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“You earned Confidence when you trusted your instincts about Pierre. I’m so glad he didn’t shake
that from you. Seven’s for Curiosity,” Matilda reminded me, laying each charm out on the Formica.
“That’s for asking Pierre all the right questions. Eight’s for Bravery, of course, and how you stood
your ground with him. And Nine, that one’s Exuberance—and I do hope you still feel a measure of
that, Dauphine, after all you’ve experienced with us.”
I secured them one by one to my bracelet, shaking it in front of my eyes. It was dazzling.
“This is so thoughtful, so generous,” I said. “I’ll treasure it, and my time in S.E.C.R.E.T. Always.”
“I have one more offer,” she said, leaning forward in her chair. “Of course you can say no, but I
urge you to consider it. We’d like you to experience a final fantasy, one we’re quite confident will be
worth the leap of faith. We are all very upset about what happened to you in Buenos Aires. So we’d
relish the opportunity to make amends. I can assure you we’d do this not only to restore your feelings
of safety, but to solidify everything S.E.C.R.E.T. stands for. And I have it on good authority that this
fantasy will exceed every one of the fantasies you’ve experienced before. In fact, we suspect this last
one will blow your mind.”
Maybe it was her face, beseeching and earnest. And maybe I suddenly saw the folly in punishing
myself and S.E.C.R.E.T. because of the deed of one bad man. I looked at my bracelet, eight charms
dancing around my wrist. What do you say to an offer like that? You throw your arms around the
person proposing it and you say, “Yes, fine. One more.”
I was surprisingly calm the day my final fantasy card arrived. It was Elizabeth who had a hard time
containing herself after I asked her to dress me for a “casual but sexy” date at Tipitina’s.
“Seriously? A date? You’re going out? With a real live man? To a concert? All this change is too
much for my little heart to bear.”
She was still absorbing my new mandate, the one I had carried home with me from Argentina along
with all my beautiful finds.
When she asked me, as always, what was for sale and what was for keeps, I replied, “Sell
everything, all of it. All the excess stock that I’m keeping for no good reason. Everything in the back.
All the gold hoops and the silk pajamas and the leather gloves and the pillbox hats,” I said, adding,
“and whatever we can’t sell, we’ll give away. I need more room to grow.”
Elizabeth looked overcome, teary, as she held a set of blue-tinted pince-nez between her fingers.
“Dauphine, do you know how long I’ve been waiting for you to say this?” she asked.
And today I was asking her to help me again, this time to see me through her eyes, so I could gain a
new perspective on myself.
She was breathless. “Okay. There are a few looks I’ve had in mind for you for a long while. Will
you let me give them a try?”
Elizabeth whirled around the store, plucking scarves and blouses, bracelets and T-shirts, dresses
and jeans. This culminated in a stop in the office treasure trove, where she pulled bangles, cuffs,
stilettos and a brand-new lavender camisole. Nothing Elizabeth chose for me was vintage; the pieces
were all tight, edgy, the colors mostly blues and purples, which I rarely wore. But when she pulled
out her hair straightener, I knew we were looking at a game-changer kind of evening. If I didn’t wear
my unruly red hair piled on my head or tied back, I didn’t know what to do with it.
After an hour and a half of being dressed and undressed, while we ate takeout fries and smoothies,
and waited on customers between modeling “looks,” I settled on black leather pants, a camisole