"You look lovely, ladies." Madame Dabney stopped in front of us and turned to Professor Buckingham. "Oh, Patricia, don't they look lovely? I wish I'd brought my camera…Maybe I should go back…Wait." She stopped suddenly as if she'd just remembered something. "There's one in this brooch." And then she herded Bex and Macey together while she took a picture with the pin that held a gauzy silk scarf around her neck.
Everyone smiled. And I suppose we did look lovely. Bex's dress was long and black with a strappy back that totally showed off her muscles; Liz looked like the tooth fairy (but in a good way), in a soft pink gown with a full skirt. And Macey, of course, looked like a supermodel in her simple green gown and her hair in a pony tail (I know—a ponytail? Unbelievable.)
The front doors opened, and I saw some guys from the maintenance department coming in, probably to help even out the male-to-female ratio a little bit. (Let me tell you, the Gallagher Academy maintenance department uniforms aren't nearly as flattering as tuxedos.)
Three of the eighth grade boys pounced on Macey, begging her to save them dances, and then I heard a voice, low and strong behind me.
"Well," Zach said slowly, taking in everything—from the shoes I couldn't walk in, to the hairdo Bex and Macey had insisted on. Then he leaned back against the railing and crossed his arms. "You don't look hideous."
I was pretty sure that was supposed to be a compliment, but my understanding of boy dialect was still a little rusty, and Macey was nowhere to be found, so I had to wing it. "Ditto."
Oh my gosh, I thought. Is he smiling? Is he laughing? Is it possible that Zach Goode and I just had a formally attired, preclandestine-mission moment?
And maybe we had, but I'll never know, because just then my heel caught on my hem, and it took every ounce of grace I could muster to avoid falling on my face and out of my dress (you know…the strapless one).
"Easy, Gallagher Girl," Zach said, taking my elbow in the way Madame Dabney had taught the boys the day before.
I pulled my arm away. "I am perfectly capable of walking down the stairs by myself." He'd obviously forgotten that I was also capable of throwing him down those stairs, but then Madame Dabney floated by. "A lady always gracefully accepts a gentleman's arm when offered, Cammie dear."
So see—I totally didn't have a choice—not with Madame Dabney standing there taking pictures of us with her jewelry.
I accepted Zach's arm, and we walked down the stairs, toward the biggest (and…well…fanciest) test ever. But was Zach nervous? No. He was just smiling that same I-know-something-you-don't-know smile he'd first given me in the elevator in D.C.
"Stop it."
"What?" he asked, sounding all innocent, which—I'm pretty sure—he isn't.
"You're enjoying this way too much. You're smirking."
We reached the foyer and turned toward the Grand Hall. "I got news for you, Gallagher Girl, if you're not enjoying this, you're in the wrong business."
And maybe he was right. After all, I'd never seen the Grand Hall look as grand as it did then. Small round tables sat at the edges of the room, covered with orchids and lilies and roses. A string quartet played Beethoven. Waiters carried trays of food almost too beautiful to eat. The room was nothing like a school and everything like a mansion— perfect and elegant, and I was just starting to feel like maybe it really was a party, like maybe putting on a red dress and dancing at a ball might actually be fun.
But that was before I saw Joe Solomon strolling toward us, a stack of files under one arm and a look on his face that was a very grim reminder that tonight was purely business. That was before I heard my CoveOps teacher say, "Hello, ladies and gentlemen. You all look very nice, but I'm afraid you aren't quite finished getting ready."
Can I just say that it's a really good thing Joe Solomon is an extremely skilled operative, because at that moment he should have been very concerned for his physical safety. After all, that is not a thing you should tell a group of girls who have been recently plucked, waxed, gelled, sprayed, and mascaraed.
"I'm afraid we didn't mention that tonight is something of a masquerade ball," he said, and then the panic began.
"But we haven't got masks or … disguises or—" Courtney started, before Mr. Solomon cut her off.
"These are your disguises, Ms. Bauer." Instead of masks, he handed us folders. "Cover legends, ladies and gentlemen. You have three minutes to memorize every piece of information within them."
Immediately, Liz's hand shot into the air.
Solomon smiled. "Even if you are not on the CoveOps track, Ms. Sutton. Spies are the ultimate actors, ladies and gentlemen. It's the heart of what we do. So tonight your mission is simple: you will become somebody else."
It didn't feel like we were playing dress up anymore.
He started to walk away but then paused to say, "It's an exam, people. Culture, languages, observation…The real tests in these subjects don't have anything to do with words on a piece of paper. Tonight isn't about knowing the answers, ladies and gentlemen. It's about living them."
I pulled the folder with my name on it from the stack and found a driver's license, a social security card, even an ID from the State Department—all with my picture and someone else's name.
I know I'd started this semester with a promise to be myself, but as I opened the folder in front of me, I saw that I wasn't going to be attending a ball in a red dress—Tiffany St. James, assistant to the undersecretary of the Interior was.
And that was maybe the most comforting thing I'd heard all day.