During that evening, I'd experienced a vague uneasiness, but I didn't have time to analyze it because Sheila and I took an extended business trip to Europe immediately afterward. We came back to endless photographs of Sheila and Daniel looking like a radiant couple in publications like
People, W,
and
Variety.
When an entire paragraph of Lola Listeria's gossip column in the
Manhattan Star-Gazette
described Daniel and Sheila as the coming century's first supercouple, I hit the roof.
I agreed with Daniel when he pointed out that my work in advertising should make me understand the value of publicity, even when it was contrived or false. But I was furious about feeling used and managed to that end, reminding him that he'd not only capitalized on an event that was meant to be for Josh and me, but he'd been more than a little deceptive in how he'd turned the situation to his advantage.
After I explained all that to Gretchen, she said, “I guess I can see why you were annoyed with Sheila and Daniel. But it doesn't sound serious enough to break up over.”
“It wasn't,” I agreed. “There's more. Over the past year, he and I made a lot of plans for our future. The big ones were moving in together and eventually having kids. The whole package. I think as his part on
Secret Splendor
got bigger and more demands were made on him to promote the show, our goals stopped being a priority for him. I didn't get that until one night when we were already having a bad fight. He started talking about problems that I didn't even know we had. The stuff he said . . .” I looked at her. “I don't want to get into that. We both said awful things to each other. He told me it was over. I walked out. I haven't seen him or talked to him since.”
“You've both been traveling,” Gretchen reminded me. “Maybe when he comes back, the two of you can talk more rationally about your problems.”
“I think it's beyond that, Gretchen. But I don't want it to hurt my other relationships. Like with Sheila. I hope it doesn't cause problems for you to be friends with me as well as Daniel.”
“Are you kidding? You and I will always be friends,” she assured me. “Who else would sit through Woody Allen movies with me? Plus you never give me unsolicited advice about my love life. You always heed my recommendations about your investments. You've given me free advertising expertise on my various Happy Hollow ventures. You're my only gay friend who doesn't tell me when my hair is a disaster. You can call me anytime. Except, of course, when
Lou Dobbs Moneyline
is on CNN.”
I laughed and shifted the conversation to more neutral topics. After we split the check, we walked outside. It was no longer raining, so once I saw Gretchen into a cab, I decided to walk, hoping to exhaust myself. I'd been having trouble sleeping, which I attributed not only to the breakup with Daniel, but to a slowdown in my workload. I wasn't being challenged enough, which gave me too much time to think about the wreck my personal life had become.
I briefly considered stopping at a bar and finding someone to divert me for an hour or two. There'd been a few of those after I became single. I decided against it. Maybe if I went to bed early enough, I'd sleep in spite of myself. At least I no longer had to look down at Daniel's dark apartment and wonder where he was.
Over the next couple of weeks, cold, gray days continued to dampen my mood. True to her word, Gretchen and I talked every few days. We made tentative plans for our next Gay Day, a screening of the movie
The Women
in mid-February. Gretchen insisted it was mandatory viewing for a gay man. I ended up having to cancel on her because of a business trip. I wasn't sure I regretted missing the movie, but I definitely wasn't sorry that work was kicking into high gear as we finished getting ready for spring and summer.
My focus was all business as yet another soggy day found me boarding a flight to Baltimore with Sheila. She was behind me in line, yelling into her cell phone. I tried to ignore her conversation, but it was next to impossible. Especially when she slid into her seat next to mine.
“Bob,” she said into the phone, “you're not listening to me. The point is, I'm presenting an award for best costumes on national television, and Claude Martrand called with an offer to dress me from his couture line . . . Yes, well, you can imagine my surprise when he wondered why I had ignored his invitation to be in his spring runway show . . . Oh, really? He said you were the one who ultimately declined for me, since I was under obligation to Lillith Parker and couldn't do any shows . . . You know that's not true, Bob! I don't want to hear your excuses, either. Lillith may have me on a busy schedule as her Zodiac Girl, but my contract clearly says I can do other jobs as time permits . . . Oh? You think? Well, I've got news for you, honey, I'm on my way to meet with Lillith. I'm on a plane even as we speak . . . No, I don't need you with me. Blaine Dunhill is with me . . . No! Don't call Lillith! It's a personal meeting, Bob . . . Just don't lie to me again. Bye.” She closed her cell phone and tucked it into a highly polished, black leather purse.
“Rough day at the office, dear?” I asked.
“Blaine,” she said, turning to me, “I swear I'm going to leave Metropole if they don't give me another agent. Bob's a fascist. He thinks he owns me or something.”
“Maybe you should talk to your lawyer, Sheila,” I offered. I didn't know much about the hierarchy of modeling agencies, so it was the best advice I could think of.
“Maybe you're right.” I watched as she bit her lower lip. It was odd how the little overbite never corrected by braces could now earn upwards of fifteen hundred dollars an hour. “It's not even noon and I already have a headache.”
“Excuse me,” a woman seated across the aisle from us said. Sheila and I both turned to look at the magazine in her hands. “Is this you?”
The magazine was open to an ad for Zodiac's Aquarius line by Lillith Allure Cosmetics. Spread out over two glossy pages was a photograph of Sheila dressed as a mermaid, being carried by a buff man in a Speedo on a sandy beach.
“Gosh. Look at my hair. It's huge,” Sheila pointed out.
“It looks great,” I observed. “You look fantastic.”
“I look like the chicken of the sea.”
“Sorry, Charlie,” I quipped.
“Would you sign this for me?” the woman asked. “It's for my daughter. She wants to be you when she grows up.”
“Aw, that's sweet. I'd be happy to.” Sheila took my Mont Blanc pen and signed the magazine. “How old is she?”
“Nine.”
“When I was that age, I wanted to be Barbie,” Sheila said. “Looks like I made it.”
“If you start singing Barry Manilow, I'm getting off this plane,” I said.
“You stay right where you are, mister,” Sheila ordered. “There's no way I'm facing Lillith the wacko on my own. Besides, she wants to meet with you, too.”
“I don't know why I had to cancel two days of meetings to fly to Baltimore for one meeting with her,” I said. “If she could just use a phone, or e-mail, like a normal person, my life would be so much easier.”
“She can,” Sheila said. “Just not while Mars is interfering with her communication planets.”
Lillith Parker was my number one client in my role as an advertising executive at Breslin Evans Fox and Dean. In fact, Lillith Allure Cosmetics was my only client. As Lillith Allure's Account Planner, I oversaw all packaging, product development, and promotions. There was a lot on my plate, but I thrived on it. The only hitch was dealing with Lillith's penchant for all things astrological. Her every waking momentâand possibly her dream state, as wellâwas guided by a series of charts, readings, and courses designed to keep her personal and business lives in harmonious balance with the universe.
Most CEOs had a personal assistant to organize their business lives. Among Ms. Parker's staff were people who read tarot cards, threw rune stones, communed with “the other side,” and kept meticulous astrological charts. If there was one star or planet out of place, her life was in turmoil and an entire ad campaign might have to be reworked. During the three years I'd worked with Lillith, I'd had my aura fluffed, my palms read, and my chakras balanced. While I never felt different after these exercises in faith, and whether or not Lillith knew I was only going through the motions, she trusted me with her product line.
“Speaking of Zodiac,” I said and opened my briefcase, “I have the final prints for the Taurus line.”
I handed Sheila a set of color prints which featured her in a boxing ring. In the photos, she wore bright red boxing trunks, gloves, and a simple tank top. Her eyes were “bruised” with Zodiac's Taurus eye shadow as she charged her opponent in the ring with gloves raised.
“These are terrific, Blaine,” Sheila praised, flipping through the pictures. “You've got a great mind for this stuff.”
“See how your âtrainer' is whipping that red towel off your shoulders as you're charging into the ring?”
“So it also looks like a bullfight,” Sheila observed.
“Taurus is the sign of the bull,” I reminded her.
“Such a crafty ad exec, you are,” Sheila continued. “I never know how these things are going to turn out when I'm posing. I just trust that you know what you're doing.”
“Funny,” I said, returning the photos to my briefcase, “that's exactly what Lillith always says.”
“She never would've entrusted her business to you if she didn't think you were the right man for the job.”
“The same could be said for you, you know. Out of hundreds of women, she picked you to represent her biggest line.”
Sheila nodded thoughtfully, her silence giving me time to remember how I'd ended up with a client as bizarre as Lillith Parker. I would never have been able to handle her at the beginning of my career.
Fresh out of college, I'd been hired by Trueluck and Frost, a Wisconsin advertising firm. One of their clients was Frank Allen, the founder of Allure Cosmetics, which sold a line of products that embraced simplicity and classic beauty, yet never went beyond the drugstore and beauty supply market. I'd gotten my shot at the account because Frank wanted to change the direction of Allure Cosmetics' advertising, hoping to appeal to a younger market, and I was the youngest member of the firm. Rehashing an old idea, I launched the “Lady in Red” campaign. We repackaged his line in bright red boxes with black letters and did a series of ads featuring a model with a Grace Kelly appeal. She had a patrician beauty, but somewhere beneath her surface, one sensed a temptress. One of the first ads featured her in a red dress, clinging to the back of a tuxedoed man on a motorcycle. She traveled in style, but she did it dangerously. She never checked a coat, only a helmet.
Allure Cosmetics' sales rose ten percent, and Frank wanted to keep me and the Lady in Red. But he'd also decided Trueluck and Frost was too provincial to deliver the kind of audience he wanted his ads to have. He was courted by Breslin Evans Fox and Dean, a powerhouse agency in Manhattan. When he signed with them, it was with the stipulation that the firm hire me.
My early days at Breslin Evans were brutal. With the move, Allure Cosmetics became a little fish in a big pond, so I wasn't much more than plankton. The competition for accounts was intense. It was only thanks to Frank's loyalty that I held on to Allure during a time when I was given every third-rate, undesirable project that my superiorsâwhich included basically everyone, since even the administrative staff got more respect than I didâcould throw at me.
Through it all, the Lady in Red never waned in popularity. But what did she smell like?
Frank had no experience with perfume, so he asked me to find a line that would mix well with his company. I would never have thought to merge Allure Cosmetics and Lillith Parker Designs if it wasn't for my then-assistant, Sharon. We'd been holed up in my office for a week with Allure samples and hundreds of bottles of perfume, trying to find a good match. My office smelled like the main floor of Bloomingdale's, and we were giddy from the fumes.
“For Pete's sake, open a window, Sharon,” I barked. “It smells like my Aunt Gladys in here.”
“Believe me, I would,” she said, “but we're on the twenty-third floor, and the windows don't open. Where's that can of coffee? It'll cleanse your nose. Here you go.” When she passed me the coffee, the can knocked over an open bottle of Halo by Lillith Parker. My desk and several Allure compacts were saturated with the smell of verbena and lilac. “No! Not the eye shadow! I was going to wear it at my bridal shower!” Sharon screamed.
“My desk! You got perfume all over my desk!” I hollered.
“Me? You got perfume in my compact!”
“Hey, wait a minute. Which perfume was that?”
“Lillith Parker's,” Sharon answered. “Why?”
“She's the one with those wacky names, right? How about,
Allure Has a Halo?
”
Sharon found the file on Lillith Parker and read aloud, “Lillith Parker Designs manufactures perfumes with celestial imagery in its bottles and titles.” She scanned the file. “Aura, Halo, Saturnine, Balance. You could work with these names, Blaine. They'd go well with Allure.”
“I think we found it. Where is Lillith Parker located?”
“Baltimore.”
“Book us on a flight tomorrow.”
“I'll book a flight for you and a temp,” Sharon said. “I'm getting married and moving to Connecticut, remember? You need to learn to live without me.”
“Whatever, Sharon. Just do it. And send a memo to purchasing that I need a new desk. This one reeks.”