HE NEXT STEP IN THE Plan to Get Joe was the all-important makeover. This would serve two purposes: one, obviously, to make me more attractive to Joe; and two, to make me look more professional at the clinic. In Boston, I hadn’t cared too much about how I’d looked, buying bland, comfortable clothes, favoring my ponytail for its ease and speed. But my attitude was different now. Some of the people I’d treat would become my clients, and I wanted to project a confident, professional demeanor. And of course, I wanted to be a babe. Dr. Babe.

Turning to the best possible source of a woman’s beauty—a gay man—I called my dear old friend, Curtis.

“I’m ready,” I told him.

“Thank God,” he replied.

Curtis and I had been pals since freshman year of college. He was from Nebraska, of all places, and I’d taken him home for Thanksgiving so he could see the ocean for the first time. He’d stood there, stunned and lovestruck, and hadn’t been back to the Cornhusker State for more than forty-eight hours since. At any rate, Curtis and his long-time partner, Mitch, had joyfully agreed to become my style consultants. These guys made the Fab Five seem like Neanderthals: Curtis’s fair-haired, blue-eyed-angel looks set off his wicked sense of humor, while Mitch’s dark, Byronesque beauty and uppercrust accent suggested generations of robber barons and too many Cary Grant movies. They looked perfect together, and, as far as I could see, they were. Their relationship was so blissful and solid and charming that everyone who saw them together felt happy inside, except for the zipperheads who beat them up periodically if they ventured too far from home.

Since college, Curtis and Mitch had lived in Provincetown, that mecca of homosexual freedom, beautiful gardens, charming shops and fabulous food. The boys owned and operated the Pink Peacock, a beautiful bed-and-breakfast that showcased their genius for interior design. And, true to stereotype, Curtis and Mitch adored women and absolutely reeked of good taste in all matters related to the female form. I had no compunction about placing myself in their well-manicured hands.

So it was that on a cold, blustery Wednesday, I drove up to P-town in my rapidly aging Honda. The drive was glorious, a straight shot up Route 6, the highway that runs down the middle of the Cape. I passed groves of stunted pitch pines and postcard views of salt marshes, zooming along in fourth—my overdrive had never worked—joyfully singing at the top of my lungs to “Rosalita” by my other boyfriend, Bruce Springsteen.

I turned off Route 6, passed the rows of cheerful beachside cottages and navigated down Commercial Street, where galleries and cafés hugged the narrow road. Parking was no problem this early in the season, and I easily found the salon recommended by Curtis and Mitch. The boys themselves frequented this place, and they had gorgeous, lustrous hair, robust cuticles and no visible pores.

Inside, the walls glowed a gentle apricot, and the soothing tones of classical piano music drifted out of discreet speakers. The guys were waiting for me. Their friend Lucien was the owner of the salon and had agreed to “do” me personally, an offer that Curtis and Mitch viewed as quite miraculous. As soon as I walked in, the three gay men descended upon me, clucking as if I had just arisen from my deathbed. I couldn’t blame them. A Boston University sweatshirt and jeans so old they were nearly white did not exemplify the height of gay male fashion.

Extremely tall and buff, Lucien had the ebony skin and dangerous cheekbones of Grace Jones. He also sported a fabulous British accent, which I suspected might be fake. “Fantastic to meet you,” he said stonily. He grimaced as he pulled the elastic out of my ponytail, running an elegant hand through my heavy hair. “Better change, duckie. We’ll be here all day.”

Well, that’s what I was here for, after all. Cut and color, makeup and manicure. I had turned down the pedicure, embarrassed at the thought of someone else cutting my toenails. As I pulled on the chic black robe, I could hear my pals discussing my situation with Lucien.

“She’s set her cap for a man,” Mitchell said in his trademark 1940s lingo.

“Who hasn’t?” sighed Lucien. “Save the two of you, of course.”

“She’s going for a whole new look,” Curtis volunteered. “Professional but interesting and youthful. She’s a doctor.” Here I smiled at the pride in my pal’s voice. No friend like an old friend.

“Right, Cinderella!” barked Lucien. “Why don’t we start with the facial? I’ll need to work from the bottom up on this one. Let’s see if we can do something about that wretched winter skin.”

THREE HOURS LATER, I had been highlighted, brushed, teased, shorn, pumiced, waxed, detoxified, moisturized, astringentized and practically spanked. My cuticles throbbed from the orange stick abuse. My face still stung from the punishing, acidic toner. Scalp tingled, burned and itched from the hair color. Eyebrows screamed from waxing. Could they be bleeding? People really did this willingly? The boys wouldn’t let me see how I looked…. They’d draped a sheet over the mirror so we could do the “reveal.” I tried to remind myself that this was all for a greater good, but even picturing Joe’s perfect face didn’t make me feel better.

As the foiled highlights set in my hair, Lucien escorted me to the makeup area. “Time to fix that face!” he announced. Sitting me down, he began to apply cotton ball after cotton ball of paste-like foundation over my still-suffering skin.

“That color seems a little light,” I commented as he opened another bottle.

“Just sit back, love, and we’ll choose for you.” Clearly, my opinion mattered not one bit. I let Lucien scrub my face with a rough sponge, coughing as he poofed powder onto my cheeks. “There’s simply no cheekbone visible, is there?” he sighed. “Well, we’ll have to fake it.”

“I’ve always tried…” I began.

“Darling, don’t speak. Just sit back and let me work. Mitch, precious, tilt that light just a tad? Brilliant. Now, Millie, is it? You’re going to love me for this.”

As Lucien applied every makeup item known to mankind, Curtis and Mitch began to look a little…concerned.

“Do I look okay?” I asked, trying not to move my lips as Lucien dabbed Product Number Four upon them.

“Ah…” began Mitch. Lucien shot them a heated glance.

“It’s very…dramatic,” Curtis attempted.

“Well, what did you want? Boring?” demanded Lucien. “I thought we’d done boring.”

“I’m sure it’s great,” I soothed. “And you’re right. I’ve done boring. Time for a little flair.”

“See?” hissed Lucien. “Right-o, we’re done here. Back to the sink.” He began removing the foil wraps from my hair and rinsed my head. I yelped as the hot water hit my tormented scalp.

“Sorry!” Lucien sang out cheerfully. He adjusted the faucet so that the water turned ice-cold. Back at the cutting area, though, he settled in, brushing and drying my hair with a dexterity I knew I could never achieve.

“Ready?” he finally purred. Curtis and Mitch exchanged worried glances. With a quick, smooth move, Lucien tore the sheet from the mirror.

The first thing I saw was my eyebrows, or rather, the lack thereof. Granted, they were a bit unruly before, but now they were no longer recognizable as human eyebrows, so thin they looked like they were one hair thick or drawn on with a very, very sharp pencil. The skin around them was puffy from the waxing, and even the grotesque amount of makeup Lucien had applied couldn’t quite mask the redness.

And speaking of makeup…my skin was now pasty-white except for angry slashes of brown (“cheekbones”). I looked like I had just drunk deeply and satisfyingly from the neck of a wayward virgin, thanks to the arterial red on my lips. My eyes, tightened by the minimizer/astringent therapy, looked tiny, ringed in thick black. I glanced in alarm to Curtis, who had the honesty to look away, ashamed for his part in this fiasco.

“What do you think?” cooed Lucien the Nazi.

“I…I…” I had no answer. My brain reeled.

“Your hair is lovely,” Mitch said kindly, apologetically.

I forced my gaze north of those eyebrows, and…oh. My hair—thick, heavy, somewhat schizophrenic—looked fabulous! Now, layered, chic, at least eight inches shorter, it was lighter, too, a vibrant, glowing mahogany. Shiny waves floated about my face, sophisticated but casual. I loved it, thank God.

“Wonderful,” I said to Lucien. Curtis smiled in relief, knowing he had been granted reprieve from certain execution. The makeup, after all, could be washed off. The eyebrows…well, eyebrow pencils had been invented for a reason, right? But hair was critical to good looks. You couldn’t be adorable if you had bad hair, and I now had great hair.

A short time later, I walked down the street, having parted with an ungodly sum to pay for my degradation, wondering how to grow my eyebrows back while avoiding unsightly stubble. Once in my car, I checked myself out in the rearview mirror. Eyebrows still bald. Skin still shockingly white, lips still blood-drenched. My previously wonderful hair had been ravished by the salty Provincetown wind. The carelessly sophisticated look was gone, never to be completely reproduced, soundly replaced with the fourth-grader-asleep-on-the-bus look.

There was no singing along with the radio on the way home.