And “Best Dressed” Goes to…

Casadei shoes $312, Couture.Zappos.com
I pat on porcelain powder, brighten eyes with smudges of black, crimp and coat my lashes–thrice–, gloss my lips nude, smooth my bangs with a second blow (dry) job, dab on Chanel’s liquid gold, survey my closet and decide a blue wool tank is now a dress, then strap on red light-district suede, peepshow peep toes. And I always skip a bra–

I realized years ago it saved some time.

Sometimes the Kristopher in me hates the prissy Krissy I doll up daily as, but grooming gorgeous is only one more thing you should always do right: looking your best opens wider a window–and maybe your legs–to opportunity, it polishes your pride, it–

Makes you late to a last minute doctor’s appointment. I speed to Beverly Hills, screech into a parking space, and stroll to the office. I loop signatures on paperwork probably okaying selling my kidneys in Tijuana, and finally meet a mediocre M.D.

“I’ve been extremely tired for almost a year around the red tide,” I tell the doctor dude. “Two Red Bulls, six sugar-free soy green tea lattes in a row, extra exercise, eating babies…” I pause and he just keeps jotting. “Nothing works.”

“Well, really, it’s just that a woman’s cycle, her hormones, are such a mystery.”

“You mean like the rage I’m feeling right now at wasting my time?”

“Well–”

“Want to just do a blood panel and see if anything shows?” I suggest. “I think I’m overdue anyway.”

He sends in a nurse. “You need to lie down?” she asks, her Russian accent thick like Moscow street food.

“For what?” I eye her: her blond hair is silvering, her features floating in a sea of wrinkles. She’s not really my type.

“Because I take blood. You know, most women like to lie down.”

“I’m not most women,” I say. “I like to watch.” I make a right-handed fist and she pricks me, and I watch the blood spurt into the vial. A primal piece of my brain sirens that I should stop this loss, and I’m amused.

She finally takes out the needle, pressing a cotton ball to my arm. “Hold. Don’t bleed.”

“I won’t bleed on my little blue dress, but maybe I’ll drip red all over your white coat.”

“Oh, no, no,” she laughs.

“It’ll get the other patients’ attention,” I push. “Keep them in line. All those whining kids…”

She BandAids me, and I shake her hand, and as I exit the building I realize I’m on the street of a salon owned by a boy I sexed. Our couple weeks of copulating didn’t come catastrophic, we just found as fast as we slept together that two twenty-something-year-old workaholics from Los Angeles didn’t equal love, or, even, like, really like? And so my river of dirty text messages slowed into a creek, then dried dead. Seeing him seems inconvenient, but I’m sure his salon was further down the block, I’m sure–

That he’s one of the three dudes watching my walk down the street. “Hey! Look who it is. Haven’t seen you in a while. No calls, no texts.”

“It takes two,” I say, smiling, taking his peck on my powdered cheek.

“So what are you doing around here?”

“Doctor’s appointment.”

He eyes my outfit. “You’re looking sexy.”

“I’m going jogging in this later.”

“You sure you’re just here for the doctor’s?”

“Positive, like my STD test.”

His brows meet, making a frown, before we laugh. “Oh, yeah?” His eyes trail the ambitious arch of my sole to the polished, Posh-ish bob, and I realize he thinks I came here dolled up in hopes of seeing him, I realize –

I should buy a hooded sweat suit.

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