“Tell me, Goldy,” Frances interrupted blithely, “do you ever listen to jazz?”
“Jazz? Of course I do. So what?”
“Y’ever heard of Ray Charles?”
“Frances, what on earth is the matter with you?”
“Ask a simple question, you get a simple answer.”
Frances was losing her grip. Perhaps it was the lethal combination of Marlboros and M&Ms. Then again, maybe she was trying to be clever by pulling her usual routine. She invariably changed the subject to get away from whatever they didn’t want to discuss.
“Tell me what you’re doing with Mignon,” I demanded fiercely.
“Investigative reporting. That’s it, I swear.”
“I don’t think an atheist can swear,” I snapped. “It doesn’t mean anything.” When she chuckled, I insisted, “What kind of investigative reporting?”
She sighed and readied for the Prince & Grogan bags at her feet “Your husband isn’t the only one with medical training. I did a year of med school before turning to journalism—”
“Excuse me, but that’s the ex-husband.”
“Sorry.” Her mournful look was accentuated by the heavy makeup Harriet Wells had applied around her eyes. Here we were, I reflected, two normally unadorned women who’d been outwardly transformed to look like a couple of hookers—and just so we could get information. “By the way, Goldy, I was wondering something.” Frances lit another cigarette. “Did you hear that your ex-husband beat up his new girlfriend last night? She called the cops and we picked it up at the Journal, on the police band. Seems she slid his Jeep into a ditch during the storm, where it stuck in the mud. The doc got really pissed. She’s across the street in the hospital with broken ribs and bruised arms.”
An image of this poor, pained woman, a new girlfriend I wasn’t aware of, floated up in my mind. The Jerk had always been able to find fresh female companionship. When a current girlfriend didn’t work out, or ended up in a problematic place like the hospital, he would quickly find a replacement, I thought about Arch. Although he knew why I’d divorced his father, Arch had never witnessed the violence that had destroyed my marriage. If his classmates at Elk Park Prep heard about this incident from a tabloid-type article by Frances in the Mountain Journal, which I wouldn’t put past her …
I demanded, “Are you going to run a story about it in the paper?”
Frances took a deep drag. “Nah. The publisher’s wife is pregnant and John Richard is her doctor. The wife wants the publisher to hold off on running any story until she delivers.”
A headache nagged behind my eyes. “Look, Frances, John Richard’s not my problem anymore. What’s the deal with the department store? I have to go get something to eat, and then I need to go visit a friend in the hospital.”
She pretended to look puzzled. “Not the girlfriend—”
“Frances! What are you up to?”
She set her face in steely anger and tossed her butt in an arc across the roof. “I’m investigating the false claims of Mignon Cosmetics to make women look younger. Period.”
I was incredulous, partly at Frances’s own naiveté. “You’re kidding. That’s it?” She frowned and nodded. “Was Claire Satterfield helping you?” I asked.
“I didn’t even know who Claire Satterfield was before the accident,” Frances replied. Her tone indicated that she sure wished she had known Claire. Just think of all the information a Mignon sales associate could have provided….
“But why did you bother to find out she’d had other boyfriends? Why do you think she was deliberately run down?”
“Background, Goldy, background. The claims are what’s news.”
“But for heaven’s sake, those claims are not news. This so-called story has been in books, newspapers, magazines, on radio and television. Haven’t you read any Naomi Wolf? Get real.”
“What are you talking about?” she said bitterly. She blew smoke out her nostrils. “I beg to differ.”
“Look, Frances,” I said. “In their hearts, women know all this outrageously expensive goop doesn’t make them look younger. But the cosmetics people try to guilt-trip every female in the country into feeling they have to do something to take care of themselves. Otherwise, these companies want women to believe, they’ll grow old and ugly. They’ll never have money, a husband, a white picket fence, a lover, a fur coat, a station wagon, and somebody to drive away with when you get a flat tire. That’s the name of the cosmetics game.”
She glared at me and held the cigarette aloft. “Foucault-Reiser is the parent company of Mignon. F-R has been experimenting with cosmetics for thirty years. And experimenting in ways you would not believe,” she added darkly.
In my mind’s eye, I saw heaps of rabbit carcasses. Hard to take on an empty stomach. “Well, I guess I sort of would—”
Heedless, Frances went on: “Foucault-Reiser launched the hideously expensive Mignon line five years ago, with all kinds of wild claims, fancy packaging, and questionable products. Control the destiny of your face. Like hell. Large pink plastic jars of cream didn’t sell, so Mignon switched to dark green glass jars with gold lids, the kinds of containers you imagine once held royal jewels and medieval potions. The message was: This is magic stuff. Sales took off.”
I nodded and remembered eons ago, when Arch asked if he could have one of my empty perfume jars for a Dungeons and Dragons prop.
Frances reached into her bag and pulled out a bottle of makeup. “Nobody wants a jar of mud—otherwise known as foundation—with a little white plastic top.” She wrenched the shiny cover off the lid, revealing—sure enough—a white plastic top. “But they put a tall gold top over the white plastic so that consumers will think they’re getting something of infinite value. And then there’s perfume …”
I groaned, ready to admit she had a story. But she was on a roll.
Frances made a face. “‘I need something really sexy,’ I told that woman with the French twist. She sold me Ardor.” Frances brandished a heart-shaped bottle of perfume. “Funny, she sold Ardor to my neighbor for her eighty-year-old mother, whose sexiest social engagement is when her garden club plants bulbs. And the same sales associate, Harriet, told the daughter of the head of the Journal advertising department that Ardor was just the right perfume for a girl to start wearing to school. She’s twelve, Goldy. Sales of Ardor, as you might imagine, have taken off. And speaking of sales, if their associates don’t keep up their quotas, they’re fired. Kaput. So these same sales associates, of which your Claire S. was one, make claims to customers that get more and more bizarre. More and more outlandish. No one has challenged Mignon, and I’m going to be the one who does it.”
“Oh yeah? And just how’re you going to do that?”
She rustled around in one of her bags and held up a small rectangular box. It was covered with navy-blue satiny paper crossed with thin gold and silver stripes. “Mignon Gentle Deep-cleansing Soap with Natural Grains. Twenty bucks. It’s soap, period, with about a dime’s worth of ingredients, including”—she peered at the label—“ah-ha, oatmeal! But it’ll chap your skin if you use too much of it. Did you hear what that Harriet Wells said to me?” She glared at me indignantly. “‘Cleans deeply but gently into the pores. Restores the original state of your skin!’” Frances grunted. “Crap. Soap robs the skin of lipids. Use it as much as old Harriet says to, and you’ll have a nice red face.”
“Don’t you think people know—?”
“No, I don’t think people know anything, I think people believe what they’re told.” She reached into the bag again, then held up a tall rectangular box covered with the same elaborate decoration. “Magic Pore-closing Toner? Forty-five bucks? To do what? They swear it tones the pores. As if your skin cells were muscles, ha. You want an astringent, try witch hazel. If you need anything at all. Oh, and did you happen to notice this fall they’re going to be adding Mediterranean Sea Kelp to their Magic Pore-closing Toner? Link any cosmetic with something European, and it’s a sure sell.
And this!” She thrust a squat jar of cream at me. “Did you hear all the baloney that Harriet-woman was feeding me about how she was sixty-two and this moisturizer stuff stopped her aging process? This junk doesn’t even have sunscreen in it! Hate to tell maybe-early-fifties Harriet, but that’s the only thing that’ll prevent wrinkles, and folks need to start using it when they’re young or they’re sunk. Biochromes, my ass. What the hell is a biochrome, I ask you?” Her black-striped eyes opened wide. “It was never mentioned in any biology class I ever took. Or in chemistry. Or physiology. Or dermatology, for that matter.”
I clapped. “Yeah, yeah. They’re going to run all this in the Mountain Journal. And the wife of your publisher is never going to wear makeup again. Is the Journal bankrolling you in this undercover operation?” I gestured to the red shoes, the bags of cosmetics, and her dress.
Before she could answer, however, I got that strange feeling I’d been having the last two days, the kind I used to get when the Jerk was following me in his Jeep after we were separated. I’d been having the feeling a lot lately: on the highway coming to the banquet when I’d veered in front of a pickup, just after the helicopter passed over; during the storm night before last, when I thought I saw the light go on in the pickup at the end of our driveway, even at the Mignon counter this morning. As I sat next to Frances, the feeling began again as a kind of prickling along the back of my neck. I looked up for the pizza-eating teenagers, but saw only a sudden movement toward one of the tents, the kind of thing you catch out of the corner of your eye.
“What is it?” Frances demanded, her senses ever acute to some emotional change in the person to whom she was talking. “Goldy, what’s the matter?”
I looked around and saw absolutely nothing suspicious. This was what happened when you didn’t get enough sleep, I told myself. Or enough food. You had hallucinations. A teenager with long, stringy brown hair hopped onto the store roof where we sat and approached us.
He said, “Uh, who’s the caterer?”
I identified myself and the fellow said, “Somebody said to tell you there’s a message for you over at your booth.”
“From whom?” I demanded.
But he had turned his back. When I called out to him again, he shrugged without turning and loped back off into the food fair crowd.
“I’ll go,” Frances said firmly as she gathered up her glossily wrapped parcels. “It might be the rent-a-thug. I could vouch that you’ve been sitting here berating me for the last fifteen minutes. Besides, you need to eat your lunch.”
I smiled at Frances’s ill-disguised nosiness, at her sudden insincere concern about my need for nourishment. “Nah,” I told her lightly, “it’s probably the food fair people. Or maybe it’s a new client. I’ll be right back.” But she ignored me.
We walked across the roof and maneuvered back onto the top of the parking garage. I told the money-takers that Frances was helping me, and didn’t need a bracelet because she didn’t eat normal food. They waved her through. The jazz band had gone on break. Their audience had dispersed and turned their ravenous attention back to the booths.
“Okay,” I said, as if granting Frances permission for what she was going to do anyway. “Let me get just a quick bite to eat first, and then we’ll see what the message is.”
The crowd buoyed me along to the booth of a vegetarian Mexican restaurant. I chose a burrito stuffed with roasted peppers, tomatoes, and onions. It dripped with guacamole and melted cheddar, and sour cream oozed out of both sides when I took a bite. The American Heart Association definitely wouldn’t approve. My mouth full, I thought of Marla and resolved to get really serious about lowfat cooking. Tomorrow.
“Enjoy,” said Frances with a laugh. “Isn’t this where your booth was?”
The booth had been abandoned early by the barbecue people. I guess “all you can eat” had been more than they could handle. They’d even pulled down the flaps on the tent, as if to say nobody was home.
Frances pulled up the flap and peered into the dark interior. I stepped up beside her and felt the hot, stuffy air inside. There was a plastic bag taped to the near table.
“There it is,” said Frances as she stepped confidently forward. “Wait,” I said. “Frances,” I said again sharply, “wait.” But I couldn’t restrain her; one of my hands held the burrito, the other the tent flap.
There was a sudden movement. I heard the intake of breath that accompanies effort.
“Frances!” I shouted.
“Help!” she cried.
Stale air swished against my face. Something was coming at us. Because of my years with the Jerk, I had learned how to protect myself from a potential assault. The air—or maybe it was liquid, I realized—whooshed. I dropped the burrito and buckled forward.
“Duck!” I shouted to Frances.
A loud sloosh traveled through air. It was coming toward Frances and me. The smell was familiar … acrid.
It was a bucket of bleach water.
“Close your eyes!” I screamed to Frances. I shut mine tight, held my breath, and covered my face with my hands. The water cascaded over my doubled-over body in a hard, heavy slap. Cold liquid saturated my chef’s jacket.
Someone pushed past me. One of the canvas tent flaps brushed my legs and I heard footsteps. But with the possibility of bleach anywhere nearby, I knew better than to open my eyes.
“Frances! Are you there? Keep your eyes shut, it’s chlorine bleach!”
A stream of loud, inventive curses came from about a yard away. Yep—Frances was there.
“Back out of the tent,” I ordered, ignoring her angry protests. “Follow my voice. Go slow.” Still doubled-over, my hands covering my face, I treaded backward slowly. Soon, cooler air indicated I was outside the tent. I felt metal. Moving metal. A baby stroller.
“Help!” I cried. “I have bleach on me! Don’t let any get on the baby!”
A woman screamed and the metal veered away. I started to lose my balance. Voices erupted all around and within a few seconds I felt a large, gentle hand on my shoulder. An adult? A teenager? Whoever had assaulted us? The hand guided me sideways.
“Come on,” a man’s calm voice urged. “Let me get you a towel.”
“I have a friend with me. She needs help too.”
“The red dress?” asked the voice. “I’m holding her arm.
More colorful curses indicated this was true. I sighed.
Over the acrid stink of the bleach, the welcome aroma of coffee came close. The masculine voice attached to the hand on my shoulder asked someone for a couple of towels. A piece of cloth with the consistency of a dish towel was placed over my head and tucked around my ears. My sodden hair was being expertly wrapped, turban-style.
“Please,” I said, “I need some plain water to rinse my face—”
“All right, stand back, everybody,” came another male voice, a familiar one. It was Pete, the espresso man. “Goldy, I’m going to toss a pitcher of plain water in your face,” he warned, up close. “It’s not cold, not hot. Well, maybe a little cool. Just relax. Then I’m going to do the same for your friend.”
A splash of liquid hit my face and neck. Another towel was thrust in my face and I vigorously scrubbed my cheeks, forehead, and eyes free of bleach and eye makeup. Frances yelped when the water gushed on her, but then she fell silent, no doubt engaged in the same drying activity.
I straightened and felt the cool bleach water trickle down inside my clothes. I opened my eyes, sure that my makeup had run together into one unholy mess. A sea of curious faces surrounded me. The one recognizable face was Pete’s. The person guiding me had brought me to the front of Pete’s espresso booth. Instead of wondering just what had happened in the tent, my first ridiculous thought was: How in the world did Pete get a booth for the whole four-hour time period, when I had to share mine with the barbecue folks?
“Goldy?” Pete’s grin was benevolent. “Do you and your friend want some coffee with a couple of shots of brandy? How about a couple
of dry sets of clothes? On the house.”
Half the folks in the crowd laughed, as if the whole incident were some kind of stunt arranged by the fair people for the band’s break. As I accepted Pete’s offer of coffee, I searched faces for anyone familiar—malevolent or otherwise. But whoever had done this appeared to be long gone. At my side, Frances was brusquely demanding to know what was going on, had anyone seen anything? Anyone seen someone rush out of the tent? Ignoring her, I waved at the person approaching us. It was Julian. The crowd, sensing that the entertainment was over, dispersed. Only a couple of stragglers remained. Maybe they were hoping the bleach bath would belatedly eat through our clothes or skin.
“Listen,” said a deep voice from behind me. The first thing I noticed, looking up, was that his long-sleeved shirt was wet. My eyes traveled upward to the delicate features of his face, to the mop of frizzed, Warhol-type white-blond hair. I had seen this tall man that morning, that day, in Prince & Grogan.
It was Charles Braithwaite.
“I … I helped you,” he faltered. The skin at the side of his earnest blue eyes crinkled with concern. He was in his thirties, maybe early forties, but because of his height and his extreme thinness, his age was difficult to determine. “I … I wrapped those towels around the two of you. But you need to rinse that stuff out of your hair, ladies. Either that or you’re both going to look like skunks. Dark on both sides and a white stripe down the middle.” His palm pressed his long, pale hair over to the side in a practiced gesture.
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