The Caden high started wearing off. I felt my heart rate slowing. “You’re right. I don’t know what comes over me when he’s around. I feel totally out of control, like I’m drunk.”
“Hmm…OK.” Stevie stroked his chin thoughtfully before an epiphany hit him. “I know what we need to do. You need to grow a bigger tolerance to him. Like alcohol. The more you drink, the less it affects you. We’ll just find controlled situations to expose you to Caden little by little and eventually you’ll work your way up to larger doses.”
“I don’t know if that’s healthy for me.” It seemed a little unorthodox but I certainly wasn’t going to turn down the opportunity to be exposed to Caden more frequently.
“We’ll start with his coffee break.” Stevie checked his watch. “I don’t know when he takes it, but let’s start by meeting here at 10:15 every morning.”
“OK.” I shrugged. “Let’s do it.”
Chloe was dodging me like a girl trying to lose a guy after a bad first date. I was going to have to ambush her. I waited around the corner until Chloe returned to her cube. As soon as she sat down I appeared, blocking the entrance.
“Hey Chloe. What’s up?”
“I’m busy. What do you want?” Chloe grabbed some random file folders, stood up and assumed face-off position with me. She was wearing a white leather jacket, black jeggings, thigh high black boots and, much to my disappointment, was totally pulling it off.
“Well, I had a conversation with Caden and he was thrilled with how well we’re working together. He wanted me to thank you.” I smiled sweetly. Her eyes narrowed, suspicious. “I have a meeting with him next week to go over the details of the Gi-Spot party. He asked me to meet with you for transition and to help me get started.”
Chloe laughed. “I haven’t done a thing for the party so I have nothing to transition or help you with. You’re on your own. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a meeting to go to.”
Unbelievable. Why would Chloe have allowed me to harass and stalk her for over a week if she had nothing to tell me except to get lost? Unless, as was becoming evident, she enjoyed watching me squirm.
“Super.” I moved out of her way and promptly headed over to Stevie’s cube.
“What’s up, pretty lady?” Stevie greeted me.
“Chloe won’t help me with the party and I have no idea how to get started.”
“Has she contacted or briefed the agencies yet?”
“No, she says she hasn’t done anything yet. You mean like a party planning agency?”
“Oh, sweet pea. You really are on your own. You’ll need to contact our event planning agency and our PR agency. As brand managers, we don’t actually do anything. We hire agencies to do it for us! Sit down. And take notes…”
Stevie’s Caden Tolerance Plan was now in effect. Since Caden didn’t seem to have a regular morning coffee break schedule there was a lot of waiting around and drinking coffee. I was developing quite a liking for espresso, perhaps by association. Stevie and I would sit by the edge of the garden, an interesting perspective from which to observe Gisele’s culture. There was a clear divide among levels of seniority and associated behaviour.
VPs and Directors used the coffee bar to network with their colleagues (i.e., brag about their successes and complain about work. Their latest beef was Klaus’s new rule to only use taxis, and not limos, for business-related transportation). Heidi only appeared with her entourage of Chloe and Jasmine Tit. Their objective was to reinforce their fashion superiority among the junior female marketers. They had nothing on Stevie. Jasmine Tit spoke relentlessly about her boyfriend. I wondered if it was a strategy to keep people away from her entourage. Mateo treated the coffee bar like an actual bar scene. He shamelessly hit on the barista and tried unsuccessfully to break into the Heidi entourage. His persistence was strangely endearing. Sydney saw the bar as an opportunity to obtain approvals and feedback from Savannah, which was quite clever because it was impossible to get into Savannah’s calendar. Plus, Savannah only humiliates and beats you down in private.
When Caden did appear, he was often engaged in conversations with other VPs and Directors. The sunlight and garden seemed to brighten in the glory of his gorgeous manliness. Stevie assured me that once I demonstrated normal behaviour in his presence, I would graduate to the small talk stage. Stevie had several drills for me to focus on while in Caden’s presence. Deep breathing was a good exercise because it reminded me to breathe. Luckily, my meeting with Caden was delayed a week and a half so this gave me ample time to graduate to an acceptable level.
“You’re doing so well!” Stevie congratulated me on the seventh day of the Caden Tolerance Plan. “We’re engaging in a coherent conversation. Caden is just a couple feet from you and within eyesight. I think you’re close to being able to speak to him – remember stick to the script until you’re ready to move on.”
I was thrilled – either from the caffeine high or my progress. But there was still an important issue that needed to be addressed.
“Stevie, you and I both know I have a bigger problem.”
“Your hands are fine.” Stevie assured me. “Small and womanly. Almost as nice as mine.” He held up his well-manicured hands to admire them.
“No, no it’s my hair. My hair is so unstylish.”
Stevie gasped. “I’ve been so focused on your problem with Caden that I’ve totally neglecting your appearance. Why don’t you get a long bob? A lob. So chic.”
“I don’t know if I can cut my hair that short. I’ve had long hair my whole life. It would be like cutting off my womanhood.”
“Honey, your womanhood is somewhere deep inside you and not in your split ends. Jasmine has great hair. Why don’t you ask her where she gets her hair cut?”
When I arrived at the hair studio that Jasmine Tit recommended, I was surprised. It didn’t seem like her style, which as far as I could tell, was Euro-snob. Maybe it was her boyfriend’s style. It was a whimsical little studio located in the bohemian Queen West area. It was Friday evening and it appeared that I was the last client of the day. Her stylist, Tony, had fat, dirty dreads that matched the rest of his body. He looked like he had had a rough night and hadn’t yet recovered. He was certainly rough with me as he washed and combed my hair, yanking my head and hair as if to take out his aggression.
I described the lob cut in excessive Type-A detail, showing him several pictures from magazines that Stevie had given me.
He nodded, bored. “Yeah, yeah, got it. So what brings you here?”
“Jasmine Tit. She said her boyfriend always loves her hair.”
“Hmmm…OK. Do you mind if I turn up the music?” He increased the volume to a level where we needed to yell to hear one another.
As he started cutting my hair, he asked me a question. “What?” I yelled.
“If you had to choose a lesbian role model, who would you choose?”
It seemed like an odd icebreaker question. “Uh…I would say Ellen DeGeneres. For sure.”
“Who’s that?” He screamed in my ear.
“She’s a comedian. She has her own talk show.” I yelled back.
“I don’t own a TV. Tell me someone who’s not on TV.”
I racked my brain. “Well, there’s Dick Cheney’s daughter. It must have been hard for her to come out of the closet with her dad in office at the time.”
“Who’s Dick Cheney?”
A gentle and peaceful looking man entered the studio. “Excuse me. I’m having dinner at the Tibetan Buddhist restaurant just next door. Is it possible to turn down your music? We can hear it and it’s disturbing the guests. The owner would never say anything because he’s so shy.”
Tony stared back at him. “Whatever.” He shrugged.
“Thank you. We would greatly appreciate it.” He bowed slightly and left.
Tony did not turn down the music and continued to cut my hair. “What a fucking idiot.” he spat. I realized he was hacking at my hair and started to get nervous.
“Uh. OK. That’s good. Are we done?” I glanced furtively at the door.
“Not even close. I have to razor cut your layers now.” Razor cut layers? Is that necessary for a lob?
“Oh! Um, I like it the way it is. Wow, so stylish. It looks awesome.”
“Hey relax, I know what I’m doing.” He turned down the music. “Is that better?”
“Yeah, I guess.” I looked longingly at the exit, fearing that the situation was turning into a potential crime scene. We were the only ones remaining in the studio. He was angry at Tibetan Buddhists and wielding a sharp object. I grew increasingly tense as he continued to hack haphazardly at my hair. There were alarming amounts of hair on the ground. He talked about his recent bi-sexual conquests. It was quite disturbing. I couldn’t imagine that Jasmine Tit would tolerate this kind of treatment and environment, no matter how much her boyfriend loved her hair. Tony styled my hair as if I were a rocker in a 80s rock band. I fought back a panic attack. My hands were shaking as I paid. I ran back to my car, relieved to have escaped unscathed.
It was dark in my car so I was unable to examine my hair up close until I got home. I was supposed to meet up for dinner with Lindsay, Jackie and Calista to talk bridesmaid stuff. I screamed when I saw my hair up close in my bathroom mirror. It was worse than I thought. It was a mullet. It was badly styled so I thought that perhaps I could wash it out. I jumped in the shower. Tony had chopped and razored my thick beautiful long locks to nothingness. As I felt how short the top layers where and how thin the long layers were, I panicked.
“Breathe!” I yelled to myself in the shower, clutching at the wall, practicing Stevie’s deep breathing technique. How could I be so vain that I would hyperventilate over a bad hair cut? The more I panicked over my hair cut, the more I panicked over the fact that I was panicking over something as stupid as my hair cut. Is this what an existential crisis felt like?
I tried frantically to call and text Stevie but he wasn’t answering. I called Lindsay.
“Hey you. What’s up? What’s wrong? Hey, are you crying?”
“I got a mullet!” I sobbed. “Children are starving in Africa!”
“Oh…” Lindsay was at a loss.
“It’s so stupid!” I wailed. “Why am I crying?”
“I don’t know. Why don’t you just put on a hat?”
“Please forgive me. I’m so sorry.” I hung up and fell sobbing onto my bed. Lindsay tried calling back several times but I was so ashamed of my vanity that I couldn’t answer or listen to her voice mails.
When Stevie finally called back he was trashed. I could hear pounding music and high-pitched screams in the background.
“My hair!” I wailed. “I’m ugly.”
“Good body. Good face. You don’t need good hair,” Stevie slurred.
“It’s a mullet. I look like a lesbian rocker. I look like Joan Jett.”
Stevie gasped. “Is Joan Jett a lesbian?”
“Why do I care?” I cried.
“I care, darling. I’ll come over tomorrow and fix it. Gotta go! They’ve started the shots!”
I fell asleep in my clothes after researching hair extensions and world poverty online. When I woke up I didn’t remember what happened but felt hung over and dehydrated.
“What happened?” I asked in my morning grogginess. I looked in the mirror and saw Joan Jett, circa 1980, looking back at me. I had ditched my closest friends over a bad hair cut. I didn’t recognize myself.
Stevie was severely hung over the next day and couldn’t come over. Instead, he emailed me photos of cute hats and set up an appointment with an outrageously-priced Senior Stylist at Vidal Sassoon. I was convinced that Jasmine Tit had set me up.
I confronted her in her cube first thing Monday morning. Her beautifully coiffed and perfectly cut locks fueled my fire. “So. I got my hair cut.”
“How did it go? Why are you wearing a hat?”
I pulled off my hat. She gasped, bringing her hand up to her heart. “What happened?”
“Tony at Forno. He’s an asshole. And possibly a homicidal maniac.”
“Oh no! No, no, no! I go to see Toné at Fiorio, not Forno.” Jasmine Tit seemed genuinely horrified. She had lost her carefully controlled demeanor in the horror of the situation. “This has been a horrible mistake! I should have written it down for you. I just assumed you knew of Fiorio.”
“Oh. Shit.”
“It’s awful.” Jasmine Tit whispered, her eyes wide with pity. “I’m so sorry. Please forgive me.
“No, no, it’s not your fault. Don’t worry about it. I’m getting it fixed later this week.” She really needed to pull it together. I was oddly touched by her concern.
“Do you want me to take a photo and ask my boyfriend what he thinks?”
“Uh…no, thanks.” I politely declined her offer. Frankly, I was surprised that she even had an opinion before asking her boyfriend.
I took some comfort that in the continuum of superficiality, I was not nearly as bad as Jasmine Tit. Ever since my fit of uncharacteristic vanity, I had been trying to rationalize my reaction. There is nothing better than in times of self-judgment than to lower the bar of comparison. And Jasmine Tit right now made a great bar.
Later that morning, at the coffee bar, I exchanged my greeting and well-rehearsed small talk with Caden. “The party planning is coming along great. Looking forward to our meeting.”
“Great. Hey, cute hat. It’s a nice look on you.” Caden blue eyes twinkled like a diamond princess-cut Tiffany’s solitaire.
After Caden left, Stevie and I practically ran over to the garden and hugged in celebration. We were high on caffeine and victory. I had passed with flying colours, coherent and completely in control of my bodily and speaking functions. Sometimes you just have to be pushed to your limit to realize that it really wasn’t as bad as you thought.
Chapter 8: Hot and Bothered
This was it. This was D-day. D as in Divine because my big meeting with Caden was scheduled today. I had prepared like an army trainee in Basic Combat Training from the Caden Intervention Plan to my hair, wardrobe and Gi-Spot party planning. Vidal Sassoon had salvaged my hair massacre – my mullet was now transformed into a stylish bob. It was a big change to my look and it took some getting used to but it was really growing on me. It made me look older and more professional. I had chosen an outfit that showcased my body in a classy way that would make Stevie, my fashion Sven Gali, proud – a black pencil skirt, knee high, lace-up black boots, and a form-fitting silk blouse. I looked like I was part of Heidi’s entourage.
I would not have made any progress in the Gi-Spot party planning had it not been for Stevie and surprisingly, Sydney. Stevie had explained the process to me and provided a shortlist of agencies of record. He suggested that I speak to Sydney for templates and timelines since she had planned the Forbidden Fruit launch party. Shockingly, Sydney gave me everything I needed.
“Great minds think alike,” she said. “That’s exactly what I did when I was given the Forbidden Fruit party to plan. Why reinvent the wheel?” While she simply off-loaded files, and didn’t spend any time explaining anything to me, I was still impressed by her generosity. This almost made up for her disastrous lack of support at our last Marketing Review. Maybe not everyone was as nasty as Chloe.
I had tossed and turned the night before like the princess on the pea. It seemed like I woke up every hour. At 4:30 am, I got up to beautify myself and painstakingly style my hair and apply makeup, which were still not natural processes for me. I arrived at the office at 6:45 am. One would think that this would have promoted productivity, but unfortunately I was not in prime condition. Exhausted from lack of sleep, I started my espresso runs at 7:00 am. Nervous and increasingly jittery, I filled up on espresso every hour until Stevie arrived, sometimes treating myself to a double shot. Adrenaline and caffeine pumping enthusiastically through my veins, I bounced over to Stevie’s cube at 9:05 am.
“Hi! How do I look?” I struck a ridiculous mode
l pose.
“Why so perky?” Stevie looked unenthused. He had a Starbucks cup in hand and had clearly not fully woken up yet.
“I’ve been here since seven!” I struck another spectacularly bad model pose.
“Don’t do that,” Stevie advised. “Ever.”
“I’ve had, like, seven shots of espresso! Woo-hoo! I’m ready to go! How do I look? Is this outfit OK? Look, I did my makeup! What do you think? I love my hair. I didn’t think I would like it this short but I love it!” I was speaking in rapid-fire phrases without breathing and my voice was weirdly high-pitched.
“Uh-oh. Your meeting with Caden is today.” There was trepidation in Stevie’s eyes which would have concerned me if I weren’t feeling so energized. “I think you should stop drinking espressos immediately.”
“I’m fine! Never better! How do I look?” I started but then stopped myself from striking another pose.
“Hyper,” Stevie responded, leading me back to my cube. “We need to get some food in your system.” He sat me down. As soon as he let go of me, I bounced back up. He sat me back down again. “Stay here, I’ll get you water and something to eat.”
“But I’m not hungry!” I bounced up.
“Stay!” Stevie said, pointing at my desk chair firmly.
As soon as he left, I ran over to Sydney’s cube. We were launch party buddies so that made us work BFFs. It seemed logical at the time.
“How do I look?” I struck a slightly more subtle model pose.
“Fine, except for the stripper heels.” As Sydney saw my face fall, she added, “They’re not my style. But guys will dig it.”
I beamed. “Thanks!” I ran back to my cube before Stevie knew I had left without his permission. But wait a minute – I didn’t need his permission to leave my desk. It was time to make some more work BFFs…at the coffee bar!
I skipped over to the coffee bar. Unfortunately, my choice was either Mateo or Heidi’s entourage. It was slim pickins. I saw Mateo admiring my stripper heels. I started breaking out into a cold sweat and ran into Heidi’s entourage as a means of escape. “Hey guys!” I interrupted Jasmine Tit recounting her boyfriend’s opinion of the movie they saw the night before.
Why I Love My Gay Boyfriend Page 6
