The Imitation Game ✓

TWENTY | IT ONLY TAKES A TASTE, PT. I

Cora wasn't one to believe that any of her daily rituals held any sort of cosmic importance, but shedding her costume after a show really did feel like stepping out of someone else's body and putting her own skin back on.

On June 6th, she broke the ritual. After their one show for the day, the matinee, she transformed back into Cora and went outside to greet audience members at the stage door like she always did. But rather than hurry to the subway station to catch her train home or start fixing her hair and makeup in preparation for a second show, she returned to her dressing room to put on an entirely different appearance.

She glanced at the time on her phone as she sat back down at her vanity. They were now down to two hours and fifteen minutes until the Tony Awards started, which meant that she needed to be leaving the theater no later than an hour from now.

Anais, who had run to grab snacks for the both of them while Cora was at the stage door, waltzed back into the room with a bag of goodies in tow. "Let's get started, shall we?"

Cora grinned as Anais dumped the contents of the bag—chips, cookies, and granola bars—out for her to see. Her dresser wasn't under any obligation whatsoever to help her get ready for the Tonys since she wasn't performing, but Anais had offered to do it without even being asked. And Cora wasn't going to say no—all her years working behind the scenes on Broadway meant that Anais had way more beauty tricks up her sleeve than Cora did and could do everything at at least twice the speed.

So Cora munched on a granola bar while Anais started on her hair, parting it further to one side than she usually wore it to create a more dramatic effect. Once that was done and she was finished eating, Anais went to work on a warm-toned makeup look to complement the dress Cora had picked out. Though she could understand why some people didn't like having other people touch their hair or face, Cora would have stayed there for hours if she could. Having someone pamper her tired body after performing a show was such a pleasant feeling.

But the most exciting part of all, of course, was putting on the dress. She was grateful that Anais had given her the tip to rent one because it allowed her to wear something that would have been way out of her purchasing budget, though it did come at the price of being hyper-conscious of her every movement so that she didn't manage to stain or tear it somehow. If any boys whose name started with R and ended with asmus somehow managed to spill their drink on her, she was going to have some very choice words for them. Sure, maybe she wasn't one to talk when she had already dumped half of a Starbucks drink on him, but he hadn't been wearing an outfit worth his entire paycheck at the time.

When she stepped into the dress and pulled the thick straps over her shoulders, she felt like she was taking back a piece of Isla Rothschild to carry with her for the rest of the night—the alluring, sultry piece of her. The gown was more daring than the one Cora had gone for opening night, wine red with a plunging neckline and a slit on one side that rose to her upper thigh. But tonight was her chance to be bold and she imagined she'd thank herself for her outfit choice as soon as she stepped outside. The lightness of the fabric and the overall lack of it made it a good choice for summer.

Anais was gathering up her belongings to head home, but she stopped to grin at Cora as she did a twirl in her dress to watch the fabric swish around her legs. "You look amazing."

Cora had already been smiling, but it grew wider. "Thanks, I owe you one."

Anais waved her off. "What are friends for if not to make each other look hot? But you better text me tomorrow and tell me all about it."

After Cora promised that she would, the door quietly clicked shut as Anais exited. She only had a little bit of time left to kill before it was time to leave, all of which she would probably spend blushing at her own reflection like a middle schooler who'd just gotten ready for her first school dance and wasn't entirely familiar with the person they now saw in the mirror.