But before either of us could make more of a move than that, Isabel came back, booming, “Now I’m ready to hit the town!” She was dressed neck-to-knee in sequins, which made her look like a walking Times Square billboard.
With a great sense of relief, I got out of my chair and moved from Rod’s office into Isabel’s outer office. “You look really, um, striking,” I said.
She did a pirouette that was surprisingly graceful for someone twice my size and nearly a foot taller. “Fun, isn’t it? I’ve been looking for an occasion to wear this.” She then saw my shoes and gasped. “Oh my! Those are amazing!”
Ari and Trix joined us, dressed in outfits so skimpy it would have taken all the material in both their dresses to make my skirt. I suddenly felt frumpy in comparison and wished I’d done more to dress up than put on a silk blouse with my black work skirt and red shoes. Their reactions, though, made me feel better. “Fab shoes, Katie,” Ari said.
Trix fluttered over to me. “Yeah, look at you! I bet you’ll find someone to replace Ethan by the end of the night.”
“You can count on that,” Ari added with a firm nod.
Isabel picked up some papers from her desk. “I’ve done a little online research, so I think I have a plan for the evening. Happy hour at one of those beautiful-people bars in SoHo—since we are definitely beautiful people tonight. Then dinner in the Village.”
“And then there’s this club I heard about,” Ari said. “Very hot, very now. I’m sure we can find a way to get in.”
Trix posed saucily. “We’ll have to cast a spell on them—whatever kind of spell it might take.”
I felt almost like a character on Sex and the City as we left the office building, going out for a glamorous night in New York with a group of girlfriends. Then I got a good look at Ari and Trix and nearly tripped over my own red shoes. They must have turned on their magical veiling spells when they left the building. I’d never seen them away from work without my magical immunity, so I’d never seen the illusions they wore to hide their status as fairies from the rest of the world. I still recognized them, but it was disconcerting to see them as wholly human. Without her slightly pointed ears and her gauzy wings, Ari’s halo of short blond curls made an even more striking contrast with her goth girl makeup and her edgy clothes. Trix, with her straight strawberry-blond pixie cut, looked like an incredibly cute, pert young woman. Isabel’s appearance hadn’t changed at all, so I presumed that meant she didn’t bother magically hiding her giant size in public.
Isabel put that size to good use and hailed a cab for us by blocking the street with her body. “We can’t be expected to deal with public transportation when we look this fabulous,” she explained.