Las Vegas, Nevada – September 27, 2003
Mark stood in front of me, blocking out the light from the low-hanging lamp over the desk. It wasn’t the best lighting, he told me, but it would have to do. As he put on his glasses and opened up the black case in front of him, I looked past him out the window and at the horizon. The heat from the desert was rising up off the pavement in a haze and the sun was beginning to set, throwing a dull, yellowish light across all the neon. It was almost beautiful.
“Do you want me to use false eyelashes?” Mark said, taking out various brushes and containers.
I blinked at him and then shrugged my shoulders. He could do what he wanted; he was the makeup artist, not me.
“I think it would look nice, but it might be too much. If you cry during the ceremony, then I don’t think the glue will hold.”
A small circle of women formed around us, all eager to watch the beauty magician do his work. Annika and her friend stood in the corner, in the shadows, asking questions about the application of eyelashes; Andrea, my quasi-adoptive mother, sat on the side of the double bed, already dressed and perfumed; Becky, my best friend from high school, paced behind me and kept offering to go to find my other best friend, Cara. She was lost somewhere in the bowels of the casino, trying to find her way up to my room. Just off her flight from Chicago, she was tired and disoriented. Or perhaps that was because she had become a mother and hadn’t slept a solid five hours in over nine months.
“Darling,” Mark said to Annika as she inched forward to watch him apply concealer underneath my eyes, “you’re blocking my light.”
“Sorry, honey,” Annika said. “My bad.”
I had known Mark since I had first moved to New York City to work in fashion. We had worked together for over seven years, but he had done my makeup only once before, for my thirtieth birthday party. It was the first time I had introduced Barry to my circle of friends. I had only known him for two weeks and had to convince him to come to a party I was throwing myself at a trendy jazz bar in Soho. Eighteen months later, I was preparing to marry him at a chapel in Las Vegas. An Elvis impersonator was going to perform the ceremony; it had been booked for four months.
I sat very still, my eyes raised to the ceiling, as Mark applied my makeup. All the eyes on me were making me nervous and I started to sweat. I already had my wedding dress on – simple, white, summery, and see-through in strategic locations.
It was impossible to think straight.
My friend Jen must have noticed how pale I was and asked if I needed something to drink. When I shook my head no, Mark sighed audibly and told me not to move unless I wanted my eyeliner to suggest that I was Egyptian. Then he laughed, because we were in the Luxor hotel and maybe that would have been appropriate. Suddenly, I felt suffocated and nauseous. What I wanted, more than anything, was for everyone to file out of the room and let me have some time alone. I needed to think. Even though I had never had one before, I had the sensation that I might be minutes away from having a panic attack.
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