About Face

by Carole Howard

  “So when did you get so smart, senora Ruthie?”

  “And Carlos, when did you get so condescending? Oh wait, I forgot, you were always condescending.”

  If they only knew. She was like an M&M: hard shell on the outside, all gooey and melted on the inside. David knew. Was fooling people this way good? Or was it self-defeating, she wondered.

  Vivian asked if the caffeine was starting to kick in. Silence was her answer. She looked from Ruth to Carlos. “You two picked up right where you left off, didn’t you?”

  Again, silence was the answer.

  “I’ll clean up,” David said.

  Ruth thought she’d kill him for that. Did he think he was being a good guy? Or did he want to get away from Carlos as much as she did? Or did he want to try to force the two of them to make up? In the living room, where he didn’t have to hear it? It didn’t matter, she was still going to kill him.

  “And I’ll help David,” Vivian said. “And see if I can’t draw him into the fight just a tiny little bit.”

  “Lots of luck,” Ruth said.

  Vivian raised her mono-brow as she looked over at Ruth, but then went to the sink, handing David a dishtowel.

  In the living room, Ruth made a bee-line for the photos along the far living room wall. At least she could avoid eye contact that way. Carlos came up beside her and they stood shoulder-to-shoulder.

  “We really have had some good times, Viv and I,” he offered.

  “Mmm-hmm, I can imagine.”

  He shrugged.

  Did he think he’d just apologized? She needed for him to know that he hadn’t. They moved a few paces to the left.

  “Where was that one taken?” Ruth asked, staying in neutral conversational territory.

  “We used to go up to our friend’s farm upstate for weekends. That one was a weekend when a whole bunch of us went up to help him paint the barn. It was a party for a whole weekend, I remember. Sleeping bags, beer, paint, rock ‘n’ roll. The good old days.”

  She moved to the left again, in front of a series of Ida’s school portraits.

  The phone rang and Carlos answered while she stared at Ida’s pictures and imagined how it might have been if she’d known her while she was growing up.

  “Ida is the love of my life,” Carlos said, and silently returned to her side. He fingered the bracelet again. “Mi amor.”

  “Clever of you guys to mount all the school pictures in a row like that.” She straightened a crooked photo. “This one looks like … third grade?”

  “Something like that. I guess.”

  “You know, Carlos, it’s not just what you say. It’s how you say it. Like it always was.”

  “I believe what I believe. Passionately. It’s my religion. Peace. Justice. Equality. Fairness. That kind of stuff. And they’re more important to me than making nice with people who don’t believe them. Or who aren’t doing a good enough job.”

  “I believe in them too, you know.”

  He turned to stare at her full on. “Then why are you peddling makeup, chiquita?” He put his hands on her shoulders. “You were one of the good guys and—”

  “I still am.” She left his hands where they were, though they communicated weight more than warmth.

  “Last time I saw you, you were a Peace Corps Volunteer. Now you’re a manager in a big corporation. Maybe you’ve accepted the change gradually, but I only just found out.”

  “You don’t need to accept anything. It’s my life. And it’s more complex than you’re making it sound.” She stepped back, out of his arms’ length.

  “Okay, bueno. But I don’t see how you can believe in those values, really believe in them, and not be part of the movement.”

  “The movement? Like in the sixties?”

  “People are still working for justice. Lots of people. Really good people.”

  “I do my part, in small ways. I’m not trying to change the whole world, it’s true, but I do some things that make incremental changes. I guess I don’t think it’s realistic to think I can change the world.”

  “And I feel like I have to try to change the world.”

  “And I respect that. But I don’t think it’s the only way to be. And I don’t like having to defend myself like this.”

  “I just call it like I see it.”

  He bumped her to the left, to the series of Peace Corps photos.

  “Don’t you think there’s more than one way to be a good person in the world?” Why couldn’t she let this drop?

  “No, I don’t.”

  Vivian and David came in. “At least they’re not hitting each other,” Vivian said. “Is it safe?”

  “Yeah, sure,” Carlos said quickly. Ruth looked up at him, seeing again how he’d aged.

  “Did I hear the phone? Who called?” Vivian asked.

  “Casey. Asking about his loco plan for a sit-in. He said he wanted my opinion. But he didn’t like it when I gave it.”

  “Really? How can that be?” She kissed him on the cheek. “Why don’t you show David the bookshelf project in Ida’s old room, and maybe get his advice? But don’t yell at him if you don’t like his ideas, okay?”

  Carlos and David couldn’t get out of the room fast enough.

  Ruth and Vivian leaned back on the arms of the couch so they faced each other. Each pulled her feet up under her, as if they were pony-tailed fifteen-year-olds listening to their favorite Frankie Avalon records and talking about the boys in school.

  “Finally,” Ruth said. She slowly looked around, this time letting her eyes go out of focus to get a total effect. There was so much stuff, with so little space between the individual elements, that it looked like a jigsaw puzzle whose pieces had been pulled apart from each other just a little bit. Her eyes were drawn to a photograph of the three of them when Ida was about eight years old. They must have been at a street fair, because Ida’s face was painted red, blue, and green, and it radiated a childlike unguarded happiness. What was striking was that Vivian’s face and Carlos’s face, though unpainted, radiated similarly. She mourned the lost years of their friendship.

  “I really like your place. It’s so you.” Ruth was warmed by the old intimacy. Not that she would mind a little regret from Vivian for throwing their friendship in the garbage in the Chinese restaurant. She wondered if Vivian even remembered the argument. She probably thought they’d just drifted apart, as friends sometimes do. Oh, well. Some parts of Vivian were easier to take than others. Just like everyone else. A package. Take it or leave it.

  “So, you two seem pretty happy,” Vivian said, somewhere between a question and a statement.

  “Yeah, we are. Life is good for us. We mesh. We keep each other balanced. And you?”

  “We’re good too, but not in that way. Obviously, neither one of us is exactly a pussycat, so we’ve had our fair share of times when we went at it like cats and dogs, oil and water, Nixon and Mao.” She looked thoughtful. “To tell you the truth, I guess I wouldn’t have it any other way. It’s part of the passion. The good things are better than I ever thought they’d be, and the bad things are worse.”

  “I think all marriages are that way, don’t you?”

  Vivian cracked the knuckles on her left hand one at a time. “Maybe. Carlos can still be an attack-dog sometimes, but believe it or not, he’s gotten a lot better. What can I say? He thinks what he thinks, and most of the things he thinks are enlightened. Or at least tending in that direction. And at least he’s not a hypocrite. Like the time when he thought monogamy was a crock, but at least he thought it was a crock for both of us. And anyway—”

  “You mean—?”

  “Never mind. We straightened that one out eventually. It was one of our bigger fights and it took a few ultimatums. It was not a happy time, but it’s over. As far as you’re concerned, he doesn’t mean to be obnoxious. Well, maybe he does. But like I said, we’re not pussycats.”

  “Well, you always knew where you stood with Carlos, and I see that part hasn’t changed
. There’s a certain comfort in that. No complexity, no ambiguity. I wouldn’t admit this to him, but… “

  “What?”

  “The truth is, I’m not always so thrilled about what I do either.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, it’s sort of like what Carlos said, but don’t you dare tell him I said that. I used to be a Peace Corps volunteer, making the world a better place, and here I am, five minutes later, or so it seems, management in a cosmetics company.”

  “So change.”

  “It’s not so simple.”

  “But it is. If you don’t like it, find something else. It doesn’t have to be complicated. You always thought things to death and I see you still do. You’re your own worst enemy.”

  “Like I said, it’s not so simple, especially not now. I’ve got this new boss. What a pain. I might have considered leaving before he came, but not now. It would give him too much pleasure. And for another—”

  “The way I see it is that if you don’t like what you do, you should do something else. Or retire and volunteer. Like, for me. Or Carlos. Only kidding. But seriously, you could—”

  “Don’t mention my retiring in front of David. His school district is offering early retirement and he’s probably going to take it. And he wants me to retire too.”

  “Really? What would he do?”

  “I don’t know. If it were me, I’d make lists of alternatives with the advantages and disadvantages of each, then formulate my plan. But not David. He’ll figure it out as he goes along.”

  “I don’t know if I’d go so far as to make up a list and a plan, no I definitely wouldn’t do that, but I’d have lots of ideas, too many of course. Like there’s traveling and there’s studying and there’s volunteering and, you know, I’ve always wanted to sing, can you believe it? Do you think he’ll—”

  The men came into the living room, reminiscing about their days in Kaolack, laughing about Carlos’s meltdown when his new roommate ate the canned apple pie filling he’d been hoarding since his mother had sent it.

  There it was again, David’s aggressive niceness. Sometimes she envied it but sometimes, like today, it was aggravating. Even if she and Carlos made their peace, it’s not as if nothing had happened. Wasn’t it better to be mad and make up eventually, to let someone know he did something you didn’t like, than to never notice that something was wrong?

  David had papers to grade; Ruth had a community meeting. As they left, the four made another date to continue catching up with each others’ lives. Ruth had two weeks to figure out how to either get along with Carlos or not care about it.

  CHAPTER 9

  What’s Wrong With This Picture?

  JEREMY LEFT HIS JACKET on the back of his desk chair, patting it as he emerged from behind the protective wooden mass with measured steps. He pointed to the less formal seating area of his office. He didn’t say “Sit,” “Stay,” or “Heel,” but Ruth half expected it. He offered coffee from the urns he kept on the table by the couch and, while asking about cream and sugar, made small talk about the weather and the stock market, masquerading as a casual person. He even complimented her on her shoes.

  Meanwhile, she studied his appearance. Decent-looking enough, kind of an EveryMan, with fairish skin, light-brown hair, small ears, unobtrusive nose. None of his features gave offense, but none stood out either. They just did their part individually, like good soldiers.

  Handing her one of the mugs, he folded himself into the chair facing her. He tugged his freshly-creased pant leg with his right hand, then flung that leg over the other, like a marionette. He asked innocently, as if he hadn’t cut her heart out ten days before, “So, Ruth, you wanted to speak to me about something?”

  Here goes. No turning back.

  RUTH HAD BROUGHT A MOUNTAIN of data with her: financial, demographic, psycho-social. Terry had helped her with a lot of it, even after Ruth had worried aloud that any anti-Ruth animosity from Jeremy might now spill over onto her.

  “Not to worry. All this stuff existed in our databases. I just rearranged it. Like pulling out the right pieces in Pick-up Sticks. Besides, I think his current target is Martha, over in Communications.”

  She’d also approached Roger from Research & Development. Big and gruff, he’d been at Mimosa as long as she had, and was even older than she, with a shock of white hair exploding from his head to prove it. He’d come up with something that might be an approach to an approach, a previously-abandoned foundation that sank gently into a woman’s wrinkles and changed shading, rather than staying on top of them and trying to cover them up. It was a start.

  Plus she’d brought testimony in the form of quotes and photos she’d extracted, with permission, from her videos of The Brain Trust meeting.

  “Jeremy, I’ve got a big idea. Big profits. Even better, it would carve out a new niche. Shift the makeup paradigm.”

  “Shift the make-up paradigm?”

  “Like when luggage with wheels changed everything? Or remote control for TV? It’s like that, something to change the market, get people to rethink their whole view of make-up.”

  “A new make-up paradigm? Like maybe a paper … a paper covering … sort of like a thin mask? I gather from your office décor you like masks.”

  She assumed this was a joke and smiled quickly but so did he and, in terms of smile-speed, he was the champ. “But really, Ruth, I don’t know about a new, a new paradigm. We just need good products.”

  “I wouldn’t disagree. Let me show you some of the women who would be our target customers.” Ruth displayed the poster-boards.

  First, Jane, age fifty-four, teacher. “I like to take care of my skin and I like to present the best me possible, but I resent being told that the only way to look good is to look young.”

  Then Sarah, fifty-six, therapist, looking old and tired, her listless hair pulled back in a clip behind her neck. Not like Mimosa customers. “I don’t wear any of that stuff because I don’t buy into the corporate idea of female beauty. It’s totally unrealistic and it pisses me off.”

  Then Blanche, fifty, entrepreneur. “Cleanser, toner, moisturizer, yes. Lipstick, yes. Everything else, no. Why? Because I don’t need to look like someone else, I need to look like me. A me with lipstick is just fine.”

  Charlie, fifty-three, weaver. She was wearing one of her creations in the form of a scarf and one of her earrings was in mid-twinkle, echoing the mischief around her eyes. “If I thought makeup could help me feel good about myself instead of feeling bad that I don’t wind up looking like those models in the ads, I’d buy it in a second.”

  Thank you, Charlie, thought Ruth. I couldn’t have said it any better myself.

  “Let’s face it, Jeremy. The underlying assumption of all our products is that young is good, old is bad.”

  “It’s not rocket science, Ruth. Young is good. Old is bad.”

  “Not exactly. Deep inside, women are dying to be real and, for middle-aged women, young is not real. That’s why the working name is ‘Violins & Wine: for the woman who gets better with age.’”

  “Better with age? Come on, Ruth. We’re in the make-up business, not the therapy business.”

  She started presenting Terry’s data, leading up to the dramatic finish, two pie-charts. One showed the effect of luring non-cosmetics-buying women into the market. The second assumed fifty percent of these new buyers—even though Ruth thought it would actually be closer to 100%—would buy Mimosa’s products. Sales increased by eight percent, from $300 million to $324 million.

  Ruth said that since it would be the first major launch under his leadership, and the profit potential was so big, she wanted him to be involved immediately. She wound up her flattery-as-pitch with how important it would be for Mimosa to make a big splash right after becoming a B&D company. She was pretty sure she looked sincere.

  Without a word, he got up and walked around his office. Every once in a while, he’d ask a question, usually about numbers. He finally settled in front
of the windows and opened the drapes to expose the view of Central Park. One hand tugged at an earlobe, then at his lower lip, as he stared out. No darting tongue. Ruth knew she had to sit quietly, even through a hot flash, and let him think.

  She’d taken her best shot, had her say in her calculated and respectful way, let herself be vulnerable. But this moment was lasting forever. Was he going to give her a lecture about scatter-brained ideas? Or suggest she find a company whose do-gooder values were more aligned with her own? Was he trying to figure out how to get rid of her and steal her idea? Or wondering whether she’d dare threaten to take it to the competition? Or maybe he was hoping she’d do exactly that so he’d be rid of her?

  She resolved to count five more complete breaths before breaking the excruciating silence, but in the middle of her fourth inhale, just as she was noticing the previously-empty frame now had a striking black-and-white photograph of the Statue of Liberty that looked out of place in the middle of all the blandness, he turned to face her.

  “This is interesting, Ruth.” He put on his jacket and stayed at his desk. Was she supposed to go over and sit opposite him? She stayed where she was.

  “Calling it a paradigm may be a stretch. And twenty-four million dollars in increased sales is completely unrealistic. Out of the question.” Smile. Tongue dart. “But the old gals do have gobs of money. If we could separate them from some of it by telling them it’s okay to look old—assuming they’d actually fall for it—that would be interesting.

  He walked over to her side of his office. “What would you see as next steps?”

  This man was direct, she had to give him that. Even when he was right for the wrong reasons. She rattled off some suggestions about research and focus groups, about timetables and milestones. When she touched on possible project partners within the company, she impishly proposed Martha in Communications.

  Jeremy said, “No, let’s think of someone else.”

  Ruth used raised eyebrows to put a discrete question mark on her face, but Jeremy only said, “I just don’t think she’s the right one for now.”