B as in Beauty

by Alberto Ferreras

  That morning, I wished I had an AA sponsor. Someone with more experience at being “me” who could tell me, “Easy, big girl, don’t go crazy, don’t let all this crap bring you down. Don’t unleash the horses.”

  Unfortunately, I wasn’t an alcoholic, and I didn’t have a sponsor. All I had to rely on was Lillian, my best friend in the whole world. Someone who works a few desks away from me, but sometimes makes me feel like she lives in a distant galaxy. With her tight and slim body, and the permanent court of hunky guys taking her out and sending her flowers at the office, how could she understand what I was going through?

  So, now that I’ve said that, we can go back to the story.

  Where were we?

  Oh yes, the Hamptons.

  “Wanna see some pictures of the Hamptons?” Lillian asked me at the worst possible moment.

  In case you don’t know, the Hamptons is the most beautiful and obnoxious place on earth. A couple of hours away from New York City, on the coast of Long Island, it’s a collection of little towns by the sea, crowded with elegant mansions, English gardens, overpriced antique shops, and arrogant people rolling around in expensive cars and wearing faded jeans. It’s a place frequented by people with money or people who like to pretend that they have money. If you live in New York and you don’t go to the Hamptons on the weekend, you are nobody. People don’t go there to enjoy themselves, they go there to tell other people that they went there, and that is neither my thing nor my scene. I’ve been out there a few times, and the crowd was so pretentious and unwelcoming that I won’t miss it a bit if I never go back.

  So back to Lillian…Without waiting for my response to her question, she started laying out her weekend memories in front of me, and though I could have said no, chances were she wasn’t listening.

  “Just look at this house,” she wowed. “And the owner is crazy about me.”

  “Lil…I’m not sure if I’m in the mood for this right now,” I said, trying to stop her. It didn’t work.

  “This is the guy—the lawyer who sent me the flowers—he’s not so cute, but he’s got this house—not a share—and a Beemer—wow! But then his friend, who’s super-cute, shows up. Now, here’s the problem: he’s a paralegal…”

  Lillian placed an imaginary “L” on her forehead, in case I didn’t know that she might date lawyers but never “para-losers.”

  “…But then their boss shows up—now, this one is beyond loaded, okay? So the boss starts chasing me around, and asking me things, and being all flirty…but the thing is that I know that he’s married to this fat thing—so I’m all like ‘Mister, you have to step back…’”

  Oh, Lillian! You had to bring up the fat factor, didn’t you? I wish I’d had enough strength at the time to laugh at it or send her to hell. But after the events of the morning, there was only one thing I could do, so I went ahead and did it. I started weeping.

  The weeping seemed to capture her attention—she only responds to crisis mode. Since the office is pretty much a big open space, and my wailing would immediately attract unwanted attention, in a matter of seconds Lillian managed to find my sunglasses, covered my mascara-stained eyes with them, and gently but assertively—with the elegant determination of a geisha—dragged me by the arm out of the office. Lillian clearly wanted to keep me from making a scene in front of my co-workers.

  “Don’t say a word. Wait until we’re outside,” she hushed, as we walked toward the exit.

  She took me downstairs to the smokers’ corner to ask me what the hell was going on. I was brief: the pants, the marketing morons, Dan Callahan, and—of course—Bonnie.

  “B, you cannot take this personally.”

  “How can I not take this personally?” I blurted out. “Let’s ignore all the shit that happened to me this morning. You would think that I could say, ‘Fuck all this, I’m going to devote myself to my career.’ But it turns out that even though I work my ass off, my fucking boss thinks I’m such a dog that I should be locked in a dungeon!!!”

  “B, honey, it’s not all about looks. You have to understand that beauty…”

  I lost it then and there, and yelled at her, “Do not tell me that beauty is in the eye of the beholder!”

  “Actually, I was going to say, ‘Beauty is on the inside.’?”

  “Well, don’t say that either!” I shouted.

  My position is that if you’re going to console me you should be creative and not throw a couple of clichés to see if they stick. I’m fat, but I’m sophisticated. Lillian stopped for a second to rethink her words.

  “Look, B, you’re smart, and sweet, and talented, and responsible…and…and…yes, you are beautiful too.” Naturally “‘beautiful’” was the last compliment on her stupid laundry list. I almost smacked her, but she continued: “You have a weight problem, but you can’t let that stop you!”

  “Lil,” I said, “my weight is not stopping me. They are stopping me! So if I don’t turn into a skinny anorexic thing, then that’s it? I’m never gonna find a boyfriend, I’m never gonna have a family, and—obviously—I’m never gonna have a window office either?”

  Let’s face it, my logic was sad but hard to refute, and poor Lillian couldn’t come up with anything that could comfort me. The best she could say was “You just have to get serious about losing weight. Make it a health priority!”

  Let me make something clear: the last thing that a fat girl needs to hear is that she “needs to get serious about losing weight.” Trust me, she knows it. Take this from someone who was dieting before she could talk. And if you add sexual frustration to the weight problem, then you really have a deadly cocktail in your hands.

  So I tried to explain my point to Lillian without scratching her eyes out. I started by posing a rhetorical question: “Do you know when was the last time I got laid? I can’t even remember! It must have been—when?—a year ago? Yeah, it must have been a year ago, because I was doing my taxes…”

  I had to stop my train of thought, because it suddenly hit me that it was April 14—again—and I had not done my taxes yet. Oh boy, what a day. I was angry, frustrated, and now in a panic.

  “Relax,” she said, “just go to your accountant tomorrow morning and you’ll be done in no time. But today we’re going to make a plan so you can reinvent yourself.”

  The thing about Lillian is that sometimes she doesn’t come through, but when she finally does, she hits you right where it really hurts. “And the first thing you have to do”—she made a dramatic pause before shooting me in the head with the truth—“is drop that bitchy self-deprecating attitude, because, to be honest with you, it’s not very attractive.”

  In other words: I’m fat and whiny.

  I hated her. I hated her so much for saying that that I instantly knew she was absolutely right. She was so right that I had to laugh. I laughed so hard that the smokers next to us, who had seen me crying hysterically a second before, now thought I was bipolar. Lillian hugged me, and it felt good and sincere. Even though her comforting techniques are not very good, her intentions certainly are. That’s why she is my best friend.

  “I know you’re going through a bad moment, but there’s gotta be a reason for this. There’s gotta be something you need to learn. Trust me, nothing happens by accident. God has a plan.”

  “I’m not religious,” I said, shaking my head.

  “I’m not religious either! This is not a religious thing, it’s a spiritual thing,” she said.

  “Well, I’m not spiritual either,” I replied, just to contradict her and piss her off.

  “Oh! Fuck you, then!” she fired back, knowing that I was just messing with her.

  I called her a bitch, she called me a fat ass, and we both felt as good as new.

  “Let’s go for a drink tonight,” she insisted.

  “I have to do my taxes.”

  “You have until tomorrow. Come on! Tuesdays are the new Thursdays!”

  Someone said that madness is repeating the same mistake over and over
while expecting a different result. I knew that if I went out with Lillian every man in the bar would hit on her and nobody would even notice me. But at this point I wanted to make Lillian feel good about having tried to make me feel good. I’m such a people pleaser. But I’d be lying if I said that that was my only motivation; the truth is, I had nothing better to do that night, so I hopped along.

  Big mistake.

  CHAPTER 3

  If you are a true New Yorker, you might already know the secret rules of Manhattan’s nightlife, but in case you are not, let me take a couple of lines to explain how the bar scene operates in the Big Apple.

  Turns out that—as Lillian pointed out to me—Tuesdays have become the new Thursdays.

  A few years ago, going out on a Thursday night was a true adventure. Only the freaks, the fashionistas, or the addicts ruled Thursday nights. They would go to a bar after work, someone there would invite them to a party, the party would suck, and somebody else would invite them to another party, and then they’d fly off to yet another one. Finally, after crashing Thursday-night gallery openings, charity events, clubs, after hours, etc., you could find them in Chinatown at 4 a.m., having salt-baked shrimps for breakfast, surrounded by a string of strangers that they picked up along the way.

  These night creatures would show up at work the next morning with dark sunglasses covering their eyes, and praying for Friday to fly by, so they could go home to take a nap.

  In essence, Thursdays were the night when people went out in order to avoid the Friday and Saturday crowds. New Yorkers—who are not into waiting in line to go to clubs, or even to go to heaven—needed a night to have the city for themselves, and for a long time that night happened to be Thursday.

  The problem is that Thursdays became too popular. So suddenly—as if an invisible force made the whole city agree on the same subject—Tuesdays became the new Thursdays.

  As a result, no respectable party happens on a day other than Tuesday. And if you’re planning to go to a swanky bar, don’t even dare show up if it isn’t Tuesday. Tuesday is now the night to go out. The night for people who either don’t have to wake up early the next morning, or like to pretend that they don’t. Typically, it’s the latter.

  Now, this is the fascinating part. Since Tuesdays became Thursdays, all the other days of the week have gotten screwed up:

  Wednesdays have become the new Fridays. The bars are way too crowded, and too many out-of-towners cruise the streets in their SUVs.

  Thursdays have become the new Saturdays. Therefore, Thursday is a night to catch a foreign film or an art show, but nothing more complicated than that. There’s no way anything exclusive or interesting happens on a Thursday anymore.

  Fridays are without a doubt the new Sundays: a night for staying home and watching TV. You’d rather die a slow death than wait in line with a bunch of tourists to get into a club on a Friday night.

  Saturdays, obviously, have the quiet appeal of the old Mondays. Saturday is the preferred night for Manhattanites to do laundry, clean out the closets, or visit friends in the suburbs.

  Sundays are starting to look a lot like the old Tuesdays. Since Sunday is kind of an off-night, it’s cool to go out in search of adventures.

  Finally, we have Mondays, but I haven’t figured out what their new status is yet. I’ll try to keep you posted on that.

  To be honest, a long time ago I stopped caring about all these stupid rules, but understanding the nuances is vital to this part of my story. Lillian’s insistence on going out that night had a lot to do with the fact that it was a Tuesday. She chose the right night and the right bar: we arrived at Baboon when the happy-hour crowd was already settled and half happy.

  Baboon is one of the cool bars in the Meat Packing District—an industrial area on the Lower West Side of Manhattan where all the meat distributors had their freezers until gentrification turned it into a trendy neighborhood.

  When I was growing up in Upper Manhattan, the Meat Packing District was not a place to hang out in. By day, you could smell the stench of bovine blood and carcasses emanating from the buildings. By night, the sidewalks were splattered with prostitutes and slow-moving cars that only stopped to negotiate rates for after-dark services. In other words, there was meat packing by day and meat packing by night. No neighborhood has ever had a more appropriately explicit name.

  But times have changed, and the old meat lockers have been renovated and turned into fancy bars and restaurants for the Wall Street types and their chasers. The carcasses and prostitutes have been replaced by hunky brokers with big cigars, and skinny girls with little black dresses and stiletto heels, who constantly stumble and fall on the cobblestoned streets, breaking their heels in the best cases, and their necks in the worst. There’s so much arrogance and bullshitting going on in this area now, they should change its name to the Shit Packing District. Everybody seems to be full of it.

  As we approached the bar, I realized just how much I’ve learned by hanging out with Lillian. Lesson number one: always let Lillian walk first into a crowded bar. Why? Because she’ll open the way for me.

  It’s fascinating to see how men react to an Asian beauty. They move out of the way…stare…howl…It’s frankly pathetic. If women reacted toward men the way men react toward women, the world would probably come to a screeching halt. I’m convinced that, given the same pressure and attention that pretty girls get, men would suffer a vicious attack of performance anxiety and never have another erection again. But Lillian loves the attention, and I basically get some of it by association. For the record, it takes a lot of strength to be friends with Lillian. I honestly don’t think she thrives on having me around just to be neglected. I simply think that she doesn’t get it. I’m telling you, when she’s on “self-centered-mode” she can’t see past her perky boobs.

  This scene that revolves around Lillian when we’re together makes me feel like I’m a supporting character in my own life. I know it’s ridiculous, but when I hang out with her, I’ve noticed that I start behaving like a sidekick. It’s as if she’s Calista Flockhart and I’m Camryn Manheim. I might have a few good scenes, but I’m just her supporting actress. It has always bothered me, but I’ve never known how to stop it.

  We walked into Baboon through the crowd of Wall Street primates and tried to park ourselves near the bar. Immediately some guy offered Lillian his seat. With a big smile she demanded the one next to hers, and the other guy gave me the adjoining stool. I perched myself up there and observed how they circled her and started the mating rituals. The bar was loud and it was hard to follow their conversation, so I chose to study the crowd instead, while having one, then two, then three appletinis—courtesy of the apes.

  “Thank you!” I said three times. They wouldn’t even “you’re welcome” me back.

  Suddenly a big smile across the room caught my eye. I’d never seen that guy before, but he was openly smiling at me. Very discreetly, I looked over my shoulder to make sure that he wasn’t smiling at someone behind me. Once I confirmed that I was the object of his attention, I smiled back. Then the Smiley Guy proposed a long-distance toast that was interrupted by one of Lillian’s monkeys, who bumped me in a desperate attempt to position himself closer to her. I rolled up my eyes, and the Smiley Guy laughed out loud. I was starting to have fun with him when Lillian announced that she was going outside with her apes to look at the car they had parked in front of the bar.

  “Peter says that it’s a Porsche, but Roger says that it’s a Mustang,” Lillian said, laughing with her court of idiots.

  I suspected that the whole argument was just an act to pull Lillian out of the bar and impress her with the actual eighty-thousand-dollar Porsche 911 Turbo that I saw parked on the street when we walked in. As Lillian turned toward the door and stepped away from her drink, she noticed the Smiley Guy looking at me. She arched an eyebrow and whispered in my ear, “Save my seat for him.” Good thinking, Lillian.

  As they left, I waved the Smiley Guy in, and he move
d next to me. Physically he wasn’t anything to write home about, but he had the wholesome looks of a good boy from the Midwest. He was wearing low-rise jeans, a cute T-shirt, and a very light and smooth leather jacket.

  “Hi! I’m Stuart!” he said to me.

  “Hi, I’m B.”

  “Bea? B-E-A?”

  “No, just the letter B, as in…‘Bolivia,’” I said, correcting my vice of always saying “B as in ‘boy.’”

  “What happened with your friends?” he asked.

  “Oh, they went outside to look at someone’s car.”

  “Are they coming back?”

  “I hope not!” I said, and we both laughed.

  We laughed and then laughed again, looking into each other’s eyes. I don’t know if you’ve ever done that, but it’s super-sexy.

  “What’s your friend’s name?”

  “Lillian.”

  “Is she a good friend?”

  “She’s the best!”

  “Cool!”

  As the Smiley Guy and I talked some more and smiled some more, I started seeing it all: our wedding, our tight little New York apartment that would inevitably be small but filled with love, our first baby, the good times and the bad times. I pictured a whole life of victories and obstacles, domestic joys and dramas that we survived with each other’s loving support. In a fraction of a second, I learned to love and forgive his imperfections, and I felt blessed because he learned to love mine too. And it all started in a bar, smiling at each other across a crowded room, as he chose me in a sea of skinnier women. I pictured myself with grandchildren on my knees, telling them in detail the love story of their grandparents. I saw myself dying in peace, knowing that my life ended up like the Hallmark Hall of Fame movie that I wanted it to be.

  Just when I thought that nothing could burst my bubble, he broke my concentration.

  “Your friend is hot. Can you introduce me to her?”

  Okay. This was a low blow. A really low blow. I take responsibility for my overly active imagination. I can’t blame him for not partaking in the Claritin-commercial future that I pictured for us. I even understand that he liked Lillian more than me—what’s not to like, right? But to flirt with me to try to get to her was just wrong. It’s something I wouldn’t do to anybody. Something that made me really, really angry. And I’m not nice when I’m angry.