Gingerly, I lift the sheer frothy layer of skirt – it swirls over a pink silk under-dress. The whole effect makes my skin appear delicate and creamy like Gigi’s, which is odd as I’ve never thought about my skin like that. The gauze is so fine that when I move, the blossoms seem to flutter as if on a breeze.
Gigi stands back, her eyes shining. ‘This is the one.’
We both stare at my reflection. The person in the mirror tilts her head. She looks uncertain.
‘I don’t know...’ I say.
‘What do you mean? It’s perfect. Look at you.’
I close my eyes, try to put my feelings into words. ‘The dress is beautiful, Gigi. But what are people going to think, seeing me—’
She holds a hand up, shushing me.
‘Forget about other people for a second. How doyoufeel wearing this dress? How doyoufeel, seeing yourself in this dress?’
The woman in the mirror gazes shyly at me. ‘Fancy,’ she says. ‘Pretty,’ she says. ‘Special,’ she says.
Gigi nods. ‘All that. Because you are a Celestial. And you will, with the love of all Tian, shine like one tonight.’ She takes me by the shoulders and steers me to the dressing table in my bedroom. ‘Now for your hair.’
She plugs in the curling rod then brushes my hair, smoothing and separating long hanks into sections. Has she always been this kind? I wonder how I missed it for so long. Or is it because we aren’t trying to win stuff off each other?
After a while, I ask, ‘Whatisdragon sight? Lord Black mentioned it the other day, but wouldn’t give me a straight answer,’
‘It’s a little esoteric. Dragons predate the split of realms between yin and yang. They are of the Cosmos – so their sense of past, present, and future is much more entwined with intuition and perception.’
‘So it’s not foresight—’
‘Not really. At least, that’s my understanding. The dragon uncles are terrible at explaining. They like their riddles.’ She picks up the curling rod, gives me a reassuring smile. ‘Don’t be frightened. Only people who don’t know what they’re doing scorch the hair off.’
My faced twists. ‘Scorch the hair off?’ I try to turn but she pulls a box from her sleeve and plonks it on the dressing table. If we were playing kanhoo, I’d be on a face-losing losing streak.
‘Here,’ she says. ‘Choose a hair pin.’
I eye the box and then the curling rod.
‘I promise, I won’t burn your hair. If I do, I’ll let you burn my hair.’
‘Fat lot of good that’ll do me. You’ll just wave your fingers and grow more hair.’
She shrugs, as if to say,And?
I resign myself to her ministrations and pore over the contents of her hair pin box.
Gigi pulls and yanks and primps until I feel like a plucked chicken. But what she does with my hair is nothing short of magical. I have a chic side part and waves all the way down my back.
I turn my head this way and that, admiring the cascading marcelles, the way they shine in the light and how they bounce when I move. I can’t quite believe the woman in the mirror is me.
‘Wah, Gigi.’
Her answering smile is, for the first time since I’ve known her, bashful. She lifts her chin at all the hair pins I’ve laid out. ‘Which one did you choose?’
‘I’m not sure... None seem quite right,’ I tell her.
Again, her smile is unfamiliar. Sweet and shy. It is so kind, the backs of my eyes prick and water. I blink quickly to hide the sudden surge of emotion.
‘I was saving this for your birthday,’ she says, pulling something from the depths of her sleeves, ‘but it’s too perfect to keep back.’
‘Just how much stuff do you keep in those?’ I ask.
