About Face

by Carole Howard

  “Eleven hundred and fifty francs Madame. It’s a good price.” She sat down.

  “No thank you,” she said, meaning it. She walked away.

  “You can have them for nine hundred and fifty,” the vendor said to Ruth’s back. She kept walking. “Okay, nine hundred.”

  She returned, selected three bracelets, and paid, happy with the deal and with the lesson she’d learned. The vendor wrapped the three bracelets in newspaper and, from her eagerness to finish the transaction, Ruth was pretty sure she liked the deal, too, so her conscience was at peace. The vendor squeezed the packet into Ruth’s basket among the pineapples, tomatoes, carrots, shrimps, and parsley.

  And then, as if to underline the lesson, the vendor burst out in a laugh that seemed to push the heat and humidity away more forcefully than her newspaper. She selected a beautiful blue bead with flecks of gold deep inside and put it in Ruth’s hand. “A present, Madame.”

  They shook hands and smiled. “Merci, au revoir, Madame.”

  SHE WAS STILL SMILING at the memory when she looked back at the masks on her wall. Were they telling her there were many ways to be beautiful, the Dogon way, the Bakota way, the Chi-Wara way? That American women can be beautiful in different ways, too?

  Or was it the bargaining lesson that was the point, warning her of the danger of craving? Was she too desperate for women “out there” to see her light, looking for the validation that comes with unanimity, like religious converts who want everyone to believe?

  She shook her arms and hands, willing herself to release the urge to corral everyone’s thoughts, and looked again at the lethal sheaf of papers. Then she decided to watch the tape of the focus groups, a time-eater she rarely could afford. That’s when she saw the problem. And she was pretty sure she knew what to do about it.

  CHAPTER 15

  Money Talks

  “WHEN YOU’RE YOUNG, you think money doesn’t matter,” Jane said to the gathered Brain Trust, twirling a clump of her curly hair around her right forefinger. “You think changing the world is what it’s all about.”

  She released her outstretched curl. “It’s not like I think money is the most important thing in my life, now that I’m all grown up. Obviously, or I wouldn’t be a teacher. But today, not five minutes after I was talking to the kids about the ‘a’ sound in ‘made’ and the ‘a’ sound in ‘mad,’ I found myself talking to the school secretary about my pension plan. Kinda surreal.”

  She looked at the hairs remaining on the finger that had done the twirling, removed them with a slight expression of disgust, and discarded them in a tissue that Blanche, sitting next to her on the couch, had ready for her.

  “I picked this pension plan when I first started teaching, but I didn’t care about it. Didn’t think I’d ever care. Not that I thought I’d die young or anything, I just never … just never saw myself being anything other than what I was, I guess. God, we were so arrogant. ‘Never trust anyone over thirty’ and all that. Now I care about my pension in a big way. I understand all that stuff about defined benefits and defined contributions and payouts and annuities. It’s even worse. I actually think it’s interesting. Want me to explain it?”

  “No thanks,” was the politest of the many replies.

  “Well it is important. Money, that is.” Charlie’s long thin fingers played with her trademark woven belt as she spoke. She told about the time her father-in-law sat her down, gave her his ‘I-lived-through-the-depression’ speech, then walked her through the ABC’s of pricing.

  “I’ll never forget what he said.” She stood and pointed to her imaginary self in the chair she’d just vacated. “‘CharLENE, my dear dear girl, it’s practically criminal that you’re not assigning a value to your time.’ That’s what he said. Criminal.” She flung her scarf over her shoulder as she reseated herself.

  “Valuing my time. What a concept. Made a big difference, too, ’cause weaving really takes time. So now I feel like I can care about money and also care about making beauty or changing the world. I can care about creativity and also afford double-thick toilet paper.”

  “Money is not the root of all evil, ladies,” Sarah said. “The love of money is the root of all evil. We can like money, just not love it.” She nodded as she brushed the peanut debris off her sweater and onto the floor.

  While The Brain Trust had originally formed to help each other evaluate approaches to health and menopause, they’d soon become bored with dry discussions of pharmaceuticals. They started tiptoeing into discussions they couldn’t have anywhere else, about shifting bodies and faces, about sex drives, about feelings of worthlessness, about death. About anything.

  Tonight, they filled Maria in on the meeting she’d missed and she weighed in with enthusiasm. Then they talked about money: how they earned it, how they spent it, how it fit into their value system. At times they became practical, touching briefly on investing and even clarifying, for those who needed it, the difference between stocks and bonds. Jane was eager to explain the difference between defined benefit and defined contribution pension plans, but no one would let her.

  The liveliest sub-topic was how they shared money—or didn’t—with their partners. Some had elaborate schemes for who-pays-for-what and which-account-does-what, while Ruth and Charlie were the only ones for whom all money was joint money, no matter who earned it and who spent it. Everyone was interested in the others’ systems, having previously thought their way was the only way to do it.

  The first significant pause in the conversation didn’t come for an hour. Sarah broke the silence by observing that neither Maria nor Blanche had said very much. “For heaven’s sake, ladies, we talk about our orgasms here, is there a problem talking about our money?”

  Maria, staring at the hanging plants on the wall opposite her as if the answer were encoded in the macramé holders, said, “It’s just that … I was hoping we weren’t going to talk about how much we all have. And I can’t believe I just introduced the topic.” She smacked her head with a flat palm.

  “Why?” The question came from three mouths at the same time.

  She removed her shoes and folded one leg under her, then hugged herself and spoke to the wood-burning stove. “It’s not that I’m embarrassed about being broke. I like my work in the flower shop and don’t mind that it doesn’t pay very much. I think there’s even a part of me that thinks it’s virtuous to be broke. And Jim lives close to the earth, very close, growing our food and all. So we live a good decent life and have enough to do what we want.”

  “But … ?” Sarah said.

  “But maybe I’m afraid seeing myself through your eyes, would make me mind being broke.” Looking at the circle of women, she added, “Nutty, right?” She shook her head so hard her long red hair smacked Charlie, sitting next to her, in the face.

  “Really, it’s the same damned thing we obsess about all the time,” Blanche said. “Even when we think we’re talking about something else, we’re talking about holding onto who we truly are no matter who we’re with. Isn’t that what we always talk about? In one way or another?”

  “Is that why you haven’t said anything tonight?” Sarah asked.

  Blanche cleaned her red-framed glasses and put them back on. She stood up abruptly, frowning, and pulled her tight silk slacks down at the hips, then settled herself again on the couch. She confessed that she hadn’t said anything for a similar reason, except she was on the other side of the coin, so to speak. Knowing she probably had more money than some of the others, she wouldn’t want to feel as if she were showing off. And she also didn’t want to feel, saying the numbers out loud, as if she’d sold out.

  “Like how Maria said there’s a certain virtue about being broke. And I’m not.”

  “What in the world are you talking about?”

  “Sold out? By working your ass off?”

  “Is this a black thing?”

  “Or a sixties thing?”

  “Or a nice-girl thing?”

  The pause wa
s long gone as they picked and prodded at the question of their inhibition about the “how much” question.

  Sarah’s voice cleared the air like a plow through soft earth. “The reason for everyone’s discomfort is shame. Having too much, not having enough. Spending too much, being too frugal. Let’s face it, we are one fucked-up bunch of ladies.”

  The summation was accepted unanimously. And they agreed not to talk about numbers.

  “Except,” she added, “we’re all middle-aged and we all have whatever we have. So, can we talk about retirement?”

  And they were off.

  Sarah couldn’t even think about the subject until she got her kids through college and could start to think about saving. “Which means never,” she said. “But it doesn’t matter because I love my work. Usually.”

  Blanche had the traditional fear of becoming a bag lady if she stopped making money, and wondered if the fear persisted as a result of feminism or in spite of feminism.

  Ruth told of David’s early-retirement deal. And of her extreme reluctance to join him. “I’m not exactly sure why. It’s not the fear of being a bag lady.”

  “We know it’s not because you love your job so much,” Sarah said.

  “I think it’s more about what I’d do with myself. Here I am doing something I’m good at. I like that. David calls it my ‘addiction to competence.’ And I guess it is like an addiction, because feeding it just fuels it.”

  “Come on, Ruth, you’d find lots to do. You can’t sit still,” Maria said. “It’s ironic that I have lots of ideas about what I’d do…. but I’ll never be able to retire.”

  Charlie groaned. She said she didn’t want to hear anything like those motivational lectures on PBS or NPR about some older woman whose first screenplay won an Oscar or who just started painting and, voila, has a solo show. &ldsquo;There’s that irritating implication that we all could do those kinds of things if we just wanted to. Man, that pisses me off. We’re not all gorgeous and healthy and we’re not all talented. Well, you all are, of course.” She rolled her eyes. “Hey, I’m a good weaver and I make some nice stuff—and I now value my time—but otherwise I’m actually pretty ordinary. I’m tired. I’m depressed. I’m bitchy.”

  “Particularly tonight?” suggested Maria.

  “Well, maybe,” Charlie said with a shrug and a toss of her white mane.

  “There’s always drugs,” Jane said. “I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Estrogen is the best drug ever invented. We used to think it was marijuana. We didn’t know. It’s not like being stoned. It’s better. It’s being normal.”

  Ruth said, “I’m thinking about throwing in the herbal towel, too. I haven’t slept through the night in months and it’s catching up with me. But maybe I should take a sleeping pill. But are sleeping pills better than hormones?”

  “Maybe you should quit your job?” Sarah said, almost tenderly but not quite.

  Okay, Sarah, I get it, thought Ruth. “This has nothing to do with work,” she said.

  “Don’t be so sure. Emotions play a large role in the health of our bodies. I held my peace when you called us together to talk about makeup—”

  “And skin care,” added Ruth.

  “That’s what you call holding your peace?” Blanche cleaned her glasses again.

  “Well, some of my peace, anyway. But the way I really see it is that you’re an intelligent and sensitive woman who’s devoting her energy to a male-dominated capitalist machine that’s all about oppressing women.” The almost-tender tone of voice was gone. “It’s enough to screw up your emotions and your body.”

  Charlie said, “I don’t agree. But I don’t think you need to agree about economic philosophy to agree about hormones.”

  “Or chin hairs.” Maria stroked her chin. I agree with you, Jane, I don’t think corporations have anything to do with how much I hate—I mean I really really HATE—them. Just yesterday, I made Jim promise that if I get hit by a bus and I’m unconscious, he’ll come to the hospital and secretly pluck. I even showed him which tweezers to use. If I knew hormones would put those hairs back where they belonged, I’d take them in a New York minute.”

  “Okay,” Sarah said. “I’m a little more … let’s say, ardent, than you all. It’s just that we’re all struggling to be okay with who we are.” She looked at Ruth. “And I’m just saying I don’t think you’re okay with who you are at work. What I see is that you don’t think you belong there, not me. Well, me too, I guess. But still….”

  Ruth waited for someone else to challenge Sarah, but no one did.

  “Okay, Sarah. I get it.” Ruth said.

  WHEN RUTH CRAWLED into bed at home, David was half asleep. “Good meeting?” he drawled.

  “Thought-provoking. I have a lot to think about.”

  “About money?” He rolled over to face her, but without opening his eyes. “I thought this one would be kind of cut-and-dried.”

  “Wrong again.”

  He opened his eyes. “Now that sounds interesting. Can you tell me?”

  “Maybe tomorrow. But, then again, maybe not.”

  “Okay, good night. I hope you get some sleep.”

  “Me too. One of these days, I’m sure I will. Good night.”

  CHAPTER 16

  Refocusing

  THE EARLY-MORNING QUIET at work was different from other kinds of quiet. It wasn’t like the succulent quiet of the natural world, a peace hovering over the earth. Nor was it like waking up in the middle of the night and feeling that something is missing.

  It was more like suspended animation, being in a place that had been removed from the normal world. What made the interlude so precious was knowing that all the dormant computers, copiers, phones and coffee machines would soon be called into service and the white-noise of office chatter would soon be inescapable. Or maybe it was being surrounded by work but not the people associated with the work. No matter how many people were at the office, early morning was always a sacred time of quiet and individual concentration.

  This morning, Ruth’s only distraction was the team of upscale flower arrangers with their intensely focused, painstaking work. They drew from several large boxes of blossoms as from a palette, selecting one stem at a time, placing it in its vase deliberately, stepping back to examine its placement, sometimes moving it a few times until satisfied. What seemed like a haphazard, even random, addition of blossoms became a harmonious creation.

  She fantasized about being their apprentice. She’d be able to concentrate on grace, nature, and beauty, not on who said what to whom. She’d devote her attention to how the gentle arcs of the long stems related to the shape of the vase, to finding the perfect combination of blossoms.

  She liked the idea that most people wouldn’t actually see her; they’d only know she’d been there because of the beauty she’d created and left behind, like the shadow on a swimming pool floor cast by the all-but-invisible dragonfly on the water’s surface.

  She got up and closed her door, then reviewed the focus group results again, thinking about how she’d present them to Jeremy. He’d called the day before and asked her to stop by his office after lunch today to update him on Violins & Wine. It was a reasonable enough request, she guessed. He was, after all, the CEO, and she reported to him, so he had a right to ask. But still, only one day’s notice to present her progress?

  “It doesn’t need to be a formal presentation, more like a conversation,” he’d said. “Just bring some back-up data.” But she didn’t believe him. He wasn’t a “conversation” kind of guy. It might look like a conversation, but she’d have to be careful.

  She’d prepared data on budget, R&D, timelines. The trickiest—and probably most important—part was the concept testing with focus groups. She could just hear him. “Disappointing, very disappointing.” He’d say he always knew makeup for old women was a dumb idea no matter how you spelled it.

  She wanted to make sure her reaction to the tape she’d watched was grounded in what was act
ually on the tape and not on what she wanted to be on the tape. She’d told Judy, Pat, and Tom to drop everything for a one-hour high priority meeting this morning so she could test it out. If they arrived exactly at nine-thirty, she promised they’d be out by ten-thirty.

  Waiting for them to arrive, she talked to Colleen: She should pick the one person she’d least hate working for. This secretary-sharing scheme might never happen. And even if it did, it would only be temporary. Of course, if she wanted to leave, then that’s what she should do.

  “But, like, how will you get everything done?”

  The truth was, she didn’t really need a full-time secretary, but didn’t want to give half of Colleen up in a power-tug-of-war. If Jeremy had only asked her for suggestions about cost-cutting, things might be different. But Ruth was going to have Jeremy eating out of her hand with Violins & Wine, and getting Colleen back would be her first priority. She promised.

  She looked out through the rain-streaked windows, trying to follow the traffic patterns, settling on the yellow cab that was weaving his way into the right-turn-only lane. She raised her eyes from the street to the sky. The persistent low clouds sucked the color from buildings, streets, and even trees, leaving only a nondescript gray.

  But over in the northeastern edge of the sky, the monolithic moist cloud was separating from the earth a little, letting in something that resembled light—not the sun itself, but evidence of it. That hint of light at the edge of the sky, even while most of the sky was still blanketed, made the scene less gloomy. After days of unrelenting gray, just the promise of something different and better was thrilling.

  Tom arrived first and chose the end of the three-seat couch. Then Judy and Pat walked in, chatting about a movie that Judy had seen but Pat hadn’t. Judy sat right next to Tom, presumably to leave the third space for Pat. But Pat declined the couch and chose a chair, leaving Tom and Judy next to each other.