Girl Before a Mirror

by Liza Palmer

  I haven’t had this much fun in years.

  By the time we catch our breath, I’m sweaty from dancing and my face hurts from laughing.

  Sasha, Preeti, and I are in line at the bar for something that will whet our whistles.

  “I’m starting to see what all the fuss is about,” I say.

  “I told you,” Sasha says. Helen sidles up beside us. Sasha attempts to hide her absolute glee.

  “You know, I’m not much of a romance novel reader, either,” Preeti says in hushed tones. “And I don’t mean to bring the party down, but it was when my mom was going through her chemo that I started even noticing them as something other than . . . well, other than unimportant. They were the only thing she read.”

  “I’m so sorry,” I say.

  “May I ask . . .” Helen trails off.

  “She’s in remission now and she hasn’t stopped reading those damn books. She said they made her happy and anything that can manage that during those circumstances? Well . . . needless to say, I stopped making fun of them.” Preeti gets a little choked up as she ends her thought more abruptly than she expected. Helen smiles, passing her a tissue. We get to the front of the line and order our drinks, thankful for the distraction. “It’s why I think I was more open to your pitch, if that isn’t getting too personal.”

  “No, it’s what happens. Why we’re on the right track with this campaign. It demands that each woman who comes in contact with it gets personal,” I say, loving the turn this conversation has taken. If Preeti makes this campaign personal to her, she will champion it to the higher-ups at Quincy. This is a good sign. Helen tells us she’ll see us tomorrow morning and vanishes out of the Booty Ball.

  “Well, I just love them,” Sasha says, shrugging. We gulp down our drinks and spend the next few minutes talking about how great Helen’s workshop was, taking in the general splendor, and trying to forget how Hector the Bespectacled Assistant’s dancing was oddly arousing. “Well, I’d better be heading back to the hotel. We’ve got a big day tomorrow,” Preeti says, setting her empty mineral water down onto one of the passing trays. I check my watch. It’s way past nine P.M. I can’t believe the time. My stomach drops as I remember Lincoln and his invitation for a post–Booty Ball field trip.

  “Where are you staying?” I ask as coyly as I can.

  “The Biltmore,” Preeti says.

  “Oh really? Wow, us too,” I say.

  “Shall we caravan back then?” Preeti asks, fishing her valet ticket out of her purse.

  “Sure,” I say, giving Sasha a wink as we walk out of the still-hopping Pirate Booty Ball. Sasha and I follow Preeti’s rental car through the streets of Phoenix.

  “Ryder Grant slipped me his hotel room key,” Sasha says, pushing the air-conditioning vent toward her.

  “Of course he did,” I say, slowing down behind Preeti at a red light.

  “I don’t want our guy to be someone who does that,” she says.

  “Our guy?”

  “Our Lumineux spokesman. I don’t want him to play this hero and then slip women he barely knows his hotel room key.”

  “Is this about our guy or your guy?” I ask, ever so carefully.

  “What? It’s about Lumineux. This is . . .” She trails off. “Not about Lumineux at all.” She heaves a long, weary sigh. “All of this stuff . . . it’s screwing me up. That workshop, all this talk about being your own heroine. Do you know how much I would have given to have a guy like Ryder Grant want me? I mean, wasn’t I just saying that he was hot a few days ago?”

  “You were,” I say.

  “I’m so crazy,” she says.

  “You know who’s not crazy?”

  “Who?”

  “People who think they’re crazy.” Sasha allows a small smile and I can tell she doesn’t believe me. “I don’t know . . . I think we just need to be kind to ourselves,” I say. “Clearly we’ve fallen into an alternate universe where up is down and . . .”

  “I’m saying no to Ryder Grant,” Sasha adds, pulling his room key from her purse as proof. “And I know that’s not even his real name. Ryder Grant. Come on.”

  “What would happen in the romance novel version of this?” I ask, trying to change tactics.

  “Ryder Grant would turn out to be—”

  “This isn’t about Ryder Grant.”

  “Right.”

  “Be the heroine,” I say, and then I roll my eyes at my own ridiculousness.

  “No, you’re right,” Sasha says. I don’t make her say it. I don’t make her map out that turning down Ryder Grant was exactly the moment she started to respect herself. Or at the very least it was a moment of note. But I’m all hopped up on Helen Brubaker workshops, Booty Balls, and field trips with Lincoln, so I want to make it as sweepingly epic as possible and believe a medal is in order because I keep my grand theories to myself . . . for once.

  Sasha walks in front of me as we sweat our way into the Biltmore lobby. She tosses Ryder’s room key in the bin just outside the hotel. Preeti is waiting inside with her husband, whom she introduces to us. He’s lovely, of course. They say their good-byes. We’ll see her tomorrow, she says before turning for the elevators. Once she’s gone—

  “Is it okay if I did that because I don’t trust myself? That I would totally cab it over there later on tonight if . . . no, when I got lonely?” Sasha says as we walk farther into the lobby. The air-conditioning surrounds us, as does the din from the raucous hotel bar.

  “Yes. It’s more than okay,” I say, reaching out to her and giving her hand a squeeze. She smiles.

  “I’m going to go watch bad television and order room service,” she says.

  “That sounds like a perfect evening, actually,” I say. She nods. As she’s walking away I pull my phone from my purse. “Sasha?” She turns around. “I’ll knock on your door just before seven A.M. tomorrow morning? Apparently we’re dining in Helen Brubaker’s suite tomorrow,” I say, referring to the just received e-mail from Hector the Bespectacled Dance Machine.

  “Oh, sure. Cool,” she says.

  “Right? Nuh-night,” I say.

  “You’re going to text him, right?” Sasha asks.

  “I don’t know,” I say. Sasha is dumbstruck. “I might just call.”

  “Oh, thank God,” Sasha says.

  “Don’t stay up too late,” I say. She just smiles and manages a weary wave.

  I stand in the lobby, flipping my phone around in my hands. I pull Lincoln’s business card out of my purse. Again. I flip the card over and dial. My fingers are tingling and this terrified numbness pings throughout my body, settling in my toes. I swallow. And swallow. Blink my eyes. It’s like I’m giving myself errands to run around my body so I won’t—

  “This is Lincoln Mallory.” Vomit.

  “Hey, hi. It’s Anna. Anna Wyatt from the other night. From the . . . um . . . from the elevator? And the apple . . . breakfast time—”

  “I’m going to stop you there, love. I know who you are even without the reminder of apple breakfast time,” he says. His voice is even better than I remember it.

  “I apologize for my late call,” I say, still not having taken a breath in now going on nine minutes.

  “I assumed you were busy at your Booty Ball.” Lincoln Mallory saying booty will go down in history as one of my favorite things in the world.

  “You still hungry?” I ask.

  “I’ve already eaten, but I did manage to get something for dessert.”

  “And what’s that then?”

  “It’s a surprise,” he says. My face flushes. “When your Booty Ball ran long—a sentence I never thought I’d say, quite frankly—I had to strike out on the field trip on my own.”

  “So you’re holding this dessert hostage.”

  “You make it sound so devious.”

  I scan the lobby. The hotel bar. The kiss. I close my eyes.

  And leap.

  “What’s your room number?”

  “409.”

  “I�
��ll be right up.”

  “Cheers,” he says.

  “But just for the dessert.”

  “I do like a woman with her priorities in order.” Silence. “Anna?”

  “I didn’t know if you’d hung up,” I say.

  “I hadn’t.”

  “Right.”

  “But I will now.”

  “Sure. Okay,” I say. Silence. “Hello?”

  “It’s never not funny, is it?”

  “I mean . . . ,” I say, unable to keep from laughing.

  “Why don’t you walk toward the elevator while I stay on the line,” he says.

  “Yes. I like multitasking,” I say.

  “I feel like we’re solving a crime together,” Lincoln says as I finally get to the bank of elevators and press the call button. Businesspeople with badges around their necks are taking over the entire lobby and hotel bar area. The elevator dings and the doors pull open. I climb inside and press the button for the fourth floor.

  “The phone might cut out, though. Elevators are never very . . .” The elevator doors close. “Hello?

  “Still here,” Lincoln says.

  “Oh wow, go Arizona Biltmore.”

  “They should really put that on their website. Come one, come all—we have excellent elevator reception,” he says. I laugh and the elevator slows. And all of a sudden my surroundings come into focus. I step out of the elevator. “Other way.” I turn around and there he is. He’s leaning out into the hallway from his room. I wave and mouth “hi,” still on the phone. I walk toward him. Another blue oxford cloth shirt, but this time there are suspenders involved. And he’s in the process of rolling up one of his shirtsleeves, the phone tucked between his shoulder and neck. I swallow. He’s barefoot. I stand directly in front of him, my hand now cramping because I’m gripping the phone too tightly. “Can we hang up now?” he asks.

  I tilt my head back and just sigh. I push him back into his room and it’s a blur. The door slams behind us. The phone is dropped, the purse is dropped, my mind whips back to whether or not I hung up and is this going to be the longest long-distance phone call ever or the shortest? Or . . . And then I’m underneath him on the king-sized bed and I can’t get his suspenders off fast enough, which does nothing except pull them down around his shoulders and kind of trap his arms to his body for a few hilarious seconds. A panicked thought about my workhorse nude-colored bra and then the thought is gone. Who cares about that bra—Lincoln sure doesn’t. My fingers run through his hair once again and I get lost in his smell—this oaky clean, outdoorsy scent that I didn’t even know I missed.

  “You’re trying to remember if you hung up your mobile, correct?” he asks, his voice breathy. He leans his body on one of his arms and pulls back from me.

  “Yes. Goddammit, yes. And maybe a little bit about the dessert,” I say, sliding my hand up the side of his body—the blue shirt underneath my fingers. He laughs and gets up. He kneels at the foot of the bed and as I leap up he gives my ass a smack. Which makes me giggle like a teenager. I find both of our phones, various items of clothing hanging off me. “They’re both still on!” I hold them up in the air, shutting them both off.

  “Well, hurry up and get back over here,” he says, untucking his shirt and pulling it off. Which is when I see them. He stands and drops his shirt to the ground, standing in front of me bare-chested. His entire upper body is scarred and mangled, shrapnel wounds and burns clearly from an explosion on his left side. “Afghanistan.” He lifts his left arm up and turns to the side. “An IED. Do you know what that is?”

  “Of course,” I say, holding both of our cell phones. Resigned, he begins to put his hands in his pockets, but before he can I’ve dropped our phones on the desk and pushed him back onto the bed once more. The relief in his face almost brings me to tears. He flips me over easily and I’m underneath him once again, his smell infusing my everything. “Yes,” I whisper once more.

  Yes.

  I wake up to a slant of light and distant tapping. A slow, blinking awakening gives way to a panicked oh-my-God-what-time-is-it start within milliseconds.

  “It’s early yet. Not to worry,” Lincoln says, sitting in front of his open laptop in nothing but his boxers, holding a steaming cup of tea. I’m in Lincoln’s hotel room. Shit shit shit. I’m in Lincoln’s hotel room. I fumble around on the bedside table trying to find my phone, but my dried-up contact lens eyes thwart my search. “It’s over here. I plugged it into my charger.” Lincoln sets his tea down, unplugs my phone, and walks it over to me. I thank him, all the while trying to hide my early-morning crustiness: mood, breath, everything. He sits on the side of the bed, and the quiet of a still sleeping hotel surrounds us. Insulates us.

  “I’m not quite awake yet,” I say, looking at the time: 5:43 A.M. I have to be in Helen Brubaker’s suite by seven A.M. Flashes of last night besiege me in swirls and waves and my body reacts—flushing, tingling, and immediately feeling embarrassed. Who was I last night? Even now, as I hitch myself up in bed, my hand effortlessly rests on Lincoln’s hip, a few fingers on fabric and a few on his now goose-pimpling skin. The same skin that’s burned and scarred by a history I have yet to ask about.

  I think about leaving his hotel room and I die a little, but at the same time there’s the comfort of a reunion with what’s familiar about myself. Because within these walls, around this man, I am unrecognizable. No thought. Just want. Lincoln leans down and is just about to kiss me.

  “You’ve already brushed your teeth,” I say, sitting up in bed.

  “I have,” he says. Closer. Closer.

  “So, that’s officially cheating,” I say, my fingers idly threading through his morning tangle of hair.

  “How is that—”

  “You’re all minty and I’m still the little stinky engine that could. Pass,” I say, landing a kiss on his neck before getting out of bed. The warm bed. His warm bed. He stops me, taking my hand in his. It takes me about two seconds to realize that I am standing there completely naked. I remember when I was little some of the neighborhood kids dared me to go on the high dive. Eager to make friends, I obliged. I climbed the ladder, terrified, but I was so distracted with the newness of it all that I walked the length of the platform, reached my arms over my head, latched my thumbs together, and dove right off the end headfirst without thinking. They hadn’t dared me to dive, just jump. I remember swimming up to the surface of the water, not realizing what I’d done. Why I dove. It was just . . . instinctual.

  Up until this moment, I had yet to dive off another platform.

  “Not fair,” he says, his eyes licking over every inch of me. And then it’s just me and this feeling again. I’m not my body or my résumé or the new kid in school—I’m just me. And it feels like uncontrollable falling.

  “When I emerge from that bathroom, I want to know what you’ve done with that dessert you promised. And?” Lincoln stands. “It better not be metaphorical for . . .” I scan his body and then back to his eyes. “You know.” I punctuate with an arched eyebrow.

  “I am not a man who trifles with the clarity of what dessert means,” he says, then takes a sip of his tea.

  “Good. Good,” I say.

  I grab my purse, underwear, and bra from the floor and go into the bathroom, closing the door behind me. I don’t turn on the light. Not yet. There is a night-light on the far wall, and that’s about the level of illumination I can take right now. I put on my bra but then realize I’ve grabbed a pair of already-worn underwear and quickly shove it into my purse, hoping Lincoln doesn’t think I’m a dirty underwear–wearer. I find a gray T-shirt of his on the bathroom counter, smell it—sighhhhh—and put that on instead. I dig through my purse for something, anything to help . . . help with all this.

  “Lumineux should come up with some kind of morning-after survival kit is what they should do. Just Be . . . Presentable,” I say, finding an almost empty package of tissues in the bottom of my purse, which I use to wipe away last night’s mascara. I also find a
single peanut M&M, which I pop in my mouth. “Kind of hypocritical, though . . . Be you, only better.” I scan Lincoln’s toiletries.

  “Who are you talking to in there?” he asks from outside the bathroom door.

  “Myself,” I say, as if that’s completely normal and I’m not absolutely mortified right now.

  “Ah,” he says, and I hear him walk away. I am clearly rusty at this whole dating game. I take a little of his toothpaste and use my finger to give my teeth a cursory brush.

  Is this bathroom getting smaller? I finally look at myself in the mirror, illuminated by the night-light in this ever-shrinking yet noise-amplifying bathroom. I look . . . different. I lean closer. I feel lighter, but . . . that uncontrollable falling feeling is still here. I shut the water off and walk back out into the hotel room.

  “It’s sweet potato pie,” Lincoln says, motioning to the Styrofoam takeaway container with two forks sticking out of it. I quicken my pace. “It’s from Mrs. White’s Golden Rule Cafe. I found it . . .” Lincoln trails off, thinking. “Last year? Year before? I don’t know. I needed to find something in Phoenix besides golf and room service.” He motions for me to try the pie. “Nice shirt.” He hands me a cup of tea and I take a careful sip.

  “Thank you. The whole walking-around-naked thing was getting a bit . . .” I make a face.

  “For you maybe.”

  “No one’s stopping you from stripping down,” I say. He smiles. “Now . . .” I take a bite of the pie. “Oh my God.”

  “I know,” Lincoln says, taking a bite.

  “Mrs. White is a genius,” I say. We stand there, hovering over the pie, taking orgasmic bites for untold minutes. The morning haze seeps in through the gauzy curtains. We finish the pie too soon and it takes everything I have not to lick the takeaway container it came in.

  “And what does the day hold for you, Ms. Wyatt?” Lincoln asks, sitting back down on the side of the bed.

  “We’re meeting Helen Brubaker at seven A.M. at the conference hotel. She’s the woman who wrote that book I was reading at the bar,” I say, finding my skirt and sliding it on. Lincoln motions for me to turn around and I oblige. He zips me up, tapping the top of the zipper when he’s done. I turn back around, a little uncomfortable that I’ll apparently be breakfasting with Helen Brubaker whilst ever-so-classily going commando. “That Be the Heroine book?”