Beauty

by Louise Mensch

  Dina smiled at that. She liked it.

  The site was coming; the store was coming. The last piece of the puzzle was the billboard, but Dina wanted to wait on that. Everything would be exquisite, the way she’d wanted it for Torch – no, more gorgeous, better. She was doing things her own way, not limited by Ludo or other departments or anything else.

  But it started and ended with quality. Perfection.

  Dina would only sell the best. That meant cherry-picking from a range, just like the big stores did from the fashion collections. It meant limiting big, powerful companies, who wanted you to take their whole stock, including the stinkers. She had to curate it, do the customers’ work.

  Painstakingly, in between trips to the building site, conversations with Natalya in her halting English and meetings with the kids ploughing through her site, Dina Kane sunk herself into the world of beauty.

  She tried to remember that wonder she’d first had with Hector at the Green Apothecary, when she was just a customer and everything he had was fusty and dust-covered and imported – but it worked.

  As Dina toured stores, pored over make-up websites and underground beauty blogs, and scoured the magazines, she tried to forget everything she knew. In jeans and a T-shirt, she was just another girl with a pretty face. She went for free makeovers – everywhere except Torch; sat on little stools in Nordstrom and Bloomingdales, trying samples; took some days to spa at Bliss and Elizabeth Arden; wandered around Sephora and the boutiques in the West Village; she even studied the drugstore shelves.

  What did women want? So much choice; so little time. It was all in the thrill of discovering a new wonder product, the thing you had to have – BB cream; Meadow; Great Lash mascara; Eight Hour cream; Chanel No. 5 – the blockbusters and their funky new cousins: Bobbi Brown’s shimmer bricks; Urban Decay’s nails . . .

  Dina studied the executives swooping on the premier lines, the younger women lingering, like kids in a candy store, trying several items, shopping as leisure. She listened to the chatter from the shopgirls making her up, followed the gossip on the websites. Everybody was looking for that new big thing. Minimalists, who wanted a small bag of reliable cosmetics; maximalists, fashionistas who loved to experiment; girls in the middle, who were just impulse buyers, influenced by the full-page ads in the women’s magazines that week – there were so many types of girl, and Dina wanted to cater to them all, to own them all. Dina Kane was going to be different; taking herself back to that lover of beauty, that young girl . . . this was key.

  The guys at the building site asked if she’d stopped working when she turned up with her shopping bags tied with pink ribbons, her face fresh from a makeover.

  ‘I never stop working,’ Dina said, and headed back out to the stores.

  She tried to recall her first trip to Saks, her first muslin face cloth and Eve Lom cleanser, her first Bobbi Brown bronzer, the tight, bright Beauty Flash Balm by Clarins, Issima’s Midnight Secret when she hadn’t slept through the night. It was more than vanity; it was exciting – a thrill – to use her own face as a canvas, to be the artist. This was luxury she could afford.

  Beauty was your best self. Beauty was armour; it was a weapon; it was a sign of great taste, grooming, elegance. Even a waitress could save up for that special Touche Éclat radiance and concealer. And then there was the joy of the drugstore find that beat all the boutiques – her Maybelline Great Lash mascara, which stayed on all night, didn’t smudge, didn’t run, beat her weary tears.

  She was selling excitement. She was selling confidence. She was selling art. And everything for sale at Dina Kane had to be great. Just so goddamn good that a girl knew that anything she bought in the store, on the site, was quality. No fail.

  She was asking American women to trust her taste. She was saying that this was important to women, and she could help.

  Chapter Eighteen

  She worked hard enough that every waking moment was spent sunk in Dina Kane. The visits to corporate headquarters were the worst.

  ‘I’m sorry, Ms Kane, our brand has a stocking policy. It’s the same for every store.’

  ‘We like your ideas but we can hardly make an exception for a tiny premises in Manhattan.’

  ‘If you take the primer, you have to take our Fashionista Mascara range. You can’t just select.’

  Dina sat in the offices of yet another cosmetics house and argued with a head of sales – fifty-five years old, with steel-grey hair and make-up free.

  ‘Mrs Zagar, I assure you that being stocked at Dina Kane will be a mark of quality for every brand that works with us. Your best products will receive global attention. Their sales will shoot into a new stratosphere.’

  ‘That’s very nice, but they are bestsellers for a reason.’

  ‘I don’t want all your bestsellers. Some of them are no good.’

  ‘Excuse me?’ the older woman said.

  Dina shrugged. ‘Your Absolute Riches tinted moisturiser is chalky and your Forever Lips range dries hard on the mouth, leaving cracks. These are heavily supported by marketing, Mrs Zagar. The company didn’t put any marketing behind the primer, and it sold by word of mouth. Appearance on the Dina Kane roster will be word of mouth.’

  ‘Please, Ms Kane. I agreed to see you because we liked your work with Meadow. We hoped to offer you a job.’

  ‘I have a noncompetition clause.’

  ‘Well then I can’t see what else we can do together.’

  ‘I want you to license me to sell six products. I guarantee you that in one year those six products will make up a third of your revenue. You will be able to increase production, and drop from the manufacturing process those items not making you money.’

  The girl’s zeal was so all consuming that Mrs Zagar actually paused for a minute. On her computer screen, she tapped quietly, pulling up a list of the company’s best and worst sellers. The marketing spend was beside each one. She noted that the primer had had hardly any.

  Dina knew her stuff. Well, it was to be expected, with her background at Torch, learning from Ludo Morgan, who now had such a great reputation.

  ‘What do you think are our worst sellers?’

  She kicked herself for asking, for showing interest. Who cared what the girl thought? That was market confidential information she couldn’t possibly have access to.

  ‘Easy. Your Fashionista Mascaras, for one.’

  Hannah Zagar jumped, but recollected herself. ‘You guessed that because I told you it was part of the deal.’

  ‘No, ma’am. I guessed that because the formulation is clumpy and the brush smudges. The colours are far too bright. Other worst sellers are your lip stains – again, the pigments are too bright. Your tinted moisturisers are being remaindered everywhere because they’re overpriced and chalky, and you’re behind on the BB cream revolution. Your self-tanner comes out orange. Your whipped foundation is jar-packed; it oxidises right away when exposed to the air, and that means it goes too brown in about two weeks. Plus, your Tempting Trios in eye colour aren’t tempting, because nobody goes for pops of colour on the lids – you’re not selling T-shirts.’

  Hannah Zagar glanced at her screen. The girl had called every one correctly.

  ‘And the bestsellers?’

  ‘Primer. Bronzers. Your cream peach blushes are translucent and unique on the market. If I might make a suggestion, you should rebrand them, and sell them as a double cheek and lip gloss. They can be dabbed on the lips, and last longer than regular gloss. Bronze cheek powders that work on eyes too are nothing new, but blusher for the lips is a good one.’

  Hannah sat up, and looked at Dina very carefully.

  ‘How did you come by this information? Have you had access to our servers?’

  ‘No, ma’am. I just know make-up; I really know it.’

  The head of sales chewed on her lip. Their company needed a break. Dina Kane was more correct than she knew; they had more misses than hits, and even clever advertising was not getting their products out of stor
es. They had good buy-in, but complaints from the boutiques that their lines were sitting on the shelves.

  She had long argued they should cut the fat and just sell what worked. Now this young woman had penetrated deep to the heart of it, in a single meeting.

  ‘How can you make the claim that being on your site will sell our products that way?’

  ‘Because I only work with the best. Women will know they can trust Dina Kane for their cosmetics. It’s the same way I got a reputation for Meadow – the same way I turned around Torch – only now there’s nobody else holding me back.’

  ‘And if I say no?’

  ‘I still won’t stock your other products. I’d rather sell fifty brilliant cosmetics than four hundred mediocre ones.’

  Hannah Zagar considered it. ‘I don’t know, Ms Kane. It’s taking a great risk – even though I have found you very impressive.’

  Dina said, impulsively, ‘I can prove it to you, Mrs Zagar. I’ll make you over, using nothing but Dina Kane, Inc. stock.’

  She started. ‘What? I’m not interested personally, Ms Kane. My younger days ended some time ago.’

  ‘Allow me to try. Just as an experiment. You can wipe it off immediately afterwards.’

  ‘You are joking.’

  ‘Not at all. Women have to see it to believe it – cosmetics houses, too.’

  Hannah Zagar resisted the impulse to steal a look at her reflection in the glass walls of the meeting room. She always dressed neatly, but she was in her early fifties. That was all there was to it – age was age. Right?

  She laughed. ‘I tell you what, Ms Kane. Come back here after lunch with a bag of your products. If you can turn me into a glamour girl, we’ll take a chance on your store and your site. But don’t hold your breath.’

  Kane was cocky, confident, but a little too presumptuous. Hannah Zagar didn’t mind that – she had been ambitious too, when she was younger. She would teach the girl not to overreach, and give her a valuable business lesson.

  Her good deed for the day.

  ‘How long is this going to take?’

  Hannah’s chair was away from the mirror. They had set up in a little-used bathroom on the top floor – she hardly wanted to make a spectacle of herself – which had a large window, as Dina had asked for natural light. She had returned with a disappointingly small make-up bag, the primer was the only product of theirs. Any fantasies Hannah was secretly harbouring about being transformed evaporated, but, then again, she had agreed to go through with this farce.

  ‘I’ll only need a few minutes. May I shape your eyebrows? It stings slightly, but it will look very good on you. I’ll be using Perfection Tweezers, which we’ll be stocking.’

  Hannah sighed. ‘OK. But get on with it. Really, I must get back to work. This was a mistake.’

  Dina said nothing; she leaned in over the older woman with the tweezers, plucking and shaping. She moved very quickly, and Hannah waited, although she winced once or twice. There was no chatter. In a few moments, Dina was wiping something soft across her brows. She added a touch of primer, and then dusted some eye shadow lightly over the lids – one, two strokes of the brush, different shades. Dina worked across her whole face: eyes, cheeks, lips. Then, after just a few minutes, she stood back.

  ‘That’s it,’ she said.

  ‘That’s it?’ Kane had barely spent eight minutes on her face. ‘You think this will make a difference?’

  ‘Dina Kane stocks only the world’s best products. Take a look for yourself, Mrs Zagar.’

  The younger woman watched her expectantly, and Hannah reluctantly turned her chair around to face the bathroom mirror.

  She gasped.

  The face staring back at her was unrecognisable. Not younger – just better, so much better. Her skin was smoother, and the foundation on top of the primer gave her an elegant, even glow. Her pale cheeks had a light shimmer of bronzer on them, which brought out her high cheekbones; her eyebrows, thick and beetling, were lifted into elegant arches that widened her whole look. Her eyes, pale blue, suddenly popped in her face, with light brown shadow on the lids and a little chestnut on the creases. The shadows under her eyes had vanished, making her look lively and alert. She was wearing lip gloss – an attractive, natural peach – and it wasn’t bleeding into the lines around her mouth, which was why she had given up wearing it. As she stared, Hannah now remembered Dina dabbing powder there, and primer, and then two coats of gloss.

  She breathed in, stunned. Taking in this version of herself.

  ‘Primer – your primer – is very helpful on the mature face, but you still don’t need much, just the right foundation, bronzer, powder and gloss. I would add mascara at night.’

  ‘My husband won’t believe it.’ She wished the day was over already, so she could rush home and surprise him. ‘I . . . It’s incredible.’

  ‘You could look even better if you dyed your hair to cover the grey and got a chic cut. I can recommend you a great salon for your type.’

  ‘Really? Could you?’ Hannah stopped herself – she was sounding like a teenager. But Dina Kane had transformed her, literally transformed her, in minutes.

  ‘Of course. Can I have the primer? And my selection?’

  ‘Ms Kane,’ Hannah Zagar said, unable to look away from her reflection, ‘you can have anything you want.’

  Joel Gaines sat in his office, staring into space.

  Below him was the great expanse of Manhattan. This view had always inspired him: the city, pulsing with life and money. Power ran through its crosswalks. This was where the great deals were done, where American fortunes were made. This was where he’d changed his life.

  He had crushed the opposition. And when things at home were stressful, or boring, or frustrating, it didn’t matter; he could come to the office.

  Glass walls, installed custom by his architect, had been designed to mercilessly intimidate the guy on the other side of the desk. And for his own pleasure. He wanted to be looking down on it all, like a bird of prey in his eyrie – literally, at the pinnacle.

  But today, he didn’t see the view. He was just staring into nothingness.

  Dina Kane. He could not forget her. Get over her. Get past her. She was the most remarkable, the bravest chick he’d ever met.

  That scene in the cab, where she’d made her peace, said her goodbyes – it was too much emotion, too heavy for him. But still, he’d been expecting a call. A text. Something.

  Dina Kane had vanished off the face of the earth. Nothing. It was like she’d never come into his life at all.

  He worked and went home. The boys were at college. The younger one had come home that weekend, played some tennis. His wife swam and went to the beauty salon, attended a house party, threw a lunch for their friends. Gaines had sat around, unable even to socialise. When he looked at Susan, all dressed up, wearing her jewels and heavy make-up, talking to him about couples therapy and working on himself, he felt a suffocating depression.

  But that was commitment, that was marriage. Why couldn’t he deal with it?

  His phone rang.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Sir, I wanted to remind you: you have therapy with Dr Fallon in fifteen minutes.’

  Therapy. He was usually never late. It decompressed him, helped him relax, but he could not speak of Dina, and it seemed pointless right now, so pointless – talking about his life, instead of doing something about it.

  ‘Cancel it.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Cancel all my meetings. I’m going home.’

  There was a pause at the end of the line. ‘But, sir, you have a partnership meeting on L’Audace. You have Goldman coming in on the Durant deal – their senior VP. And you’re expected in the Mayor’s box at the opera tonight, for the opening of Der Rosenkavalier. You accepted that invitation months ago . . .’

  ‘Doesn’t matter. I’m going home.’

  ‘Are you sick, Mr Gaines?’

  ‘I’m not sick. I hope you’re not deaf.’
r />   ‘No, sir. Very good, sir. I’ll cancel your meetings.’

  He walked to the executive elevator, the one that went directly down to the lobby, and below, to the garage. The shaft was designed for exactly that reason: so Gaines could get in and out, if he chose, without seeing another living soul. It was pure Master-of-the-Universe stuff, and today he was glad of it. He just had no desire at all to see his secretary’s curious face right now, like he was a crossword puzzle she had to crack.

  It was funny, he thought, as the elevator car whisked him down, down into the floodlit open space of their senior executive garage, that the one person he wanted to talk to about this was Dina Kane. But he couldn’t talk to her.

  Not yet.

  Not till it was done.

  ‘I think you should know about this, Mr Johnson.’

  Edward sighed. He had just finished smoking a joint, a deep, mellow feeling was stealing over him, and he really didn’t want any hassle from Lena just now. Bills, unfinished accounts: it was all from the past.

  His mother was due back up from Florida tomorrow. He had persuaded her that staying in the townhouse – his townhouse – would be wrong. It was, after all, the site of her addictions. She would occupy his old apartment. In the end, he was going to persuade her to move out of state permanently.

  There was no way he would allow her back to take what was his. His parents screwed things up; it was Edward’s time now.

  The stock portfolio was doing well, under the manager he had hired. He had a plan: to marry, and then sell either her house or his and buy a beachfront place in the Hamptons. That would rent out for a million a year, and there was his income for life. Edward had decided that work was – well – too much like work.

  Women were the cause of all his problems; women could solve them. A rich spouse. It was one of the oldest transactions: his name for her cash.

  He was already having some success. Back in the social circle, invited to all the parties, Edward Johnson was no longer a pariah. Crazy father? Drunken mother? So what? He had the house, and did you ever see such a perfect gem? There was private money. He was a trust fund, baby. He was a catch for some lucky girl.