I laughed softly and laid the dress across the bed while my attention wandered again.
Perfume bottles covered the vanity beside expensive makeup palettes, and jewelry trays overflowed with gold. Everything looked lived in. Loved. Carefully chosen.
“You can wear those too,” Giani said, noticing me eyeing a pair of heels near the dresser.
I looked over at her. “Girl, you letting me borrow all this?”
“What else am I supposed to do with it?” she asked casually. “Half this shit barely gets worn.”
I shook my head with a quiet laugh and moved toward the vanity, picking up one of the perfume bottles.
“This smells so good,” I murmured.
“Mm-hmm,” Giani replied distractedly while searching through hangers in the closet. “That used to be your favorite.”
I looked down at the bottle in my hand. “For real?”
“Girl, yes,” she nodded. “You used to wear vanilla everything.”
I stared down at the bottle for a second longer before setting it back in its place. “Sounds like I had good taste then too,” I joked lightly.
“You definitely did,” Giani replied, tossing another dress onto the bed before finally settling on the black one she’d handed me first.
“Nah. Wear this,” she decided. “This is the one.”
I looked down at it again before shrugging. “Aight.”
“Bathroom’s over there,” she said, pointing toward the door beside the vanity. “And hurry up because I’m not waiting on you all night.”
I rolled my eyes and grabbed the dress along with the heels she’d picked out for me.
The bathroom looked just as expensive as the rest of the apartment. Marble counters. Gold fixtures. Soft lighting. Rich people definitely lived better than everybody else.
By the time I stepped back out wearing the dress, Giani looked up from fixing her lashes and froze dramatically.
“Oh, bitch,” she breathed. “There you go.”
I looked down at myself.
The dress hugged me perfectly. The heels added just enough height to make my legs look even longer, and for the first time in a long time, I didn’t feel like the confused woman hiding inside Apartment 214.
“All we gotta do now is fix that hair. Sit down, so I can get you together.”
I took a seat in her chair at the vanity, and she got right to work. Giana braided my hair down, put on something I now knew was called a bald cap, and installed a wig. Afterward, she parted the hair on the side, hot-combed the top, flat-ironed it, and sprayed on a little sheen.
I was a new woman by the time she finished styling my hair and beating my face, and I felt good.
When we arrived at the club, the parking lot was overflowing with cars.
Music thumped so hard it vibrated through the pavement as groups of women in tight dresses and heels shuffled toward the entrance, while security yelled at people crowding the front.
Giani grabbed my hand before I could even look at the line.
“Absolutely not,” she said. “We do not stand out here with the regular people.”
I laughed as she led me straight toward the front, where the bouncer immediately stepped aside.
“How you doing tonight, Ms. Giani?” the bouncer said warmly, then caught sight of me.
