Rouge

by Richard Kirshenbaum

  “Constance.” CeeCee nodded as she breezed in. She wore a tailored navy suit that highlighted her lithe figure and a simple strand of white pearls. She had never looked lovelier.

  “CeeCee.” Constance formed a prim, professional smile.

  “I hate to bother.”

  “You are never a bother, Cee. Come in.” She quickly motioned to the lingering staff to give her a moment of privacy.

  “I owe you an apology.”

  “The apology is mine.”

  “I lost my way.”

  “Oh, darling, we’re all a little bit lost.” She smiled nervously. She had missed her more than she’d thought.

  Constance laughed, but CeeCee was not having it. Silence was strongest in the room. CeeCee had come now that the awful thing had been done, and she knew that Constance owed her. She was also without a job and feeling the sting of reduced circumstances.

  “In all our time together I was never able to actually present my business idea to you. And now that everything is, well, fine again, since I delivered for you … I wanted to finally show you my idea,” CeeCee said. “I’m planning to start my own business like you did and I need … an investor,” she said with businesslike authority.

  Constance looked at her friend’s face, her bright doe eyes, her elegant cheekbones, then stole a glance at her perfectly curved body. Despite superficial differences, she saw herself in CeeCee. But it did not fill her with affection. It threatened her to no end.

  “I have our new item launching next month and we are in a bit of a transition.” Constance felt unhappy at what she considered a mercenary conversation. She was upset CeeCee had brought up the other topic as an exchange. It was all so beneath her.

  CeeCee could sense the rejection coming, but she found herself smiling brightly anyway. “All of those months of trial and error, and you got my mascara project to work?”

  “It seems that success comes to the one who stays latest in the office. And it’s my mascara project,” she said with an icy edge.

  CeeCee tried to smile. “Yes, but it was my idea. I—”

  “It was just a drawing on a page and you wanted to discuss your other idea. That is the difference. I see and spot winners. That is the talent. That is the idea. That is why I am a success.” Constance beamed proudly. “And it’s our next scheduled launch, once the kinks are worked out, of course. The announcement will hopefully be in the papers shortly.”

  “What did you end up calling it?” CeeCee lowered her voice and eyes, knowing she could not win.

  “Eye-allure.”

  “Wow,” CeeCee said. “Catchy.”

  “Thank you. You would have known about it and been involved, but you chose to disappear without an explanation. CeeCee, I wish you the best of luck with your business idea,” Constance said in a clipped and frozen tone.

  “After all we’ve been through”—CeeCee gathered her things—“I might have expected a bit more. Even a loan would do. The market for colored women will make us both millionaires.” She gave one last pitch. “Not to mention I helped clear up our problem.”

  “CeeCee, I will have you know I am already a millionaire and I have no desire to work in the colored-women category. It would tarnish the Gardiner image,” Constance said.

  “So you can tarnish your image with me but won’t bring it to the public?” CeeCee said, enraged, finally standing up for herself.

  “That’s right. You should go, CeeCee. We have nothing more to discuss on the subject.” Constance looked back at her desk and resumed her work. CeeCee continued to watch as she processed Constance’s second betrayal.

  “Fine. And don’t worry, I won’t ever say anything about the other situation.…”

  “Yes. You’re the one who arranged it. I had nothing to do with it.”

  “Really … nothing to do with it … hmmm.… Constance, from here on out we are through being friends.” CeeCee stood erect and walked out the door. She felt proud despite the betrayal. And she knew Constance had totally used her. Now she would need another way to raise the money. Why was life so unfair to her?

  As she rode down in the elevator, CeeCee felt her respect for Constance dissipate with every sinking floor. And her anger started to build. How could Constance use and disparage her like that? How could she so easily turn her away? CeeCee had had the original idea for Eye-allure. Not to mention the sacrifices she had made to protect Constance’s name. She felt so guilty that someone she loved had committed a crime for her and Constance to cover another one up. And there was no appreciation. Now, she was to end up with nothing after investing so much with her. She, being a young and enterprising woman, made up her mind right then and there. She knew exactly what to do next.

  * * *

  “Where to, miss?” the cabbie asked.

  “Fifth Avenue. Herz Beauty Salon,” CeeCee said. And she watched as the limestone giants of Fifth Avenue presided over the path for her, cheering her on.

  29

  SWEET REVENGE

  New York City, 1936

  No one waltzed into the offices of Herz Beauty unannounced. Not even its lead investors. But CeeCee knew she had nothing to lose—and so very much to gain. Without stopping, she burst through the famous large lavender-lacquered doors of Josephine Herz’s office as her assistant trailed behind with a look of confusion.

  “Miss, you cannot go—” she shouted after her.

  “Madame Herz! I’m sorry to interrupt. I’ve just come from Gardiner Cosmetics. I need to speak to you about something very important.” CeeCee looked around Josephine’s office. She was now not only out of breath, but totally out of place. She took in her surroundings in awe. It was all so opulent, feminine, and regal.

  Josephine gestured to the assistant to leave and close the door. She knew who this young woman was and had the feeling that she had something valuable to offer.

  “You are the young woman that works over at Gardiner’s,” Josephine said, still sitting in her throne-like chair. “I hear you run the place. And to what do I owe this incredible pleasure, Miss…?”

  “Lopez. CeeCee Lopez. Madame Herz, I know what Gardiner Cosmetics is launching next,” she said hurriedly. “A new product that is sure to change the market. A market changer. No, more than that. A market maker. But she’s going to botch it. As she always does.”

  “Hold on,” Josephine said, sitting back in her gilded chair calmly, not wanting a movement to signify interest or lack thereof.

  “Stop right now. You’ve come here driven by revenge, my dear. I know you feel like it’s the best thing to do right this moment. To run to her competitor and give me her most precious thing. But you will regret it and I don’t need it.… Go home, darling.” She toyed with the lustrous ropes of her white and black pearls like an empress in residence.

  “You will regret this, Madame Herz.”

  “Miss Lopez, it’s not worth—”

  “It’s an eyelash extender,” she said in desperation, playing her final hand. “Comes in a tube with a brush. To darken and draw attention to the eyelashes. It can fit in your pocketbook,” CeeCee said triumphantly. “Here, take a look at the prototype—” She walked forward and placed a crumpled piece of paper on the desk.

  Josephine immediately snatched it up. “Where did you get this?” The drawing took her breath away.

  “I drew it myself. It was my idea.” CeeCee grimaced at the thought of her stolen baby.

  That stopped Josephine in her tracks. “I see.”

  After the board meeting today, she was certain of her imminent success, a success that would forever eclipse Constance and establish her own control of the entire industry. She and Constance were so similar—beauty and brains, form and design, content and packaging. And of course, it was no surprise that they had devised the same product at nearly the same time. These next few words had to be calculated carefully, so as not to extend this girl’s leverage. She needed to keep control of her emotions.

  “It sounds like a wonderful idea. I’
m happy for her. And you, my dear, are a very smart young lady.” Josephine surveyed her beauty.

  “I’ll give you the details. Everything. The name. The formula. The packaging. But I will need something in return.”

  Josephine sat back, looked at the drawing, and then made her move.

  “I only need one thing from you, and I will agree to anything you would like, my dear,” she said quietly, running all the possible scenarios through her head simultaneously and trying to find the best outcome in record time.

  “Yes?” CeeCee knew she was breaking through.

  “Does she have a patent?” Josephine asked, clearly intent on hearing the answer.

  “Not yet. I believe they are just applying for one. She couldn’t get the formula just right and is still trying but is planning the launch anyway. The name is Eye-allure, I believe that has a trademark pending.”

  “Awful name. Is this the brush?” Josephine looked at the drawing again. “Straight?”

  “Yes. I drew it myself and saw the actual prototype. It works well, but the product clumps, you know. Not to mention the overflow, the mess and staining.”

  “That is the issue we have all had.…” Josephine shook her head.

  “I have the answer,” CeeCee said softly. “I was going to give it to her, but since she is a thief, I am going to give it to you.”

  Josephine stared into CeeCee’s exotic brown eyes. “Dear, it’s all very tantalizing.” She breathed deeply. “Now what do you want for it?”

  “I don’t want money, Madame Herz. I want to sell you something.” CeeCee stood her ground.

  “What else could you have that I would possibly want besides this? I don’t want any of Gardiner’s failed items. I certainly don’t—”

  “It’s a new hair product.” This was the first time CeeCee had said it out loud to anyone. Even Mickey.

  “Darling, I’m in the cosmetic business, not the hair business.”

  “I thought you were in the beauty business? I hear you are the innovator. Please just let me explain. But before I do, I will tell you the secret for the mascara. Will you shake on it?” CeeCee stood tall, erect, like a formidable warrior.

  “A deal is a deal and my word is my bond.” Josephine shook firmly on it. “If you give me the secret, you can work for me and we will work out a deal for your product.” She was on the edge of her seat. “Go on.” She had made her decision. This girl was a winner.

  “Good.” CeeCee composed herself. Now was her moment. “Colored women use lye to straighten their hair, and that can create burning and itching and hair loss on the scalp,” she started slowly.

  “Go on.” Josephine peered at her intently, intrigued, not knowing where this was going.

  “I have created a pomade that straightens the hair called CeeCee’s Relaxer. I have experimented with shea butter, peppermint oil, and … Vaseline. And it helps soothe the scalp. Relaxes it, even. One evening the sample brush of the mascara fell by accident into the open jar of Vaseline. Instead of wiping it off, I inspected the brush when I removed it from the Vaseline and it created a glisten to the paste—and when I applied it, it became smooth. Something as simple as Vaseline, or paraffin and iron-oxide pigment. The lab can figure out the rest. See, I am wearing it on my lashes as we speak.”

  Josephine almost fainted when she saw that CeeCee’s lashes were long and glistening, like those of the young girl she had seen at Parke-Bernet.

  “Not only do we have a deal, I will give you one and a half percent of sales on Herz Lashmatic. You are going to be a very rich woman.” She caressed her large pearls in her hands like a talisman as she spoke. “Like me.” She eyed her new star with good fortune. “You will come with me this evening? The latest samples of Lashmatic are in and I want to see if it’s as good as what you have told me and are wearing on your lashes. Can you come? It will be at six o’clock.”

  “I am not leaving.”

  “Good.”

  “Oh, and one last thing…” CeeCee went in for the kill. “Constance’s product colors for the Eye-allure package are pink and green. She said it was very ‘Palm Beach.’”

  “That’s such a coincidence.” Josephine paused and winked at CeeCee. “My packaging for Lashmatic is also pink and green. Great minds think alike.” She laughed out loud.

  “It is?” CeeCee asked seriously.

  “Now it is,” Josephine said with all seriousness, and uttered the words that would become famous: “If I can’t go to Palm Beach … then Palm Beach will come to me!” And she banged the desk with her emerald ring with such force, it cracked the center of the stone.

  After cursing the wreckage of her ring, Josephine agreed to all of CeeCee’s terms. She was impressed with the young woman’s ambition, her smarts, and her gall. And when she heard about the idea for CeeCee’s Relaxer, she could not get over the concept. It was brilliant. She knew a good idea when she saw one, and there was no competition, a wide-open playing field, exactly the way she liked it. And CeeCee stood her ground as she insisted on maintaining a 51 percent control of the new company. It took a lot of temerity to speak candidly with a superior, an older man or woman. She knew this from experience.

  Josephine agreed to everything CeeCee wanted. She knew CeeCee would be a success and a moneymaker because she was an outsider, driven by anger and fear, just as Josephine was. CeeCee Lopez was a star, and she was now in the Herz galaxy.

  30

  CITY OF ANGELS

  Hollywood, 1936

  Mickey woke up as he usually did: naked in rumpled sheets, the radio blaring next to the broad he had chosen the previous night at Madame Maude’s, the elite Bel Air brothel that catered to Hollywood studio heads, stars on a bender, and the occasional celebrity mobster. The buxom, peroxide blonde next to him bore an uncanny resemblance to Ginger Rogers, but that was the gimmick about Maude’s. Every hooker was made up to look like a famous star by hairstylists and makeup artists who worked for the Hollywood studios and freelanced for extra cash. They even had a wardrobe assistant who brought over retired costumes. The patrons turned the assortment of would-be actresses and working girls into somewhat believable imitations of Jean Harlow or Constance Bennett in the dark glow of the drawing room and under the haze of alcohol. Rumor had it a famous star moonlighted at Maude’s pretending to be a copy of herself. It was a way to avoid the hot glare of her morals contract with the studio and have as much sex as she liked.

  “Thanks, hon,” Mickey grunted, standing bare-chested and withdrawing a thick roll of tens and twenties from his pants pocket. He peeled off a few and handed them to the awakening nymph.

  “Thanks, doll,” she said, yawning, one of her fake eyelashes from the previous evening landing like a butterfly on her cheekbone. “You’re so sweet and handsome, I almost don’t want to charge you.”

  “But you will.”

  “I’m not gonna say no to this.” She kissed the wad of green he had handed her. “You’re too cute, though. Ask for me again and I’ll throw in some extras next time.”

  “That’s what they all say.” He shrugged.

  She raised herself from the bed and walked on her hands and knees, unzipping his fly, expertly taking out his member. He immediately stood at attention as she started sucking.

  Mickey’s eyes seemed to roll back in his head as he stood firmly, his legs planted as she worked him over. He shuddered slowly and she smiled, knowing she had pleased him.

  “Thanks, hon. That was a bonus.” He looked down.

  “You’re welcome. You remind me of John Garfield.” She wiped her mouth.

  “So I’ve heard,” he said, and laughed. It was a standard line for women who wanted to pay him a compliment.

  He looked down and suddenly saw a red-gold ring around the base of his penis. It wasn’t the first time he had seen this unique color after an evening at Maude’s.

  “What the hell is that?”

  “Oh, my lipstick. All the girls here use it. We call what you have a rainbow.” She laughed.
/>
  “No, what color is it? Where did you get it?” Mickey asked.

  “The makeup guy here works at MGM. All the stars use it on camera. Doesn’t smear.”

  He tried to rub off the lipstick to no avail. “Only for the movies, you say? What’s it called?”

  “What’s it to you?” She shook her head.

  Mickey answered with a hundred-dollar bill.

  “Whatever floats your boat. Dax something, I think.” She took out her lipstick from the side table and looked at the printed name on it. “Dax Shachter.”

  “Here, I’ll take that.” He snagged the lipstick as she slipped the hundred into her black lace brassiere.

  “Don’t tell your girl where you got it from.” She smiled with a wink and fluffed her platinum hair. “She might get ideas.”

  Mickey smiled. It was an idea not for her, but for him.

  31

  THE RACE

  New York City, 1936

  The two women and seven men crowded around the large, burnished Napoleonic campaign desk that served as the conference table. Josephine always decorated her offices at Herz Beauty in an androgynous style, which is to say one that would please her and also let her male bankers and employees know who was boss. She had chosen a sumptuous lacquered lavender for her doors with the black moldings leading into a room with touches of mink—miniver—and walls hung with the thought-provoking art she had collected over the years. It was an unusual setting for business discussions about cosmetics, but it was perhaps more imposing and strategic than one would expect of a women’s beauty firm once inside. And in addition to setting her male colleagues at ease, it filled Josephine with a sense of pride to see the artwork she admired so much and had purchased with her own earnings over the years. The new Max Ernst hung proudly on her wall, as did the Picasso. Yet no matter the masculine cues, it all still reflected a cultured woman’s touch: translucent Limoges china (Princess Eugenie pattern, bien sûr) and an ornate sterling tea and coffee service with which she could sensually pour and serve a retailing magnate or press baron a cup of strong espresso as she had in the early days at the Melbourne tea shop. Yes, she knew deep down it was a stage set crafted to impress and intimidate and … if the office was a touch on the stuffy side, well, at least it was not like the leather-and-oak–paneled coffins where the Locust Valley bankers such as Van Wyke went every day to die.