Derek Winslow.

Jemimah’s hand trembled as she set the carefully lettered place card on the creamy linen tablecloth. Why in the world had she agreed to partner him to tonight’s ball?

I didn’t agree. I just didn’t say no.

I didn’t say anything.

Her thoughts sank into the same rumination that had worn a groove into her brain every single day since she'd answered Derek’s question about ballroom dancing and unwittingly accepted his - or his sister's - invitation to be his date for the Minningford Ball.

Without ever having the opportunity to say yes -- or no.

Jemimah placed the elegant, ribbon-bound dinner program at a precise angle between Derek’s cutlery.

Every time panic overwhelmed her about what she'd done -- or not done - Angie would huff and tell her she was being silly. Jemimah mightn't know Derek well, but Angie's family had known him forever. Yes, of course, Derek was a Christian; no, there was no reason in the world Jemimah shouldn't be his partner for the ball. Besides, she was doing him a favour too -- how could she even think of standing him up?

Jemimah took a deep breath and to the left of Derek’s cutlery added a burgundy serviette that had been intricately folded into an opening lotus bloom.

Even if she’d had the opportunity - would she honestly have said no to Derek’s invitation to the ball?

Biting her lip, Jemimah moved left to the next place setting, repeating the same careful process of name card, program, serviette.

It had been easier to leave that question unresolved and allow herself to be swept along in the wake of everyone else’s plans.

She worked her way around the circular banquet table, each calligraphed name card, each ribbon-tied menu, each painstakingly fashioned serviette representing hour after hour of disciplined work over the past several weeks. Despite the pressure, she had been glad that every spare minute had been rigorously scheduled, every moment accounted for - keeping her hands and mind too busy to admit the truth.

Now opposite her starting point, Jemimah lifted out the next place card.

Michael Turnbull.

Jemimah momentarily squeezed her eyes shut against the swell of emotion, before carefully focusing on its perfect positioning.

No. She would not have said no to his invitation to the Minningford Ball. She was ashamed admitting it even to herself that, despite having no desire to partner Derek Winslow - even dreading spending the evening in his company, she would not willingly have passed up the opportunity once she knew Michael would be there.

Not just to see Michael again - but for him to see her, to really see her. Not as a little sister in need of yet another rescue, but as a confident and mature young woman.

Jemimah carefully placed Michael’s dinner program and arranged its perfectly tied ribbon with shaky fingers, feeling anything but confident and mature. Anticipation and dread, hope and fear crashed against each other like violent waves in her chest, the clamour increasing as she neared the very end of the tasks that had been keeping her afloat.

Michael’s lotus bloom serviette.

He was here, somewhere, outside the Minningford ballroom. Once she’d thought she’d heard his voice, but she couldn’t be sure.

Three of Sonja’s friends had travelled with him from Sydney and arrived a couple of hours ago, but Jemimah hadn’t seen him or any of the other men helping with the preparations outdoors and in the accommodation areas. Sonja had set up clear lines of demarcation: no men anywhere near the ballroom while the ladies completed the finishing touches.

Name card, dinner program, serviette. Lost in her thoughts she continued methodically to the next place settings, hoping against hope that this would be the time Michael would see her in a different light.

Jemimah Parker.

“Have you nearly finished?”

She startled at Sonja’s voice just behind her, the very last name card - her own - fluttering from her fingers.

“Darling, you’ve done a simply marvellous job,” Sonja gushed, retrieving the card and setting it down in the place beside Derek’s.

Jemimah quickly placed her program and the serviette and stood back from the table, biting her lip as Sonja surveyed her work.

“Everything you’ve done is just gorgeous! Thank you!” The warmth of Sonja’s approval buoyed her spirits. “And now that you are finished, I have a surprise for you.”

Jemimah followed Sonja toward the storeroom at the left of the stage, where the murmur of voices and laughter drifted out through the slightly open door. As she entered, she saw Angie and a few of the other working party ladies holding glasses and passing around a plate of crackers and dip, and thought at first that Sonja’s surprise was an impromptu afternoon tea as they each finished up their allocated tasks.

Then she noticed Sharon, Sonja’s stylist colleague, unloading trays of hair and beauty tools from a professional-looking trolley case onto a trestle table pushed up against the far wall. A bar stool had been placed in front of it, and one of Sonja’s “beauty pageant” school friends, Tania, was unfolding a vinyl cape.

It looked like they were getting ready to do someone’s hair and makeup and Jemimah hoped she’d be able to slip into the corner and get at least a glimpse into what made Sonja and her friends look so ... sophisticated. Over the last few weeks, she’d experimented with several different ways of putting her hair up, but it hadn’t been very successful. After all the drama with Angie over trying to find her a ball gown they both agreed on, she hadn’t dared raise the subject with her and had resigned herself to one of her usual styles.

A series of metallic clicks just behind and to her right caught her attention and she turned to see Helen, the one Angie had said was a fashion photographer, setting up industrial looking tripods with several adjustable spotlights on each stand. How exciting, Jemimah thought, glad for the distraction from her own concerns. It looked a lot like the setup for fashion shoots that Angie had been telling her about.

Helen snapped on a power switch and there was a burst of laughter as Sonja and Tania - caught unexpectedly in the glare of the spotlights - threw up their hands to shade their eyes. Helen adjusted the lights to bounce off the walls and ceiling, leaving no shadowy corners to hide in, Jemimah noted ruefully, and slid back into a spot beside the door.

“It looks like we’re all ready for you, Jemimah,” Sonja said, gesturing with open arms.

Jemimah stared in confusion at Sonja’s smiling face, aware of everyone in the room turning toward her and watching.

Slowly the lights, the trestle table, the beauty cases, the bar stool and the towel spread with clips and combs and scissors took on a different significance and Jemimah felt a sense of shocked disbelief not unlike what she’d experienced when she’d overheard Sonja suggesting Derek take Jemimah to the ball.

She had no idea how long she would have stood there, stunned, if Angie hadn’t stepped towards her and broken the spell.

“How’s that for a surprise - Sonja’s organised the girls to give you a makeover,” she said, herding her toward the stool. Moving in response to Angie’s prompting rather than any voluntary effort, she found herself seated while Tania deftly secured the protective cape around her neck. There was a whirr and a click and Jemimah realised Helen was now snapping photos.

Meanwhile, Sharon had opened a scrapbook to a double page of photos and pictures torn from magazines of models with glamorously styled hair that looked nothing like Jemimah. The other ladies clustered around as Sharon pointed to different elements of the pictures, terms like “layered bob”, “curl definition”, “stacked nape” and “angled cut” passing between the women as they looked from the images on the page to Jemimah where she sat in the spotlight like a marble statue on a plinth, feeling like she was listening to an indecipherable foreign language.

Her heart pounded with fear and indecision. She had no idea what they had in mind and was torn between interrupting to ask exactly what they were planning or to simply place her faith in their judgement and accept the offered gift.

After all, what was her opinion worth compared to theirs, anyway? It was following her own fashion sense that had kept her frozen in her perpetual early teens for nearly a decade. The thought of something new terrified her, but would she ever have another opportunity like this - to put herself in the hands of actual fashion professionals?

Jemimah took a deep breath and closed her eyes as Tania began spraying her hair with water. The light mist cooled her burning cheeks, and the touch of Sharon’s confident hands as she combed through her hair was almost comforting.

“Dear Lord, please let this turn out all right,” she silently prayed, wondering if it was too late to ask now it was all in motion.

At the grating sound of hairdressing shears slicing through her hair, Jemimah was glad of the long cape that covered her from neck to knees and hid her shaking hands. She tried to ignore the feeling of her long locks sliding down the cape and onto the floor and kept her eyes tightly shut so that she couldn’t see them either. There was no backing out now.

The women worked with professional efficiency but were relaxed and clearly enjoying themselves. It appeared that all the ladies on the committee were in on the secret, and one by one as they finished their own tasks, they joined the party in the makeshift studio.

A sudden buzzing sound startled Jemimah, and she opened her eyes, twisting to see the electric clippers in Sharon’s hand.

“Don’t worry - It’s just to give a clean edge to the nape.” Sharon placed a reassuring hand on Jemimah’s shoulder. “Trust me - it will be stunning.”

Feeling sick to the stomach, but not knowing what else to do, Jemimah turned back around and gritted her teeth against the vibration of the metal shaver against her tender skin. Even after all the cutting, and the cascades of curls flowing down the cape, she’d never imagined they’d style her hair so short it could need barber’s clippers. What had she done?

Her terror slowly solidified into a numbed resignation, and as Sharon and Tania moved onto massaging styling mouse through her hair the sensation of their fingers moving over her scalp was almost hypnotic. It was final now. There was nothing left for her to do but keep breathing.

Now the sound of a blow dryer muffled even the conversation of the rest of the room, cocooning Jemimah in her own bubble of unreality, where she was only vaguely aware of them gathering and scrunching curls in their hands, curls that felt like they were no longer her own but belonged to someone else.

And then it was silent.

The two ladies stepped back, and Jemimah opened her eyes as they moved slowly around her, surveying their handiwork. She noted with some relief how pleased they looked, and she became aware of the enthusiastic responses of the rest of the group. Sonja was clearly thrilled, and congratulated both the ladies effusively.

“Did anyone see the mirror?” Sharon asked, but Sonja shook her head, dramatically holding up her hands. “No, no, no - we’ll wait until her make-up is done! Then Jemimah can appreciate the whole effect.”

Sonja moved over to trestle table and joined Simone, her other model-pretty school friend, by the cosmetic cases. She reached into one of the compartments and withdrew a scarlet lipstick.

“This is the exact colour of Jemimah’s gown,” Sonja said and handed it to Simone, who held it at arm’s length, looking over it towards Jemimah’s face. “Yes, it’s perfect for her.”

Simone gathered up a handful of sponges and poured a pale, porcelain coloured foundation into her hand, then smoothed it over Jemimah’s skin. After the tension of the last half-hour, her deft movements were strangely soothing. The worst had already been done and mere makeup that would be washed away before the morning held no more fears for Jemimah.

Finally relaxing enough to follow the conversation around her, she listened as Simone explained each step to one of the other ladies, and hoped she’d be able to remember the details for when she was able to look closely at it later.

She felt overwhelmed by the sheer amount of time and trouble these ladies - virtual strangers - were going to for her, or at least for Sonja. Despite her conflicted feelings, she was touched by Sonja’s thoughtfulness in arranging this on top of everything else. She had no idea what had prompted Sonja to offer such an extravagant gift, nor if she had been brave enough to accept it - or simply too cowardly to refuse.

A final layer of lipstick was applied, and then the protective cape was removed from her shoulders leaving Jemimah feeling suddenly bare and exposed in front of the room full of ladies. Sharon had found her mirror, and Jemimah prayed for grace to be able to respond with gratitude no matter what had been done to her.

“Close your eyes sweetie,” Sonja instructed, and Jemimah took a deep breath. “O-kaaay, you may look now.”

Her heart thudding painfully, Jemimah opened her eyes and was hit by a visceral shock unlike anything she’d ever experienced. She stared at the reflection in the mirror, unable to move, unable to think - even the air in her lungs seemed frozen in place. Was that really her?

She moved her head slightly and saw the woman in the reflection move in sync. How could this be her?

Internally, Jemimah felt like she was gaping like a landed fish, with stunned and staring eyes - but the woman in the mirror looked poised, like a magazine model posing for a camera, and indeed she could hear the fast clicks of the camera shutter.

“What do you think?”

Relieved to look away from the mirror, Jemimah turned to Sonja, literally speechless, but somehow managed to smile and mouth conventional words of thanks. Sonja beamed at her, and Jemimah had the novel sensation of hearing the other women in the room discussing how beautiful she looked and what an incredible job Sharon and Tania had done. Jemimah was able to nod her appreciation to the ladies even while her mind was still trying to comprehend the image she’d seen in the mirror.

Sonja looked at her watch, then clapped her hands together, bringing immediate order into the room.

“We’re still on schedule, but you two I’m sending straight home while the coast is clear,” she said to Angie and Jemimah, after double-checking the ballroom and courtyard were empty. “And the rest of us have just enough time to go and check on the guys’ progress and then start getting ready ourselves.”

Jemimah stepped down from the bar stool, still feeling somewhat disconnected from reality and followed Angie to the doorway and out into the ballroom. For the moment the gracious room was silent and perfect. It seemed impossible to imagine it would be filled with movement and laughter and the aromas of food in just a few hour’s time.

And even more impossible to believe that she would be there too.