by Roz Bailey
When one of his hands moved along my side to stroke a breast, I gasped a little. I didn’t really want it, but the sensation ignited a flicker of longing. I decided to toss my reservations to the wind and go with it, letting myself kiss him and be stroked as the music and flashing lights poured over us.
We were making out like two kids behind the 7-Eleven, our breathing heavy, nerves heightened. Spicy, teasing sensations. I felt safe and seductive, knowing it wouldn’t go any further in this time and place.
He closed a kiss and nibbled my earlobe. “You look so pretty tonight,” he whispered, sliding a hand up to cup one of my breasts again. This time I pushed it away, slightly embarrassed over the two Middle Eastern men staring at us from across the table. “Very pretty. Tell me,” Daryl asked, looking at my chest. “Are these real? They feel real.”
The sweet longing that had tickled me now oozed into a slimy, slutty feeling. I pushed away from him completely and grabbed my bag. What was I thinking? Making out with a man who wanted the 411 on my boobs? “Gotta go.”
18
Alana
It was my turn to save Hailey. Rory and I intercepted her on her way back from the rest room, via some balding guy who seemed to know her a little too well. I hadn’t seen Hailey hook up with a man since the ex dumped her, and I was certainly not going to let Mr. Bald-and-Horny be her rebound.
Although she was already leaving the table, she shot me a desperate look as I hooked my arm through hers. “Look at you!” I told her. “A few drinks and you’re looking for love in all the wrong places.”
“This party is moving on to breakfast,” Rory said, motioning us toward the exit. “I can’t work on an empty stomach.”
Marcella laughed. “You’re going to work now? After partying all night?”
“A six A.M. call. But I had a little nap in the evening,” Rory admitted.
“I don’t believe you,” Marcella said. “I don’t believe me. I’ve never stayed out this late in my life. Well, not since prom night at Our Lady of Snows.”
We climbed to the street, where Rory gazed down the line of black limos. “There we go. My driver is waiting, third car up. We’ll have him zip us directly to 24/7, then I must turn into a pumpkin and be off to work.”
“I can’t believe I’m riding in a limo.” Marcella patted the shiny roof of the car and beamed at the driver.
I realized I liked having her around, though she was a study in contradictions. Full of practical advice, yet awed and wide-eyed as a little kid when it came to certain practices that were tired ritual in my life. She had a way of cracking things open and examining them with wonder.
Sometimes a new point of view is refreshing.
Over omelettes at 24/7, Marcella questioned Hailey and Rory about how things worked behind the scenes in daytime television. Although Hailey was still in a bit of a funk over her future as Ariel, she tried to answer politely. Marcella seemed genuinely interested in the “process,” and I suspected that she was going to make a fabulous buyer for Bon Nuit. I was going to send the store CEO a fat, juicy e-mail about how fabulous she was, just as soon as I got some sleep and took care of the zillion other tasks on my list.
Which reminded me ... one of those tasks was the pesky need for a job of my own.
“Oh, I almost forgot,” I said, stabbing a mushroom from my omelette. “I need a teensy favor, Marcella. I was wondering if you could help me get a position as a mister. You know, the girls who spray perfume on the shoppers? Don’t you think I’d be great at it?”
Rory nearly choked on his French toast. “Princess Alana, working? When was the last time that happened?”
I kicked him under the table.
“Ouch! Those shoes have pointy toes.”
“I’ve had plenty of jobs before,” I said. “Just none as interesting as working with scents.” I fantasized about receiving my first paycheck, a long stream of dollar digits that I could wave under my father’s nose.
“I don’t know about those girls,” Marcella said. “I don’t think they work for the store. I never see them in the break room. I think they’re paid by the cosmetics companies.”
“Hmm. So how do I apply for a position?” I asked.
“I’ll ask around and find out for you,” she promised.
Ha! Wouldn’t Daddy be surprised? I was going to be hugely successful without his checkbook behind me.
As chalky daylight began to illuminate the street, Rory and Marcella headed off in his limo. He promised her that the driver would take her to Brooklyn once he was dropped at the studio, and Marcella was determined to wake up her sister and brother-in-law so that they could see her pull up outside the apartment in style.
Hailey and I took a cab home, but as we pulled up on Madison Avenue, the CVS sign flashed in my view, and I realized I’d better stock up on a few necessities before I was running my own tab.
I filled a basket with various shades of nail polish, hot-oil treatment for my hair, top-of-the-line shampoo, and a few other bathroom unmentionables. We also found a few shades of nail polish that had to be tried, and two adorable matching ceramic vases for our bathroom.
Bearing new purchases in embarrassingly cheap plastic bags, we made one more stop—Starbucks—for lattes, newspapers, and low-fat muffins to go, because we were both so tired we were yawning in unison.
Up in the apartment, Hailey flopped on the couch, popped in a tape of her performances as Ariel, and cradled her coffee cup sadly. “I wonder if it was me,” she said. “Is it me? Or my performance? Or maybe my agent. No one likes Cruella. God, I can’t believe they’re cutting me from the show!”
As she critiqued her performance with “So wimpy!” and “Talk about fake tears!” I washed up, slipped into my peignoir, and fired up my computer to check my e-mail. Nothing good, but was featuring fabulous summer ensembles, most of which could be ordered on-line.
I sat down at the computer and sighed in wonder.
Honeydew-colored zip handbags with perky pale green flowers.
Big round orange dots on a baguette, so jaunty and whimsical.
And those strappy metallic sandals with shell disks designed by Colin Stuart. “Colin Stuart!” I shrieked in delight.
“Tell him I’m not home,” Hailey muttered from the living room. I shot her a look; her face was buried in the pillow, one arm dangling over the couch.
Sleep tugged at me, but I kept one eye open and clicked on the little shopping cart that indicated, yes, I would buy these bags, these sandals. And, yes, this sweet petite yellow silk-chiffon dress with a ruched waist. Yes, yes, yes!
I typed in the number of my American Express, my fingers bouncing over the keyboard like raindrops on the pavement. Quick, quick! Quick, before Daddy cancels the card! He’s never up this early, but in a situation this dire, you can’t be too careful.
With a few more victorious purchases taken care of, I bypassed my unconscious friend, turned off the television, moisturized with night cream, and slid into bed.
Sleep mask, ear plugs, and ...
I still had one earplug out when the phone rang. Caller ID indicated it was ... Daddy.
Daddy, calling at eight A.M.? This couldn’t be good.
I sank back into my pillows. I didn’t have the energy to talk to him now—this time I had summer ennui, and I was still mad at him for last night.
If he was calling to apologize, he could leave a message.
I scootched down in the bed and savored the coolness of the sheets against my bare feet, visions of strappy metallic sandals dancing in my head.
Part Three
ALL PRICES SLASHED FOR OUR
MEMORIAL DAY SALE!
19
Hailey
They say suicide can be a real killer. Fortunately for me, my character, Ariel, didn’t muster the courage (or cowardice, depending on how you look at it) to do herself in. After a two-week personal hiatus during which my shopping therapy helped me accumulate more articles of denim clothing than a tourist at
a horse ranch, I was offered a new thirteen-week contract on All Our Tomorrows.
Big sigh.
With the new contract money, I could pay the two months’ back rent I owed Alana. And the monthly minimum on my credit cards. It had gotten to the point where I didn’t even check the list of purchases when the bills came in. Not that I regretted the items I’d bought, but it was a little depressing to be reminded how much everything cost these days. Manhattan boutiques were certainly a step up from ordering fleeces and granny underwear from a catalogue in Wisconsin, but believe me, that insurance of quality and style was more than reflected in the prices.
But, hey! I could pay the monthly minimum on my charge bills! I wouldn’t have my credit cards confiscated and clipped in half by a clerk with a Mussolini mustache. Instead, those power-hungry sales clerks would be scanning my purchase with respect, because two of the banks were extending my credit limit to twenty thousand dollars! Now twenty thousand times two is forty thousand, which is just an astronomical, gluttonous amount to think of spending on strappy sandals, lattes, and Chardonnay with a hint of peach and almond, but I love the idea of having a few fat steamer trunks of cash at my disposal; somehow it’s very Greta Garbo.
So I skipped merrily back to the studios where we tape All Our Tomorrows, happy to be employed as an actress again. I gave Sean a big hug, even said hello to the cameramen, and didn’t object when Lucy in makeup wanted to try a new shade on my lips. I was upbeat and sunny until I read the daily schedule. Since the actor who plays Preston Scott was unavailable today, his scenes were being moved to tomorrow, and tomorrow’s scenes between Meredith and Ariel were being shot today. Bumped up to today? My haute-drama scene with Deanna Childs.
Now I am an actress who welcomes the opportunity to work with any fellow actor. However, having heard (and read!) rumors that Deanna was the person responsible for my expensive layoff, I admit I harbored a little distrust. A smattering of anger. A quivering fear that she would try to get me axed again. So, I admit, the scheduling change threw me.
But then Jodi brought out my wardrobe for the day—a strapless dupioni silk dress with kicking polka-dotted Manolo mules—and my throat tightened with emotion.
“What’s wrong, honey?” Jodi asked, pulling the curtain aside so that every gaffer in the studio wouldn’t see me in my underwear.
“It’s ... it’s so pretty.” I held my hair back as she zipped up the dress, a high-waisted, shoulderless, sassy design in various shades of green stripe.
Jodi pinched at the bodice, pursing her lips. “We might bring it in a bit there—you’re so skinny!—but otherwise it’s a good fit.”
“It’s a dream! I feel like Julia Roberts after Richard Gere takes her shopping in Pretty Woman.”
The usually deadpan Jodi actually cracked a quick smile. “I loved that scene. Now try the shoes. The script calls for you to kick them off when you go out on the ledge, so I didn’t give you any straps or zippers.”
I slipped my feet into the open-toed shoes, so glad I’d sprung for a pedicure yesterday. The shoes were silk heaven, with a pert band of lime ribbon trim around the toes and slender heels. And the polka dots! How I wanted to do a high kick in Deanna’s face, proving that dots are hot. “Wonderful,” I said. “Fabulous. Very comfortable.”
“Now the key to making a dress like this work is the accessories, so don’t forget the necklace and earrings. Some silvery droplets, since we need to break the horizontal line of the dress.”
My attention was glued to the mirror, to the smart, new Ariel. “It’s so nice to be out of droopy seaweed clothes, even if I am still wearing green.”
Jodi wrinkled her nose, tugging on the tape measure back and forth around her neck. “It was time. Everyone knew it, but the network had a focus group and they really shoved the results down Gabrielle’s throat. No one wants to tune in to see people dressed in rags. Time for Ariel to have some style.”
“Thank you.” I would have hugged her if I didn’t think it would freak her out. At a time when I needed a confidence boost to face Deanna, Jodi had come through. “Thank you, thank you!”
She ripped the curtain open, indicating that I was finished and should leave her space and let the next cast member step in. So I glided out of wardrobe on my dotty Manolo heels feeling dazed and beautiful, whacked by the wand of the costuming fairy.
20
Alana
“Esperanza!” I whispered, trying to sound exotic and mystical. “Esperanza!”
To be honest, Esperanza was giving me a sinus headache, maybe even an infection. At first sniff, the scent hinted at clove and floral. Breathtaking! Or so I thought when I hit the cosmetic floor ready to whap some sales butt.
But the smell began to wear me down, and when one teenage girl joked that it resembled tiger urine, I couldn’t lose that connection. Now, one spray of Esperanza and my mind was immediately transported to the restrooms at the Central Park Zoo. And as scents go, that is not at the top of anyone’s list.
“Ladies, try Esperanza! The scent of mystical proportions. . .” I didn’t know what the hell that meant, but since it was the damn theme of this perfume, Greg, my boss, wanted it “out there.”
“Gotta get it out there,” Greg kept telling me over the phone. “If women don’t try it, they’ll never know they love it. So that’s your primary goal: get the scent out there.”
To be honest, the only ones really “out there” were weirdo Greg and the even weirder singer, the Esperanza, who was rumored to live with two Siberian white tigers in a two-bedroom apartment somewhere uptown. It’s hard to figure the math on that—two bedrooms with two tigers? I guess the cats had to share. Hey, that’s New York real estate for you.
I had read in the Post that Esperanza tongued their fur like a mama tiger, that the co-op board wanted her out of the building because her place wreaked of tiger piss, that PETA reps were hiding in Central Park waiting to douse her with fake blood, that she dropped out of Brown and lied about it on her application for Miss Teen Goth America.
Everything I’d ever read about my new employer was outrageous, but one simple fact remained: she was a wealthy celebrity, while I was a deb in financial rehab, pounding the marble floors of Bon Nuit to get wealthy again. Where’s the order in that universe?
So far, my wealth goal was a distant target and all that pounding was wreaking havoc on my D&G sandals, as well as my delicate feet. Just yesterday when Suki was giving me a pedicure at Salon Armage she found a crack on the heel of my left foot. “Ouchie!” she said, showing me the spot. I had to restrain my horror long enough to ask for the hot wax treatment. Suki was very understanding, but my spa time had been ruined. Cracked skin, like an old granny! Please.
“Esperanza!” I hissed, holding up the bottle as an older blond with blue eye shadow happened by. “Would you like to try Esperanza?” I asked her.
“I guess,” she said without much confidence.
I sprayed her wrist from the tiger-shaped bottle. She gave a delicate sniff, then glanced away and headed off.
“It’s available in toilet water and cologne,” I called after her. Maybe she’d double back after shopping. Maybe she’d come back and buy two, one for herself, one to give away as a gift.
“Esperanza,” I hissed, thinking that I sounded like a snake. I stepped up to a passing girl, who quickened her pace to avoid me. Obviously in a hurry, I thought, but she would be back.
Back to dodge me again.
Back to try a sample of Passion or Eternity across the aisle.
Who was I kidding?
This job sucked and I knew it. My feet hurt, my first full week of work had brought me a mere three hundred and thirty dollars after taxes, and this whole spray and buy sales tactic was so ten years ago. Nowadays, any woman who was into scents applied her fave before she left the house, and we all know that you never, ever mix scents, unless you want that table by the men’s room at Nobu. Conversely, the women who wanted a spritz were novices, tourists in the land of scen
t, happy to visit but eager to leave before their visas expired. And if a tourist can get something for free, why pay?
“Esperanza,” I called out as I gracefully crossed the cosmetics floor to the Bare Shoulders counter. They made the best lotions, and my hands were feeling so dry right now. I figured I’d steal a dab of lotion from the display.
“Esperanza ... it means hope.” More like hopeless.
Just my luck—at the Bare Shoulders counter, the tester of Exotic Cucumber lotion was empty. I looked around and waved to Karo, one of the nicer sales assistants. “Hey, hi! Could you help me out, Karo? You’re all out of Exotic Cucumber.”
“Again? Let’s see.” She crossed to the counter and frowned. “It’s our best-seller in the hand cream line.”
“And I can see why. It feels so velvety, and how about that antiaging formula? What do you know about that?” I asked.
“They tell me it’s laboratory tested, and I say if there’s even a chance of it working, let’s give it a go,” Karo said. She slid open the cabinet and put a “tester” label on a new bottle. “There. Try that, sweet pea.”
I squeezed a tiny aqua pool on my hand and rubbed it in. “Heaven!”
Karo giggled. “I keep telling my husband, it stops aging, honey. One of these days I’m bringing some home to put on his johnson. See how that works out for him.”
“You wild woman!”
“And you with the hands. Honey, you don’t need antiaging cream on those beauties.” She held my right hand up by the pinkie and examined both sides. “Perfectly proportioned. Shiny nails, healthy cuticles. And your skin ... mmmm-mmm.”
“Excuse me, girls, but I’m looking for Exotic Cucumber,” the woman said, getting right into our faces. Her husband followed behind on an invisible leash, an over-the-hill bald man who was obviously pussy-whipped.
“Esperanza?” I asked the bossy customer, bottle at the ready.
“God, no! Talk about overexposure,” the woman yapped to her husband. “I’ve had enough of the tiger lady, and I’m allergic to some of the chemicals used in perfumes. But Exotic Cucumber is intriguing. Is that a tester?” She lifted the bottle, turning it around. “I don’t know. You’re wearing it, right? Do you mind if I smell your hand?”
