B as in Beauty

by Alberto Ferreras

  With the same speed with which I’d pictured our life together, and with an anger fueled by appletinis, I came up with the perfect revenge:

  “Oops!” I dropped my bag and—predictably—he volunteered to pick it up.

  “Let me get that for you.”

  As he bent over, I noticed his low-rise jeans and emptied my drink down the crack of his ass. As expected, he jumped up screaming a very loud “What the fuck…?” I apologized profusely, and blamed the accident on the faceless crowd.

  “I’m so sorry! Somebody pushed me,” I said innocently, while pointing at the group of people standing behind us.

  “I’m going to the bathroom,” he said, without acknowledging my apology. “Watch my jacket,” he added, referring to the beige lambskin bomber jacket hanging from the back of his stool.

  He left for the bathroom, and I headed for the door—my bag in one hand and his leather jacket in the other one. Outside, I threw the jacket in a dumpster and walked away. As I headed for the corner to stop a cab, I heard Lillian’s laughter from across the street. She couldn’t see me, and I didn’t stop to say goodbye. I knew that if she noticed how upset I was, she would insist on leaving with me, and I didn’t want to ruin her night. It wasn’t her fault.

  Was I proud of what I did? Not at all. As I stepped on the cobblestoned street to get in the cab, I broke one of my heels.

  “Damn…!”

  Revenge has never worked for me, and I wondered if I was being instantly punished by Karma. True, the Smiley Guy did something wrong, insensitive, and foolish. He deserved a lesson, but was it worth it to teach him that lesson, at the expense of feeling like a bitter bitch afterward? No. Not at all.

  As I rode silently in a taxi with my swollen feet, a sore ankle, and an angry frown that would surely cause me to age prematurely, I realized that I was hitting rock bottom. But the good part of going all the way down to the bottom is that there’s nowhere to go but up. So, before we continue, let me take a second to apologize publicly to the Smiley Guy for dumping his jacket in the trash. Hey, Smiley, I’m sorry. Yes, you are an idiot, but I wasn’t better than you, so please accept my sincere apologies.

  Okay, now that I’ve made amends, let’s go on, because now is when the story gets good.

  Real good.

  CHAPTER 4

  My friend Jorge had an Argentinian bakery in the West Village. He sold the best croissants in town—at least ten pounds of my weight can certify that. I’d walk out of my building every morning at eight-thirty to go to work, stopping only to grab my coffee—with skim milk, no sugar—and a butter croissant from Jorge’s. Since he had to wake up at four in the morning to bake the goods, his wife, Fabiana, would come later and run the shop in the afternoon. I would chat with the husband in the morning and with the wife in the evening.

  “¡Querido!” I would greet Jorge, which is a very Argentinian way to address your friends.

  “¡Hola preciosa!” Jorge would answer me back, with a big smile. I loved it when he called me precious.

  In the couple of seconds that it took him to serve my coffee and pack my croissant in a brown paper bag, I would update him on my career, my love life, and my plans for the weekend.

  “¿Y este fin de semana que hacés? ¿Con cual novio te vas de paseo?” He would ask me which of my many boyfriends was going to take me out that weekend—as If I had any. But I never took these comments as an offense, first because I knew that his intentions were good, and second because he spoke with this delicious Argentinian accent that some people find annoying but I honestly think is adorable. Jorge would celebrate when I was up, cheer me up when I was down, and feed me well in between peaks. He was like a second mother to me.

  In the afternoon, I would stop by just to chat with Fabiana.

  “¡Che querida!” she would greet me, lifting her eyes from her ¡Hola! magazine, a celebrity tabloid that she was addicted to. Fabiana was in her mid-forties and very well preserved. She was blonde and petite, but she had a huge bosom and she knew how to use it. She wore tight sweaters in the winter and tight T-shirts in the summer. She’d do anything to bring attention to her fabulous knockers.

  “Tell me everything. Who are you sleeping with?” she always asked.

  Every time Fabiana and I talked, things would get down and dirty very fast. She often stepped outside to have a cigarette and talk about anything intimate, from yeast infections to sex toys. She was funny and open, and had a way of discussing sex that made you feel comfortable talking about it, and willing to share your own adventures.

  “There’s this German guy who comes here. He is so damn hot. You have to fuck him for me, and then tell me absolutely everything.”

  “Fabiana, please!” I would say, amused and scandalized.

  “¡Nena! You’re single! Live your life!”

  She always encouraged me to do what she wanted to do but wasn’t supposed to. Now, of course, these conversations never took place within earshot of Jorge. Jorge was terribly jealous and hated when Fabiana flirted with other men. I don’t know if she actually slept with any of the guys that she had an eye on, but you would always see men stopping by the coffee shop with flowers and gifts for her. I have never met a bigger flirt than Fabiana in my entire life.

  But Jorge wasn’t stupid, and he knew what was going on; very often they would have nasty fights, and they would go for days without talking to each other.

  One morning, I walked into the shop to find Jorge with black circles around his eyes and a somber expression. I looked at the tray of croissants and noticed that the usually fluffy and flaky butter wonders looked like fried sparrows. It was so obvious that they were not the croissants that he had gotten us addicted to that I had to ask him if the oven was broken or if something was wrong.

  “It’s because of Fabiana,” he said, breaking his usual privacy. “Every morning I prepare the croissants following step-by-step the exact same recipe. But if she gets me angry they just don’t grow. No matter what I do, they just won’t grow.”

  From that moment on—and based on the look of the croissants—every customer knew if Jorge and Fabiana had had a fight the night before. An organized group of concerned patrons almost encouraged Fabiana to make peace with him—first because we cared for them, but mainly because we couldn’t live without Jorge’s baked marvels. This whole drama was ruining breakfast for everybody.

  But, putting my carb addiction aside, this experience with Jorge’s baked goods was quite a revelation. If disappointment can wither a croissant, imagine what it can do to a human heart.

  That Wednesday morning, I was feeling a lot like Jorge. I had the chemical hangover of the appletinis mixed with the emotional hangover of the exchange with Smiley. In addition to that, I felt completely unmotivated at the office. My drive and determination to do a good job had disappeared, thanks to Bonnie’s comments in the bathroom. It’s a good thing I’m a copywriter and not a rocket scientist, ’cause otherwise my rocket would have ended up on the wrong planet.

  I came to work with all my miseries swirling inside my head, and that made it virtually impossible to work on the British tampon’s slogan. I had an impressive amount of information on the customs of American menstruating women sitting on my desk, but I didn’t have a brain to process it.

  To make matters worse, I knew that even if I came up with a good idea, I would just get more misery and more humiliation from Bonnie. My professional relationship with her always followed five easy and dysfunctional steps:

  First, I would come up with a brilliant idea.

  Second, I would give it to Bonnie, who would change it, ruin it, and pitch it all twisted to the Chicago Boss.

  Third, the Chicago Boss would invariably say, “Interesting…,” but he would turn it around and, because great minds think alike, would rewrite it back to the way I originally wrote it. Then he’d send it back to Bonnie.

  Fourth, Bonnie would jump up and down, clapping her hands like a wrinkled teenager in love, telling him that he was
a genius.

  Finally, Bonnie would give me back the notes, telling me that the Chicago Boss brought the whole concept to a higher level. Higher level, my ass. Since I never had the chance to pitch my ideas directly to the Chicago Boss, he never knew how talented I was. And that was exactly what Bonnie was trying to achieve. She wanted me in the dungeon.

  So, that fine morning, the workhorse that Christine referred to in the bathroom was staring blankly at the wall. I just couldn’t get myself to write one word for those tampons. Period.

  I strongly believe that there are a lot of stupid people running corporate America, people who think that if they treat you like crap you are going to work harder. Maybe it works like that with donkeys—and even that would surprise me—but I guarantee you it doesn’t work with human beings. When you feel exploited at work, you simply turn into a clock watcher. You sit there letting time go by, and two weeks later you pick up your check and you mutter, “Fuck you all,” as you walk away from the payroll window.

  It’s a situation where nobody wins. The company becomes less productive, and the employees don’t feel any sense of accomplishment. I believe that most people actually enjoy working, because there’s a pleasure in doing things and doing them right. But all this joy that comes from a job well done goes to hell when you feel used and abused by your boss.

  In my case, the sensation of being used was making me so furious that I would catch myself compulsively sharpening pencils—as if I were planning to impale an army of vampires—while concocting crazy and irrational revenge plots against Bonnie.

  “What if,” I would catch myself saying, “I rub poison ivy all over her phone…or I break a few toothpicks into the keyhole of her Mercedes Benz?”

  Yeah, revenge thoughts were the only thing that could alleviate the pain of replaying Bonnie’s comments over and over in my head: I can’t send someone like B to have lunch with a client. She’ll spoil his appetite! It’s okay to have B locked in the dungeon doing her work, but…B? Director? I’m sorry, but I just don’t see her in a window office. Oh Lord, I so hated her.

  After a rather painful yet uneventful morning, I took my lunch hour to do my taxes. Actually, I went to one of these places where they prepare them for you.

  The place was packed with those who, like me, had waited until the last minute. They had installed a few temporary desks with additional clerks, and I ended up with a Russian lady who seemed very efficient.

  “Are you Beauty Maria?” she asked looking at my tax forms.

  “Yes.”

  “Lovely name. So you are single? No kids?”

  “Yes,” I sighed.

  “Why?”

  I shrugged but I didn’t answer a word. I hated when people asked me that. I knew why I was single—or I thought I knew it at the time—but there was no reason to discuss my self-deprecating thoughts with a stranger.

  The Russian lady asked me a couple more questions and hammered the keys of her computer as if she were playing a piano concert.

  She was quite an interesting character. She was much older and more elegant than any of the other clerks, who looked like college students holding on to a temp job while waiting for something better to come their way. The strange thing is that, even though she was obviously older than the others, it was impossible to guess how old she was. I’ve noticed that Russian and Hungarian women have the most amazing skin, and maybe that’s why so many of them run spas or give facials in New York. She wasn’t necessarily fat, but she had that roundness that European matrons acquire in their sixties. Not only did this particular Russian lady have perfect white skin, but also her hands were carefully manicured in the French style, her reddish hair was nicely groomed in some sort of modern “beehive,” and her makeup was simply flawless, if perhaps a little overdone for such a pedestrian environment. Her wardrobe was equally intriguing. She wasn’t wearing anything flashy, just a simple white silk shirt with wide lapels, and a gray flannel jacket that seemed tailored to complement her shirt perfectly. The whole ensemble looked quite elegant. On top of that, she had a simple white-gold necklace with a lengthy canary-diamond pendant that playfully trickled down her generous cleavage. This woman had a je ne sais quoi that you just don’t see every day. She managed to be motherly and sexy at the same time, and even in the simple action of typing my tax return she projected a self-confidence that I found irresistible. More than pretty, she was an imposing figure who looked out of place in the context of such a generic office.

  Suddenly she gave me a quick look over her reading glasses. I felt guilty, realizing that maybe I had stared at her too much, so I politely smiled and looked away. But from that moment on, she kept giving me those quick looks, as if she was sizing me up for something. I felt embarrassed and decided to avoid her eyes, but her looks continued until she finally said the fatal words in her thick Russian accent.

  “Honey, how can you live in New York with such a crappy income?”

  “I get by,” I replied.

  But then, to my surprise, she added, “You are a beautiful woman. You could make a fortune.”

  I looked at her in disbelief. Did she just say what I thought she just said? Was this a lesbian advance, or an invitation to commit a federal offense? What was this woman up to? As if she had read my mind, she again looked at me over her reading glasses and repeated her words, adding one more vital piece of information to clarify herself.

  “Honey, you are a very beautiful woman. You could make a fortune. There are men who would pay you very well. I know men who would pay you very well.”

  I couldn’t reply. I didn’t even understand what she was trying to tell me.

  She went back to the computer and finished my document. I sat there speechless, trying to process her last words while she printed my tax papers.

  “Make one check for the feds and one for the state,” she said as she handed me my documents. I was ready to leave when she stopped me, and repeated for the third time:

  “You are a very beautiful woman, and I know men who would pay you. Call me.”

  I have a rule: When I encounter crazy people, I don’t contradict them. I just say, “Yes, sure,” and try to walk away as fast as I can. So after her last statement I said, “Yes, sure, I’ll call you,” and I reached out for one of the Business cards in the stack she had on her desk. She stopped me.

  “No, not that card. Take this one.”

  She opened up her Chanel bag—a real Chanel bag—pulled out a gold-and-ostrich-skin card case, and gave me a very elegant Business card made with the most exquisitely water-marked paper I’ve ever touched. The card read “Madame Natasha Sokolov.” Her cell-phone number was written on it.

  “Natasha?” I asked.

  “Call me Madame,” she replied.

  Wow. That was pretty direct. As I walked away, I looked over my shoulder and noticed that she was staring at me with a Mona Lisa smile. I got a little bit scared, but I had never been so intrigued in my whole life. This woman’s words certainly managed to get me out of my head for a few minutes.

  I rushed back to the office. My lunch break was over, and since I’d spent it at the tax office, I picked up a stale turkey sandwich on whole-wheat bread—no mayo—to eat at my desk. I wrote my tax checks, walked into another painful meeting with Bonnie and the account executive in charge of UK Charms, and soon forgot everything about the woman who did my taxes. There were so many things to do at the office, and so many personal reasons to beat myself up, that I had no time to entertain insane proposals from mysterious Russian ladies.

  That night, like every night, I went to the gym for my workout. I’m one of those heavy girls who actually enjoy exercise, but I hate going to the gym—if that makes any sense. I hate it because it feels like a punishment for the unforgivable crime of being fat. If I could feel that I’m going there to enjoy myself, to have fun while I get in shape, then I would see it differently. But all I see at the gym are angry people. People who don’t say, “Hi, how are you?” They just run in and o
ut of the spin class, as if exercising were one more burden in their lives, and any second they waste being social is going to screw their goal and throw off their heart-rate monitors.

  When I was about eight years old, I fell in love with ballet, and took classes for a few years. Ballet is hard work, but every once in a while when doing a grand jeté, or a pas de bourrée across the floor, I had the thrilling sensation that I was one with the music, and all the hard work at the bar would be justified by that fleeting but delicious sensation. I stopped my ballet classes when one day I saw a picture of my whole class. I looked so chunky in comparison with my classmates that I never went back.

  I’d love to dance ballet again, but I had been telling myself that first I had to lose some weight. That’s why I chose this gym uptown: it’s right across the street from Cha-Cha, a dance studio that I stare at through the windows and use as my inspiration to fight the fat. As I run, bored out of my head, mile after mile on the treadmill, I look through the windows to the ballet class across the street, and live vicariously through their pirouettes.

  That night, though, the vision of the studio wasn’t an inspiration, it was a painful reminder of how far I was from the things that I loved and from the person I wanted to be.

  I strongly believe in the power of the human mind. I’m convinced that if you walk down the street saying to yourself, “I’m invisible…I’m invisible…I’m invisible,” people won’t see you. They might even bump into you. So, if you walk down the street thinking, “I’m a big fat slob…I’m a big fat slob,” that’s exactly how people will perceive you. I must have been thinking that, because as I walked out of the gym a homeless guy who always hangs out at the corner of Seventy-second and Broadway yelled at me, “Hey, fat ass! Gimme a dollar!” It was one more drop in a glass that had overflowed a long time ago. Needless to say, I didn’t give that stinking bastard a dime, but I took advantage of his comment to torture myself all the way home to the West Village.