When Christina got into Mark’s car, she was more relaxed than she thought possible. It wasn’t a fancy car, but an ordinary Toyota sedan, very much like the one her parents owned. The interior was almost the same. 

She gave Mark directions to her apartment. Partway through her discourse Mark stopped her. “Couldn’t you just give me the address? It seems like we’re just following the number twelve bus route.”

Christina shuddered. They were following the number twelve bus route. She wasn’t very familiar with the city, even though she had lived there for almost a year, and she didn’t know how to get anywhere without taking the bus. She blushed and gave him the address.

Mark changed lanes and look them onto a much faster-moving road. Apparently, they had really been going the slow way.

 Finally, he parked in front of her building. “Do you want to come in?” Christina asked nervously. She had never invited a guy up to her apartment before. The idea made her all twitchy.

“That was the plan,” he said, taking off his seat belt.

“Why?” she asked.

“Because I came to watch you change.”

“What!” Christina exclaimed. “I am not going to let you watch me change.”

“Look, Christina, I’m not trying to get a glimpse of you naked or something, but I want to watch you turn into yourself. Don’t you think that will take the spell off both of us?”

Christina looked at him carefully. What he said made a great deal of sense to her. He was probably right. If he watched her take off her wig, all her other flare and then saw her in her regular clothes with only her glasses to frame her eyes then the illusion would probably be destroyed. If he didn’t like her for who she truly was then it would come out right away and both of them would be spared the pain of not getting who they wanted.

“Okay,” Christina said, thinking there was a possibility that after he saw the transformation he wouldn’t want to make her supper anymore and would simply leave the apartment. For some reason, she couldn’t let that happen. She wanted a chance to convince him that ‘Christina’ was a really amazing girl, so she had to have dinner with him. She absolutely had to. “But, I’d rather not do that here if that’s okay. Could I just get a bag and come over to your place?”

Mark looked shocked. “I guess that would be okay.”

“Kay. I’ll be right back,” Christina said, getting out of the car and heading into the building. 

***

Mindy was ecstatic about the possibility of being Christina’s makeup artist for the ad campaign. 

“Yay me!” she declared happily. “Where should we go to celebrate?”

Christina bit her lip and went into her bedroom without answering. She had to pack her bag.

“What are you doing?” Mindy asked when she saw Christina fill up a backpack with clothes and shoes. “You’re not doing something else I shouldn’t tell your mom, are you?”

“No,” Christina said, realizing full well that it looked like she was packing an overnight bag. “I’ll be back tonight. I won’t be fooling around or anything.”

“What will you be doing?” Mindy asked seriously.

Christina thought about telling her what she and Mark had planned but decided against it. Mindy probably wasn’t the type to sympathize with that level of understanding, and Christina didn’t want to be ridiculed. She doubted Mindy ever let a man see her without war paint. “None of your business,” she said, sliding her makeup remover into the bag.

“Okay, but phone if you’re going to be home later than two. If I wake up in the morning and you’re not here, I’ll call your parents and ask them if you went home for the weekend.”

Christina brushed her off. “I'm not staying out all night." 

She gathered the rest of her stuff together and went down to Mark’s car. She opened the backdoor and threw her bag in before she got in the front seat.

“Does it really take that much stuff?” he asked her.

“Yes, it does.”

“Okay then,” he said, shifting the car into reverse. “This is probably going to be a very illuminating experience for me.”