Harper gestured toward the plate as though reading Alice’s thoughts. “Do you mind?”
Rufus rolled his eyes and then drained his beer. Marisol crossed her arms across her chest.
“Take it,” Alice said. She placed a proprietary hand on Clancy’s as Harper hoovered up Alice’s dessert. Either the woman was a true bulimic or had a Faustian bargain in place.
Technical excellence came first. Prior Productions was nominated in every category and won for audio. Alice clapped for Rufus until her hands hurt.
Prior lost the editing award to its nemesis, Acrobat Films, underwritten by real estate magnate Finn Stockwell, leaving Acrobat free to dabble anywhere.
Marisol and Gus leapt up when their names rang out for best writing. Clancy rose, clapping, beaming with fatherly pride.
At long last, they reached the award for best feature. The audience shuffled. Men and women cleared their throats as the zenith of the night approached.
The local actor presenting nodded for the solemn moment. “First up, Harvested at Night from Outline Films. Five farmers work toward providing more than food, bringing food to market at night, beginning a collaboration with farmers and factory workers in India, that has thrived for twenty years.
“Tattoo City explores a small town in Bosnia and Herzegovina where tattooing grew from a cottage industry serving the local teens and bikers, to an art center that honors how people have marked their bodies since the dawn of time. Produced by Shorted Sight Films.”
The actor read three more descriptions until reaching Clancy’s entry. “From Prior Productions, De Facto, a film showing how history rolled in on a yellow bus, disrupting years of separate and unequal schools in Boston, long considered a study in cognitive dissonance, as the city known as a hub for culture crashed into a de facto segregated city school system.
“Last, Waisted, from Acrobat Films, the first of a triad of cinematic studies on women’s relationship with weight, examining how an onslaught of easily accessed food and the upsurge of obesity crosses with the rise of self-hatred.”
“Acrobat is pulling such bullshit,” Clancy whispered to Alice. “After producing two reality shows—total trash—they suddenly decided to be documentary filmmakers.”
“I didn’t know that. What kind of reality shows?”
Harper leaned in as though she were part of the conversation. “They called it a docu-series, but it was a reality show with an upscale label. Cured. About families who searched for ways to cure a family member’s cancer.”
Alice nodded, not voicing her thoughts—the show sounded gripping.
“And the award goes to . . .”
Everyone straightened. Clancy reached for Alice’s hand.
“Waisted! Accepting the award—”
“Son of a bitch,” Rufus muttered.
“They probably paid the judges off.” Harper drained her wineglass in one long gulp.
“Come on, guys.” Clancy’s protest sounded thin.
“You know how political this is,” Marisol said. They all smiled and clapped for the Acrobat team climbing the stairs.
“A weight loss movie. Jesus.” Clancy locked eyes with Alice, acknowledging that he knew she wanted to comfort him. He put her off with a slight shake of his head. She understood. Consolation might undermine his hard-clutched dignity.
“Women sequestering themselves to be told not to stuff their face? Who calls that art?” Harper scraped up crumbs of the dessert left on her plate. “Insanity.”
• • •
Alice lay back against the pillow, watching as Clancy put away his clothes, commiserating about his loss until he asked her to stop. His way of coping meant locking away the feelings, which never worked for her.
“Do you like Harper’s simpering girly-girl bit?” she asked.
“Do I like it?” Clancy, like most people, had a “tell” for when he was lying. Repeating Alice’s question told Alice all she needed to know. He liked it.
“She obviously wants to sleep with you. Are you tempted? Flattered?”
Clancy stood with a perplexed expression, his trousers still in his hands. He opened his mouth, closed it, and finally shook his head, as though not believing his wife could say such a stupid thing.
“Well?” Alice grabbed a pillow and held it over her stomach. Speechless was never his style unless he chose it. Alice saw through his forehead, wheels turning as he figured his game plan, weighing options. He thought he was opaque, opening and closing the curtains to his core, but she saw him.
Women read their men. The opposite was, of course, less true; husbands rarely studied their wives. In the hierarchy of life, those on the bottom always learned the habits of the upper levels. Survival demanded this education. She crushed the pillow tighter. “You’re not writing a narrative. Yes or no.”
He tipped his head, taking on his professorial demeanor, as though she were a student in his documentary seminar. “Why are you asking such a question?”
“Why are you not answering?” she shot back.
“I am not sleeping with Harper.” He raised his hands. “How did this become about you? Christ. I’m in despair about losing to that ridiculous film. Women whining. Eating.”
“Did you watch the movie?”
“We vote; we see everything. Waisted? Absurd. Women desperate for someone to take them to a promised land.” He looked at the pillow Alice clutched. “As though closing one’s mouth and saying no to candy didn’t enter their minds.”
Alice stood, letting the pillow drop to the floor. “How can you have so much empathy for some and not others?” She let empathy drip from her mouth as though swearing. “You make a film that equivocates the pain of black children suffering the screams of frothing white adults to white kids afraid to leave their blocks. Empathic to a ridiculous degree. Yet where’s your compassion for women who have hate slammed on them every time they leave home? And let’s not forget at home.”
“That hurt can be prevented with a variety of methods.”
Clever Clancy, leading her to intellectual discussion. Where he always won. Men played to win. Women played to be fair.
“Okay. Fine. You didn’t sleep with her. But did she offer? Are you tempted?”
“Why must you bring up these things?” Clancy asked.
Given half a reason, Alice would transmogrify the deep desire to believe him into the category of truth. That knowledge frightened her. “Wanting shimmers between you two. The knowing looks. Your sparks smacked me all night.”
“Her sparks. Not mine. Your imagination is wasted at that gym.”
“I don’t work at a gym!” She pressed her fingers into her temples. “The Cobb is a community center. The lack of respect you have for me is astounding.”
Clancy marched over. He placed a hand on each of her shoulders. “The lack of respect you have for yourself is astounding. How dare you lecture me?” He spun her around, forcing her to face the mirror. “I’m a filmmaker. Never think I don’t see you.” He ran a finger over a photo on their nightstand from their honeymoon on Carlisle Bay in Antigua, a sun-kissed and love-drunk couple. Light reflected from the droplets of water in the nimbus of hair haloed around Alice’s happy face.
Alice recognized the glow of pregnancy—at that moment a shared secret between her and Clancy.
“You were spectacular,” Clancy said.
Hot tears slid down Alice’s cheeks. “And now?”
“And now you need to stop eating. When you do, I’ll stop looking at women like Harper. Though I only look.” He tipped up her face and kissed her. “I never lied about finding you gorgeous. Did I pretend it didn’t mean anything?”
“Was it everything?” She dug her nails hard into her palms.
Seven years ago, mutual attraction clicked them together like magnets, shocking her when love followed so soon after Patrick. They had found each other at a party, one to which Sharon Jane dragged her, a fund-raiser for Rosie’s Place—the first women’s homeless shelter in the countr
y—hosted by the New England Film Association. Their meeting was like a movie scene too clichéd for Clancy to include in any of his movies. They spotted each other across a crowded room. A column of rose silk drifted over her newly angular body. Clancy’s crisp white shirt tucked into slim black wool trousers perfected him—his flat gold watch stood out in an army of men wearing clumsy, thick timepieces.
Myths were true. Arrows struck. Bolts of sexual heat flew between them. For weeks, Alice and Clancy separated only for work. Clancy’s name, his face, his voice, made up the constant, the only, playlist in Alice’s head. Being in the early stages of heated love granted her romantic gold.
“You were pregnant when we made our vows,” Clancy said. “Our love included the image of us becoming a family.” The scrupulous rectitude and precise honesty on which Clancy prided himself became cruelty when directed at her.
“What does that mean?” Asking the question and wanting the answer were oppositional.
“It means I answered you fairly and truthfully. Your beauty and desirability were matched by your intellect. We held the same morals. And the baby to come. We fell in love. And so, of course, we married. But we met like a minute before. You know that.”
“I was beautiful? Now what am I?”
“You are still gorgeous, if no longer stunning. Padding on your face blurs the line. Your body is lost under fleshiness. You are still spectacularly smart and good. And we have Libby. A life. I love you. You are my family. But my attraction to you fades when you are like this. I cannot lie.”
Alice wanted to shake Clancy. Of course, he could have lied, would have lied. If he cared.
God, how Alice wished he’d lied.
When they’d married, his honest straightforwardness thrilled her. Years of Patrick-the-crazy-white-boy-married-musician’s dissembling had set her up to worship at the altar of fidelity to the truth. Now she appreciated the worth of a fiction borne of kindness.
My attraction to you fades when you are like this. Such candor forever squashed one’s spirit. How on God’s earth could she manage that knowledge?
CHAPTER 6
* * *
DAPHNE
Mirrors, ubiquitous and omnipresent, reflected Daphne’s every angle, guaranteeing that while painting wounds on actor Terrance Fields’s arms—he of woman-hating fame, he of race-baiting renown, he of three-Oscar celebrity—she’d see her ample behind with terrifying frequency.
The scent of Fields’s unwashed flesh rose as Daphne bent over his shoulder and cleaned a generous area of skin. His only bearable-to-touch or smell areas were those she’d swiped with lemon-scented wipes.
“I banged her, ya know.” Fields pointed to the People magazine on his lap. “What a whore.”
Daphne kept silent as she traced a growing jagged wound with another layer of liquid latex.
“Did you hear me?” Without waiting for affirmation, Fields jabbed a finger at the glamorous full-page photo of the latest indie film star to hop on a fame upswing. The flawless starlet stood in a line of other fresh actresses clad in spring green. The thought of him on her induced images of garbage strewn on a field of daisies.
“Little miss ingénue, huh? Couldn’t get enough. Wanted me to screw her—”
“Stay still.” Daphne interrupted him before he moved into the details. She began disguising the latex with foundation, biting her lip as she worked toward the exact hue.
“But I can move my mouth, eh?” He gave his trademark ironic grin. “I’ll tell ya, that one standing next to her? Emma Billington? Lips that could empty a steam pipe.”
It was a truth universally acknowledged that a woman in need of working in Hollywood did not stab famous actors with latex carving tools.
“I’ll tell ya something about these young actresses. Voracious. Little animals. They get someone like Terrance Fields . . .”
The worst players referenced themselves in third person.
“. . . in front of them, and they’re ready to drop to their knees upon sight.”
Daphne tuned out Fields’s verbal garbage. She’d ridden in this rodeo before. Humming helped, overlaying his words with aural fog until they became a fountain of Australian-accented syllables and consonants. She applied torn bits of stockings soaked in stage blood mixed with K-Y jelly—thick and gloppy—over the foundation, and covered it with sheer lip gloss, as this one needed to be a fresh wound, adding bruising power to the edges to provide a blistered appearance. She couldn’t wait to attack his boxer’s face bruises and cuts, forcing him to shut the hell up.
“I have an unusually high sex drive, ya know.”
“So you’ve mentioned, Terry.”
He hated being called Terry.
“I could do a few of these dollies before breakfast and still give you a poke for lunch.” He snaked his free arm around and grabbed a handful of her behind.
She jabbed the fleshiest part of his meaty fist with the pointed end of a thin brush. “Next time I’ll use the scissors.”
“Don’t fuck with me, dolly. Ya can’t bruise the talent.” He brayed his donkey laugh.
“You’re playing a boxer. Maybe I’ll pluck out your eye. Your rep for doing anything for art precedes you.”
“That’s why I like working with ya. You’re a tough broad. I’d love banging that plump ass. You’d be a relief after jumping those bones with hanks of hair. A nice, fat, soft ride. Why do you think I always ask for you? ’Cause one of these days you’ll say yes.”
Daphne imagined carving her initials in his sweaty skin with her palette knife. The stupidity of leaving her kids and husband for weeks on end for a job that encompassed having to accept the abuse of people like Fields overwhelmed her.
And so, at that moment, Daphne decided to give up bruising people, to stop concocting edges of bones jutting out from wrists and creating wrinkled Martians. For every decent man like Tom Hanks, two dozen pigs like Terrance Fields waited. Time for a change. Daphne went home and opened Alchemy.
• • •
Seven years later, Alchemy Studio, located on Boston’s pricey Newbury Street, attracted the wealthiest, along with the most scarred. Nobody grabbed her ass, her clients arrived showered, and she was home with the kids and her husband every night.
Instead of creating bruises and burns, Daphne masked and disguised them, helping heal women and men, however temporarily, of psychic and physical trauma. Not that she could wrap herself in the cloth of sainthood. Her clients were just as likely to be a patient of her sister Bianca’s dermatology practice, needful of covering the temporary discoloration from Restalyne injectable fillers, as a homeless burn victim wearing keloid scars.
Ivy, a clothing expert, shared Alchemy’s studio. Daphne painted them. Ivy draped them. She was a genius at the art of disguise by clothing, yet here Daphne was, in Saks Fifth Avenue, on Boston’s Boylston Street, hunting for a sister-of-the-bride dress without help.
Some moments you didn’t want witnessed by a friend.
Now, standing in the overlit fitting room, held captive by a twig of a saleswoman intent on drowning her in sacks of formless cloth, Daphne’s choice to exclude Ivy seemed utterly senseless. Stupid. She wanted only to look attractive—perhaps classic—at her sister’s wedding, as she told the young woman, but the twig treated her as impossible to prettify. She carried only disguises to Daphne.
No shock, that. The only surprise was how Daphne could forget the lesson learned at her mother’s knee: fat women repulsed the world.
Daphne stooped to use the word slimming when describing the dress that she wanted, which perhaps the woman heard as “Bring me a swath of camouflage.” Why else would the twig—young, exquisite, and bored, wrapped in a bandage—give a pseudosmile and hold up that gruesome mauve mother-of-the-bride outfit?
Anyone, and most particularly someone calling herself a “trained occasion associate,” knew that you never put redheads in mauve. As a side dish to the insult of mauve, a color heralding ten years to assisted living, there was the out
fit’s shapeless cut.
Hadn’t she noticed Daphne’s coloring? Red hair—the wiry kind that jangled your eyes, not the flowing angel type—paired with skin so pale that without makeup it appeared flat and called for anything but this confused fabric with no idea whether it was pink, red, or violet.
Had she not heard Daphne’s plea to be comely?
Sales twigs hated dealing with anyone over size 8. The disgusted twitches of their mouths before they forced their lips to form dead sales-smiles and how they gazed over her head gave them away.
Was this twig too young to understand? At Alchemy, Daphne offered women transformation as a blessing for the giver and the taker. Plain, plump, or scarred, she draped them in flattering cloth—jewel shades of teal, emerald, and indigo—to illustrate the magic of color and taught them the art of painting pretty, using her Hollywood tricks.
Maybe you had to cross thirty’s threshold to learn how easy it was to show kindness.
“Go to Saks,” her mother had insisted. “They carry what you’ll need.”
Daphne needed a dress that wouldn’t force her sisters to pity her, her mother to be embarrassed, or her daughter to pretend Daphne’s body didn’t exist. Her son, nineteen and filled with his own life, would only notice her clothes if she wore none.
Daphne’s father always said something generous.
Her husband’s compliments came whether she wore a tent or sparkling gown—which essentially meant nothing he said mattered.
“This will work well.” Twig held a flocked hanger a bit higher and cocked her head to the side, seeming to compare her customer’s curves to the width of the dress. Daphne pushed away the outfit, even as she kept hold of the impossibly tight, never-gonna-fit, unzipped black number hanging off her shoulders.
“Honestly, mauve’s not a good color for me.”
“Just try it.” Twig eked out a dim smile. “This cut will work. Trust me.”
Each clutched the mauve fabric many beats past social comfort. They fought for disownership of the dress, pushing and pulling until the twig released her hold, and—poof!—just like that, Daphne lost the fitting room battle.
Waisted Page 4
