Anybody Out There?

by Marian Keyes

  Mind you, breathing in the exhaust fumes of a million cars wasn’t pleasant; one of the windows had to be open because the three massive Candy Grrrl backdrops were too long to fit inside the car.

  “We’ll have contracted lung cancer by the time we get there,” Teenie remarked. “Ya ever seen a smoker’s lungs?”

  “No.”

  “Oh, great!” With relish she launched into a gory description, until the driver—a large gentleman with the yellow fingers of a cigarette lover—said, “Can you please shut up. I’m not feeling too good.”

  It was after nine by the time we got to the Harbor Inn. First we had to check Candace and George’s suite, to ensure that it was sufficiently fabulous and that champagne, a fruit basket, exotic flowers, and handmade chocolates were awaiting their arrival. We tweaked a few cushions, smoothed the comforter on the bed—leaving nothing to chance—then Teenie and I had a late dinner and retired to our single cots for a few hours’ sleep.

  The following morning we were at the exhibition center by seven. The doors opened to the public at nine and we needed to have a mini–Candy Grrrl store assembled by then.

  Shortly after seven-thirty Brooke arrived; she’d been in the neighborhood since Wednesday, staying with her parents in their mansion.

  “Hey, you guys!” she said. “How can I help?”

  Funnily enough, she meant it. Within seconds she was balanced on a stepladder, suspending the six-foot-by-ten-foot backdrops from the ceiling. Then she figured out how to click together the separate pieces of the black lacquer display table. Say what you like about rich people with a sense of entitlement, but Brooke was extraordinarily practical and obliging.

  Meanwhile, Teenie and I were unpacking box after box of product. We were promoting Protection Racket, our new sun-cream range. It came in (fake) glass bottles, with (fake) cut-glass stoppers, like old-fashioned perfume bottles, and the creams were an array from the pink spectrum; the highest protection factor, thirty, was a deep burgundy color and the range went through several, progressively lighter pinks, down to the lowest factor—four—in baby pink. They were gorgeous.

  We also had hundreds of Candy Grrrl T-shirts and beach bags to give away, countless goody bags of trial sizes, plus every item of cosmetics we carried, for Candace to do her makeovers.

  Just as we’d got the last lip gloss slotted into place on the display table, Lauryn arrived.

  “Hey,” she said, her poppy eyes moving in a restless quest to find something to criticize. Disappointed, she could find nothing wrong, so she turned her attention to the crowds, scanning like a hungry hunter.

  “I’m just going to…”

  “Yeah,” Teenie muttered, when she’d gone. “You just go find some famous butt to suck.”

  This made Brooke squeal with laughter. “You guys are so funny!”

  By ten o’clock, the place was thronged. There was a lot of interest in Protection Racket but the question everyone asked was “Will it make my skin look pink?”

  “Oh no,” we said, again and again and again, “The color disappears on the skin.”

  “The color disappears on the skin.”

  “The color disappears on the skin.”

  “The color disappears on the skin.”

  Every now and then you’d hear a surprised posh voice say, “Oh, hello, Brooke! You’re working, how adorable! How’s your mother?”

  Trade was brisk in the giveaway beach bags (not so brisk in the T-shirts, but never mind) and all three of us conducted dozens of miniconsultations: skin type, favorite colors, etc., before pressing a load of suitable trial sizes on the woman in question.

  We were smiling, smiling, smiling, and I was getting a horrible crampy feeling in my mouth, at the hinge of my gums.

  “Buildup of lactic acid,” Teenie said. “Happens when a muscle is overworked.”

  I didn’t feel the time passing until Teenie said, “Shit! It’s nearly twelve. Where’s the line of women crazy to meet Candace?”

  Candace was due at noon. We had advertised in the local press and it had been announced every fifteen minutes on the P.A. system, but so far no one had shown.

  “We gotta start badgering people,” Teenie said. She loved the word badger. “If we don’t have a long line, our ass is grass.”

  “Okay, let’s badger—” The words died in my mouth as over the chatter of the crowd came a sudden shriek. It sounded like it came from a small child.

  The three of us looked at one another. What was that?

  “I think Dr. De Groot has just arrived,” Teenie said.

  66

  Lauryn reappeared.

  “To pretend to Candace and George she’s been here all morning,” Teenie said quietly.

  “So what’s happening?” Lauryn asked, roaming restlessly. She picked up a bottle of Protection Racket, then asked as if it was the first time she’d ever seen it, “But won’t it make people look pink?”

  In unison, Brooke, Teenie, and I chanted, “The color disappears on the skin.”

  “Jeez,” she said, affronted. “No need to yell at me. Omigod!” She’d just noticed the lack of queue. “Where are all the people?”

  “We’re just rounding them up.”

  “It’s okay. Here they come.”

  I looked. Four women were approaching the stand. But instinctively I knew they hadn’t come for a Candy Grrrl makeover. They all had excellent cheekbones and jaw-length bobs, and were dressed in sun-bleached shades of stone and sand. They looked like they’d stepped straight out of a Ralph Lauren ad and turned out to be Brooke’s mother, Brooke’s two older sisters, and Brooke’s sister-in-law.

  Then through the crowds I saw someone I knew, but for a moment I couldn’t remember who she was or where I knew her from. Then it clicked: it was Mackenzie! Wearing clean-faded blue jeans and a man’s white shirt, quite different from the glam rig-outs she’d worn to the spiritualist place every Sunday, but definitely her. I hadn’t seen her for three or four weeks now.

  “Anna!” she said. “You look adorable! All that pink!”

  It was strange, I barely knew her, but she felt like my long-lost sister. I flung myself into her arms and we hugged tightly.

  Naturally, being posh, Mackenzie knew all the Edisons, so there was a flurry of kisses and inquiries after parents and uncles.

  “How do you two guys know each other?” Lauryn asked, her eyes bulging suspiciously from me to Mackenzie.

  Mackenzie’s eyes flashed a desperate signal. Don’t tell them, please don’t tell them.

  Don’t worry, I flashed back. I’m saying nothing.

  We were saved from a mortifying “How do we know each other Anna?” “I don’t know, Mackenzie, how do we know each other?” shtick by the arrival of Queen Candace and King George.

  Candace—dressed in downbeat black—thought the Edison women and Mackenzie were the crowd waiting to be made over by her.

  “Well, hey.” She almost smiled. “Better get started.” She picked the obvious alpha female and extended her hand. “Candace Biggly.”

  “Martha Edison.”

  “Well, Martha, would you care to take a seat for your makeover?” Candace indicated the silver-and-pink vinyl stool. “You other ladies will just have to wait.”

  “Makeover?” Mrs. Edison sounded aghast. “But I only use soap and water on my skin.”

  Confused, Candace looked at an Edison sister, then at another one, then at the sister-in-law, and seemed to notice that they were all clones of Martha.

  “Soap and water,” they parroted, shrinking away. “Yes, soap and water. Bye, Brooke, see you at the Save the Moose picnic.”

  “Mackenzie,” I said brightly. “How about you?”

  “Hey, why not?” Obligingly she got up on the stool and introduced herself to Candace as “Mackenzie McIntyre Hamilton.”

  George said to Candace, “Okay, babes, seeing as you’re all set, I’ll just take a stroll.”

  Teenie and I made steady eye contact, silently saying, “He’s
off to suck Donna Karan’s butt.” Brooke intercepted the look and got a massive fit of the giggles. “You guys!”

  “Shaddup,” Lauryn hissed. “And start rounding up a crowd.”

  But it proved impossible: a high proportion of passersby were planning to attend the Save the Moose picnic and didn’t want to look overly made up for it. They were happy to accept a Candy Grrrl beach bag and free samples but not to “take the chair.”

  Candace strung out Mackenzie’s makeover for as long as possible, but finally Mackenzie descended from the stool and I cornered her.

  “Will I see you soon?” I asked, without actually moving my lips.

  She shook her head. “I don’t think so,” she said very, very quietly. “I’m trying something different.”

  “The rich husband route?”

  “Yeah. But I miss you guys. How’s Nicholas?”

  “Um, good.”

  “What did his T-shirt say last week?”

  “‘Jimmy Carter for President.’”

  She laughed out loud. “Vintage. God, he’s just adorable. A little cutie. Is it just me or is he kinda…hot?”

  “I’m not really the person to ask.”

  “Sure. Sorry.” She sighed, quite sadly. “Well, tell Nicholas I said hey. Tell everyone I said hey.”

  She left and I resumed my badgering of the crowd. Still no takers, which was bad enough, but then someone said, “I totally broke out when I tried Candy Grrrl’s day cream,” and—horror of horrors—Candace heard.

  She dashed down her pony-skin blusher brush and said, “I’ve got better fucking things to do with my time than try the hard sell on these assholes. I’ve got an annual turnover of thirty-four million dollars.”

  I feared client meltdown. Anxiously, I looked around for George, but he was off sucking up to any half-famous fool he could find. Lauryn, naturally, had also disappeared.

  “I want ice cream,” Candace said petulantly.

  “Er…okay. I’ll go and get you some. Teenie and Brooke will stay with you.”

  “I’m sorry but I have to leave now,” Brooke said. “I’ve pledged to sell raffle tickets at the moose benefit.”

  “Okay. Well, thanks, Brooke, you’ve been a total star today. See you Monday.”

  “Wednesday,” she reminded me. “I’m not back until then.”

  “Right, Wednesday.” I dived into the throng, desperately seeking ice cream.

  Fifteen frustrating minutes later I returned, triumphantly bearing an Eskimo Pie, a Dove Bar, and three other assorted ice creams. Covering all bases.

  Grumpily Candace accepted the Eskimo Pie and sat slumped on the high stool, her chin on her chest, tucking in. She looked like an orangutan who’d been left out in the rain.

  This was the moment, of course, that Ariella, visiting friends in East Hampton for the weekend, did a drop-by. It didn’t look good. Mercifully, Ariella couldn’t linger. She was on her way to the Save the Caribou cookout.

  “Is that different from the Save the Moose picnic?” Teenie asked.

  “Totally,” she snapped.

  Then they were all gone and it was just me and Teenie.

  “So what’s up with the moose anyway?” Teenie asked. “I didn’t even know it was endangered. Or the caribou.”

  I shrugged. “Dunno. Maybe they’ve just run out of stuff to save.”

  67

  Anna, it’s me, your mother, it’s urgent—”

  I grabbed the phone. Something was wrong with someone. Dad? JJ?

  “What?” I asked. “What’s urgent?”

  “What’s the story with Jacqui and Joey?”

  I had to wait for my racing heart to slow down. “That’s why you’re ringing? Because of Jacqui and Joey?”

  “Yes. What’s going on?”

  “You know. He fancies her. And she fancies him.”

  “No! She’s slept with him. Over the weekend, while you were in those Hamptons.”

  She hadn’t told me. In a little voice I said, “I didn’t know.”

  Fake cheerily, Mum said hastily, “Sure it’s only Monday morning, she’ll tell you soon. And, God knows, who hasn’t slept with Joey?”

  “I haven’t.”

  “And neither”—she sighed heavily—“have I. But just about everyone else has. Was it a one-night stand?”

  “How the hell do I know?”

  “No, it’s a joke. A whole night? Does Joey do that kind of commitment?” Mum said.

  “Good one.” Then I said, “Well, I can’t help you. I don’t know what’s going on. Ask Rachel.”

  “I can’t. We’re not talking.”

  “What now?”

  “The invitations. I want nice silver italics on nice white paper.”

  “And what does she want?”

  “Twigs and twine and shells and woven papyrus stuff. Would you have a word with her?”

  “No.”

  A startled silence came from Mum’s end, then I explained, “I’m the daughter who’s been recently bereaved, remember?”

  “Sorry, pet. Sorry. I was mixing you up with Claire for a minute.”

  It was only after she hung up that I wondered how she knew about Jacqui. Luke, I presumed.

  Straightaway, I rang Jacqui, but she wasn’t picking up either of her phones. I left messages for her to call me immediately, then went to work, bursting with curiosity.

  She didn’t call all morning. I tried her again at lunchtime but still no reply. Midafternoon, I was just about to ring her once more when a shadow fell over my desk. It was Franklin. Very quietly, he said, “Ariella wants to see you.”

  “Why?”

  “Let’s go.”

  “Where?”

  “Her office.”

  Oh God, I was sacked. I was so sacked.

  Ah, well.

  Franklin walked me in and I was hugely surprised to discover several people already there: Wendell from Visage, Mary Jane, coordinator of the other seven brands, and Lois, one of Mary Jane’s “girls.” Lois worked on Essence, one of our more worthy, touchy-feely brands, although nothing like as bad as EarthSource.

  Was this going to be a job-lot sacking?

  Five chairs were set in a semicircle around Ariella’s desk.

  “Siddown,” she Don Corleoned. “Okay, the good news is that you’re not fired. Yet.”

  We all laughed far too loud and long.

  “Settle down, kids, it wasn’t that funny. First thing you’ve got to know is, this is superconfidential. What you hear here today, you do not discuss outside this room, with anyone, anywhere, anytime, anyhow, got it?”

  Got it. But I was intrigued. Especially because we were such an unlikely combination of people. What did we have in common that made us privy to some huge secret?

  “Formula Twelve.” Ariella asked. “Heard of it?”

  I nodded. I knew a bit. It had been formulated by some discoverer man who had been down in the Amazon Basin badgering the locals, trying to record their lifestyle, that sort of thing. When the local lads got wounded, an ointmenty thing would be made up of ground roots and plants and other stuff you’d expect; the explorer had noticed how quickly the wounds healed and how residual scarring was minimal.

  The discoverer bloke tried to make the ointment himself, but didn’t get it right until the twelfth go, hence the title.

  It had been regarded as medicinal and he’d been trying to get approval from the FDA, which was a long time coming.

  Ariella took up the story. “So while he’s waiting and waiting for FDA appro, Professor Redfern—that’s the guy’s name—had an idea: skin care. Using the same formula, in a diluted form, he’s created a day cream.” She handed out an inch-thick pile of documents to each of the five of us. “And the trials have been phenomenal. Like, off the scale. It’s all there.”

  The funny thing about Ariella is that when she had to talk for any length of time, she stopped the Don Corleone carry-on. Clearly it was just an affectation to scare people. Mind you, it worked.

 
; “It’s been bought by Devereaux.” Devereaux was a massive corporation; they owned dozens of cosmetic lines. Including Candy Grrrl, actually. “Devereaux is going huge on it. It’s going to be the hottest brand on the planet.” She half smiled, moving eye contact from one of us to the next. “You’re wondering where do we come in? Okay, take this to the bank: McArthur on the Park…is pitching for their publicity.”

  She took a moment to let us say wow and how fabulous that was.

  “And I want each of you three”—she pointed at me, Wendell, and Lois, in turn—“to come up with a pitch. A separate pitch.”

  Another momentous pause. In fairness, that was fabulous. A pitch of my own. For a totally new brand.

  “If they’re good enough, we pitch all three to them. If they go with your pitch, maybe you get to head up the account.”

  Oh. Now, that would be amazing. A promotion. Although what would a Formula Twelve girl have to wear? Stuff inspired by the Amazon Basin? Even Warpo would be better than that.

  “How much time do we have?” Wendell asked.

  “Two weeks today, you three pitch to me.”

  Two weeks. Not long.

  “That gives us time to nix any glitches before the real thing. Not that I want any glitches.” Ariella was suddenly low and menacing. “Another thing, you do all of this in your own time. Coming in here every day, you carry on like normal, giving one thousand percent to your current brands. But you can forget about having a life of your own for the next coupla weeks.”

  I was in luck. I had no life of my own anyway.

  “And like I said, no one must know.”

  Suddenly she switched to regal mode. “Anna, Lois, Wendell, you don’t need me to tell you what an honor this is. Do you?” Energetically we shook our heads. No, indeed, we did not. “Do you know how many people I have working for me?” No, we didn’t, but plenty, for sure. “I spent a lot of time with Franklin and Mary Jane assessing every single one of my girls, and out of all of them, I picked you three.”

  “Thank you, Ariella,” we murmured.