About Face (22 page)

CHAPTER 25

Ads Sell Stuff

 

 

A WEEK LATER, on the bus to work, Ruth became entranced by a tall, willowy African-American woman with impossibly short hair, bright red lipstick, and huge hoop earrings, whose spike heels and calf-length sheath skirt made her look like she was walking down a fashion-show runway instead of the aisle of the bus. In the middle of her stampeding fantasy about the glamorous life the woman led and her self-confidence about her face and body, she remembered something Maria had said at last night's meeting of The Brain Trust.

The long-postponed topic had been envy, any kind of envy. There was so much to choose from: looks, career, creativity, money, intelligence, marriage and children, courage, spirituality. Even alleged penis envy.

Maria had seemed to fold in on herself as she said that she envied complete strangers, like people in her flower shop or on the street. She closed her dark eyes, accentuating the unlikely freckles on her pale face, as she told how she invented lives for these people and then envied the invented lives.

“Mostly I always think they look like they're so comfortable with who they are. They could be nerdy guys with pants above their ankles. Or grannies who take a half hour choosing a brand of toilet paper, but in my mind they're supremely centered.”

Fantasy-and-envy. Like Maria. She reminded herself that the tall beautiful woman might have problems of her own. She looked around at the other bus passengers. The woman in front of her was frantically flipping through typewritten pages that were dimpled with red handwritten editorial comments. The man across the aisle was asleep, mouth open, head inclining toward his neighbor, who seemed to be trying to distance her shoulder from his head. These were all just regular people, as was the woman who'd just been the subject of her fantasies. Regular people; remember that.

At her office, she cleared her desk of routine correspondence before concentrating on the email she'd been looking forward to writing since her confrontation with Pat ten days before. She'd been feeding Jeremy slightly discouraging news about the progress of About Face. She told him about advertising problems and product-coloration glitches, things she would normally have kept from him. Nothing too dire; she didn't want to give him an attack of scruples. Just a negative shading of the truth, enough to get up his hopes about a big fat flop. It was almost sexual, trying to keep his excitement stoked but not erupting.

A few days before, she'd demonstrated some of the products they were considering for the line. She used tubes, brushes and bottles on a mannequin in his office, explaining to him the thinner and dryer skin of middle-aged faces.

“Right over here by the eyes, it tends to be dark and cast a shadow. Do you see? Lightweight and light-colored make-up is an optical illusion. It doesn't look like a big glob of makeup plastered on, but it does eliminate the shadow.”

“And here's another common problem: graying and thinning eyebrows. It's much better to fill them in with eye-shadow and a little brush than with an eyebrow pencil. Don't you think those darker eyebrows make a big difference?”

She'd known Jeremy would squirm. It took men a little while at the company to become inured to talk of this or that cosmetic on this or that facial flaw, and he hadn't been there long enough. She enjoyed every squirm.

In the end, he gave the most minimal kind of support he could muster.

“I guess you must know what you're doing. I guess.” Sigh. “Because you have such a great track record here.” Sigh. “It seems kind of iffy to me, but I'm going to try to ignore my skeptical inner voice. Sure, let's go with it. Go with it for now.”

If it hadn't been for her session with Pat, and then her corroboration from Danny, she'd have spent a lot of time trying to interpret his exaggerated tolerance. But she knew the hammed-up sighing was fake, a sigh-fi tale to make sure Ruth was impressed with his reluctance.

Meanwhile, Pat had been cooperative and, if not exactly friendly, a little less stiff. No smiles, but not so many frowns and silences. No abrupt turning-on-the-heel in a huff. Progress.

She wanted to get the tone of this email exactly right. Appreciative but no kow-towing. Professional, not girlish. She wanted him to think he'd won.

 

To: Jeremy Crater

From: Ruth Talbot

Re: About Face

Jeremy, I just wanted to thank you for the confidence you expressed at our meeting last week. I know you have reservations about the About Face line, but I appreciate that you heard me out and agreed to let it proceed.

I also heard what you said, that you're not 100% enthusiastic about it, that you think the focus groups results haven't been as strong as you like. That's why it's so gratifying that you allowed my experience and track record to persuade you.

I want you to know I am prepared to take full responsibility for what happens to this line.

Thanks again.

 

As she wrote, she tried to visualize Jeremy's glee when he read the part about full responsibility. He'd think that, when About Face cost the company money and prestige, she'd take the fall.

Sure enough, he replied immediately with “Thanks.” Ruth thought he must be planning to use it later when she fell flat on her middle-aged women's libber face. Now she knew what was meant by that Shakespearean quote about someone “hoist on his own petard.” That's what she was helping Jeremy to do. Petard-hoisting. It felt wicked. She almost cackled.

She printed out the emails and filed them.

Then she went to Terry's office to pick her up for lunch. Ruth was taking her out for her last day as a data-nerd at Mimosa. By mutual agreement, they were going to blow their low-carb diets to smithereens with lemon-sauced linguine and stuffed zucchini blossoms at the new Trattoria in the neighborhood.

She tried to be unobtrusive about examining Terry while they ordered and waited for their food. The contrast between who she
appeared
to be and who Ruth knew her to be was always delightful. While some at Mimosa dressed as if they were the brightly-colored flowers posing against the white walls, Terry was a devout member of the dress-to-blend-in congregation, all part of her deceptively calm appearance. Quietly attractive, in her late-30's, she had mid-length light brown hair and a pale face that was unremarkable, the kind witnesses would have trouble describing to the police.

Practically before the plate had hit the table, Terry lifted a zucchini blossom, tipped her head back, and gently inserted it in her open mouth. Removing her napkin from her neckline, she meticulously wiped the three fingers she'd just used to deliver the zucchini blossom to its target, then tucked the napkin back in.

“I'm going to miss you,” Ruth said. “It's been great having a fellow bullshit-detector, even though you have everyone else fooled with your pastel-colored suits and your soft voice. Everyone but Danny Jones, that is.”

“Don't worry, I was going to tell you about Ron. Besides, the move isn't about him. Not entirely, anyway.”

Terry had reached the end of her rope at Mimosa. It wasn't the work, it was the people. Jeremy had made a Big Daddy named Norman her counterpart in Communications, instead of Harriet, whom everyone had expected to get the job. Now Harriet had to report to Norman-the-moron and she, Terry, had to work with Harriet, whose reaction to it all was to become a monster.

“Everything's changed. I didn't mind my work, I liked it, even. Liked making things add up and fit together.” She signaled to the waiter to fill her water glass and was silent as he did so.

As soon as the waiter left, Ruth said, “Don't get too gooey about numbers or you'll sound like Jeremy.”

“Don't get me started. I like numbers because they're kind of … poetic. They have their own beauty. Truth and beauty. He likes them because they're predictable. Because he can control them. It's different.”

She took a sip of water and looked around. “I figure sooner or later Jeremy's going to try to get rid of me.”

Ruth invoked the Talbot-family story about the Peace Corps volunteer who, at his exit interview, when asked what was the most valuable lesson he'd learned in his two years, said, “There are jerks all over the world.”

“Don't you think there will be jerks where you're going, too?”

“Maybe new jerks will take awhile to be intolerable.”

Terry detailed the research she'd done about jobs, cities, salaries, while Ruth envied her ability to be so analytic about figuring out what she wanted and then getting it. She was busy scolding herself for her shortcomings in that department and resolving to be more like Terry. Then she realized that, not two days before, she'd commented to David on Vivian's wonderful ability to leap, open-armed, from one idea or experience to another, with no planning, no expectations, and accept whatever she found.

At least she wasn't the only one who experienced this kind of equal-opportunity envy. At last night's Brain Trust meeting, Charlie had described the same kind of fickle envy.

“Let's say I meet someone who's really sophisticated—you know, they travel and know about wine, can talk about musical theory, stuff like that—so I feel envious of all that, I wish I were so educated and suave instead of so ordinary and dumb. And then the next day, I meet someone who's the opposite—they never go anywhere, don't know a damned thing about wine, they're working class, have a zillion kids and are really devoted to their family, go to all the Little League games and have hot dogs for dinner every night. Damned if I'm not envious of them, too, wishing I were genuine and authentic and really connected to what life was all about instead of being a pretender. It makes me nuts.”

“Do you think the Little League lady and the Sophisticate envy each other?” Sarah asked.

“You might be interested to know that I envy you, Charlie,” Ruth said. “The way you're such a talented weaver. Artist, really. And have the courage to show your work to the world at large and have other people look at it and pay money for it.”

Charlie brightened, but only briefly, like a light bulb going on and off. “Thanks. That's nice. But I'd still love to stop torturing myself.” She picked a loose thread off her vest, another of her creations, this time with an impressionistic scene of blazing autumn trees.

“Since we're confessing to our crazies—sorry, Charlie, but you said it—let me add mine. With me,” Jane said, “envy shows its ugly face right after admiration. It actually makes me not want to meet people I might admire. 'Cause the envy that comes afterwards is painful. Crazy.”

“I think it's getting worse as I get older,” Charlie said. “Now regret is mixed in with envy. What a mess.”

“Here's what I think,” offered Blanche. “It's not like you think Ms. Sophisticate is the way to be. Or Ms. Little League. It's that you see them as something with a definition, like a label. It's the lack of ambivalence that's so appealing.”

“When I was a kid, I outlined everything in the coloring book with a black line before I filled in the inside part with a color,” Sarah said. “It's like that. It's like the black line that holds everything in. Don't you think?”

“Here's a good one,” Maria said. “I read it somewhere, I think in one of those trashy women's magazines that you only admit to reading in a doctor's office. But I really don't remember.”

“You're lucky you even remember
what
you read, let alone where you read it,” Sarah said.

“It was about comparing
our
insides to
their
outsides. You just can't win that way. It's worse than apples and oranges. It's apples and … umbrellas. Insides and outsides. Can't compare.”

“Ooooh, it's simple and clear and pithy. Like a good product slogan,” Ruth said. “I like it. Insides and outsides.”

And here she was, comparing her undefined insides to Terry's black-outlined outsides. She just had to stop doing that.

After lunch, Ruth went to the advertising agency. The receptionist, her hair a working definition of anarchy in what must have been a trend, led Ruth down the long corridor to the conference room.

“Would you like some coffee or tea, Ruth?”

“No thanks, I'm fine.”

“A soft drink maybe?”

“Nope. I just came from lunch. I don't need anything.”

“Temperature okay?”

Ruth was enjoying the royal treatment reserved for clients.

“No, really, I'm fine. Listen, I hope you don't mind my mentioning something to you. But I figure you'd want to know.”

“Do I have something green in my teeth?”

“It's your sweater. It's pretty and everything but it's inside-out. You must have put it on in a rush. That happens to me sometimes, so I know—”

“Oh Ruth, you're a stitch. But you got me nervous there for a second.”