Mirror, Mirror

by Judy Baer

  “But with you….” He looked deep into my eyes and it was as if he were trying to see my soul. “There’s something else going on.”

  “Something other than using a casserole as bait?”

  He laughed out loud. “You’ve nailed it, Quinn.”

  I didn’t say anything and when he spoke, he was musing to himself, not to me. “When I think about you I don’t see Emily in my mind, only you.” He looked out the window into the distance as if he were seeing something I couldn’t. “It’s a relief, Quinn. When I’m with you the pain is not there.”

  He frowned a little. “Should I feel guilty about that?”

  “Would you want Ben to continue to hurt forever?”

  “Of course not, I—I see what you mean.” He pulled me closer and we sat together quietly sharing the moment. Something had changed inside of Jack. What, I wasn’t sure, but I think it was for the better.

  When the phone rang, he let the answering machine pick up.

  Linda’s voice chimed into the room. “Listen, Jack, the boys are having such a wonderful time that I don’t want to interrupt them. I can’t remember if you need Ben home at any certain time but if not, I’ll just keep him here until you come by. No hurry. They’ve been having sea battles in the kitchen sink and now that they’ve drowned all the action figures, they’re doing triage. Take your time. Bye.”

  Neither of us moved. Suddenly we had all the time in the world.

  In the still of the large room, curled on the couch that threatened to swallow us both, we talked. Or, more correctly, Jack talked and I listened.

  Chapter Twenty

  Eventually we moved from the couch to the kitchen where Jack brewed coffee and made sandwiches.

  Emotion is a hungry business. We polished off a plate of sandwiches, a bag of chips, most of a package of cookies and a pint of Rocky Road ice cream.

  Linda called at six to ask if Ben could stay for dinner, leaving us to continue our get-to-know-each-other marathon into the evening.

  Somehow in the course of this extended and intimate afternoon, he had become the listener again, with Maggie and Chrysalis the topics.

  “She’s on a collision course with disaster. What am I going to do about her?”

  “She’s a grown woman. She can do what she wants.”

  “Makeover shows have made women cavalier about cosmetic surgery. They see condensed into quick shots what is actually hours in a surgical suite and weeks of recovery—if all goes well, that is.

  “People choose from a menu of improvements like they order at a deli. ‘I’ll have a tummy tuck, something done with my jowls and do my eyes while you’re at it. Oh, yes, my thighs are too thick and my teeth are uneven. Why don’t we take care of it all at once?” I shuddered and Jack rubbed my arm. Even the fire he’d built to ward off the coolness of the fall air didn’t help. The source of my chill was purely internal.

  “It gives me the creeps. Maggie stands at the bathroom mirror sucking in her cheeks and asking me if I think she’d look better if they removed some fat from her face. She’d never even thought of that until Frank suggested it to her.”

  “This Frank is quite a salesman.”

  “Frank is a manipulator. I’ve watched him since day one. Pete said as much but now I’ve seen it for myself. Pete is beginning to suspect Frank bought her onto the show because he was attracted to her, not because she needed help. He is always thinking of reasons to cozy up to the women on the set and he’s relentless once he decides to pursue one of them.”

  “I take it you know from experience?” Jack frowned at the idea.

  “I’m usually tutoring around the lunch hour so it is easy to say no to him. Several evenings Pete was at my house and picked up the phone when he called. I guess he finally got the idea that I wasn’t available—to him, at least.”

  “I wonder why he’s a partner in the business.”

  “He knows how to pump up ratings, for one thing. And he’s very good at what he does. I’m afraid he’s going to bring up the idea of a nose job and chin reduction for Maggie next. He wouldn’t care a bit if she was unrecognizable by the time he was through. It would be quite a triumph if he could made a beautiful woman into a spectacular one.”

  Jack set a cup of steaming hot cider in front of me. “It’s unethical for a doctor to suggest procedures that might distort a patient’s face or body.”

  “But Frank isn’t a doctor and I’m not sure he has any ethics. Or maybe I’m being too hard on Frank. Perhaps it’s Maggie I’m most upset with for buying into this.” I scraped my fingers through the hair tumbling around my shoulders. “I feel so helpless.”

  “Maybe you should be on that television set,” Jack commented casually, “to protect her. If they still haven’t filled the hostess spot they may be waiting for you to change your mind. You said they’re still pressuring your friend Pete to talk you into it.”

  Would a voice of reason be heard over the circus atmosphere developing around this show? If Maggie went ahead with everything Frank suggested, it would be a disaster. It was surgery, not the trip to the beauty parlor as my roommate seemed to think. Sometimes things go wrong in surgery. Sometimes people come out damaged—or dead.

  “It goes against everything in me to encourage this.”

  Jack absently played with the fingers of my left hand as it lay on the table. I did nothing to pull it away.

  “If I could convince these women of their real, innate beauty, their beauty in God’s eyes, maybe they wouldn’t embrace such radical measures. Would that make me some sort of undercover agent trying to destroy the show’s concept?”

  “You told me the show is about all kinds of beauty, inner as well as outer. They want you because you have something more, something they can’t quite define that goes beyond medical advancements.”

  “So they say.”

  He picked up a banana from the fruit bowl on the table and spoke into it like a microphone. “And to what do you attribute your inner beauty, Ms. Hunter?” he intoned, sounding remarkably like Frank.

  “God, of course. You can’t shine from the inside out unless you’ve got the light.”

  “And you have that light?”

  Suddenly an idea actually did spark in my brain. I jumped to my feet and dashed for my cell phone.

  “What are you doing?”

  “I’m calling Eddie. If he is serious about letting me share what real beauty means to me then he just might have a hostess for his show.”

  “Besides—” I covered the phone with my hand as it rang “—I don’t want to take any chances that Maggie or any of the others go over the deep end.”

  A voice rumbled into my ear.

  “Hello, Eddie? It’s Quinn Hunter. I’d like to make an appointment to talk with you….”

  “You are going to do what?” Pete stared at me in dumbfounded exasperation.

  Eddie Bessett, on the other hand, looked calm and thoughtful. “So you will do the show if we give the internal beauty parts at least equal time with the external. Stuff like poise, self-respect…”

  “Faith.”

  “Only if it is genuine, Quinn. I don’t want this to be some kind of revival show.”

  “That’s been the sticking point all along,” I pointed out patiently. “You say you want to show inner transformation as well as the outer one. My roommate has indicated that she’s had consultations with cosmetic surgeons, dentists and hairstylists. Eddie, you have a contestant who is willing to cut off her little toes so that she can fit into prettier shoes! It sounds like you are chronicling insanity, not transformation.”

  Eddie turned to Pete with a sour look. “I blame you for this.”

  “Wha-what’d I do?”

  “If you hadn’t brought Quinn here in the first place, I wouldn’t have gotten so stuck on the idea of having her in the show.”

  “And you’d have the same repetitive show that we’ve already seen,” Pete answered.

  “What if she talks them all out of havin
g anything done? Frank’s already complaining.”

  “If Quinn talks through the process with each of these women, they’ll become real people to the audience, not stick figures to watch for a few minutes before turning to the nightly news. The audience will recognize themselves in the contestants. That’s what made your show Hide-and-Seek such a hit. People identified with others like themselves. I remember watching the show and wondering where I would look for the treasure.”

  “I saw the show once, too,” I added. “All I could think about was how I’d spend the money.”

  “You only watched the show once?”

  “Well, it was the end of the season when Pete told me about it.”

  Eddie looked steadily at me. “What made you change your mind about Chrysalis?”

  “My friend Jack suggested that perhaps it was God’s will that I do this so initially I prayed for wisdom and discernment about the show. I was sure His answer would be ‘No, don’t be ridiculous’ but it wasn’t. He’s been surprisingly quiet on the subject.”

  Pete’s eyebrows shot upward at the mention of Jack.

  “Jack suggested that being with Maggie on the show might be the right thing to do.”

  “And what did God say to that?”

  Eddie meant to be sarcastic, but I smiled at him. “I expected Him to put all sorts of stops in my way, but it hasn’t happened. My growing sense is that it is what I’m supposed to be doing. God is always reaching for His children. If they’re watching television, then that’s where He’ll go to find them.”

  The strange look on Eddie’s face almost made me laugh. He hadn’t expected that. God and reality television?

  “Be forewarned, Eddie, if you want me to do this, you’ll be putting a Christian woman on air.”

  “I said no sermons.”

  “I’m not hiding my light under a bushel basket, either.”

  Eddie assumed a pained expression.

  Pete looked at me askance and mouthed, What do you think you’re doing?

  Putting out a fleece like Gideon, I realized. If, after what I’d said, Eddie still let me on the show…

  “Frank already thinks I’m nuts. He’s complained all along about the ‘internal beauty’ thing. I’m the one who thought it was a good idea,” Eddie said. “Well, if God wants it, who am I to stand in His way? Just don’t get preachy on me, Quinn.”

  A sense of calm washed over me and I smiled serenely at Eddie. “I won’t have to, Eddie. Faith speaks for itself.”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  “Are you sure you don’t mind that I took the job, Maggie?”

  “It was offered to you first, Quinn. Of course I don’t mind. It will be nice to have you on the set, reassuring.”

  The sun shone through Pete’s many windows and I was tempted, as always, to look for the sunglasses in my purse.

  “Are you nervous?” Maggie asked.

  Nervous enough to change your mind?

  “This is what I want to do, if that’s what you mean.”

  “But you have doubts?” I knew she’d begun to mistrust Frank’s motives too but there was no way she’d admit it.

  “Don’t try to put words in my mouth, Quinn. I know you think I’m crazy to consider this but I have to do something.”

  “Have you considered believing in yourself or praying for guidance? Unless you change the way you think, you will never feel good about yourself.”

  “I have prayed, but I haven’t heard any answers. Maybe He isn’t listening.”

  “He’s listening but when the answer does come, you have to trust it.”

  “She’s scared,” I told Pete when Maggie left the room. “Petrified. And still determined to go through with it.”

  “I should never have opened my mouth.” Pete absently petted Flash’s head as the dog rested it on Pete’s knee. Flash instinctively knows when Pete is upset and won’t leave his side. If Maggie and I are Pete’s two best friends, Flash is his third.

  “Yet you got to see Kristy Bessett again by reconnecting with her brother.”

  “A fat lot of good that has done. She’s been totally aloof. She hates me.” Pete looked as huggable as a teddy bear as he slouched miserably on his couch. “I deserve it.”

  “Could be,” I said cheerfully, “but I doubt it. They’re taping an interview with Maggie and me this afternoon. She’s supposed to explain why she wanted to be a Chrysalis contestant. Want to come along? Eddie won’t mind.”

  “I might as well. I won’t get anything done here.”

  “My part of the show is in ‘conversational’ format, like I might have with my best friend. They want me to ask the contestants how they think it will change their lives and if they really want to go through with it. To build tension, I suppose.

  “Pete, remind me again why I’m doing this.”

  “To save your best friend from committing the biggest mistake of her life?”

  “Oh, that.”

  “And you are independent. Eddie likes that whether he admits it or not. You’ll do whatever you please and Eddie enjoys an element of danger and surprise. He is partial to bombshells being dropped.”

  Pete looked at me with genuine admiration. “You know, Quinn, the guy that ends up with you will have his hands full.” I looked at Pete askance and he hurried to add, “in a good way, of course. A very good way.”

  The studio looks more like someone’s living room than a set for a reality-television show. Pete took in the large inviting chairs and ottomans, end tables decorated with flowers and dimmed lights. “I thought it would be more antiseptic.”

  A dark-haired man I’d seen around the set the past two days, with headphones encircling the back of his neck, a walkie-talkie strapped to his belt and sheaf of papers in his hand, smiled at us. “It was going to be, but once Quinn came on board Eddie decided to switch things up. It’s changed the flavor of the entire show.”

  The fellow was tan, broad shouldered and obviously spent a lot of time at the gym. But what was more noticeable were his uneven features. He must have once been a boxer. His nose and jaw were slightly rearranged on his face. His smile was broad and friendly and his teeth white, but there were far too many of them. They overlapped each other at odd angles and his front tooth displayed a large chip.

  He stuck out his hand to Pete. “Sam Waters. I’m Eddie and Frank’s jack-of-all-trades, the silent partner in B & B Productions. I just came in a couple days ago. I coproduce, direct, run for food, act as official greeter, whatever needs to be done.”

  “You’re the one Eddie and Kristy talk about.” A smile poured across Pete’s features as he pumped Sam’s hand.

  “Eddie says great things about you.” Then he remembered me. “You probably already know Quinn.”

  Sam took my hand and leaned over it as if he might kiss it. “I’m so glad to officially meet you. You’re the one putting this show on a new track.”

  Sam might not be traditionally handsome, but he certainly oozed charm.

  “Thanks to you, they’re not going to do just frantic shots of the contestants at all stages of their transformation—with a trainer, obsessing before liposuction, blah, blah, blah. They think that you can bring out more of what the contestants are thinking and feeling. They want you to ask the hard questions, the emotional ones.”

  “Shades of Barbara Walters,” Pete muttered.

  “That’s it exactly!” Sam smiled approvingly at him. As unlovely as his features might be, he radiated kindness and sincerity. He was impossible not to like.

  “Frankly, I like this format better.” Sam lowered his voice. “This way we can’t predict exactly what the contestants will decide to do. Like free will or something.”

  “It doesn’t seem like Frank’s kind of show,” Pete commented.

  “It isn’t. It’s mine. Look at my ugly mug,” Sam said cheerfully. “I used to be a boxer. My face got reshuffled and my nose moved around so many times I felt I was working for Allied Van Lines, but I’m still the same guy that
I always was. My sister says I have an ‘interesting’ face and that’s good enough for me.”

  I wanted to throw my arms around him and hug him. Finally! Sanity in an insane world.

  On our way back to Pete’s after the taping he said, “Do you remember my dad’s sister Alyce?”

  “Of course. I loved your aunt Alyce.”

  “What do you remember most about her?”

  I tried to picture Pete’s aunt in my mind. “She always wore an apron and had candy in her pockets.”

  “What else?”

  “She was always smiling. When I came over she’d beam like a lighthouse. She made me feel that I had given her the biggest gift on earth—my company.” Memories began flooding back. “And that time I fell off her porch and scraped my knee? She picked me up and rocked me on the porch swing until I quit crying. Frankly, I kept whimpering longer than I needed to just because I didn’t want her to put me down.”

  “Did you think she was beautiful?”

  “Of course! She was the most amazing, kind person. I’ll never forget her.”

  “But did you think she was beautiful?”

  My first response was to say yes. As a child, I’d always wanted to grow up to be just like her.

  And yet… I recalled her more-than-ample bosom and her thick sturdy legs. Alyce was a big woman, nearly six feet tall and rawboned. Her hair was mousy brown and she wore it pulled back into a tight bun. The style highlighted the scars on her temple and forehead from a childhood tangle with a barbed-wire fence.

  Alyce told me once that she looked like her father rather than her dainty mother. “That is not the luckiest thing for a young girl. I wanted to be feminine looking like my mother, but that husband of mine insists he likes me just the way I am.” She’d twinkled at me conspiratorially. “He even says I should gain a couple pounds. I love that man.”

  “Physically beautiful? Not really, but when I picture her in my mind she’s so lovely.”

  “A lot like Sam?” Pete asked cagily.

  “Exactly. There is something special about Sam, isn’t there? His openness, his confidence…”