I tell Allie I need new lipstick, and she tells me I have to buy Mac.

"Mac what?"

"It's a make up brand. It's the best. It's the only kind models use. Good models."

"What about Estee Lauder? What about completely allergy-free, animal-testing-free, fragrance-free Clinique?" I display all my make-up knowledge in two sentences.

"No. Mac."

At this moment I realize that Allie really does know a lot about make up; I know computers and Allie knows make up. So I bring her with me.

At the make up counter, all the women look alike: exotic, mysterious faces, with lots of perfectly applied make up. I feel out of place with my freckled skin and Barbara Streisand nose.

Allie becomes a new person. She is the professor. She is the TV commentator. She is the lecturing date. She knows the color names of the lipstick better than the women who work there. Allie picks out a brownish color that I would have thought was only for brown people; it makes my face look exotic and mysterious. Then Allie puts a whitish color on the inner part of my lips, and tells me it's a trick to make my lips look fuller. They do, and now other women are watching Allie work.

When she finishes my lips, she starts on her own face, using eye shadow for blush and lip pencil for eye liner, and the women who work there keep telling her she's doing it wrong, but then they become silent, because Allie looks stunning, as if she has on no make up, and all the make up in the world, at the same time.