Also, there is not enough spackle in the world to tamp the shine from my Roman nose.
    “This is Cleo. She’ll be doing your face today. And this is Jonesie. He’s hair.” Shiny Pony lopes away, leaving me in the hands of Cleo and Jonesie, who are examining me the way one might an insect skewered on Styrofoam. I am especially intimidated by Jonesie, one of those sylphlike gay Asian boys who has never had a zit and wears chartreuse blouses with composure.
    “Not much you can do with this,” I say, running a hand over my bun, which resembles a day-old cinnamon roll that has been run over by a backhoe.
    “Are you really Lauren’s sister?” Cleo says, not hiding her incredulity. She is heavily tattooed, chubby, smooth-skinned, a study in black, white, and red.
    “Yes,” I say, anxiety ratcheting up a notch. “But she’s adopted. Her birth mother was a lesser member of the Norwegian royal family who got knocked up by the stable boy at fourteen. She—I mean Lauren— was found in the mailbox by Carmelite nuns. Her birth name was Helga,” I add, proud of that last embellishment.
    Cleo and Jonesie stare at me in a kind of mute horror. Then Cleo laughs, her black-lipsticked mouth opening like a tunnel. I can sort of relate to her look, which I interpret as passive insubordination.
    “You’re funny,” she says, already whipping out a box of brushes and pots.
    “You’re tall,” says Jonesie. Then: “Do you want to wear a wig?”
    “Do you have one of those Jewfro ones, like Barbra Streisand in
The Main Event
?”
    He frowns. “Um, no, but maybe a bob or something.”
    “Jonesie, she’s kidding.” I can see that Cleo, goddess of some dark art or another, is on my side.
    In minutes Cleo and Jonesie turn me into, if not a different person, an infinitely more colorful, mattified one. My white blouse is deemed a disaster— “You want them to think you have cirrhosis instead of breast cancer?” Cleo says, prompting an elbow from Jonesie—and is replaced with a crisp wrap shirt in a flattering sapphire blue. Cleo pauses when she sees the bandage around my bosom, a relic of biopsy. “Does it hurt?” Her voice is husky with respect.
    The glass of Chardonnay Shiny Pony slipped me a few minutes ago is starting to work its magic.
    “Not anymore,” I say.
    If I’d known how well groomed and, quite frankly,
petite
I’d look next to a professional hockey player, I’d have hired one to stalk me a long time ago.
    Jean-Baptiste Lebecq sits with his ham-hock thighs spread and a cheerful grin splitting his doughy face. His right lateral incisor is missing, through which I can see a wad of chewing tobacco that, thankfully, shows no sign of imminent ejection. He sports the type of bilevel hairdo that is, in the words of my friend Sue, “business in the front, party in the back.” Perhaps cancer has affected my vision, but I’m finding John the Baptist attractive, in a fifth-century-Gaul sort of way.
    “Miz White, I speak for the San Jose Sharks about how I am happy we will match twice the pledge of the callers.” Mr. Lebecq cheerfully mangles his point in Pepé Le Pew Canadian French.
    Fortunately, Laurie is able to pluck references of money and fame from nowhere. I guess that’s why she gets paid the big bucks. “Did you hear that, folks? Our corporate sponsor is going to not just match but
double
any pledge you call in. Now’s the time to call! Remember, we’re aiming to challenge the scourge of breast cancer for all of us: you, your mother, your wife”—she grips my hand— “your sister. Call us now. In the meantime, while our volunteers are taking your calls, let’s hear from Raquel.” She turns to me. “Raquel, how does it make you feel to know that so many people are behind you in your battle against cancer?”
    If I squint, the banner with pucks at either end that reads PINK + RINK = DO MORE THAN THINK . . .ABOUT BREAST CANCER looks sort of like a