The Opposite of Me (53 page)

“Relax,” Donna said. “I already did. Green seedless grapes are in our freezer. They’ll be ready in plenty of time.”

Red grapes instead of green. It’s the simple things that can annihilate a career.

“Thank you,” I breathed as my heart slowed its violent thudding. I reached for one more Advil and promised myself with all the sincerity of a street junkie that it would be my last hit. At least until lunchtime.

I couldn’t be too prepared. Cheryl and I had won the two chances to present our Gloss campaigns, and she was a wild card. Many of her campaigns were uninspired, but when she nailed it, she was spectacular. I was dying to sneak a peek at her storyboard, but I knew she was guarding it like a hostage. As I was mine.

Cheryl was thirty-three, four years older than me, and she worked hard. But I worked harder. I lived, breathed, and slept my job. Seriously; if I weren’t so chastened by Donna’s disapproving huffs when she noticed the imprint of my head on my couch cushion, I’d barely have any reason to go home at night. Even though I’d lived in New York for seven years—ever since Richards, Dunne & Krantz came recruiting at my grad school at Northwestern and made me an offer—I’d only made one real friend in the city: Matt. My job didn’t leave time for anyone or anything else.

“Lindsey?” Donna’s head poked into my office. “It’s your mom on the phone. She said she’s at the hospital.”

I snatched up the phone. Could something have happened to Dad? I knew retiring from the federal government wouldn’t be good for him; he’d immediately begun waging a vicious gardening war with our next-door neighbor, Mr. Simpson. When I was home for Thanksgiving—two years ago; last year I’d missed the holiday because I had to throw together a last-minute campaign for a resort in Saint Lucia that was suffering a reservations lull—I’d had to physically stop Dad from climbing a ladder and sawing off all the branches of Simpson’s trees at the exact point where they crossed over our property line.

“Oh, honey, you’ll never believe it.” Mom sighed deeply. “I bought a subscription to
O
magazine last month, remember?”

“Ye-es,” I lied, wondering how this story could possibly end in a mad rush to the hospital to reattach Dad’s forearm.

“So I bought the November issue and filled out the subscription card that comes inside,” Mom said, settling in for a cozy chat. “You know those little cards that are always falling out of magazines and making a mess on the floor? I don’t know why they have to put so many of them in. I guess they think if you see enough of them you’ll just go ahead and subscribe to the magazine.”

She paused thoughtfully. “But that’s exactly what I did, though, so who am I to cast stones?”

“Mom.” I cradled the phone between my shoulder and ear and massaged my temples. “Is everything okay?”

Mom sighed. “I just got my first issue of
O
magazine today, and it’s the November issue! Which, of course, I’ve already read.” Her voice dropped to a conspiratorial whisper: “And so has your father, but you didn’t hear it from me. That means I get only eleven issues and I’ve paid for twelve.”

“Lindsey?” It was Donna again. “Matt’s here. Should I send him in?”

“Please,” I said, covering the mouthpiece.

Mom was still talking. “. . . almost like they’re trying to trick you because they say ‘Save fourteen dollars off the cover price’ but if you end up with two of the same issue and you paid for them both, you’re really only saving ten forty-five with tax—Dad sat right down with a paper and pencil and did the math—and—”

“Mom,” I cut in. “Are you at the hospital?”

“Yes,” Mom said.

Pause.

“Um, Mom?” I said. “
Why
are you at the hospital?”

“I’m visiting Mrs. Magruder. Remember, she had a hip replacement? She won’t be able to manage stairs for six weeks. Last time I was here I noticed the waiting room only had copies of
Golf Magazine
and
Highlights
and I thought, No sense in me having two copies of
O
magazine. Maybe someone else can enjoy it. And there’s a recipe for low-fat cheesecake with whipped cream—the secret is applesauce, of all things—”

“Mom, I’ll take care of it.” I cut her off just before the pressure in my head began boiling and shrieking like a teapot. “I’ll call Oprah’s office directly.”

Matt stepped into my office, one eyebrow raised. He was wearing a black blazer, which looked good with his curly dark hair. I’d have to tell him black was his color, I thought absently.

“Thank you, honey,” Mom said, sounding the tiniest bit disappointed that she couldn’t milk it a bit longer. “It’s so nice to have a daughter who knows the right people.”

“Tell Stedman we should go fly-fishing again sometime,” Matt stage-whispered as I made a gun out of my thumb and index finger and shot him in the chest.

“By the way, did you hear about Alex?” Mom asked.

I should’ve known it would be impossible for us to end our conversation without a mention of my twin sister. If she compliments me, Mom has to say something nice about Alex. Sometimes I wonder if Alex and I are as competitive as we are because Mom is so scrupulously fair in the way she treats us. Probably, I thought, feeling comforted that I could reliably blame my personal failings on my parents.

I sighed and squinted at my watch: fifty-eight minutes.

“Oprah,” Matt croaked, rolling around on my office floor and clutching his chest. “Rally your angel network. I’m seeing . . . a . . . white . . . light.”

“The TV station is expanding Alex’s segments!” Mom said. “Now she’ll be on Wednesdays and Fridays instead of just Fridays. Isn’t that wonderful?”

When people learn I have a twin, the first thing they ask is whether we’re identical. Unless, of course, they see Alex and me together, in which case their brows furrow and their eyes squint and you can almost see their brains clog with confusion as they stutter, “Twins? But . . . but . . . you look
nothing
alike.”

Alex and I are about as unidentical as it’s possible to be. I’ve always thought I look like a child’s drawing of a person: straight brown lines for the hair and eyebrows, eyes and nose and mouth and ears generally in the right places and in the right numbers. Nothing special; just something to pin on the refrigerator door before it’s covered by grocery lists and report cards and forgotten. Whereas Alex . . . Well, there’s no other word for it: she’s flat-out gorgeous. Stunning. Breathtaking. Dazzling. Apparently there are a few other words for it after all.

She started modeling in high school after a talent scout approached her at a mall, and though she never made it big in New York because she’s only five foot six, she gets a steady stream of jobs in our hometown of Bethesda, in suburban Washington, D.C. A few years ago, she got a part-time job for the NBC affiliate covering celebrity gossip (or “entertainment,” as she loftily calls it). For three minutes a week—six now that her appearances are being doubled—she’s on camera, bantering with the movie review guys and interviewing stars who are shooting the latest political thriller film in D.C.

I know, I know, I hear you asking what she looks like. Everyone wants to know what she looks like. Alex is a redhead, but not one of those Ronald McDonald–haired ones with freckles that look splattered on by Jackson Pollock. Her long hair is a glossy, dark red, and depending on the light, it has hints of gold and caramel and chocolate. She can never walk a city block without some woman begging her for the name of her colorist. It’s natural, of course. Her skin defies the redhead’s law of pigmentation by tanning smoothly and easily, her almond-shaped eyes are a shade precisely between blue and green, and her nose is straight and unremarkable, the way all good, obedient little noses should be. My father can still fit into the pants he wore in high school; Alex got his metabolism. My mother hails from a long line of sturdy midwestern corn farmers; I got hers. But no bitterness here.

“I’ll call Alex later and congratulate her,” I told Mom.

“Oh, and she booked the photographer for the wedding,” Mom said, winding up for another lengthy tangential chat. Alex’s upcoming wedding could keep our phone lines humming for hours.

“I’ve got to run,” I cut her off. “Big morning. I’m going after a new account and the clients are flying in from Aspen this morning.”

“Aspen?” Mom said. “Are they skiers?”

“The really rich people don’t go to Aspen to ski,” I told her. “They go to hang out with other rich people. My clients have the mansion next door to Tom Cruise’s.”

“Are they movie stars?” Mom squealed. The woman does love her
People
magazine. And so does Dad, though he’d never admit it.

“Even better,” I said. “They’re billionaires.”

I hung up and took a bite of blueberry muffin, but it tasted like dust in my mouth. It wasn’t the muffin’s fault; it was the unpleasant thought tugging at me like an itch. I’d told Mom about my presentation so the message would get back to Alex:
You’re prettier, but don’t ever forget that I’m more successful.
Don’t get me wrong; I love my sister—she can be generous and outspoken and funny—but no one can push my buttons like Alex. Around her, I light up like a skyscraper’s elevator control panel at rush hour. We’re complete opposites, always have been. It’s like our DNA held a meeting in the womb and divvied up the goods: I’ll trade you my sex appeal strands for a double dose of organizational skills, my genes must’ve said. Deal, Alex’s genes answered, and if you’ll just sign this form relinquishing any claim to long legs, you can have my work ethic, too.

If Alex and I weren’t related, we’d have absolutely nothing in common. The thing about Alex is that she doesn’t just grab the spotlight, she wrestles it to the ground and straddles it and pins its hands to the floor so it has no chance of escaping. And it isn’t even her fault; the spotlight
wants
to be dominated by her. The spotlight screams “Uncle!” the second it sees her. People are dazzled by Alex. Men send her so many drinks it’s a wonder she isn’t in AA; women give her quick appraising looks and memorize her outfit, vowing to buy it because if it looks even half as good on them . . . ; even cranky babies stop crying and give her gummy smiles when they see her behind them in the grocery store line.

If Alex weren’t my sister, I probably wouldn’t be nearly so driven. But I learned long ago that it’s easy to get lost and overlooked when someone like Alex is around. In a way, she has made me who I am today.

I pushed away my muffin and glanced over at Matt. He was sprawled on my couch, one leg hooked over the armrest, half-asleep. How he always managed to stay calm amid the chaos and frenzy of our agency was a mystery. I’d have to ask him for his secret. When I had time, which I didn’t right now, since I was due downstairs in forty-four minutes. Mason was letting me greet the clients, since I was presenting first, and Cheryl would get to walk them to their car afterward.

“Can we do one more run-through?” I begged.

“We did twelve yesterday,” Matt reminded me, yawning. He opened one sleepy-looking brown eye and peered up at me.

“You’re right, you’re right,” I said, lining up the pencils on my desk at a perfect right angle to my stapler. “I don’t want to sound overrehearsed.”

“Knock it off, OCD girl,” Matt said, pulling himself up off the couch and stealing a bite of my muffin. “Mmm. How can you not be eating this?”

“I had a bowl of Advil for breakfast,” I told him. “High in fiber.”

“You’re beyond help,” he said. “What time is the party tonight?”

“Seven-thirty,” I said. “Is Pam coming?”

Pam was Matt’s new girlfriend. I hadn’t met her yet, but I was dying to.

“Yep,” he said.

Tonight was our office holiday party.

Tonight was also the night the name of the new VP creative director would be announced.

“Nervous?” Matt asked me.

“Of course not,” I lied.

“Step away from the Advil,” Matt ordered me, slapping my hand as it instinctively went for my desk drawer. “Let’s get your storyboards into the conference room. You know you’re gonna kick ass, Madam Vice President.”

And just like that, the cold knot of anxiety in my stomach loosened the tiniest bit. Like I said, Matt was my only real friend at the office.

2

WHEN THE STRETCH
limousine glided to a stop outside our building forty minutes late, I hurried to the curb and pasted on a welcoming smile. I hoped I looked okay. I’d gone for a professional, no-nonsense vibe, which was lucky, since those were the only kinds of clothes my closet was capable of coughing up. I was wearing a classic black Armani pantsuit with an ivory silk shell and black sling-backs. My hair was pulled up into its usual twist, and my earrings were pearls encircled by tiny diamonds—a gift to myself for my twenty-ninth birthday last month. Boring, yes, but safe, too. I wanted my clients to be dazzled by my work, not me.

“Mr. Fenstermaker? So nice to meet you.” I greeted the head of the Gloss empire like he was Prince William as he grunted and heaved his squatty body out of the limo.

“And this must be Mrs. Fenstermaker?”

As if I hadn’t read a half dozen magazine profiles about the Fenstermakers and studied their pictures so carefully that I could ID them out of a lineup of thousands. He looked more like a meat butcher from Brooklyn than a multimillionaire purveyor of glamour, but his wife—make that his third wife—more than made up for it. She could double for a Bond villainess, the icy blond kind who could open a man’s jugular with a single swipe of a nail. He shook my outstretched hand, and she swept by me with a nod, oversize Prada sunglasses firmly in place.

“I hope you didn’t encounter much traffic on the drive in from the airport,” I said as we entered the building, crossed the gleaming marble floors, and stepped into the elevator. He grunted again, and she didn’t deign to answer. I hate awkward elevator silences, but apparently the Fenstermakers didn’t share my bias, which meant elevator silence was my new bosom buddy.

“I’ll be presenting our first campaign,” I said as we stepped off the elevator. “We’ll be joined by Mason Graham, our agency’s president, whom you already know. But first, let me offer you a drink.”

I led the Fenstermakers into our oval-shaped conference room, which has glass walls showcasing a gorgeous view of the city. Even though I’ve seen it countless times, it still takes my breath away. Directly below us were yellow cabs duking it out for lane space and globs of people buying hot, salty pretzels from street vendors and shouting into cell phones and ignoring traffic signals as they swarmed across the streets. Middle fingers were flying and tourists were snapping photos and pigeons were squawking and a crowd was gathered around two guys dressed in togas who were banging on overturned plastic buckets that substituted for drums. I’d heard them before; they were really good. If you squinted and looked farther north, you could just make out the green oasis of Central Park, filled with walking paths and dog parks and fountains and playgrounds and the best outdoor theater in the world. All of New York—the messy, pulsing, glorious city of possibilities—was at our feet. But the Fenstermakers didn’t even look at the view. They’d probably had a better one on the way in from their private plane, the one I’d read was equipped with a massage table, a selection of rare single-malt scotches, and his-and-hers glass showers, each with six showerheads. Mrs. Fenstermaker had wanted a Jacuzzi, but the FAA told her the weight would endanger the plane. Apparently she’d reacted about as well as an overtired two-year-old to hearing the word
no
.

My storyboard and sample ad were still propped up on easels and covered with drape cloths, I was happy to see. I wouldn’t have put it past Cheryl to steal my presentation props. Seriously; they’d gone missing a few years ago and I’d unearthed them in a Dumpster fifteen minutes before my presentation began. Cheryl blamed the maintenance man, but she’d smelled suspiciously like old eggs and wet newspapers. (Maybe I wouldn’t have to check the “paranoid freak” personality box, after all. I could probably upgrade to the “anal-retentive, neurotic-celibate-workaholic” box. I’d better hire a bodyguard to ward off the men.)

“Espresso?” Mr. Fenstermaker grunted as he sat down.

I’d read that he was as miserly with his words as he was with his money, at least when it came to things other than his personal toys.

“Of course,” I said, mentally thanking last year’s
New York
magazine profile for mentioning that he mainlined espresso.

I poured some from a silver thermos into a tiny china cup and added a twist of lemon peel on the side. I turned to Mrs. Fenstermaker, who was glaring at her blood-red lipstick in her compact mirror as if it had just insulted her.

“Is room-temperature Pellegrino still your preference?” I asked.

She snapped shut her compact and took in the gleaming wood buffet I’d stocked with their favorite treats—bagels with Nova Scotia lox and chive cream cheese for him, frozen organic grapes for her. Green grapes, by God. I’d also ordered croissants, muffins, exotic sliced fruits, and fresh-squeezed juices from one of the city’s best bakeries, just in case Mr. Fenstermaker’s assistant had steered me wrong when I’d called about his culinary preferences. And Donna was standing by, ready to race out and fulfill any other requests.

My smiling lips were slicked with a fresh coat of Cherrybomb, and Gloss’s signature perfume, Heat, filled the room. A crystal vase overflowing with purple orchids imported from Thailand—Mrs. Fenstermaker’s flower of choice, according to her personal secretary—sat squarely in the middle of the conference table.

Mrs. Fenstermaker looked at me for the first time. At least I thought she did; she’d put on her sunglasses again after she checked her lipstick, but her face was turned in the right general direction.

“Are you always this thorough?” she asked, sounding more bored than curious.

Mason strode into the conference room just then, his Converse sneakers squeaking against the wood floor.

“I can promise you she is,” he said. “Lindsey’s one of our best. You’ll be in good hands with her, and you’re going to love what she’s got in store for you. I know you’re busy people, so let’s get right to it.”

He turned to me. “Ready?”

I nodded and stepped to the head of the conference table. The sun had just broken through a cloud, and the room was flooded with light. It seemed like a good omen. My throbbing head, the knot in my neck, my nails, which were bitten so close to the quick that they hurt, my body that cried out for sleep—it all evaporated as the eyes of three powerful people turned toward me. Everyone was waiting to hear what I had to say, waiting for me to dazzle them with my skill and smarts and preparation. The bad taste in my mouth from the muffin disappeared. Now the only thing I could taste was the vice presidency.

 

 

THREE MINUTES INTO
my presentation, things were going better than I’d hoped. I’d just pulled the drape cloth off my dummy magazine ad, revealing a blown-up photograph of Angelina Jolie smoldering at the camera. Her lush lips pouted ever so slightly, and her famous mane blew back from her face, courtesy of two standing fans I’d spent a half hour adjusting during the shoot, which had stretched until 2:00
a.m
. last Saturday night.

Except it wasn’t really Angelina. The people at Gloss were cheap bastards, remember? I’d found an Angelina clone at the Elite model agency, a fourteen-year-old schoolgirl from Russia who didn’t speak a word of English and whose scowling father accompanied her everywhere, on the lookout for the cocaine-wielding photographers he’d heard roamed freely in America. The poor makeup artist was still recovering from offering him a Tic Tac.

The copy underneath the ad was simple and boldface: “Isn’t that . . . ?”

Then beneath, in smaller type: “Nope, but you can have her red carpet lips. Just slick on Gloss Cherrybomb and wait for the double takes. Brad Pitt clone not included.”

The corners of Mr. Fenstermaker’s mouth twitched when he read my copy. Mrs. Fenstermaker’s sunglasses were still turned in my direction, which I sensed was a major triumph.

“We’ll unveil our print ads and thirty-second television spots simultaneously,” I said, my voice ringing with confidence, my posture ramrod straight. “I recommend an initial saturation in midwestern cities: Chicago, Indianapolis, St. Louis. We’ll focus-group to test the appeal of different celebrities in each market and tweak each campaign before we take it national. If Jennifer Garner tests well in Iowa, this is the ad we’ll run in Des Moines.”

I unveiled my storyboard for a thirty-second TV spot. It featured an ordinary girl (you’d be surprised by how shockingly ordinary most models look without makeup) taking a swipe at Cover Girl: “Of course actresses look gorgeous; they’re paid to have flawless skin. But what about the rest of us?”

A quick cut to her makeup bag—filled with Gloss products in their trademark black and silver tubes and bottles—and voilà! Our ordinary girl is transformed through the miracle of modern mascara into a Jennifer look-alike as the voice-over announces our tagline: “Gloss: Gorgeous for Every Day.”

“When we spread to the coasts,” I continued, “we can look at television tie-ins. Drew Barrymore is producing a new HBO series about colleagues at a fashion magazine. It’s going to be this decade’s
Sex and the City
. We’ll want to look at a product placement deal.”

“How much is this going to cost me?” Fenstermaker grunted.

Probably less than the Jacuzzi you had to scrap, I thought.

“Eight million for the initial phase,” I said, making sure my voice didn’t contain a hint of an apology.

“Can you guarantee I’ll earn it back?” he asked.

“I think our track record speaks for itself,” I said. “We can’t make you more money unless we spend some first.”

Fenstermaker grunted again. There was a bit of cream cheese on the tip of his bulbous nose.

“I could swear this is Angelina,” he said, almost to himself, as he looked at my dummy ad again. “Just met her last week. She wanted me to donate to some orphanage.”

He batted around his hand, as though the orphanage was a pesky fly he was trying to swat away.

“Every second our targets spend looking at that ad and trying to figure out if it’s really her means that much more time for the Gloss name to brand itself into their subconscious,” I said. “We’ll make the fine print as fine as our legal department allows.”

I was moving into my finale. I walked over to a row of three easels and whipped off the drape cloths, revealing three photographs.

“Surveys of plastic surgeons show that women want Angelina’s mouth and Keira Knightley’s eyes and Cameron Diaz’s cheekbones,” I said, gesturing to enlarged photos of each celebrity. “On the back of every package of Gloss cosmetic, we’ll have a diagram showing women how to replicate the look of their favorite celebrity. For instance, Keira wears black mascara and eye shadows in the peachy-brown family for most of her red carpet events. Those colors are already all in the Gloss arsenal, meaning we don’t need any new R and D, which we all know is the real money drain. What we’ll do is shake up the packaging and marketing.”

I stepped back to the front of the table and looked directly at Mr. Fenstermaker. I knew he was the decision maker; he’d dropped out of college during his junior year and built his empire from scratch. Behind his bulldog exterior was a whip-smart brain.

“We’re not just selling lipstick,” I said, lowering my voice and speaking slowly. This was it; I was rounding third base and running for home with everything I had. “We’re making the childhood dreams of every woman in America come true. They’re all going to become movie stars.”

Fenstermaker nodded and swallowed a second bagel without appearing to chew.

“Any questions?” I asked. “No? It’s been a pleasure.”

This time Fenstermaker reached out to shake my hand first. It was a subtle detail, but I felt Mason notice it. I nodded and smiled at Mrs. Fenstermaker and headed for the door.

“Nice job, Lindsey,” Mason said under his breath as I passed him.

As soon as I stepped out of the conference room, I lost it. Stage fright never hits me when I’m giving a speech or presenting to a client, but the second I’m done, I start trembling and my mouth goes dry.

“How’d it go?” Matt said as I stumbled into his office, which was directly across from the conference room.

I collapsed into a chair and put my head between my knees.

“That good?” he asked, putting down the photographer’s proofs of turkeys—Matt was on the Butterball campaign—that he was studying with a little magnifying glass called a loupe. “Usually you just turn white. You must’ve done really well if you’re about to puke.”