About Face

by Carole Howard

  Candystriper? Thank goodness her mother was saying something ridiculous enough to make the decision easier. “I’m going, Mom, and I’m really excited about it. A week from tomorrow.” She zipped up the duffel bag to see how much room there was left, then unzipped it. She didn’t know what else to say; this kind of discussion was new territory.

  “So, do you think I should take the blue jeans that are already worn in or new ones? I think maybe the new ones, so they’ll last longer, because probably they’ll—”

  “Whatever you think. I’m sure either one would be fine.” Helen silently left the room, which was just as well, because, as soon as Ruth’s hands stopped shaking and she caught her breath, she would have to penetrate the dresser drawer where she hid her cigarettes under her jeans.

  A KNOCK BROUGHT HER BACK to the present, where Judy was peeking around Ruth’s partly-open door. Receiving her invitation, she entered and closed the door behind her.

  In the chair facing Ruth she rubbed her hands together, then wrung them out.

  “Something wrong?” Ruth asked.

  “No. I don’t think so. Well, I don’t really know.”

  Judy told Ruth that when she’d been up on the twentieth floor, speaking to someone about the packaging for the two-tone lipsticks so she could work on the pricing parameters, she noticed Pat on the phone at Sue’s desk.

  “Sue who’s on maternity leave?”

  “Yeah, and I thought it was weird. So I … well, I … You know, Pat’s been so mean to me lately, so I did something I maybe shouldn’t have done … not shouldn’t have, exactly, but—

  “Tell me.”

  Judy took a roundabout way to the elevator so she could listen invisibly. Pat was talking to Bunny, the friend who had come to the office to take her out for a birthday lunch about a month before. A little older than Pat, she was obviously in command of the friendship, a mentor of some sort. She’d avoided eye contact with Ruth and extended the limpest hand possible when it became impossible to avoid shaking.

  Judy heard Pat say she thought maybe Bunny’s advice hadn’t been so good after all. That things hadn’t turned out the way they’d both thought. And that she was going to do the right thing.

  “She said that? The right thing?”

  “I think she might have cried a little. I’m not sure.” She picked a piece of lint off her black skirt and looked up at Ruth with a smile that advertised mischief. “Then came the best part.”

  Ruth pushed back from her desk slightly, folded one leg under her, and propped her chin on her hand with her elbow on the arm of her chair. “You’re just full of surprises, aren’t you?”

  “Pat said something like, ‘Bunny that’s not true. You’re wrong. I’m not such a silly fool and.…” Judy closed her mouth and bit her lips.

  “And?”

  “And Ruth’s not such a bitch.”

  “Really? ‘Ruth’s not such a bitch.’”

  “That part I’m sure of. Then she listened for awhile and even held the phone away from her ear. And that’s when I left. So, do you know what this is all about?”

  “I think so.”

  “What?”

  “I can’t tell you until it’s over. But then I will.”

  Just as Judy left, Danny Jones entered. It was his first time in her office, and as she welcomed him, she could see his eyes taking in the artwork.

  They made small talk. Very small talk. He asked about her artwork, especially the African photos. She told him about her Peace Corps past. He told her about his family, proud that his wife was a doctor and that his kids were taking music lessons. Ruth let him guide the route of the conversation, knowing he had something on his mind—no one had free time to drop in to chat about artwork and families. But if he didn’t get to the reason for his visit soon, she’d have to take over.

  Eventually, he asked about the new line, especially about how she’d convinced Jeremy that using existing products would be ethical as well as marketable.

  “It was easier than I’d thought it would be. And now we’re doing media planning and that really is the fun part for me.”

  Danny said he’d thought the meeting with Roger was—he searched for the word—unusual. Especially the weird things Jeremy had said.

  “The weird things. Right. And which weird things would those be?”

  “Roger didn’t tell you?”

  Danny said that Jeremy had been adamant: If they were going to proceed with About Face, he wanted to do it “for real.” And that meant brand new products, developed from scratch, with R&D going full steam ahead. He told them to go back to the drawing board for new products. And if they were just a little new, maybe a tweak here or there, so they wouldn’t require extensive testing and could get to the market fast, so much the better. He’d consider re-packaging existing products, but only as a last resort.

  “‘A little tweaking,’ he said? Really?” Ruth asked. Jeremy obviously thought cosmetics were like financial services, things you can rush out to the market.

  “Verbatim. ‘Expense is less of a concern than timing.’” Danny imitated Jeremy’s fast-forward smile perfectly.

  It’s true, thought Ruth. He’s after a quick expensive failure. That’s why Roger wants to have lunch when he gets back from vacation. To clue me in.

  “Danny, I appreciate your stopping by to chat. A lot.”

  His real smile displayed a deep dimple on his right cheek. “Terry told me you’re one of the good guys and I should trust you.”

  “Terry? You know Terry that well?”

  “Didn’t you know? She’s dating my brother. In Chicago. They met at some conference.”

  “The devil! She never told me.”

  As Danny got up to go, Ruth said she had nothing of equal value to trade for his valuable information, but in the meantime it might come in handy for him to know that Roger’s secretary Joan really liked chocolate. The darker the better. “And you definitely want to be Joan’s friend.”

  It was funny, actually, that Mr. Corporate Man, Mr. By-the-Numbers, was trying to make the company lose money so he could get rid of her. For ambition? For some kind of personal anti-feminist-hippy thing?

  In a certain way, he was right about her. She was a kind of misfit. He knew she was different from him, in terms of values and goals and general attitude toward life. And he couldn’t stand that she was successful anyway. It made a mockery of his devotion to corporate life. That was understandable.

  And here she was, Ms. Ambivalent-About-Corporations, the one who was honestly trying to make the company money. Yes, fulfill some ambition, too. And also do a “good thing.”

  It was all so distorted, like funny-mirrors in a carnival.

  CHAPTER 24

  Picnic Rapping

  AFTER WORK, SHE WALKED to Central Park, where David and Carlos had arranged a picnic dinner. The weather report had been promising, Vivian had a meeting in Manhattan that afternoon, and David could drive in after school. Ruth had asked David to act as if he really intended to participate in the hypothetical clothing business, at least until they started making real plans. If they ever did. Which they wouldn’t.

  “That way, it will be more symmetrical. And I won’t have to deal with Carlos on my own.”

  “Only if you don’t harbor any secret fantasies that I’ll really get sucked in. Because I won’t.”

  “Deal.”

  The men had planned the menu and divided the responsibilities. And she didn’t have to do anything. Except obsess about her soap opera of a day.

  So far, based on her session with Pat and what she’d heard from Judy and then from Danny, the larger outlines of the plan she was formulating for handling Jeremy seemed sound. Now she was heading for the soap opera playing on a different channel: Hippies and Ex-Hippies Talk About a Business.

  She slowed down as she approached the southwest corner of the park, savoring the moment of being at the border of two worlds. A jazz quartet was playing old favorites. She returned the pony-tailed vi
braphone player’s smile. A bunch of green-sweatshirted roller-bladers noisily assembled before they entered the park for their workout. Frail elderly people sat on the benches, listening to the music and eating sandwiches they’d brought from home. The few religious nuts didn’t seem to be bothering anyone, diluted as their rantings were by the music and athleticism.

  As soon as she entered the park itself, all thoughts of Pat and Jeremy, of cosmetics and advertising, of the unpredictability of human behavior, became bubbles and drifted upward. As they floated away, she noticed all the colors around her seemed more intense than usual. Have there always been so many different kinds of green, she wondered?

  “Hey, honey, over here.” She was glad David was there before the others. She joined him on a wooden bench with a missing slat. After a perfunctory kiss, she leaned her head on his shoulder and they sat in birdsong-saturated silence for a minute.

  “Don’t you want to know how it went with Pat today?” Ruth asked after a while.

  “Of course. I was just about to ask.”

  “It went okay, I think. I’ll tell you all the gory details when I can bear to think about it again.”

  “But the short version?”

  “The short version is that Jeremy’s really been using her. Wants About Face to fail so he can get rid of me. Promised her my job. Made fun of my sneakers.”

  “No!” The one syllable had enough force to jostle her head from its resting place.

  “HI YOU TWO. Hope we’re not interrupting.” Carlos reached over to give Ruth a kiss. Then he and David shook hands.

  A kiss? Did Vivian tell him to do that?

  Like a defendant trying to read the jury when they return to the courtroom with a verdict, Ruth wondered whether this unusual show of affection was a sign of openness to her idea or Carlos’s idea of a consolation prize, a sympathy kiss.

  At a nearby picnic table, Carlos and David unpacked their various backpacks and shopping bags, putting the containers of food at one end and the dinner-ware at the other.

  “Hummus. Pita bread. Olives. Stuffed grape leaves. Organic salad.” Carlos set his contributions out on the table.

  “Sandwiches for everyone,” David said. “Here’s the vegetarian section, here’s for vegans, and carnivores can select from here.”

  “How many people are we expecting?” Vivian asked.

  “I take sandwiches to school for lunch every day. Leftovers today mean less work for me tomorrow. And the next day. And the next. So eat as much as you want, but don’t worry about left-overs.”

  “And here are some drinks,” continued Carlos. “All soft. Except for this one over here that looks like iced tea but isn’t. Open container laws—such a crock.”

  For five minutes, there was joyful, if chaotic, passing back and forth of food, drinks, salt and pepper, salad dressing, serving spoons, napkins. Then, as if on cue, all requests to pass a certain dish or bowl stopped at the same moment and the sounds of contented chewing were accompanied by the birds and roller-bladers inside the park and the car horns outside. A robin landed on the table and stared at them.

  “Mmmm, nice moment,” David said.

  “Damn straight,” Carlos said. The robin flew off. A squirrel took his place.

  After a few more chews, Vivian said, “Someone has to go first, and I volunteer and the first thing I want to say is how brilliant it was to tell us not to react right away because you were right that if we had reacted right away, it would probably have been along the lines of ‘No thanks it’s not our kind of thing and by the way are you out of your mind.’ But now that we’ve had some time to let it all sink in and settle down, it’s … different. I mean, we’re still not ready to sign on the dotted line or anything—”

  “I know, David told me you said you just wanted to ask some stuff and talk it over. That’s okay.”

  So far so good, thought Ruth. She’d prepared herself for skepticism if not direct challenges. She’d vowed not to be drawn into an argument with Carlos, not to become defensive in any way, to separate what he said from how he said it. She told herself it was like bargaining, that it really didn’t matter that much, they could still be friends after the picnic even if they didn’t want to do the business.

  “This has been kind of a trip,” Carlos said. He looked up at Ruth. “You are definitely full of surprises, chica.”

  “You think so, boychik?”

  At first, Carlos had thought the idea of a business was loco. But after awhile, the idea of giving money away was too seductive to ignore.

  “It’s my fantasy job. As you know. Sneaky girl.”

  He wanted to know how much they’d be giving away, saying he wouldn’t be as interested in giving away $100 as $100,000.

  Ruth outlined a few ways they could structure the charitable giving. They could give a certain amount of money for each garment sold. Or they could give a certain percentage of the profits—”

  “Or all the profits,” Carlos said.”

  “Right, or all the profits. Any way you look at it, though, the more we made, the more we’d give. If you want, I can draw up a few charts of ‘if we made this much, we could give away this much’ and show different possibilities.”

  “Cool.”

  Carlos certainly was in a good mood. The idea of giving money away seemed to be like candy.

  “This sure is different from anything we’ve ever thought about before,” Vivian said. “I know I like designing my own clothes and I like it that you like them so much too. But for strangers? How would I know what colors? And how many in the different sizes? I don’t understand the business part at all. How do you know what to make and how many and what sizes and how do you sell it to the stores and how do you know how much to charge and stuff like that?”

  “That’s what I bring to the party,” Ruth said. “And what I don’t know already, I can learn. We can all learn.”

  They talked for hours, jumping from how the business might work to how long it would take them to get started to how they could finance the start-up to colors and fabrics and styles.

  David brought up the subject of money and, in particular, salaries. He volunteered to go first. “Teacher’s salaries are public records, so we don’t have much trouble talking about it.”

  “We don’t have trouble with it either, man,” Carlos said. “Maybe because our identities aren’t linked to our salaries.”

  No one was surprised that Carlos earned the least and Ruth the most. Vivian and Carlos were kind enough not to react to Ruth’s salary with grumblings about people starving in Mississippi or Cuba or any other place. It was easy to agree that in their alleged business they’d each earn the same amount, and that it would be less than Ruth made and more than Carlos made.

  Ruth asked the question that had been on her mind since Carlos had first called: why were they interested in this? She knew about Carlos’s fantasy of giving money away, of course, but his interest, or pre-interest, still surprised her.

  “Believe me, I’m more surprised than you. But it’s giving money away. That’s all. And maybe there’s some stuff at work that’s hard to take.”

  “There always has been,” Vivian said.

  “It just feels worse lately.”

  “We’ve seen lots of people get burned out, but we just thought it wouldn’t happen to us. Or rather, Carlos thought it wouldn’t happen to him. He’s the saint in the family.” Vivian stroked his cheek.

  “Don’t you feel the same way, babe?”

  She did, but without being surprised about it. She also liked the idea of a new outlet for her creativity. And she also thought it would be fun and she was attracted to the fun. Especially if it generated money for worthy projects. And she also liked the idea of having enough money to help Ida pay off her student loans.

  Ruth advocated for the devil by cautioning Vivian that starting a business was a very iffy venture. She might give up her salary at BSW but not make anything at the clothing business. Plus they wouldn’t have anything to gi
ve to charity.

  “There’s no guarantee.” The idea of a working relationship with Carlos was making Ruth start to backpedal.

  Carlos said, “Not a big problem. In our world, there’s always a need for people who know what they’re doing and are willing to work hard to make a difference for not very much money. There aren’t that many of us. We’re in demand.”

  “It’s pretty wonderful to be able to say that about yourselves,” David said.

  “Yeah, it’s nice,” Vivian said. “In a perfect world, though, we’d also have been able to put Ida through school.”

  “In a really perfect world,” Carlos said, “all kids could go to school for free.”

  Two nuns walked past them. The older one was talking in soft, solemn tones. While the younger one listened, she fixed a strand of hair that had escaped her head-piece.

  “Good evening,” the nuns said.

  “Good evening,” they all replied.

  Darkness and the temperature had fallen when they weren’t paying attention. “When it’s dark enough that you can hardly see two nuns ten feet away, it must be time to call it a night,” David said. “Don’t you think?”

  They packed up their picnic paraphernalia and headed toward the park exit, reassuring each other one more time they weren’t committed to anything, just intrigued enough to keep thinking about it and talking about it. That’s all.

  After they separated, Carlos and Vivian heading west toward the subway, Ruth and David south toward their car, David said, “I guess we have a lot to talk about.”

  “We sure do, honey. Don’t know if I can stay awake in the car long enough to get through it all, though.”

  A transvestite hooker passed them, resplendent in a silver-sequined dress with a slit up to mid-thigh and a bright-blue boa, wearing a small sign saying “Please help me save up for sex change.” He looked David up and down ostentatiously.

  “Poor guy,” David said, when they’d passed.