About Face

by Carole Howard

  Vivian tried the black pants suit with her own riotous Hawaiian shirt. She stepped back from the mirror, arranged her hair, put her hands at her sides, widened her eyes, and thinned her lips together, pushing them out for the “moue” look that full-length mirrors seem to demand. She tugged on the bottom of the jacket to make it longer.

  “Vivian, stop fussing, stand still.”

  “Yes, mommy.”

  “What do you think?”

  “I have a little trouble with it being black, which is what ninety percent of the women at the costume party—excuse me, I mean concert—will be wearing. And I wish the jacket were longer.”

  “The shorter jacket is actually what makes it nice. Otherwise it would just be a pair of black pants and a black jacket. You could wear it to work.”

  “Maybe you could wear it to work.”

  “What I mean is, this cute little jacket gives it enough style to be dressy. You look great in black. And you’ll be able to get a lot of use out of it. Certainly the pants.”

  “Let me tell you about these pants.” She pulled at the pants’ legs and pushed the waistband lower. “This is why I started sewing my own clothes. Pants aren’t made for women like me. They’re made for anorexics. These pants feel like they’re trying to get in my pants. I know you’re thinner than me, but you’re not one of those stick-figure girls. Don’t the seams ride up into your crotch and drive you crazy? How do you sit for more than fifteen minutes?”

  “It’s true. And it’s not just what you said about the crotch. It’s also the growing waist and—”

  “—and getting the waistband to fit means that when you sit down, it slides up to your armpits.”

  The little old lady to the left of Ruth’s space took a step towards them, with her carefully coiffed white hair, a spot of red on each cheek, and stockings with seams. She said, in a conspiratorial tone of voice, “The suit looks very nice on you, dear, but I know what you mean about the pants being uncomfortable. It’s the price of being a woman, I guess.”

  Vivian smiled sweetly. “Screw that. But thanks.” The little old lady went back to her stall, cheeks a little redder than before.

  “If this suit turns out to be the best of the lot, I’d open up the crotch seam and put in a little insert, what tailors call a gusset and I call a crotch-patch. It’s a little roomier, and there’s no central seam to be so insistent. It takes the pressure off the waistband, too, when you sit down.”

  She took her own pants off the hook and showed Ruth the crotch. “See, that’s how I make all my pants. I don’t understand why everyone doesn’t.”

  “But it would be hard to find matching fabric, wouldn’t it?”

  “Exactly how many people would be in a position to see the contrast between the crotch-patch and the rest?”

  “Good point.”

  Vivian stepped out of the pants, leaving them on the floor, then set the jacket on top of them. Ruth reached down and scooped them up. She looked for their hangers among the tangle on the hooks and, like a hot flash, resentment overtook her. Why did Vivian expect her to pick up after her?

  “Vivian,” she imagined calling over to the chubby woman who used to be her best friend, “I’m not here to be your maid.”

  “Who said you were?” Vivian would probably say.

  “So hang up your own discards.”

  It would feel so good to say it that way, giving herself over to it, like eating whipped cream from a spoon. Like Carlos?

  “I didn’t leave them for you,” continued the imaginary-Vivian. “I’d have picked them up in my own sweet time. You just couldn’t wait.”

  “Sooner or later you’d have gotten mixed up about which ones were which. You should pick them up as you take them off, not leave them on the floor.”

  “Maybe, maybe not. But if I should have picked them up, that’s my should, not yours. You, on the other hand, should stop cleaning up other people’s messes. Especially when they don’t want them cleaned up. It just distracts you from your own messes. Or maybe that’s why you do it?”

  Pretty bad when she couldn’t win her imaginary arguments. Of course, Vivian had help: Ruth, not the imaginary one, the real one, gave her the sharpest truest blade.

  “Hey, Ruth, you don’t have to do that, really,” said the real Vivian. “Thanks just the same, but you’re not my mother. Thank God.” Vivian’s naked hips swayed as she walked over and took the black slacks from Ruth.

  “You’re right.” She knew Vivian thought she was talking to her, but she was really talking to the imaginary Vivian, too.

  Vivian held up a black and gold dress in front of her in the mirror.

  “I thought I had trouble with black, but now that I see black and gold, I’m thinking black isn’t so bad.” She put the dress on the “reject” hook.

  Ruth wanted to object, but decided to stifle it and tried hard for a neutral face, not the one that she’d thought was neutral but now knew was angry.

  Vivian turned to a white-skirted suit with gold buttons and trim. A definite no.

  Next was a mid-length black dress with subtle black and mauve embroidery on the bodice. With a seam under the bodice, it was gently fitted, not too tight. But not a tent. Vivian unzipped it and slipped it over her head, stood back from the mirror and assumed the moue.

  “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” Ruth asked.

  “Only if you’re thinking that this actually looks better on me than it did on the hanger, and that it’s only slightly too hotsy-totsy for the likes of me, and that even Carlos might not hate it too much.”

  “That’s pretty much it. And also that you could borrow my great big mauve scarf to wear like a shawl and then it would look even less like a black dress that all the ladies are wearing.”

  “Oooh, scarf. Oooh, mauve. Good. Let’s get it.”

  “Wait,” Ruth said. “There’s still the red suit. Gorgeous color—not black, you notice—and feel the fabric. Soft and rich and lush. And not expensive.”

  “Color’s good, but, no, the jacket looks military. Military is a definite no-no.”

  “But don’t you want to try everything before you decide?”

  Vivian put her hands on Ruth’s shoulders. “I think if I like something, I can just like it without evaluating every single option I could possibly compare it to. I can just like it because I like it. Things aren’t so complicated for me. Right now, I like the black pants suit and I like the purple and black dress. The pants suit involves alteration work, the dress doesn’t. Plus the dress costs less. I’m getting the dress. I’d like to borrow the scarf. I’m happy. Isn’t that enough?”

  CHAPTER 14

  Unmasking the Truth

  SHE LOOKED AGAIN at the summary of the concept-testing focus group results. With faith in the “aha” quality of her idea, she’d let the P.R. firm run the groups with Pat’s supervision, planning to jump in afterwards. But this report was a blow.

  Of course she’d expected some of the women to hate being middle-aged. And she’d been right about that. But she’d also expected there to be some who saw it as a time to profit from a lifetime of experience. And to be beautiful, too, but in a different way. And she expected the holdouts to moderate their views during the course of the group, especially after looking at possible spokeswomen like Sharon Stone and Sophia Loren. But the view-changing went the other way around. Most had eventually chosen the youthful faces of Uma Thurman and Natalie Portman when asked for examples of beautiful women.

  The transcribed verbatim statements were the worst.

  One woman said: “Some of us need all the help we can get. I’ve even been known to wear a girdle in my time. I know they frown on that, now. Think it’s better to exercise all day long or even have liposuction. Frankly, I think a girdle’s easier. And so is makeup, if you want my opinion. If makeup can take ten years off my face, I’m all for it. Hell, I’ll settle for two years off. They say all these wrinkles are about wisdom, but I think I can be just as wise with a smooth face,
thank you very much.”

  And another said: “It’s not just about the media images. Young means healthy, with a big fat future ahead of you, and lots of energy and passion. Young means having enthusiasm and lots and lots of choices. And even if you aren’t young, it makes sense to want everyone else to think you are.”

  David called to tell her his meeting was cancelled and he’d be home for dinner after all. He must have heard the tone of her voice and asked what was wrong.

  “Maybe this is a New York kind of thing. Maybe it will be better outside the glamour capital of the world,” he suggested.

  “I hope so, but I don’t know. This is definitely not what I expected. Who are these people?”

  “They’re your customers. They’ve always been your customers. They haven’t changed. You have.”

  “Great. Now I’ve got a product line I might have to call The Kiss of Death.”

  “So I guess this isn’t the time to segué into the idea that maybe it’s a good time to re-consider retiring?”

  “DA-vid … ”

  “Plan B: Want to spend some time brainstorming a little, maybe after some wine, and see if we can come up with anything? Like we did that time with the … what was that thing?”

  “Some holiday promotion. Dinner and brainstorming, it’s a date. Gotta go.”

  She read and re-read the two-page summary, trying to come up with a way to explain things to these women so they’d understand. She got up to pace, trying to distract and comfort herself. She stared at her African masks, touched them, traced their features.

  The Dogon mask had subtly carved, perfectly-arched brows that rose from either side of the small nose, over eyes that were little more than slits. Small and dark, starkly beautiful. Ruth couldn’t imagine anyone not responding to this little mask.

  The Bakota mask was flat and trimmed with silver-colored metal. Its sculpted hair was reminiscent of an elaborate Japanese style. She’d always liked Bakota-lady but never knew why.

  Her long-time favorite, though, was the Chi-Wara, the stylized antelope profile that was all about agricultural fertility. Ruth’s specimen was quieter than the better-known variety, simpler, not calling quite as much attention to itself, yet reminding the viewer of what all the fuss was about.

  The smell of the wood-fire smoke that lingered in the Chi-Wara hijacked her attention from the focus groups to the marché where she’d bought it.

  A MYSTERIOUS KIDNEY ailment with no symptoms other than blood in the urine had required observation in the capital. The volunteers she’d stayed with were busy all day teaching English, while all she had to do was present her kidney for observation once a day, so she did all the household errands and shopping. After having lived in Djembering, where the closest thing to a marché was a guy selling sugar, tomato paste, tea, and, occasionally, batteries, she loved going to the Kermel Marché.

  The kids would start to approach her about two blocks before she reached the market. Since this was the smaller and more picturesque market in Dakar, it attracted more white people. Toubabs. And these kids were ready. They were buoyantly persistent, with gangly limbs punctuated by knobby knees and elbows. They had a singsong routine for Toubabs. “Hello Madame Toubab, tu veux des oranges? Pretty oranges, good price Madame Toubab.” “Madame, I have pretty dresses, bon prix pour toi, best price. Viens voir.” Continuing to throw in a little English, just in case, they trailed her all the way, good-natured in their failure to sell her anything. At first, they made her uncomfortable, but after a while she didn’t mind them.

  The closer she got to the marché, the more beggars there were. They sat on mats displaying their deformities prominently, even cheerfully, as if the worse the deformity, the prouder they were. And they were right, because the syllogism was obvious: “I have so much, they have so little, it’s the least I can do.” As she walked, she distributed the small change she’d brought along for this purpose, a ten-CFA piece to the legless boy, another to the man whose arm was twisted like a paper clip, and two to the blind mother of twins.

  Her favorite marché denizens were the cut-flower ladies. They were tall, dark and impossibly graceful with babies tied on their backs and bouquets balanced on their heads. They strode through the streets in and around the marché, gliding smoothly, their heads swaying side-to-side independently of the rest of their bodies, which moved forward as through water. They dressed in bright colors and smiled profusely so their gold teeth accented the bright bunches of blooms perched on their headdresses like a second face. Without saying a word, they fairly screamed “Photo Opportunity,” an opportunity for which there was, of course, a charge.

  The tomato vendor she gravitated towards would see her coming and start to weigh tomatoes in her ancient balance scale. Her wrinkled skin was practically falling off her face, but her sparkling eyes and flirtatiousness belied her skin’s age. Her head-cloth was usually wrapped with one corner of the print, today’s being orange and blue, sticking out of the top like a ponytail.

  Ruth would start the usual routine by saying, in French, “Good morning Madame. How much for the tomatoes?”

  “A thousand francs the kilo.”

  Knowing tomatoes are six hundred francs a kilo, she’d respond “No, no Madame. You must think I’m one of those rich Toubabs, but I’m just a Toubab ordinaire. I can’t pay so much.”

  The tomato vendor betrayed her amusement with the slightest upturn of the upper left corner of her mouth. “How much will you pay?”

  “Five hundred francs.”

  She waved her arms excitedly, then settled them on her hips. She frowned. “Madame, I have three children! And five grandchildren, all living with me. But you can have them for nine hundred francs the kilo.” She smiled sweetly.

  “No thank you Madame.” She tried to look serious, even though she loved this gentle duel. “But I’ll buy a half-kilo for three hundred and twenty-five francs. It’s my last price.”

  “Last price?”

  “Fo-fu-lie-em, last price.”

  Her face melted every time Ruth used this bit of the local language, as if it were the first time. She was delighted, too, with the extra twenty-five francs, worth about ten cents. Ruth thought that excess amount was enough to avoid guilt at getting the very best price nor so high as to be foolish.

  “Okay, good.” She wrapped them in age-softened brown paper. Ruth tried hard not to think about where that paper had been, knowing that, regardless of the paper, she would wash the tomatoes in iodine-water when she got home, a standard Toubab health precaution.

  She had a variation of the same conversation when she bought a woven lampshade from the ancient, one-toothed man sitting on his narrow prayer mat, surrounded by baskets of every shape and size imaginable. And when she got lemons from the giggly eight-year old girl whose mother put her in charge of her precious yellow pyramid. It was a kind of dance, each partner having precisely-choreographed steps, each step a combination of theatrical poses and words.

  After shopping at Kermel for a while, though, she noticed something. The shirt she had to have, made from brightly colored woven strips sewn together—Kente Cloth, “the cloth that cannot be broken”—cost her double her “final price.” Even though the vendor took great care to measure her, tying a series of knots in a single piece of string to indicate her shoulders, waist, arms, and even though it fit her perfectly, she always thought she should have been able to buy it for less.

  But the Chi-Wara, the one that she thought might be different enough from her other two to be worth buying, was offered to her retreating back at a rock-bottom price. When she really wanted something, she didn’t get as good a deal as when she wasn’t so interested. Maybe her desire made her tense and inhibited her ability to bargain well. Or maybe she unknowingly communicated her desire to the vendor.

  As a bargaining ploy, she tried to feign indifference. It didn’t work. The vendors were too experienced at reading Toubab body language for pretense. Finally, she got it: the best way to bargain for so
mething she wanted was to convince herself that she really didn’t care about it. She needed to give it up before the fact so she might be able to have it.

  Twenty years later she discovered the Buddhists knew this long before she stumbled onto it. Craving is the problem; letting go of the craving is the solution. At Kermel, she just knew it helped her shop.

  Walking around her office, Ruth thought back to her first attempt at trying out her bargaining lesson.

  “Madame, how much are the bracelets?”

  The vendor looked up from her work of stringing beads on wires and slowly fanned her plump face with a fragment of dirty newspaper, taking Ruth’s measure. Flies scattered. Her right earlobe had two sections, like a rounded letter “W,” perhaps from a baby pulling too hard on her earring long ago. She was surrounded by a hundred tomato paste cans in varying stages of rust, all filled with beads. There were Venetian trading beads, gold-weight beads, and glass beads of every color. She had strung the finished pieces on horizontal wires along the sides of her stall. They caught the sun, looking like a neon Venetian blind.

  “Three for fifteen hundred francs,” she said casually, flicking a fly from her arm.

  “Oh, no,” Ruth said sadly, with much head-shaking. “I can’t pay that much.”

  “How much will you pay?”

  She thought. “I guess I could pay seven hundred and fifty francs for three.”

  “Seven hundred and fifty? No, not possible.” She swept her arm around her stall, showing off her handiwork. “I made all these bracelets myself, they’re one-of-a-kind. I support my family, I must have twelve hundred francs for three.”

  “Madame, it’s true that you are skillful and the bracelets are beautiful, but I can’t buy them for twelve hundred francs. If you want to sell them for eight hundred and fifty, I’ll buy them. Fo-fu-lie-em.”