‘
Liebchen
, I know what works.’ Hector sat her down in the back, in his little office. It was narrow, the desk piled high with papers and books. ‘I am a research chemist. In my youth, I studied dermatology.’
‘Then . . . no disrespect, but how come you’re running a beauty store?’
‘My wife loved cosmetics. It was our game. I would be horrified at the stuff she put on her skin; I looked at the bottles. Sometimes I mixed lotions just for her.’ He sighed. ‘Maybe this is a way to stay close.’
‘To stay close?’
‘She died – in a car crash with our baby daughter.’ He looked directly at Dina. ‘You know, sometimes they say you will die of a broken heart, but that is a lie. It keeps pumping. And the bills don’t care. I wanted to die.’
‘And you didn’t . . .’
‘Kill myself?’ His smile never reached his eyes. ‘I wanted to do that, too. But my mother was alive. I couldn’t leave her with the same loss: a dead child. And by the time she died, I was too much of a coward.’
‘It isn’t brave to kill yourself, Hector.’ Dina felt sick.
‘Isn’t it? Sometimes I wonder.’ His old, thin frame shuddered a little, as though he was shaking something off. ‘At any rate, the bills were still coming. I just wanted to live peaceably. So, I don’t mix creams anymore, but I sell them. Not well, but I still sell them.’
Dina looked back into the shop, to the cluttered chaos on the shelves. ‘You make a profit?’
‘Every year.’ He lifted his palms. ‘Because I buy things that are effective. This is the big secret. I didn’t want to work hard. Just to live.’
She chewed her lip. ‘You make money despite everything. Because your stuff works.’
‘I look at the ingredients.’ He leaned in again, as though she had missed the point. ‘I’m a chemist.’
‘Then what has changed?’
‘Dina Kane . . .
Liebchen
,’ he said again, affectionately. ‘I am sixty-nine. I would like, now, to make a little money so perhaps I can stop working, and still live quietly. Until God sends me to join my Helga.’ He lifted a brow. ‘This is too morbid for you?’
She shook her head. ‘I have longer to live, Hector. You do have great stuff. You realise the store is a disaster?’
He shrugged. ‘You can fix that, yes?’
‘Yes.’ Dina nodded. ‘I want you to give me forty per cent of whatever extra we make, on top of your take last year. Fair deal?’
‘Fine.’ He chuckled. ‘You remind me of her, with more fire.’
‘I’m not your daughter, Hector. I’m your partner. Your junior partner, but your partner.’
‘You want a contract?’
She grabbed a piece of paper, a receipt from a Swiss factory, and wrote on the back of it. ‘There. Sign your name, and date it.’
He did so.
‘Wonderful,’ Dina said, and she felt a shiver of joy run down her spine. Something amazing had just happened. Better than getting a job as a secretary; better than being a paralegal. This – this dusty shop, these unglamorous tubes – this was what she was born to do.
Dina left the office with a key. And when Hector arrived at eight thirty the next morning, the place was transformed.
‘I . . . I don’t understand.’ He gazed around. ‘Where is everything?’
Dina smiled. ‘I’ve been here since five. Don’t worry.’
The cluttered shelves were no more. Half his products were removed, in the back office, stacked in boxes. The rest were laid out, cleanly, on the shelves. Dina had tacked up square, cardboard signs, handwritten in crayon: EYES – DAY CREAMS – NIGHT CREAMS – HANDS – BRONZER – BLUSH, and on and on. Under specific products, like a high-class vintner, she’d written up a little pitch:
Egyptian – smells sexy for days
.
From Finland – best European sunscreen for perpetual summer days
.
This is mascara that never flakes – with plastic proteins to separate lashes
.
Try this when you’re sick – better than a facial
.
Dina had rigged up lamps, little spotlights from Ikea that beamed on to the shelves. There was wood, but no dust – the floor was swept, the office vacuumed, even the shelves had been gone over with a feather duster. The counter was bare of junk: nothing there but the register and a small black machine.
‘What is this?’ asked Hector.
Dina smiled. ‘Now we take credit cards. Welcome to the modern world, partner.’
Hector Green couldn’t believe his luck.
At first, it was disconcerting – the way he was pushed out, moved over, swept aside. The girl ripped through his store like a mini-tornado, as though he had hired six of her. The first day was just the start. As customers came back in, and marvelled, Dina was on them like a wasp at a picnic. She read people – that was her brilliance – standing back when a woman just wanted to browse; right there when she looked like she might buy something. And it was never a simple, ‘Can I help you?’
Dina Kane didn’t ask women what they wanted. She told them.
‘Your skin tone is a perfect match for this lipstick.’
‘That’s a great bronzer. Have you considered a hand cream? This one has the most natural self-tanner on the market. So light you can hardly see it.’
‘You want something for your neck as well? This will tighten the skin and protect the décolletage.’
‘Don’t use that moisturiser under the eyes – different skin. Try this cream.’
‘This Swiss shampoo deposits silver tones in your hair – it will kill the brassiness.’
And they listened – they all listened. Within a week, word was spreading. Ladies came back with their friends. He had less on the shelves, and was selling twice as much.
For the first time in years, Hector Green sensed an unfamiliar feeling – excitement. He could not help it. There was an audible crackle inside his tiny store. Shoppers who browsed were picking up items, buying them, returning for more. He started to see money, real money, in the till. The rent was paid off earlier in the month. He was released from standing around, could go back to his office to take control of his books, do a little stocktaking. Reluctantly at first, then more confidently, he was able to leave the store by seven p.m. Then six. He started to sleep better, to wake sooner.
Dina made things easy. Dina made things interesting.
‘We’ve sold out.’ She marched into the back room. ‘Give me some stock.’
‘I . . . I haven’t ordered the new pieces yet.’ Hector was flummoxed; it normally took months for his little orders to sell through. Now five pale-pink lipsticks would go in days. He wasn’t ready for this level of traffic.
‘Don’t panic. Here’s a list.’ Dina handed him a piece of paper, with order numbers neatly typed. ‘We just put the other stuff on the shelves. You’ll need more quantity next time.’
‘OK.’
The next week, she came into the office. ‘I’m going to spend some money. About four thousand dollars.’
Hector had never spent that much in his life. ‘On what?’
‘A computer, a printer, some professional stock-taking software.’
Dina looked so certain, he never thought of arguing. ‘OK.’
‘We’re opening new files,’ Dina said, ‘on our best customers. I’ve already done most of it. Can I walk you through it?’ She sounded confident, and she was. Three years in the city and already she felt like Tuckahoe was another world.
There was no college for Dina, only slavish hard work. She might have suffered abuse and humiliation at the hands of Edward Johnson, but she had paid him back. His father, too. And the work she was doing now, at the Green Apothecary – it was far closer to her dreams. Dina Kane was putting herself through an MBA – not in a classroom, but right out in the field, taking this old, creaking business and letting the light in. Automating it. Making it work.
Hector looked at the young girl. He was sixty-three; she was twenty – and sometimes he wondered who was the adult, and who the juvenile in the relationship.
‘You need to know how it works, in case you have to do it. If I’m not here.’
He felt a rush of panic. ‘What do you mean, if you’re not here? Why wouldn’t you be here?’
‘You know,’ Dina said. ‘In case I take a day off.’
‘A day off?’ he repeated, slowly.
She smiled. ‘People sometimes have vacations.’
People
, he felt like saying.
Not you
.
Dina Kane was a machine. She worked six days a week; maybe she slept all day Sunday. He never heard her talk men, never saw her with a friend. It was one of the reasons he liked the girl. She was just like him.
‘So, let me show you,’ she explained. ‘Here are the names – with notes. It’s linked to the credit cards. When they swipe it, this will pop up on your screen. Abigail Adams: she’s first on the list. Spends about three hundred a month. Age: early forties. Best products for her: moisturisers, tighteners, Dead Sea hand cream. Colours: she likes to buy pinks; steer her to pink golds – they look better on her skin and will get her more compliments. Open to perfume – think naturals. Last thing she bought: natural-fibre brushes from Japan.’
‘Wow.’ He didn’t know what else to say.
‘Look.’ Dina jumped from her seat and did a little pantomime. ‘Abi! How nice to see you. Did you like the brushes? They hold powders much better than the artificial stuff, don’t they? Oh, Dina said that, if you came in, I should point out the new lip glosses from Portugal. A little company in Lisbon hand-makes them. Great rose-gold colours she thinks would suit your look. We only have a few in stock, though.’
He laughed. ‘I’m almost ready for rose-gold lip gloss myself.’
‘It’s about getting to know them, so they feel it’s personal.’ Dina smiled, proudly, and her mentor felt the happiness, the glow of achievement, bouncing off her. Goddamn it, if he could bottle
that
look, he’d make his fortune.
‘You told me once your shop worked because the products worked?’ she said.
He nodded. ‘Of course.’
‘This takes it one step further: which products work best for which women. Beauty is personal; beauty is unique. So, when they feel you know them, they come back.’
My God
, Hector thought.
She really is a little genius.
‘Little Sis!’ Johnny exclaimed. ‘It’s so good to see you!’
‘You too, Johnny.’ She threw her arms around him. ‘And Brad. How are you doing?’
‘I’m good.’ Brad came over and shook her hand, shyly. Johnny threw his arm around Brad, kissing him on the lips.
‘I’m sorry. He gets all worked up about meeting family.’
Dina smiled at her brother’s boyfriend. ‘You tell Mom yet?’
A slight chill descended across the table. Johnny shook his head.
They were eating Sunday lunch together: dim sum at the Nom Wah Tea Parlour in Chinatown, tucked away in a little back street and with one of the best menus in the city.
‘Are you sure you can afford it?’ Johnny whined, when Dina offered to pay for his cab into the city. ‘Taxi fares are horrendous.’
‘Just get a car. I want to meet the new man.’
Johnny was her family, her life outside work. It was easier, these days, for Dina to hear about his time at college. It wasn’t
his
fault that Mom played favourites; Dina hoped for Johnny to succeed. As weak and passive as he’d been, he at least liked her, loved her. She would head out to see him most Sundays, and they’d get a beer, or sit in a coffee house or the dorm and talk. Six months ago, he told her he was gay, and now he’d met someone serious.
‘I guess it’s a big shock,’ Johnny had said, his voice trembling.
She was surprised at how obvious it suddenly seemed. ‘Not at all. Good for you, Johnny. I just want you to be happy.’
He was scraping through his studies. He’d switched majors – and his GPA looked like alphabet soup: a B here, a C there. Now he was in Peace and Justice Studies, and had no idea what he was going to do when he graduated.
‘Maybe go to business school,’ Johnny said, vaguely.
‘Mom doesn’t have any more money.’
‘Oh. Right. Well, I’ll get a job in social work, I guess.’
‘OK,’ Dina said, anxiously. ‘Have you thought about where?’
Johnny sighed. ‘Don’t bug me about it. I’m a student. Are you always so type A?’
Dina was happy to see Johnny, and at least she was getting to meet the boyfriend. Maybe Brad could save her brother – he was studying pre-law – maybe they would settle down, he could whip Johnny into shape . . .
She hoped so. Johnny was her only family. The only small piece of love in her life.
‘So, Brad, you like dim sum?’
He rolled his eyes. ‘Dina, please; I’m Jewish. I was
born
for dim sum.’
She laughed. She liked this guy already.
It was a pleasant meal; Dina found it hard to relax, but she was trying. Having Sundays with her brother said something important: that she was a person, not a machine; that she could feel, she could switch off.
Sometimes she asked herself why doing well mattered so much. But, mostly, she just didn’t have time. Work consumed her; the Green Apothecary was everything. She wasn’t going to be her layabout mom, depending on wise-guy money, or her dad, who worked and died on a building site.
She wanted more. Much more.
Sometimes, at night, when she was exhausted, Dina thought about a boyfriend. But Edward Johnson hung in her mind, as did the men that had swarmed round her drunken, wasted mom.
It all seemed pointless. She could only rely on herself.
Her big brother reminded her she was human. She had someone. It might be imperfect, but it was family.
‘So, the store’s doing well,’ she said, brightly.
‘That’s good,’ Johnny offered. ‘Can I get some more pork buns?’
Brad passed them over. ‘How long have you been there now?’
‘Coming up for six months. We’re making real money.’ She already had her one-bedroom apartment fixed up and under offer; she was shopping for a new place. ‘My guess is that, this year, I might make about fifty-five thousand.’
Johnny finally sat up. ‘Who? You?’
Dina nodded with pride. God, it was
so good
to be able to tell somebody, to share this with her brother – someone who wasn’t Hector.