What Pretty Girls Are Made Of (17 page)

I was finally home, dry and warm, when my cell phone rang. The call that I knew would come. Perhaps I should have answered Sally’s ring, but I wasn’t in the mood. It was late and I was tired, so I let it go to voice mail. But I listened to it as soon as it registered on my phone.

“Hi, sweetheart, it’s me.” I was getting the sugary voice. “I just heard about what went on tonight and I’m blown away. I really had no idea they were even putting in a security system. How crazy is that? Well, sad that we lost Jennifer, but you’ll take over her responsibilities. She wasn’t very good at her job, anyway. But more on that another time. Hope it isn’t snowing too badly in NYC, honey. It’s a blizzard down in West Chester. Talk tomorrow. Bye.”

Did Sally expect me to believe that she had no idea that a security system was being installed in the studio? We couldn’t order two-ply toilet paper without her knowing. I had a hard time believing that Ira, a sixtysomething man who lived in New Jersey with his family, was, of his own volition, at the studio at ten o’clock the night before a blizzard to make sure a security system was installed.

Jennifer’s phone went straight to voice mail when I called to tell her about Sally’s message. I assumed she was on the phone with her now former boss.

The next day did turn out to be a snow day, with the mayor forbidding travel to work and school—something even Sally couldn’t disregard. I needed time to relax and digest what had happened the night before. I woke up to a phone call stating that we had a snow day and saw a text from Jennifer, sent to me at a little after one in the morning:

JENN: Sally Steele Cosmetics is a large bus with a bunch of preschoolers—not you, of course—and I never have to ride that bus again! Talk tomorrow, cookie.

I tried to sleep in after I read the text, but my cell phone began buzzing like it was my birthday. People at the company had found out about the previous night and wanted the story. I didn’t want to gossip, but I confirmed the news that Jennifer had resigned and dodged the more specific questions about what actually had happened.

I heard from Jennifer again around noon. She’d realized that she didn’t have that crazy job to wake up to anymore, and she was thrilled. A weight was lifted off her shoulders. Thank goodness Jennifer didn’t have to worry about her finances and could take some time off.

Ira must have called Sally after we left the studio and filled her in on what had happened. Sally had then called Jennifer in an effort to persuade her to change her mind and stay with the company. Jennifer was honest and told Sally that she was horrific to work for and that no amount of money would make her return to such a toxic environment. While I was thrilled for Jennifer, I was sad for myself. My ally was gone.

Was Jennifer a quitter or was quitting a move of self-preservation? I wondered. She chose herself, and while I felt proud of her, I also couldn’t yet decipher whether I was envious or pissed that I’d have to pick up her slack. Or was it a sign that I should quit, too? Either way, what Jennifer had done had taken courage.

She was barely out the door, but losing Jennifer made me think about what it was that I was still waiting for. I was motivated by her courage to be next.

“What do I actually want?” I asked Damon over the phone after telling him about the snowstorm robbery that wasn’t a robbery.

“I can’t answer that question for you, but—”

“Well, look at Jennifer and look at Helen,” I said, cutting him off. “Jennifer saved herself and Helen didn’t. Or hasn’t. And now Helen is almost twenty years deep, eating a bagel a day bite by bite in Sally’s makeup shop with a side of bitterness. Who do I want to be?”

“You need to take the emotion out of this right now and play out your options, which are not Helen or Jennifer, but these: stay where you’re unhappy but comfortable, and clearly learning some new stuff, while waiting for the perfect opportunity, or leave without having something to pay your rent.”

“You grew up in the same home that I did, little brother. Can you imagine calling up Mom and Dad and asking them for a few months’ rent?”

“I couldn’t,” he said. “But if you decide to do that, make sure I’m on the phone so I can hear the entire conversation, please.”

I knew he could hear me smiling through the phone. “Exactly,” I said.

“But seriously, Alison, stick it out. It’s easier to get a job if you have a job. And quitting may feel like the easy way out, but being unemployed isn’t easy.”

I didn’t want to have to find that out.

The next day, Jennifer contacted
the Department of Labor to file a complaint about both Sally and the company. I wasn’t sure what she had up her sleeve, but I knew it would be great. What she wasn’t expecting was for the DOL rep to exclaim, “Oh, wow!” when she said that she worked for Sally Steele Cosmetics.

“Sorry,” the man replied when she asked him what he was so excited about. “I shouldn’t have said that, ma’am. Can you tell me how many people work at that company, please?”

She told him how many of us there were, then asked, “Why? Are there lots of complaints for this company?”

“You seem like a nice woman, so all I’ll say is this: I’m blown away by the number of complaints about this company. It’s kind of ridiculous with such a small organization.”

He didn’t realize how he made her day. Maybe with the new complaint from Jennifer, the DOL would take some action against the Beast.

My three-day weekend was starting
off with a snow day and continuing with a day date with Bret. Our first official date. We were going to have Saturday lunch in Chinatown at Bret’s favorite dim sum spot. We were likely to be one of the few non-Chinese groups there, and I was so excited. I loved to try new authentic restaurants, and I hadn’t been to this place before. I hoped they would have my favorite pork buns,
cha siu
bao.

Bret looked just as handsome as he had when I’d met him at his party, dressed casually in jeans and a black V-neck sweater. His eyes sparkled and he looked as if he had just gotten a haircut. My heart was racing.

Since when did I get nervous for a date? Probably since the pep talk I’d given myself while walking from the subway to the restaurant, which went something like this:
Lower your expectations, Alison. No one can meet them. Lower your expectations—they are too high.

Bret gave me a hug and we hopped on the escalator up to the big dim sum hall. We were ascending to what I imagined dim sum halls in China looked like: ornate gold and red drapery adorning the walls to distract from the modest tables and lazy Susans.

We were seated at a large round table for ten. We took the last two empty seats. The place was packed, and the warm smells of peppercorn, scallions, and garlic piqued my hunger. We ordered small dish after small dish, each a little culinary adventure.

“What is this? If it’s an octopus, it’s the funniest looking creature I have ever seen on a plate,” Bret commented as he held a three-inch vivid-red slippery octopus in his chopsticks.

“They look better fried. You can’t see the little guy as much,” I said.

Slimy and gross!

“If you eat one, I’ll eat one,” he teased me.

My scrunched nose and pursed lips said it all:
No way
.

Bret laughed and ate the creature in one bite. “Mmmm, delicious!” he teased me.

I loved it.

Bret made sure to flag down the dumpling cart multiple times so I could nab the pork buns.

“You like dumpling,” Liu, our waitress, remarked.

“She likes dumplings,” Bret said, pointing to me. “And I like her.”

Bret cracked up at the surveillance camera story and said that my boss sounded like a lunatic. He told me about his family and his job in finance, and the conversation flowed easily.

By the time the check came, we had been at the restaurant for two hours. The other eight chairs at our table had turned over several times.

Bret got the check, looked me straight in the eye, smiled, and said, “I’m not ready for this date to end. Are you up for a part two?”

Of course I was.
Sometimes you just know when you like someone. With this
guy, wow. He was just, well . . . wow. My heartbeat quickened at the thought of more time with Bret—and that he had something up his sleeve.

Once outside, Bret reached for my hand and clasped it in his for our walk. Chills ran through my body. Bret had read about a cool installation at a museum on the Lower East Side, so we decided to check it out. Dim sum plus culture—count me in!

The New Museum of Contemporary Art was sparsely decorated, with minimal art on each floor. It was certainly diverse, with the ground floor featuring a digital-media Holocaust installation and the second floor featuring cereal boxes of all different sizes, screened and mounted on glass.

“I love the really sugary cereals,” Bret said. “You know, the ones that your parents don’t let you eat as a kid because they’re more like dessert than breakfast?”

“Of course. Like what? Count Chocula? I’ve never actually had that, by the way,” I replied.

“I’m more of a Frosted Mini-Wheats, Life kinda guy.”

“Oh my God!” I exclaimed, perhaps a bit too dramatically for a conversation about cereal. “I was addicted to Life during my freshman year of college. Seriously, I won’t eat it now. I would need a twelve-step program. And after being out of school for this long, I can’t even remember what it tastes like.”

“You’re high on Life,” he teased me.

“You’re a nerd,” I replied, smiling. I liked nerds.

We laughed all the way up to the third floor, which the museum had designed (for reasons completely unfathomable to me) to resemble the human nasal cavity.

“We just went from cereal to boogers,” Bret joked. “Is this a Lower East Side thing? I don’t get the point.”

The top floor was almost vacant. Centered in the room was a red staircase made out of rubber.

“It’s just a staircase,” Bret said, as if reading my mind. “The only thing on this entire floor. Don’t you feel like you could also build a staircase and call it art?” He looked at me, waiting for a serious answer. He didn’t know that I had one prepared, based on my parents’ modern art experiences.

“It’s not as easy as it looks,” I told him. “In 1980 or so, my parents went to an art exhibit at MoMA. They found themselves asking the same question you just did, except it was about why a square canvas painted solid blue was hanging there.”

“Exactly,” said Bret. “A solid blue canvas. What about it deserves notoriety? Was it the first canvas ever painted solid blue?”

“Okay, buddy. Just listen to the story,” I interjected, before he got deeper into this modern art frustration. “So my parents figured that if Jackson Pollock could splatter a canvas, or Mark Rothko could fade colors into each other and call it art, my parents could make names for themselves in modern art, too. And with limited means, they set aside money for an art budget.”

“Seriously?” Bret asked. “I mean, I’m not ready to go out and start painting, but I get it.”

“Seriously,” I said. “They went to Pearl Paint and picked up brushes, paint, canvases, and whatever else they needed. They were going to become modern artists and eventually phase out their teaching careers. Thirty years later, they are both still educators.”

“So I guess I have to bow to the solid blue canvas. That’s the moral of the story.”

We were both quiet.

“I’m glad that Andrea thought to chase after you on my behalf,” I said hastily, not comfortable enough yet to live in the silence.

“I am as well,” he replied, and returned my smile. I didn’t want this moment to end, but I’d let Bret know earlier that I had dinner plans and had to get uptown.

Outside the museum, he leaned in, slid his hand to my hip, and gave me a lingering kiss on the cheek. He smelled clean and fresh. I wanted to run my hands through his dark hair and make out with him right there on Bowery. Instead, he swiftly and gentlemanly put me in a taxi and handed the driver a twenty. I wanted to rip his clothes off and behave not so much like a lady.

I wasn’t in the cab for five minutes when my phone buzzed and Bret’s ID showed up on my screen. I picked up.