Apocalipstick

by Sue Margolis

  “You must be Rose.” Lipstick beamed, extending her arms before virtually squeezing the life out of her prospective mother-in-law. “These are for you.” She handed Rose the flowers. “Stan said they’re your favorites.”

  Despite herself, Rose’s face broke into a smile. “They’re wonderful. You really shouldn’t have.”

  Stan put his arm round Lipstick, pulled her to him and kissed her on the cheek. “And here,” Stan announced, “with her trousers undone, is Rebecca.”

  Rebecca turned bright red as she yanked up the zip.

  “Rebecca,” the woman exclaimed, apparently oblivious to Rebecca’s frantic zip pulling.

  “Bernadette?” Rebecca whispered. As she took in the sun bed tan, the truth dawned. Lipstick had simply turned into her mother—she of the caked-on UltraGlow. Mrs. O’Brien had been a bit on the heavy side, too.

  “Omigod, it’s so lovely to see you.” She hugged Rebecca as if they were long-lost sisters.

  “I cannot believe the two of you went to the same school,” Stan said, laughing.

  Rebecca was positive that for the briefest of moments the smile left Lipstick’s face. Did she remember what had happened between them at school?

  “So,” Lipstick continued, a tad uneasily, Rebecca thought, but back on full beam, “here’s me in the beauty business and you with a makeup column. Can you believe we’ve got so much in common, Becks? You don’t mind me calling you Becks, do you?”

  “Er, no, that’s fine.” Rebecca gave her a weak smile.

  “Come on, Rose,” Lipstick chivied merrily. “Shove up and make room for a little ’un.”

  Still smiling, Rose shifted along the banquette. Lipstick squeezed in after her.

  “Now then, Stan,” she said, “don’t just stand there. Find a waiter and order some champagne.”

  Once they were all sitting down Lipstick reached into her handbag and pulled out a gift-wrapped parcel. She gave it to Stan. “Guess what, I found another one of those bizarre books you like.”

  Smiling, and saying how much Bernadette spoiled him, Stan pulled off the wrapping. “Oh,” he said, “A Farewell to Arms.”

  “Yeah,” Lipstick said. “Isn’t that just the greatest title for a diet book?”

  Stan roared.

  “What?” Lipstick said. “What’s so funny? Come on, I’ve got hold of the wrong end of the stick again, haven’t I?”

  “Don’t worry,” he smiled, “I’ll explain later.”

  “So,” Rebecca said, “Dad tells me the two of you met at a book club.”

  “A friend persuaded me to go,” Lipstick confided. “I don’t read much as a rule. I’m more of a miniseries person really. But they were reading this great book about this woman called Jane Eyre. I was just transported to another world. I could just see the movie in my head.”

  They sat drinking champagne, Rose getting more and more tipsy. Rebecca asked Lipstick about her business, which turned out to be called “The Face Base and Talon Salon.”

  “You must come in. I’ll give you a treatment on the house.” She lowered her voice. “You know, I have a friend who used to have your kind of eyebrows until she came to me.”

  Rebecca’s hand shot self-consciously to her eyebrows. They’d always been a bit heavy, but until now she’d always thought they made her look like Sophia Loren.

  Finally the conversation got round to the wedding. Stan said they were thinking about arranging it for sometime in April.

  “So, Bernadette,” Rose said, “Stanley tells me you’re Catholic.”

  Rebecca held her breath. Stan held his head. Lipstick nodded.

  “Although I don’t go to Mass as often as I should. My family’s quite religious, though. Back in Ireland I have a cousin who’s a priest.”

  By now Rose was rubbing the left side of her chest. “Omigod, you’re not thinking of getting married in a … ?” Rose couldn’t bring herself to finish the sentence.

  “No, we thought a registry office would be best,” Lipstick said gently. “But look, Stan and I have been thinking. We’ve decided that when we go on our honeymoon, you must come with us. It’s my way of saying thank you for producing this wonderful man.”

  Rose’s face could have lit up Brent Cross.

  Rebecca started breathing again. Stan let go of his head. If Rose had any remaining doubts about Lipstick, they had clearly disappeared there and then. Rebecca could just see her gassing on the phone to her friends, showing off about how her son and daughter-in-law thought so much of her, they wanted her to come on their honeymoon with them.

  To her credit, Rose patted Lipstick’s hand, thanked her for the wonderful offer and said she wouldn’t dream of inflicting herself on them like that. Stan’s relief was palpable, but only Rebecca noticed.

  “You know who’s a great man?” Rose said.

  They all looked at her.

  “The pope. He speaks Polish, you know.”

  “Gran, the pope is Polish.”

  “Yes,” Rose said, “but it’s a very hard language.”

  Ordering was a fiasco. Rose kept changing her mind and demanding to know precisely how everything was cooked. Salt was bad for her blood pressure. Cucumber gave her heartburn. It was the skin. “The tiniest morsel and I’m pacing all night.” Ditto anything fried. The waiter did his best to keep his patience.

  “OK, maybe I’ll have the veal. No, on second thought, change that to the poussin. Tell me, how do you prepare the chicken?”

  “Don’t worry, Mum,” Stan said, “they tell it straight out it’s going to die.”

  Lipstick roared and said one of the reasons she’d fallen for Stan was because he made her laugh so much. She told them about the time they’d gone into a restaurant where breakfast could be ordered at any time and Stan had asked for kippers in the Renaissance.

  Everybody laughed except Rebecca. She sat looking at Lipstick, trying to make her out. Of course people’s personalities changed and mellowed as they got older. Take her own for example. Only a few days ago she’d caught herself in a lift humming along to the Mull of Kintyre Muzak. But this warm, up-for-a-laugh, salt-of-the-earth Lipstick seemed just too far removed from who she used to be. The Lipstick Rebecca remembered had about as much charm as Mrs. Satan the day before her period. On the other hand, Lipstick had come to look like her mum, so maybe over the years the rest of the maternal genes had kicked in and she’d taken on her personality, too. Then again, this new persona, along with the flowers for Rose and the offer to take her on the honeymoon, might be nothing more than a cynical schmoozing exercise. A way of wheedling her way into Stan’s affections before fleecing him. Maybe her first instincts about Lipstick had been right after all.

  It was while they were having coffee that Stan turned to Rebecca and said he and Bernadette wanted to ask her a favor.

  “Ask away,” Rebecca said brightly.

  “Well, the thing is, Bernadette’s just bought a new flat and it’s being renovated—you know, new wiring, central heating—so that we can move in straight after the wedding. There’s going to be so much mess and upheaval. Plus she’s going to have no heat while they fit the radiators … she really could do with somewhere to stay for a few weeks.”

  What? He wanted Lipstick to move in with her? Rebecca could feel herself starting to panic. How could Stan land this on her, out of the blue? He should have spoken to her in private, given her some time to think. Then again she could see how excited he was about getting married. He just wasn’t thinking straight. The point was, she didn’t know Lipstick. She was still struggling to come to grips with the prospect of having a stepmother her own age. She wasn’t even remotely ready for them to live under the same roof. But, above all, she didn’t trust her.

  “Under normal circumstances she could have moved in with me,” Stan went on, “but I’m not going to be around. The manager of Lacy Lady in Manchester has just left without giving notice and I really need to go up there to straighten things out. And anyway my place is too far from Berna
dette’s salon. So, we were wondering if you’d mind putting her up.”

  Lipstick must have seen the expression on her face.

  “Look, Becks,” she said, “I know it’s a cheek asking and I’ll totally understand if you say no.”

  Rebecca hesitated, desperately searching for an excuse. Then suddenly it occurred to her that having Lipstick come to stay might not be such a bad idea after all. That way she could watch her and maybe find out what she was up to.

  “’Course it’s not a cheek.” Rebecca smiled. “I’d be delighted.”

  “Oh, Becks,” Lipstick squealed, “we are going to have a great time getting to know each other. I can’t wait.”

  8

  Lipstick moved in two days later with five suitcases, a tanning bed and Harrison Ford.

  “Isn’t he just gorgeous?” she drooled as they sat in the kitchen drinking the Lambrusco Lipstick had brought to say thank you for having her. “Come on, tell me he isn’t gorgeous.”

  Rebecca looked at Harrison Ford, who was still wearing his Burberry mac, and agreed he was indeed gorgeous.

  “And he’s got a wonderful pawsonality,” she said, chucking him under the chin and nuzzling him. “But most important, he’s completely house trained. The only time he’s ever left an ickle pressie-wessie for his mummy was when he was a baby and he had a poorly tum tum.”

  “Look, the thing is, Lips— I mean Bernadette …”

  Lipstick laid her hand gently on Rebecca’s arm and said they should get one thing straight from the off. She loved being called by her old nickname. “You know,” she said, “my mates from school still call me Lipstick.”

  “OK, if you’re sure.”

  “I am. Promise. You know, Becks, I have to tell you I felt really weird finding out I was about to become a stepmother to a woman the same age as me. I wasn’t sure how you’d take it.”

  “Well, I have to admit it was a bit of a shock at first.”

  “I really hope we can be friends.” Lipstick’s face broke into a grin. “I promise faithfully I won’t lock you in a kitchen full of pumpkins.”

  “OK, and I promise always to be home by midnight.”

  “Deal,” Lipstick declared.

  They both started laughing. Despite Rebecca’s ongoing suspicions about Lipstick, she couldn’t help quite liking her.

  Rebecca wondered whether now was the time to clear the air about what had happened between them at school, but she thought it was probably too soon. They needed to get to know each other better. Instead, she thought she’d tackle the dog issue.

  “The thing is,” Rebecca began tentatively, “about Harrison …”

  “I know—you’re worried about what to feed him. Well, don’t even think about it. Every Sunday I cook up a week’s supply of heart and kidney. That’s your fayvwit, isn’t it, baby?”

  “Excellent,” Rebecca said. She cleared her throat. “But you see, I’m not really much of a doggy person myself, and I’ve just bought these new sofas.”

  “Oh, but Hawwison’s not a dog—are you, Hawwison? Hawwison’s a Bichon Frise. And does he ever have a pedigree. If Hawwison could talk, he wouldn’t be speaking to either of us.”

  “Yes, but I’m just a bit concerned that Hawwison—I mean Harrison—is going to leave hairs all over the furniture and disturb the neighbors with his barking.”

  Lipstick assured her the only place he ever sat was his basket and that he barked only if he was frightened.

  When Lipstick disappeared to the loo, Rebecca got down on all fours and stared directly into Harrison’s sickeningly appealing, chocolate-box-brown eyes.

  “Right, you froufrou little mutt, make one mark on my sofas, leap up at me with your muddy paws and you are dead. Do we understand each other?”

  Harrison clearly got every word because he let out a pathetic little whimper. Rebecca sat down again, told him to stop being so bloody manipulative and that there was no way he was getting round her.

  “Just because we’ve been forced to live together, it doesn’t mean we have to be friends.”

  He looked up at her, a picture of doggy pathos. She refused to meet his eye.

  “Oh, for God’s sake,” she said eventually, taking a dog biscuit out of the packet Lipstick had left on the table and throwing it to him. He gobbled it up.

  When he finished he came toward her, stood on his hind legs and laid his head in her lap. She screwed up her face and patted him as if she were patting the head of an Ebola carrier.

  As she was throwing a biscuit to the other side of the kitchen to make him go away, she remembered she hadn’t checked her answer machine for a day or so. She picked up her wine and went into the living room. There were nineteen messages.

  “My God,” she said as Lipstick came into the room, “I’ve never seen so many. Somebody out there wants me.”

  “I think you’ll find they’re mine,” Lipstick said, shoving her hair extensions into a scrunchie. “I hope you don’t mind, but I had my calls forwarded. It’ll be clients. I always tell them in case of an emergency—you know, a sudden bikini line crisis—to try me at home. I’ll listen to them in a sec.”

  “Right,” Rebecca said sweetly, giving no hint that she was a bit hacked off at Lipstick clogging up her answer machine without asking if it was OK.

  Lipstick began looking round the room. “I can see you’re almost there,” she said, surveying Rebecca’s monument to minimalism. This was considerably less minimal than it had been a few hours ago, on account of Lipstick’s tanning bed taking up nearly half the room. “All you’re short of really is a few knickknacky things. Some bits to make it more homey. An arrangement of silk flowers on the mantelpiece, maybe. Or what about a pine Welsh dresser full of novelty teapots. I love those.”

  Rebecca smiled and said she’d think about it.

  Eventually, Lipstick’s eyes alighted on Woman Wanking. Rebecca watched her as she stood considering the painting. She kept craning her neck this way and that, as if any second—once her head reached the apposite angle—the penny would drop and she’d get it.

  “Well, it’s different. I’ll give it that. Wouldn’t you have preferred a nice landscape? Or some framed photographs?”

  Apparently she was planning to have this photographer in Friern Barnet do a studio portrait of her and Stan.

  “He’s got all these different costumes and backdrops to choose from. At the moment I’m torn between ‘On Safari’ and ‘Victorian Tourists in the Fjords.’”

  They spent the rest of the evening looking at Harrison’s christening photos.

  This was followed by two albums of pictures of him when he was page boy (blue velvet breeches, white silk shirt, lace collar) at his doggy best friend’s wedding. After an hour or so, Rebecca said she hoped Lipstick didn’t mind but she was knackered and had to crash.

  She arrived at the office the next morning and immediately went in search of Lucretia. She knew she was going to have an almighty job convincing her to let her start investigating the Mer de Rêves story because the company was one of the paper’s main advertisers, but she was determined to try.

  She’d spent most of the drive working on her pitch. In order to sell the idea to Lucretia, it had to contain the two ingredients she considered staples for a magazine aimed at women: glamour and intense personal suffering.

  “Lucretia,” she heard herself saying at one point, “I’ve found this great story—it’s sort of Oskar Schindler meets Pussy Galore.” God, no. That wouldn’t work. She couldn’t possibly say “Pussy Galore” to Lucretia. The woman would have a baby.

  Lucretia’s office was empty. Snow was nowhere to be seen either. She went back to her desk to find Max waiting for her with a present of cappuccino and an apricot Danish.

  “Oh, Max, that is so sweet. Thank you.”

  “I just wanted to say,” he whispered, brushing his fingers against her cheek, “you know, how much I enjoyed the other night.”

  “Me, too,” she said, holding his hand against her
skin for a moment. Then she reached up and kissed him quickly on the lips.

  “Listen,” she said afterward, “you don’t know where Lucretia is, do you?”

  “Ah, you obviously haven’t heard?”

  “Heard what?”

  “About Lucretia’s call from the producers of Watching You, Watching Me.”

  “What?” Rebecca laughed. “That new Big Brother rip-off?”

  “Yeah, apparently they’re kicking off with a celebrity edition. Shooting starts tomorrow. But last night Anne Robinson went down with some bug and they asked Lucretia to step in. She said yes, only if she could bring Snow.”

  “Hmm, to do all her chores while she sits around refurbishing herself all bloody day, presumably.”

  She asked him who had taken over as she needed to get the go-ahead for the Mer de Rêves story. He told her Charlie Holland, who normally edited only the main newspaper, was filling in.

  “Which is brilliant news,” Max said. “There’s no way Charlie would let a bit of advertising revenue get in the way of a good story.”

  He kissed her and gave her bum a quick squeeze. “How’s about lunch?”

  She nodded. They arranged to meet in the lobby at one.

  Max was right. Charlie Holland, DFC—who had seen action in the former British colony of Aden in the sixties before going to Oxford and eschewing the military for Marxism—leaped at the Mer de Rêves story.

  “OK,” he barked, picking up a rubber band from his desk. “So, what’s your MO?”

  “MO?”

  He rolled his eyes and began stretching the rubber band.

  “Your modus operandi. Your game plan.”

  Champion of the poll tax rioters he may have been, but Charlie had never quite managed to shake off the gung-ho fighter pilot thing.

  Rebecca cleared her throat nervously. At no time had he asked her to sit down. She felt like she was up before the wing commander for going AWOL.

  She told him she was planning to take up Mer de Rêves’s offer of an interview with Coco Dubonnet.

  “The PR wants me to do it at her place in the country, but I’m hoping I can convince her to let me come to the company’s offices in Paris. My plan is to convince Coco to let me see the lab where they make this cream and somehow get hold of a sample for analysis.”