was frowning, concentrating on her Ugg boots. “You might as well not bother calling. People always try, but they never get anywhere.”
This was heresy to Lucy. “Of course I’ll try. A lot of it depends on federal guidelines and stuff. Now that your father’s not working we probably qualify for a Pell grant or something.”
“Trust me, the most you’ll get is a loan application.”
“That might be doable,” said Lucy, eager to seize the slimmest excuse for hope. In her heart she knew it was unlikely that the family would be able to afford a college loan, and Elizabeth was already saddled with thousands in student loans.
Elizabeth continued studying her boots. “How much do we need?” she asked.
“Ten thousand.”
“That’s weird.” Elizabeth was sitting up straighter. “That’s really weird. I didn’t tell you before, but this makeover thing is also a contest.” The usually sullen Elizabeth was practically bubbling with excitement. “The best mother and daughter makeover team wins ten thousand dollars.”
The view through the plate glass windows of the terminal was dark and snowy, but Lucy felt as if it was morning and the sun was shining. “Really? That’s fabulous. It’s like fate or something.”
Elizabeth was actually smiling. “I know. Like it’s meant to be.”
“All we have to do is be the best makeover?”
“Yeah.”
Lucy felt her optimism dim slightly. “How do we do that?”
“I don’t know. I think the editors vote or something.”
“They’re probably looking for the most dramatic change,” said Lucy. “We might be at a disadvantage, I mean, we’re pretty cute to start with.”
Elizabeth turned and gave her mother a withering glance. “Mom, you’re wearing duck boots, a plaid coat and a green fake fur hat—I think we’ve got a pretty good chance.”
Lucy couldn’t believe what she was hearing. She’d chosen her outfit carefully and thought she looked fabulous. It was her best coat, after all, and only six years old. The hat had been an impulse purchase and the boots, well, come winter in Maine you didn’t leave the house in anything else. “Well then,” she finally said, “that’s good, isn’t it?”
It was well into the wee hours of the morning when the plane landed at New York’s La Guardia Airport and Lucy was congratulating herself on her decision not to check their luggage. She was bone tired and didn’t want to waste precious sleep time standing around a balky carousel trying to decide which black suitcase was hers. Fortunately, however, they were supposed to be met by a limousine that would, in the words of the official makeover itinerary, “whisk them into the world’s most glamorous city for a magical three-days of luxurious pampering and personal consultations with top fashion and beauty experts.”
Disembarking from the crowded plane seemed to take forever as passengers wrestled with the maximum number of bags allowable, all of which seemed much larger than the prescribed dimensions. Lucy and Elizabeth finally broke free from the shuffling herd and ran through the jet way, towing their neat little rolling suitcases. There were a handful of people waiting in the arrivals hall, holding placards with names, but none of the names was “Stone.”
“The limo must have left without us,” said Lucy.
“No wonder. We’re late,” said Elizabeth. “What do we do now?”
Lucy weighed her options and decided this was no time to pinch pennies by searching for a shuttle bus—if they were even running at this hour. You had to spend money to save it, or in this case, win it. “Taxi,” she said.
The ride on the expressway was disorienting, as they sped along in a whirl of red and white automobile lights. The stretches of road that were illuminated by streetlamps gave only depressing views of the filthy slush and ice that lined the roadway, but their spirits brightened when they rounded a curve and there, right in front of them, was the glittering New York skyline.
“Wow,” breathed Elizabeth. “It’s really like the pictures.”
Lucy studied the ranks of tall buildings and looked for the familiar outlines of the Empire State Building and the Chrysler Building, the only two she could identify with certainty. Those and the twin towers of the World Trade Center, but there was only an empty gap where they had stood. The thought made her heart lurch and she was surprised at her reaction; she didn’t trust herself to speak about it for fear she would start crying. Instead, she firmly turned her thoughts to the promised “three days of luxury at New York’s fabulous Melrose Hotel.”
New York must indeed be “the city that never sleeps,” thought Lucy, as the taxi pulled up to the hotel and the doorman rushed forward to greet them. “Welcome to the Melrose,” he said, opening the door and extending a hand to help them alight from the car.
In no time at all they were checked in and whisked through the marble lobby to the elevators and taken to their room, which Lucy was delighted to discover was decorated in a French-inspired style with wrought iron filigree headboards and wooden shutters at the windows. It was also very tiny and she had to maneuver carefully around Elizabeth before she could collapse on her bed.
“Did you know this used to be the Barbizon?” she asked, quickly leafing through the leather-bound book listing the hotel’s amenities.
“Is that supposed to mean something to me?” demanded Elizabeth.
“I guess not,” admitted Lucy, reminded yet again of the knowledge gap between generations. “It was a famous hotel for women.”
“Like for lesbians or something?”
“No. Girls who were coming to the city for careers would stay here until they got married. It was a safe, respectable address.”
Elizabeth was regarding her as if she was speaking in tongues.
“Times were different then,” she said, with a sigh. She’d hoped this trip would be an opportunity to spend some quality time with her oldest daughter but now she was beginning to think that three days with Elizabeth might be too much of a good thing.
“We might as well unpack,” she said, getting to her feet and lifting her suitcase onto the bed. “Then we can sleep a little later tomorrow morning.”
“This morning,” corrected Elizabeth, reluctantly dragging herself off the bed and pulling her nightgown out of her suitcase.
They soon discovered, however, that the bank of louvered doors along one wall concealed heating ducts and other paraphernalia, offering only limited closet space that was quickly filled with their coats and boots. A chest of drawers was also a cheat—the drawers weren’t drawers at all but a trompe l’oeil door concealing the minibar.
“Where am I supposed to put my stuff?” demanded Elizabeth.
“We’ll keep our clothes in the suitcases and slide them under the bed.” Lucy’s cheery tone belied her displeasure. She hated living out of a suitcase. But when she dropped to her knees to investigate she discovered the bed was too low for the suitcases to fit. She sat back on her heels
