Free Cat in a hot pink Pursuit by Carole Nelson Douglas Page A

just-thirteen to a tarty fifteen. And a few good legally blonde bimbos from sixteen to nineteen. The decibel level in the vaulted central atrium suggested a jungle of screeching parrots.
    Temple had never seen so much metallic and iridescent nail polish, so many spandex capris, thong flipflops, and belly buttons in one place since a Britney Spears concert. And she’d never seen a Britney Spears concert except in TV commercials.
    Temple glimpsed a shadow of herself in a Gap display window. It took her a moment to pick herself out from the crowd. She couldn’t believe she was doing this: standing in line, hiding her hair, and showing her belly button.
    This was the screwiest self-marketing job she’d ever done. She’d decided that the subject of a TV makeover show should require some major makeover, plus. And she needed to disguise herself enough to fool any possible acquaintances, so...
    She craned her neck to see if her little buddy—or was that “budette” in this case?—was anywhere around. But Mariah was not here. No. The Molina kid had made the smart move. Applied early. Before the humiliating cattle call. Mariah was less than half Temple’s age, and she was already a finalist, a contender. Temple was a raw recruit.
    Temple, aka Xoe Chloe—“pronounced just ‘Zoey Chloey,’ or ‘Chloey Zoey’ if you like that better,” she’d told the babe with the clipboard collecting their application forms—stared down the endless line forward, and then back along the endless line backward.
    It felt creepily like instant aging in a horror movie to be bracketed by so many genuine tender young things. Skin creamy as a South Beach diet ricotta cheese dessert. Zits, yes, but young, plump, cherry-colored zits, almost beauty marks, not the occasional pale pink spot staking a pallid postdated claim on the shoulder blade of thirty years’ duration.
    Well, she had the right shoes. A girl could do anything with the right shoes: go to the ball, leave Oz, shave a decade or so off her age. Temple stared at her Heavy Metal Hot Pink Funk-painted toenails in their red rhinestone slides. Excellent color clash. The toe rings added a nice trashy touch. Her feet alone demanded a serious redo.
    Then there was the black, straight-haired Cher wig from the singer’s Cleopatra period. Las Vegas had wig shops galore filled with celebrity dos. Even Temple was amazed by how totally a redhead with short curly hair could vanish behind glossy dark eyebrow-length bangs shoulder blade-brushing strands of thick black. A Maybelline black eyebrow pencil covered the last of Temple’s natural coloring. Any freckles disappeared under pale foundation and dead-white face powder accoutered with assorted magnetic studs and rings at eyebrow, nose, and lip, adding a modern touch to the Queen of the Nile. And she hadn’t forgotten the belly button ring, clip-on. She was a fraud from sole to poll.
    Except for her long painted fingernails, each one a color of the rainbow. They were real under that lacquer. í
    When she’d given her remade self a once-over in the bedroom mirror, for a surreal moment she was struck by the fact that she almost resembled the black-haired, rice-powdered persona of the evil she-magician, Shangri-La, who had kidnapped Temple and Midnight Louie months before. Now Shangri-La was missing in action and Temple was, ta-dah, suddenly a black-haired teen bad girl. Think the twisted slayer Faith on Buffy, the Vampire Slayer.
    But that was then, and this was now. Temple shuffled forward in the line. Her feet were killing her. Normally wimpy little inch-and-a-half heels wouldn’t bother her. But she was used to flying around, on the job. Standing, shuffling, on these aggregate-stone mall floors. Killer!
    She clutched the sheet she’d filled out in tilted block letters with the z’s carefully topped by circles as fat as a cartoon dialogue balloon. Favorite hunk. Favorite punk band. Favorite junk food. Favorite class to skip. Favorite cosmetic.