‘You told me once your shop worked because the products worked?’ she said.
He nodded. ‘Of course.’
‘This takes it one step further: which products work best for which women. Beauty is personal; beauty is unique. So, when they feel you know them, they come back.’
My God, Hector thought. She really is a little genius.
‘Little Sis!’ Johnny exclaimed. ‘It’s so good to see you!’
‘You too, Johnny.’ She threw her arms around him. ‘And Brad. How are you doing?’
‘I’m good.’ Brad came over and shook her hand, shyly. Johnny threw his arm around Brad, kissing him on the lips.
‘I’m sorry. He gets all worked up about meeting family.’
Dina smiled at her brother’s boyfriend. ‘You tell Mom yet?’
A slight chill descended across the table. Johnny shook his head.
They were eating Sunday lunch together: dim sum at the Nom Wah Tea Parlour in Chinatown, tucked away in a little back street and with one of the best menus in the city.
‘Are you sure you can afford it?’ Johnny whined, when Dina offered to pay for his cab into the city. ‘Taxi fares are horrendous.’
‘Just get a car. I want to meet the new man.’
Johnny was her family, her life outside work. It was easier, these days, for Dina to hear about his time at college. It wasn’t his fault that Mom played favourites; Dina hoped for Johnny to succeed. As weak and passive as he’d been, he at least liked her, loved her. She would head out to see him most Sundays, and they’d get a beer, or sit in a coffee house or the dorm and talk. Six months ago, he told her he was gay, and now he’d met someone serious.
‘I guess it’s a big shock,’ Johnny had said, his voice trembling.
She was surprised at how obvious it suddenly seemed. ‘Not at all. Good for you, Johnny. I just want you to be happy.’
He was scraping through his studies. He’d switched majors – and his GPA looked like alphabet soup: a B here, a C there. Now he was in Peace and Justice Studies, and had no idea what he was going to do when he graduated.
‘Maybe go to business school,’ Johnny said, vaguely.
‘Mom doesn’t have any more money.’
‘Oh. Right. Well, I’ll get a job in social work, I guess.’
‘OK,’ Dina said, anxiously. ‘Have you thought about where?’
Johnny sighed. ‘Don’t bug me about it. I’m a student. Are you always so type A?’
Dina was happy to see Johnny, and at least she was getting to meet the boyfriend. Maybe Brad could save her brother – he was studying pre-law – maybe they would settle down, he could whip Johnny into shape . . .
She hoped so. Johnny was her only family. The only small piece of love in her life.
‘So, Brad, you like dim sum?’
He rolled his eyes. ‘Dina, please; I’m Jewish. I was born for dim sum.’
She laughed. She liked this guy already.
It was a pleasant meal; Dina found it hard to relax, but she was trying. Having Sundays with her brother said something important: that she was a person, not a machine; that she could feel, she could switch off.
Sometimes she asked herself why doing well mattered so much. But, mostly, she just didn’t have time. Work consumed her; the Green Apothecary was everything. She wasn’t going to be her layabout mom, depending on wise-guy money, or her dad, who worked and died on a building site.
She wanted more. Much more.
Sometimes, at night, when she was exhausted, Dina thought about a boyfriend. But Edward Johnson hung in her mind, as did the men that had swarmed round her drunken, wasted mom.
It all seemed pointless. She could only rely on herself.
Her big brother reminded her she was human. She had someone. It might be imperfect, but it was family.
‘So, the store’s doing well,’ she said, brightly.
‘That’s good,’ Johnny offered. ‘Can I get some more pork buns?’
Brad passed them over. ‘How long have you been there now?’
‘Coming up for six months. We’re making real money.’ She already had her one-bedroom apartment fixed up and under offer; she was shopping for a new place. ‘My guess is that, this year, I might make about fifty-five thousand.’
Johnny finally sat up. ‘Who? You?’
Dina nodded with pride. God, it was so good to be able to tell somebody, to share this with her brother – someone who wasn’t Hector.
‘Goddamn. That’s real money.’ He nudged Brad. ‘That’s my sister!’
‘I know, dude. That’s awesome. Congratulations.’
‘I’m getting a new apartment. There’s a two-bedroom in Murray Hill I want.’
‘Renting?’ Johnny asked.
‘Buying.’ She blushed slightly. ‘I’ve got a small nest egg, you see, from my other two places . . . Sold them both for a profit . . .’
‘Two places?’ Johnny’s mouth was open. ‘I don’t get it. You only just got here.’
‘It’s been nearly two years, Johnny. I bought as soon as I could.’
Her brother reached over, pinched her. ‘Are we really related?’
I wonder that sometimes myself, Dina thought. But she smiled indulgently.
‘Hector.’ Dina’s voice was calling him from the back office.
He put down the tube of eye cream he was showing the young tourist from Tokyo. ‘Excuse me.’
When his young partner called, he came. It didn’t even occur to him to tell her to wait. Dina Kane never waited.
‘It’s crazy out there. It’s just insane,’ Dina said. ‘Look at them.’
‘Ja. I know.’ The older man glanced back; his store was full. Women, and a few men, were crowding the place. For the last three weeks, it had been like this – after work, at lunch hour. People would flood in. The small store had no space.
‘They’re panic buying. Everybody wants in.’
‘Isn’t that a good thing?’
‘Not really.’ Dina scowled. ‘We have a reputation, Hector. We’re selling things that make women look good. On them.’
‘Of course. Then they tell their friends.’
‘Now women are just buying anything. I can’t get out there to give advice. We’re too busy.’
‘So, we hire somebody. Just to stand behind the till.’ He had thought about this for at least two weeks. ‘You are more valuable than ringing up prices, Dina.’
She laughed. ‘It’s bigger than that. We need to expand. We need a new store.’
He blinked. ‘What? I live here.’
‘A second store. A system. Staff.’
The old man had a sinking feeling. ‘Dina . . . this . . . this is not for me. I just want a quiet life.’
She gestured at the shoving, angry crowd; the moneyed women, all scared they were missing something.
‘And how quiet is that?’
No matter how hard she worked, Dina could not persuade him. Hector didn’t want the risk; his vision had been for a successful shop, nothing beyond that.
‘We could run an online business. Sell from a website,’ Dina suggested.
‘I’m a chemist,’ Hector muttered. ‘I don’t trust these things. And it’s too complicated . . . how I pick my stuff . . .’
‘But Hector—’
‘No, Dina. Enough. I’m not you.’
‘We think you’ll love it here. Excellent access to First Avenue . . . and a view of the river.’
‘Yes, thank you. I can see.’
‘Would you like a little time to yourself?’
The realtor’s smile froze on her face. Bitch, she thought. This young girl was so stuck-up, with her insistence that Laurel be exactly on time, and her sheaf of financials. She was probably some rich kid playing at living alone, anyway. This apartment was over a half million dollars. How would a girl like this even come close to the deposit?
‘How big is the maintenance?’
‘Oh, hardly anything. The building has a doorman, but rates a
re very low. Less than five hundred a month.’
‘Offer four eighty-five.’
Laurel smirked. Yeah, right. She was hardly going to waste her seller’s time. ‘I’ll need to see your financials.’
The girl looked her dead in the eyes. ‘I have a mortgage commitment from Washington Mutual. I brought the pre-approval letter with me.’
She passed it over. Laurel Sloane scanned it quickly.
‘This is a no income verification loan. You’d need a twenty per cent deposit for that, I’m afraid.’
‘I have a twenty per cent deposit. And I’m liquid, ready to close in thirty days. Ms Sloane, I’m going to buy something, and you’re obliged to pass my offer on. I’m sure your seller would want me to get this one.’
Laurel wavered. She disliked the girl, but there was some sort of certainty about her. Very disconcerting but, like the boss said, you never know who has the money . . .
‘There are other places I could show you. More expensive, more space. There’s one on Forty-Third with a balcony—’
‘No. This is perfect.’ Dina looked around the apartment again: one reasonable bedroom, a small second one, a bathroom with a shower, unremarkable small kitchen and a living room cramped with a couch and a TV. The windows were large, though, and the place was a block away from the UN. The East River was clearly visible, and the full west aspect would let light sink in there all day.
It was small – maybe a thousand square foot – and the décor was dark and overstuffed.
‘Well – we all have our passions. If you’ve found your home . . .’
Dina wanted to laugh. Home? On Forty-First and First? She wouldn’t be here above eight months. No, she looked around and she was already stripping the apartment, gutting it, adding light, space, and nearly a million dollars to its value.
‘. . . Just buy it,’ she said.
Dina didn’t argue.
‘I have the answer,’ Dina told Hector a week later, ‘if you really don’t want to expand.’
She was stuck. She liked Hector Green; he was her friend – her mentor, in a way. He’d hired her and, in all this time, he never hit on her, never made an advance, never ‘accidentally’ groped her butt. With Hector, she’d found stability, success. She put Edward and Shelby Johnson behind her.
But Hector was doing something impossible for her to stomach. He was trying to stand between her and her goals. The old man wanted modest success, and then he wanted to pack up and go home. Already, Dina realised, her dreams were so much bigger than that. She didn’t want to leave him, and she couldn’t. Who knew of their success? Only Hector . . . and a few of their customers.
But his name was on the store. His name was on the bank accounts. She credited him for sourcing the products; she just sold them. Young Dina Kane wanted to be a businesswoman, but mostly now she was a talented shopgirl.
Hector was digging his heels in. The customers scared him. The pace . . . the ordering . . . even the money. Dina knew she was a great judge of beauty, of style, but she also believed in the fundamentals. What worked? She would not know that . . . not without a chemistry degree. Even if she walked out today, it wasn’t as easy as quitting.
‘Please, Dina. Not again.’ Hector sat down heavily, rubbing his forehead. ‘I am a scientist. This is wunderbar, fantastisch, really great. But you are going fast . . . very fast for me. I don’t want to move. Not another shop . . .’
‘Let’s think differently. You’re working hard . . .’
He nodded. So many things to order, calls to make. It had never been this quick. He was starting to feel overwhelmed.
‘But you should concentrate on what you do best. You’re a chemist; you analyse the ingredients.’
‘Yes. That’s what I do.’
‘What if we didn’t have three hundred products, and all these orders? What if we just had one product?’
Hector blinked. ‘That’s crazy. The women want skin, make-up, scent. Everything, everything.’
‘Right now, yes. But, Hector, what if you, yourself, made up a cream? A day cream. Something revolutionary. Your own brand. And we got the packaging, we sold it.’
‘I make a cream?’
‘Yes. Later on, maybe, you could do more in the range – if you wanted. But for the start, just one cream.’
‘We can’t make profit by selling one product here,’ Hector said, slowly. But his eyes were flickering; he was already thinking about it. For years it had frustrated him, picking the best creams of a bad bunch, the inconsistency in batches, everything.
‘We wouldn’t have to. If you make a great product, we can sell it other places, too. I can do that for you,’ Dina said, confidently. ‘I know I can.’
‘Well, there is a place I can work. I have friends – chemists. I know a small laboratory in White Plains.’ Hector’s anxiety was already dissipating. He was thinking about the cream. ‘There are ingredients most do not use, as they are too costly for the mass market, but they work. Topical peptides. Salicylic acid. Vitamin E . . . and I like the compounds found in the Dead Sea mud . . . with sunscreen, a light sunscreen . . .’
‘What will it do?’
‘Very mild exfoliation, hydration and sun. You see –’ Hector began to get worked up – ‘the commercial creams mostly over-exfoliate. You cannot use that every day. It will strip the skin of oils. They get dry . . . If you go gently, very gently, the skin will become cleaner, softer. And a strong sunscreen . . .’
‘You see? You want to do it,’ Dina said.
‘Yes.’ He looked back into the shop. ‘But I will have to go away. It will take some time to formulate. To be perfect.’
‘Work there three days a week,’ Dina said. ‘I can handle this.’
In the end, it took five months. Hector didn’t spend three days a week there – he disappeared. Dina was on her own, and it was a liberation. Without asking, she took control of the books, the marketing, the merchandise. She hired a couple of beautiful, smart students from NYU to help on the till, and made them up so they looked like models.
Every day, Hector would call, or email.
‘The mixing is smooth.’
‘Acid balance not right yet.’
‘I have a manufacturer . . . Test batches tomorrow.’
She wired him money from the store, money they could barely afford. The profit was dipping. Dina took decisions, only spending where she thought it best: staff wages; sanding the floors and painting them a light, pale green. She decorated the walls in eggshell and hung mirrors everywhere to reflect light; it also allowed customers to see themselves clearly. Dina chose real sunlight bulbs, and those were expensive. But she was committed to quality. No-regret buying, Dina thought; her customers would see the cosmetics in true light, not flattering store bulbs.
She sunk money into their accountant, into their computers. Finally, she began to get a grip on the stock, the income, the taxes. The Green Apothecary was ready. But the cash was gone.
Dina tried not to panic. It was her decision; Hector was absorbed in his batches and testing. They were ready now, ready for bigger things. But they had no money.
She reserved just a tiny amount. Not for petty cash – for packaging. And every Sunday she went back out to see Johnny, using Metro North, to eat in a Mount Vernon diner. No more dim sum. Neither she nor Johnny could afford it. For once, she had barely touched her new apartment. The refurb would take cash – and every red cent was sunk into the Green Apothecary.
Dina didn’t tell Hector she was using her personal money. The cash-flow problem was hers to deal with; she wanted Hector as a chemist, with nothing on his mind but the cream.
‘I’m coming home,’ Hector informed her on the phone one Monday. ‘I will be there tomorrow.’
‘Fantastic,’ Dina replied.
She couldn’t eat much that evening, couldn’t sleep. Both of their futures depended on this working.
Dina looked down at the jar.
It wasn’t much – maybe an ounce. Plain, hard
and grey. She tapped it with her elegant nail, painted in Chanel’s Rouge Argent, a silvery pink she loved. It chimed, lightly.
‘Vitreous glass,’ Hector said. ‘Porcelain will crack. Anyway, it needs to be dark, to stabilise the minerals.’
‘Let me try it,’ she said. Delicately, she dipped her finger in the jar. It was thick – really thick. Smooth. Cool. There was a faint scent, maybe violets, something watery and light.
‘You must rub it in your palm.’
‘Why?’ Her heart sped up a little. People were not patient; they wanted immediate gratification.
‘To loosen the oils and vitamins. Warm it in the palm, then rub it on your skin.’
She hesitated. ‘Won’t that put customers off, Hector?’
‘Only if they are fools.’
‘Right,’ she said. ‘Excellent.’
He shrugged. ‘The best ingredients cannot be worked together into a simple paste. The binding agent will smother some of the effects. I use algae here – Dead Sea compounds.’
She did as she was told and the cream released more scent. Slowly, Dina rubbed it into her face. It felt wonderful: soft and perfect. She hadn’t slept much, and immediately her skin was tautening, brightening. The ingredients were sinking in, different somehow from other creams.
‘Wait. It is important to wait.’ Hector instructed.
She took a little more, warmed it in her palm and spread it across her face, her neck. ‘Eyes?’
Hector nodded. ‘It is protective. It can work there too.’
Next she took a foundation, a liquid number from Berne, and applied it.
‘Beautiful. See?’ She turned her face to Hector. ‘It goes on so matte. It’s like a wonderful primer.’
‘For you it will tighten. For older women, it temporarily softens wrinkles. The stuff is easily absorbed to the dermis. It gives a rosy look because it promotes blood flow to the skin. This will have knock-on effects: it will slow aging, environmental damage. The sunscreen is full.’
‘Blood flow to the skin?’
‘It has collagen.’ He was almost not listening to her questions. ‘It will add what city life takes out, like a day in the country.’
Beauty Page 10
