by Elaine Viets
“Uh, it’s blue?” she said uncertainly.
“It’s only like the unofficial gay drink,” the choirboy said, pitying her ignorance. “If you want to tend bar on Las Olas, you’d better know what gays drink. And straights, too. Do you put coffee in a mudslide? Can you make a margarita? A rum runner?”
The choirboy kept hitting Helen with questions he knew she couldn’t answer. Then, when she was thoroughly beaten, he returned the job application she’d painstakingly filled out. “Come back when you know one end of the bar from the other,” he said. His tone implied that would be the thirty-first of never.
Helen’s confidence was going downhill as fast as a real mudslide. She used to evaluate intricate pension-payment plans. Now she did not know what kind of gin went into a martini.
Helen was determined to find another job. She would not work for a thief and a drug pusher. So on her day off, Helen put on her black suit and went looking for work. Instead, she found a series of humiliations.
Helen didn’t want to dip into her precious stash to fix her car, and that made her search harder. She had to find something within walking distance of her apartment. This morning, she’d already walked three long miles in the hot sun. Her feet burned from the sunbaked concrete sidewalks. She had a blister on her right heel. Her suit was sweaty, which meant another dry-cleaning bill.
After the choirboy sneered her out the door, Helen approached the next place warily. This bar looked like some place where Myrna Loy would drink, right down to the chrome cocktail shakers. It was dark and cool inside, and Helen was grateful for that. At least she’d get to sit down while she was being insulted.
The bar was opening for the day, and the bartender was busy cutting up limes and lemons for garnish. She was a cheerful blonde with sunfried skin and a smoker’s rasp. She gave Helen a club soda on the house and some free advice.
“You’re wasting your time looking for a bartender’s job around here,” she said, her voice like an emery board on the eardrums. “You have to know somebody to get these jobs. You might want to go to bartender’s school. We hire some of the promising graduates.”
Helen thanked the woman and wondered how much bartender’s school would cost. An MBA was not much good to a mixologist. She’d better give up on bartending.
But Helen could—and did—read, and in South Florida, that seemed a rare skill. Maybe she could sell books. Helen tried Page Turners, the snooty Las Olas bookstore, next. The store manager didn’t look old enough to go into the bars that had rejected Helen. But he turned her down, too.
“We’re not hiring at present,” the underage manager said, “but we will be happy to take your application.”
The kiss-off of death. How often had Helen heard those words in human resources? At least he didn’t say she was overqualified for the job, another inhuman human resources phrase. The underage manager added a new twist of the knife.
“We are expecting openings soon on the night shift,” he said. “We pay six seventy an hour. The night-shift booksellers are expected to clean the store and the toilets.”
“Toilets?” Helen said. She’d thought book selling would be genteel, if underpaid.
“Yes, but you can also take home the leftover café sandwiches,” he said.
Helen wondered if she’d have any appetite for them after cleaning the toilets. The manager was wearing a white shirt and silk tie. Would she have to dress up in a skirt and heels to clean toilets, like a woman in a 1950s TV commercial?
Helen thanked him and walked next to the headquarters of an elite maid service. If she had to clean commodes for a living, she might as well get a job where she wouldn’t have to dress up.
For six dollars an hour, Helen could clean toilets all day for the maid service. But it would help if she knew Spanish, the manager said. Then she could make six twenty-five and be a team leader. Helen didn’t speak enough Spanish to order a taco in a Mexican restaurant.
Terrific. In two years, her career options had slid from director of employee benefits to toilet team leader—and she wasn’t fully qualified for that job.
By three o’clock that afternoon, her job hopes were in the commode. Helen decided her battered psyche could stand one more interview. She’d remembered enough about job searches to save the best for last.
The ad she saw in the paper was intriguing: “Job opportunity in the food service industry,” it said. “Enjoy fresh air and sunshine in a casual beach-like atmosphere. No experience necessary. Generous tips for willing workers. Transportation provided.”
No experience. Transportation. She was willing if they were.
Helen had called that morning and made an appointment for three-thirty. But when she saw the office, her spirits fell even lower. The office was on a seedy street off Las Olas. Many of the buildings on the dismal little street were abandoned or boarded up, slated to be torn down for a new high-rise.
This office was clearly temporary. There was no company name on the door, no secretary in the waiting room. The only furniture was two white plastic lawn chairs. The mint-green walls were decorated with dirty handprints and Snap-On Tool posters of busty women. Helen did not think they created a professional workplace environment.
The inner office door opened and a hard-faced young woman with spiky cranberry-red hair came out. She was bursting with health. She was also bursting out of her short-shorts and white halter top. “Bye-eee, boss. See you tomorrow,” Miss Cranberry said.
“Show up dressed for work,” a man’s voice called out. “Not that outfit. The one we discussed, yes?”
There seemed to be some professional standards, Helen thought, and her dying hopes fluttered a little.
The man who came into the waiting room had luxuriant hair everywhere but on his head. He had little patches of hair on his fingers, little bushes in his nostrils and ears, a dark pelt on his arms and a thick curly black mat on his chest. Gold chains were tangled in his chest hair, and Helen wondered if he’d have to cut them out. But by the time the hair finally made it to his scalp, it was thin and straggly. It seemed exhausted.
The hairy man did not introduce himself. He lumbered back into his office like a bear into a cave and sat down behind a card table piled with papers and Manila folders.
“Come in, come in,” he said. “Glad you could make it. Take a seat, yes? Take a load off those pretty feet. Nice heels. You can wear those to work, yes?” He had some kind of accent, but Helen couldn’t place it. Latin? Latvian? Russian?
“What kind of work is it?” Helen asked, sliding into another lawn chair.
“Food service, like the ad says,” the hairy man said, hands drumming on the paper pile.
“What kind of food?” Helen said. Why am I interviewing him? she wondered. Was he testing her people skills?
“Hot dogs,” he said. “All-American, the hot dog, yes? You will serve them at lunch time under a big sun umbrella to hungry men. Good tippers. And we pay seven dollars an hour.”
That was the most she’d been offered all day. “Plus benefits?” Helen said, hopefully.
“Many benefits,” he said, smiling. He had another patch of hair under his lower lip. “Fresh air. Sunshine. You’ll meet many fine gentlemen.”
“Don’t women eat lunch, too?” she said.
“Some,” he said, and shrugged.
“And it’s on the beach?”
“On a roadside, but like a beach,” he said. “We will take you and the food cart there in the morning and pick you up in the afternoon. Now take off your blouse, please, so I can see if you are qualified for the job.”
Helen was sure she’d heard him wrong. “Your blouse,” he repeated, pointing a hairy finger at her chest. “You will unbutton now, please?”
Helen picked up her purse and stood up. “I’m at a loss to see what removing my blouse has to do with a food service job. I am terminating this interview.”
“Do not be angry, dear lady. You seem to have a nice shape, but I need to see how you would look in a b
ikini. That will be your job uniform, yes?”
“No!” Helen said.
Searing anger fueled her long walk home. Food service. Fresh air. Beach-like atmosphere. Horseradish! She was supposed to wear a bikini and sell hot dogs with mustard and double entendres. She’d seen those pathetic women on god-forsaken South Florida roads, surrounded by a pack of slavering men. She’d be leered at by truckers and tormented by bugs. How could she let this happen? She’d been a woman with a silver Lexus and a closet full of power suits. Now she was being asked to peddle hot dogs half naked.
She had wasted her time and her day off getting nowhere looking for nowhere jobs. She would have to go back to work for a crook. Helen would never get free of Juliana’s.
Chapter 9
Helen put on her St. John knit like she was strapping on body armor. It had cost her two thousand dollars six years ago, and it was still her best-looking suit. Now she wore it like a shield. If Helen looked rich and secure, nothing bad could happen to her.
She was going to work at a shop with deep carpets, soft music, and fresh flowers, but she felt as jumpy as if she were hitchhiking through Skid Row with a suitcase stuffed with cash. The uncertainty was wearing her down. In the short time she’d worked at Juliana’s, she’d seen a drug deal, money skimming, and what might have been a murder for hire, except nobody was dead.
Helen dreaded another day alone with Christina. She knew there would be another surprise. But she didn’t expect it five minutes after she walked through the green door that Friday.
“Meet your replacement,” Christina said. “I’m leaving for vacation after work tomorrow, and you will be in charge of the store. Guess who’s going to work with you?”
It was Tara, the cute Asian customer with the crude boyfriend. Tara looked adorable in a blue scoop-neck top with white lace insets down the sleeves, and Brazilian lowrise jeans so lowcut they looked like bikini bottoms with legs.
“I thought it would be fun for a few days,” Tara said, flipping her long black hair back from her face. “I know the clothes and the customers. Christina gave me a terrific discount.”
Helen couldn’t even afford the discount, much less the clothes.
“Paulie loves that discount part,” Tara said. She giggled and flipped her long hair to the other shoulder. “He doesn’t mind me working for a little while. It’s like a vacation.”
Some vacation, Helen thought. She eyed Tara’s high-heeled sandals. Wait till Tara’s little feet started hurting in those shoes.
“I’m doing it under one condition, Christina,” Tara said, flipping her hair in the other direction. “You have to find me a maid as reliable as the one you got for Brittney. You know where to get the best. Brittney raves about Maria.”
Good lord, thought Helen, another role for Christina: domestic service bureau.
“Do you mind a Haitian?” Christina said. “What about someone who doesn’t speak English?”
“I don’t care what they speak as long as they scrub my floors,” Tara said. “Brittney has a real gem. She pays Maria almost nothing but room and board. The woman is practically a slave.” Tara seemed happy to be a slave holder.
“I’ll have one for you when I get back from vacation,” Christina said. “But we have work to do now. I have two days to train you, Tara, and show Helen her new duties. Then I’m gone until next Friday.”
Helen didn’t know and did not care why Christina was taking a sudden unscheduled vacation. Christina did not say where she was going, and Helen didn’t ask. She wanted that woman out of her sight. Maybe then Helen could figure out what to do about her crooked, drug-dealing boss. Even better, maybe she could land another job.
There were so many new things to learn that Helen did not have time to think, and that was good, too. The day passed in a blur. Christina showed Helen and Tara how to lock up and set the alarm. Helen learned what to do with the invoices and new shipments. Tara learned to size and fold stock and ring up sales. She cheerfully absorbed her new duties and seemed to find them interesting. Tara clearly loved clothes, enjoyed their colors and textures, and had a good eye for accessories.
Helen and Tara both learned to close out the register. They even had the combination to the store’s safe. “There’s only two of you. I’ll just have to trust you,” Christina said. “If you steal anything, I’ll track you down and kill you.” She laughed wickedly.
These new tasks were harder to learn because Christina could not keep her mind on her work. She kept leaving out steps when she explained a complicated procedure on the cash register.
“No, wait, you hit this button first,” she told Helen. The cash register made a rude grinding sound, and the drawer refused to open for the third time.
“Damn. I’ve messed it up again,” Christina said. “I can’t concentrate. I see Doctor Mariposa tonight. I’m getting my wrinkles injected with biopolymer. It’s all I can think about.”
“Maybe if you wrote the steps down,” Helen said.
That worked. Christina wrote out the instructions and taped them to the register. “That’s all you need,” she said.
Christina spent the rest of the afternoon examining her face in the triple mirror. “I can’t wait,” she said. “By eight o’clock tonight, this line will be gone. And this one.” Christina pointed to the furrows between her nose and lips. They were getting deeper.
Helen still thought the injections were a mistake, but she didn’t try to argue Christina out of them. The woman was determined.
“Wait till Joe sees me,” she said. “I’ll make sure he sees my new face. I’ll buy myself the red Versace that’s cut down to my navel and go dancing at all our clubs.”
Christina was nearly cackling in anticipation. Her fury at Joe was frightening. Christina’s unrelenting anger distorted her face until she was almost ugly. Her nose seemed long and witchlike. Her lips were locked in a snarl. Her eyes were mean slits.
“Tomorrow, you’ll see a new me. I’m going to look younger and better,” Christina said. “I’ll find me a new boyfriend. Better than that jerk, Joe. He’ll be sorry.”
But it was Christina who was sorry.
The next morning, Christina came into work wearing a huge Hermes scarf that put her face in shadow. When Christina pulled off the scarf, Helen saw what she was hiding.
One side of Christina’s face was grossly swollen. Her cheek was the size of a grapefruit half and covered with knoblike lumps. The other side was smooth and wrinkle-free, turning Christina into her own grotesque before-and-after picture.
Despite the Brazilian doctor’s promises and Brittney’s testimonial, the biopolymer injections were not safe and simple. Christina’s face was a horror show. Helen had braced herself when the scarf came off, but the shock must have shown on her face. Still, she said nothing. But Tara had been expecting a cosmetic miracle. She looked at Christina’s bloated cheek and blurted, “What’s that horrible thing on your face?”
Tara tried to recover her blunder with, “I mean, your face looks a tiny bit swollen.”
“Doctor Mariposa said I had a bad reaction to the biopolymer. She says I should be patient.” Christina’s voice was mumbly, distorted by the swelling.
“When will the swelling go down?” Helen asked.
“The doctor doesn’t know. She said I might have to wait for the body to reabsorb it.”
“How long will that take?” Tara said. She looked genuinely concerned.
“Four or five years,” Christina said. Tears coursed down her face. The ones on the swollen side slid down faster as they hit the grotesque hump of flesh on her cheek. Helen tried not to stare.
“I look like a chipmunk,” Christina wailed.
“You do not,” Helen said. It was true. Chipmunks looked cute and cuddly.
Christina spent the whole morning bemoaning her swollen face. When even the biggest spenders came into the store, Christina refused to come out and wait on them. She stayed in the back room and wept until her eyes were red. Christina called
all her friends, except the beautiful biopolymered Brittney, and cried on the phone. She used all the ice in the store’s mini-fridge, making cold packs for her bloated cheek. By the time she left for lunch, Christina’s eyes were glassy, and Helen suspected she’d been in her special purses for pain killers.
Helen tried, but she could not feel sorry for Christina. Maybe your deeds showed on your face, she thought. But then, what will I look like?
Christina came back after lunch in a vintage black hat with a wisp of a veil. The hat’s brim swooped down on the right side and cleverly hid the worst of the damage to her face.
Even Helen had to admit the good side of Christina’s face looked ten years younger. Now the skin was firm and plump. The trench between her nose and mouth was gone, and so were the deep frown furrows between her eyebrows.
Christina must have gone home to change. She wore the hat with a long slinky black top and skinny pants. The Ferragamo pantsuit had such style. Even the buttons were beautiful. That afternoon, Juliana’s customers raved about Christina’s chic new look. Those who didn’t know any better praised the wonders of her wrinkle injections. Christina looked almost happy. She seemed to forget the ruined right side of her face. In the unreal world of Juliana’s, half a youthful face was better than none.
About three o’clock, there was a sudden lull in the stream of shoppers. Helen and Christina leaned against the counters for a rest. Tara boldly stretched out on the black loveseat. She knew the rule that sales associates had to remain standing, but Tara also knew she’d be a customer again. The owner wouldn’t dare reprimand her.
When Tara was lounging out of earshot, Christina said, “I want to take my special evening purses with me. They’re not store stock. If anyone asks for one while I’m gone, tell her I’ll be back next Friday.”
“Fine,” Helen said. She was relieved the purses would be out of the store. She’d been wondering what to do about them. She was not going to sell pills for Christina.
Christina went back to pack up the purses. She returned with a white box and a pink bag. “I’m going to run them out to my car on my break,” she said, patting the box. “But I like this one so much, I’m keeping it for myself.” From a nest of hot-pink tissue paper in the bag, she pulled out a teardrop-shaped purse made of gold mesh.
