by Warren Adler
"What I meant was," Grace said in a desperate effort to assuage the frowning scarecrow in her pink Armani silk pants outfit and diamond-studded clawlike fingers on the other side of the counter, "...that you should lead with your best shot. Play to your strength." It was a thought that barely made sense to her, but somehow, under the circumstances, it seemed appropriate.
"You mean emphasizing my wrinkles and thereby illustrating my character, right? How well I lived my life, right?" Mrs. Milton-hyphen-something said.
"Exactly," Grace said hopefully. "Present to the world an honest look."
"I don't need you for an honest look, lady. I see it every morning in the mirror. What I need you for is to find me a dishonest look, which means hiding my wrinkles."
"I've already tried the best we have to offer," Grace said. "They're too..." She was tempted to say "too fucking deep." Instead she added: "...well-established."
"Well-established. Good. I like that. Cosmetics were invented to soften and hide them, to make you look better, not worse. To do it right takes talent," the woman sneered sarcastically. "In your case, the talent is missing."
"Perhaps one of my colleagues..."
"Colleagues, you call them. That's a good one. Clerks, you mean."
Grace failed to find either the humor or decency in this confrontation with a seventy-plus gnome who had wandered in from creamy Palm Beach's Worth Avenue determined to either find youth in a magic vial or, barring that, validate her alleged superiority by kicking the most accessible and vulnerable unfortunate in her range of motion, which was her, Grace Sorentino, the failed daughter of the barber Carmine and the silent, fanatically devout Mama Rosa, the Sicilian papal groupie from "Ballimer," Maryland.
"You people just don't know what you're doing," the woman said, frowning at her feral image in the mirror.
"It's in the eye of the beholder," Grace said, the pasted smile faltering.
"What is that supposed to mean?" the woman snapped, her face frozen, her eyes still searching for the magic light.
"It means," Grace said, sucking in a deep breath, determined to show a patient, pleasant visage, "that you might be noticing things that others would overlook. We normally don't observe each other with reading glasses."
The woman shook her head in exasperation and looked around the store, filled now with the army of mostly middle-aged bottle blondes with considerable disposable income, relentlessly avoiding the skin's mortal enemy, the ultraviolet ray.
"Do you always insult your customers?" the woman asked. "I detest salesgirls with an attitude."
"I hadn't meant to be..."
"Hadn't meant. Hadn't meant. People do atrocious things and then retreat into hadn't-meants," the woman snickered. Beneath her bleached-white look, Grace could detect the hot flush of anger.
Whoa there, Sorentino, Grace cautioned herself, valiantly holding her pasted smile, although her facial muscles were beginning to hurt with the effort.
"I'm sorry," Grace whispered. "There's just so much that can be done with makeup."
"Are you calling me an old crone?" the woman snapped.
"Old is a state of mind," Grace said.
"And crone?"
"You're putting words in my mouth," Grace said, feeling her smile collapse.
The woman's eyes blazed with anger.
"Do you know how much money I spend at Saks?" the woman said. The anger had forced her face to express itself. Nests of wrinkles emerged everywhere. Her skin seemed prunelike.
"I'm not privy to such information," Grace said.
"You needn't be sarcastic," the woman said.
At that point, the woman stood up from the high stool in which she had been sitting, removed her glasses, shook her head and sneered.
"I can't let this arrogance pass," she muttered, turning abruptly and moving through the crowd.
"I need this job, you old cunt," Grace muttered, wondering if anyone had observed the confrontation. She had no idea what she had said to tick off the woman. Not that words were necessary to convey the truth of the encounter. The woman was a miserable, unhappy, frustrated bitch, determined to cause pain. Grace had been as good a target as any. Wrong place, wrong time, she sighed, preparing herself to be figuratively taken out and shot.
She looked through the plate glass at Worth Avenue, that fantasyland of upper-crust consumerism glistening in the late morning sun. How had she wound up here, one of the minions to the wealthy? Jason, her unmourned departed ex, had brought her and Jackie to West Palm Beach to pursue yet another of his irrational certainties, another franchise to oblivion. And so they had remained, left to rot in the tropics, along with the coconuts and seagull droppings.
She had managed to make a marginal living for her and Jackie, mostly at retailing, where she could hustle for commissions and use her personality and good looks to sell.
Unfortunately, this modest selling talent was not effective enough to secure another relationship with a man. She hadn't exactly been a passionate seeker. In this age of the independent woman such yearnings were supposed to be an insult to her gender and, for a time, she had tried to live by that caveat. It was not an attitude that had contributed to her happiness.
The fact was, she had concluded, that most people come in pairs. Wasn't that the immutable law of nature, proof positive being the anatomical construct of the human body, however it had to be rearranged to accommodate same-sex copulation. It was a subject considered every time she reached for the vibrating dildo she kept hidden in the bottom drawer under her heavy northern clothes.
But after five years, with the looming realization that Jackie would be leaving home, hopefully, for college, she had opened herself up to the possibility of another permanent round with a male of the species. The fact was that she hated the idea of preening and detested the various routines of flirtation, the small talk, the dating and mating rituals.
She had made a number of forays into that world, forcing herself to be open to such experiences. She considered herself a lusty woman, and in her years with Jason, especially the early ones, there was a cornucopia of sex.
Trying to be brutally honest on such an intimate subject, she considered herself, at least from a mechanical point of view, a reasonably efficient lay. Not that she had exposed herself to any recent reviews on that subject. Certainly not lately. Jason hadn't voiced many complaints on her performance in that department, although its frequency had diminished considerably over the fifteen years of their marriage. He had simply lost interest.
She concluded finally that the thing she dreaded most was the initial phases of the mating game, the obligatory résumé, the verbal fencing, the various elements of the seduction scenario, the anxiety of—there was no other satisfactory and honest way to describe it—the first fuck, and all initial side issues and embarrassments, the adjustment to the whole range of this new partner's sensory activities, his odors, the sound of his breathing, his body temperature, the observation and necessary inventory of his body parts, the touch of his flesh. And her own exposure to such inspection by him.
Such obligatory rituals inhibited promiscuity at her age, which was, she supposed, a blessing and certainly safe. It also threw some mental barriers in the way of flirtation as her imagination cranked out vivid scenarios of this dreaded initial phase. Strictly as a biological necessity, her vibrating dildo catered to her needs. It was a far cry from paradise, but it did the job.
She did manage one casual and lukewarm affair with her then dentist. In the age of AIDS, considering the precautions he took while she was in the dentist's chair, mask and surgical gloves, she felt reasonably safe, although she still insisted that he wear a condom. But the act had been more a validation of her femininity than a passionate experience. Most of the time she hadn't had an orgasm and was reticent about instructing him in the technicalities of her specific construct and the best method to achieve its effect.
The so-called affair lasted for exactly how long it took to put in three new crowns. He did
offer a trade-out on future work, but she declined and went to another dentist, a move she had reason to regret. Despite his shortcomings in the sexual area, he was an excellent dentist.
Because of her lackluster and probably indifferent attempt to attract mating possibilities, she determined that she was "unlucky" when it came to men. Perhaps she had simply lost the skills of engagement. She felt incapable or unable to separate the shells from the peanuts. Did men perceive her as a hard case, or uppity, or too challenging or not challenging enough, or unwilling to enter into a relationship? Or all of the above and more?
Why was opportunity passing her by? Why wasn't there the slightest hint of serendipity in her life? Was the mating system itself, like a drain covered with rotting leaves, too clogged with young hard-body competitors to allow for some free flow into the pool for the nearly menopausal set. The fact was that the mating distribution system was patently unfair for a working woman heading in the wrong chronological direction? Yet she still had a good figure, and her face, with her expertise in makeup, could still appear youthful and attractive. Men did look her way, their glance, she sensed, occasionally lingering, as she swung past. But was she perceived as a willing objective? She doubted that.
All right, she conceded, she could tell herself that little white lie that she was liberated and independent enough to do without the comfort of male companionship. But hell, she wanted to be fucked by a live instrument, caressed by manly arms, supportive and supporting. She wanted someone to bounce thoughts and decisions against, wanted someone to help her skirt the minefields, someone strong and loving and manly and loyal, someone to fuss over, who fussed over her, someone to respect, someone to share the burden. Her experience with her ex had given her insight and experience into winners and losers. She could, she believed, if given half a chance, separate the wheat from the chaff.
She considered herself intelligent, if only modestly educated with one year of junior college. Even her most stringent self-assessment gave her a sound sense of curiosity, an excellent sense of humor, a glib tongue. Everybody said she had the gift of gab. She read The New York Times every Sunday and was an avid reader of the Palm Beach Post, which gave her some passing awareness of politics, current events and the entertainment world. No one could call her a dummy. Besides, she knew more about cosmetics and fashion than most people.
People said she was a good conversationalist and men showed what seemed an interest in her, at least in a first encounter. The problem as she saw it was that she found the men she met mostly boring, which led her to wonder what had happened to the gender in the nearly twenty years that had passed since her courtship and marriage. She had concluded that her own lack of interest in them was a turnoff, which the men sensed, and rarely called her for a second date.
Comparing herself to the women who came into the store, she could not understand why she had fallen through the cracks while others of lesser looks and brains and personality had found a secure domestic haven. Something was definitely missing in her strategy. Was she sending out bad vibes? Had repeated discouragement inhibited her social skills? The fault must be hers, she decided.
It was worrisome. It wouldn't be long before the forties arrived. Then what? Would she be heading to the blue hair pastures, her glasses held around her neck by a chain, her jowls drooping lower each year, her neck wrinkling like old parchment, her tits heading downward with the force of gravity, her hips and belly thickening, her morning routine washing down her estrogen replacement pills with orange juice.
It was dangerous to let imagination run away with itself. But there were just too many examples of people left at the post in southern Florida. All it took to set her thoughts going was a trip to any mall where the army of the aging bored marched in endless battalions. It took all her willpower to keep from falling over the edge into heavy depression.
For a while she took refuge in the idea that she was too busy devoting herself to raising Jackie to have any time for a new relationship. But that was a cop-out. Jackie was reaching new levels of worrisome independence by leaps and bounds. She was losing her and knew it.
In a year or two she would consider Grace, except for a marginal financing machine, irrelevant, worthy of lip service but little else. The reality of parenthood was getting through to her hard and fast, the end result would always be the ultimate conclusion that parents loved and worried about their children far more than they could ever love and worry about their parents.
She no longer blamed other people for her failures. She had married in the midst of her first year of junior college, a mistake compounded by a mistake. During her marriage, she had been a bank teller, a secretary, had worked in boutiques and other department stores, but, because of her husband's itchy foot and quixotic view of life, she hadn't been around long enough to make much of a mark. Jason, chasing his own impossible and indefinable dreams, had taken her and Jackie to points north, west and then south. In Florida she had taken a three-month cosmetician's course, had landed this job in the makeup department at Saks Fifth Avenue Palm Beach store and had been slowly building up a modest clientele.
The telephone near the register rang and she knew instantly that it would be Pamela Burns, the store manager, on the other end of the line. The gnome had struck.
"Can you see me for a moment, Grace?"
"Of course," Grace replied, reaching unsuccessfully for an optimistic lilt to her tone. She hung up and proceeded on rubbery legs to Mrs. Burns's office.
"Mrs. Milton-Dennison told me you insulted her," Pamela Burns began directly, playing with the triple string of pearls that hung over her pink silk blouse. She was older than Grace, well-groomed, with hawk's eyes that hid behind high cheekbones and jet-black hair parted in the center and brushed straight back. Her lipstick, eye shadow and earrings glistened brightly as they caught the light beams from the staggeringly brilliant sunlight that blasted into the room from a high, round window behind her desk.
"I should have, but I didn't," Grace said. "She was rude and insufferable."
"Customers are never rude and insufferable, Grace," Pamela Burns lectured, talking slowly, enunciating clearly, illustrating her version of how a successful manager deals with anger and recalcitrant personnel, undoubtedly Grace. "Shopping at Saks is either therapy or fantasy fulfillment. But however you define it, there is only one object in mind as far as we're concerned. We check our egos and other unnecessary hubris at the employees' store entrance. We smile. We ingratiate. We flatter. We agree. Our mission, the sole objective of this enterprise, is to move merchandise."
"I move merchandise, Mrs. Burns," Grace declared with a feeble attempt at showing indignation.
"For which you are appropriately commissioned," Mrs. Burns shot back. "At the highest rate allowable in this company."
With commissions, Grace had averaged during her three years with Saks, a sum which, after deductions, barely qualified her for the working poor.
"Mrs. Milton-Dennison is a major consumer of merchandise. It is her addiction. We keep her supplied with the drug she needs."
"Merchandise?"
"Exactly."
Mrs. Burns looked at a paper on her desk and tapped it with long, polished fingernails, which also glistened in the sunbeams.
"Have you any idea what she spent with us last year, Grace?"
"She asked me the same question," Grace murmured.
"And well she should," Mrs. Burns said, lifting her eyes and studying Grace in their hot glare. "Eighty thousand a month."
"That's nearly a million dollars a year," Grace exclaimed, calculating quickly, stunned.
"A world-class movement of merchandise. That old biddy is an industry for us. We pucker on demand."
"Hard to believe ... she's such a..." Grace checked herself. But she hoped her expression would convey her honest characterization of the woman, which was miserable shit.
"...marvelous, generous, beautiful person," Mrs. Burns said, completing the comment with a sly smile of understanding
.
"I gave her my best makeover advice, Mrs. Burns. Unfortunately, there is no product, except perhaps a complete face mask, that could hide her wrinkles."
"If she wants her wrinkles hidden, Grace, then you are charged with finding a way to hide them."
"Believe me, I tried," Grace said. A sob seemed to catch in her throat.
"Apparently not hard enough," Mrs. Burns told her between tight-pursed lips. "She wants you fired."
"Fired? Because I couldn't find a product to hide her wrinkles?"
"Apparently it was also the manner in which you trumpeted your failure."
"I didn't trumpet anything."
"That was your mistake. She needed trumpeting, the flattering kind. You should have trumpeted her assets."
"They escaped my notice."
"Therein lies the nub of the problem, Grace. She craved the licking of her tuchas. This is where she gets it. It is not for nothing that this store is named Saks."
She searched Mrs. Burns's face to find some recognition of the double entendre as a joke. It wasn't apparent. The woman was dead serious.
"Understand the deeper psychological implications of our role here, Grace. Mrs. Milton-Dennison gets off on shopping. This is where she comes to replace the fucking she does not get at home."
"Jesus!"
"I detest this kind of pressure, Grace. It frustrates me and I hate dealing with frustration. My only goal is to make numbers, to increase these numbers year after year. Numbers are what determines my bonus. We are not dealing here with the human equation. Numbers provide the true meaning of our existence. Mrs. Milton-Dennison represents only numbers, Grace. She is a factor here only because she puts a lot of bread into the oven. She is the soul and spirit of the capitalistic machine."
Mrs. Burns's sudden mixing of metaphors was disconcerting. Grace wondered if she should be respectful of Pamela Burns's remarkable candor and realism. The woman was generally admired for "telling it as it is," which was exactly what she was doing now. But to whom? Grace pondered. Certainly not to Mrs. Milton-Dennison. To me, poor impoverished servile loser me.
