Get Up America


She washed, talking calmly about some of the things we’d seen, some of the things Jane had said.

The rumor was that the Anthonys were regular guests on the show and had pulled a string or two. She wondered if that put more or less pressure on us, on Mark.

“It’s just a rumor,” I pointed out.

“A point,” she acknowledged, sitting back to soak for a minute. I went to put her clothes in the sylph laundry bag (a stuff sack for hikers with ‘Electra’ written on the side). I came back with a book and read until she was ready to come out.

Then I lifted her to the washrag and dried her off. She dressed for bed, we called the folks, and then turned out the lights.

The room had two beds. I got one, she got a pillow in the middle of the other one. I don’t know about her, but I fell asleep almost immediately.

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By the time we got to the studio, I was almost awake. Electra was dressed up pretty, watching from the window of the carrier. She didn’t want to wrinkle the dress so I didn’t pocket her.

Mark had been at the studio while we’d been shopping. He led us confidently through the hallways.

“Electra’s make-up is done down here,” he said. He knocked on a door and led us inside the room.

There was a long table in front of a wall mirror. The table had an amazing arrangement of sylph-scaled furniture. Make-up chairs were lined up in a row. Racks and racks of clothes, male and female, were arranged nearby. Sofas and chairs and-

“COFFEE!” Electra squealed.

“A SYLPH!” someone shouted from the table. A tiny person stepped into view from behind a tiny coffee urn. Tiny as it was, though, it was bigger than the little woman.

“Joy, here,” Mark said, “is the greatest make-up artist in the world for sylphs.”

“For anybody!” Joy shouted. “I just can’t reach far enough anymore for the horribly overmassed.” She was small, even for a sylph, bouncing with lots of energy. She pointed to one end of the table.

I put the carrier down where she indicated, in an area marked off in boxes of yellow and black stripes. Electra stepped out quickly. She hugged Joy, then lunged for the rack of coffee mugs.

I looked around. There were a few hundred pictures of sylphs lining the far wall, all along one shelf. It continued around the walls to connect to Joy’s table.

There were no chairs for me to wait in.

“Okay,” I said. “Where do I wait?”

“Wait?” Mark asked. “Come here.” He led me out of the room. The high-pitched giggling faded quickly behind us.

We went through a doorway without a door. There were racks of clothes, mirrors and make-up chairs.

“What’s this?” I asked.

“Dorman!” Mark said. “I got him.”

A very muscular man appeared from behind a rack of clothes. He looked me up and down and started rattling off my neck size, my waist, my inseam.

“Mark? What’s this?”

“The second-best make-up artist in the world,” Mark said.

“You’ve met joy!” Dorman said.

Mark was turning to go out the door. “Wait, wait, what am I doing here?” I asked him.

He turned to me. “You’re getting ready for your TV appearance.”

“I’m not going on TV!”

“Yes, you are,” he said. Behind us, Dorman was moving clothes on the racks in a purposeful way. I thought it sounded ominous.

“They didn’t get me any clothes yesterday!” I protested. Mark pointed to the clothing racks. “No one mentioned-“

He stepped up close to me and spoke quietly. “Conrad, you’ve never been more than ten feet away from Electra when she’s on camera. Do you plan to be in a different room when she goes national? Or by her side?”

“Oh, well, when you put it like that,” I said, “how far away is New Jersey?”

A very big, powerful hand clamped onto my shoulder and yanked me backwards… Back, and away from Mark’s shit-eating grin.

I always knew New York would be dangerous…



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Index

61. New York

63. Electra's Introduction