What Pretty Girls Are Made Of (25 page)

“I am. What’s up?” This couldn’t be good if he was calling me at 8:30 a.m. on my cell on my peaceful, get-my-mind-together-for-the-day walk to hell.

“Oh great, just wanted to catch you before you got to the studio, before you were with anyone else from the office.”

“Is everything okay, Giuseppe? I’ll be at work in about twenty minutes and can call you from there.”

“No, no, it’s fine. Listen.” He paused. “I wanted to talk to you about something important.”

Okay
.

“Sally knows that she has been a nightmare lately to everyone, not just you.”

Um, understatement, but okay.

“And she feels badly about that.” Pause. “She really does. Here’s the thing, Alison. Well, let me ask you this question first: Did you know about her not feeling well, and her doctors’ appointments?”

“Sure,” I said. “I make some of her appointments. Not all, but I generally know what’s going on at home and medically. And after yesterday . . . well, something’s clearly not right with her.”

“She’s in a lot of pain, Alison. A terrible amount of pain. Her hemorrhoids are really bothering her.”

It took all of my self-control to hold back the laughter.
Hemorrhoids! Are you kidding me? The witch’s excuse is . . . hemorrhoids?

“I’m so sorry that’s what’s causing her to lash out at her employees, Giuseppe.”

How can he not be laughing about this?

“She went to see a doctor, but he didn’t tell her that he was going to touch there, and she was in so much pain when he did that she yelled at him and said she wasn’t going back. I mean, the nerve—not telling her he was going to examine her and then putting her in pain like that.”

“Thanks, Giuseppe, TMI.”

“Right, sorry,” he said. “But you get the point.” The point?

“Yes, thanks for sharing, Giuseppe. I’ll keep it in mind.”

The point is that she’s using her asshole as an excuse to be an asshole.

CHAPTER THIRTY

Protection against Free Radicals

I
held off mentioning the RIZ Capital meeting to Bret—the meeting that burned a hole in Sally’s calendar every time I saw it. I wanted him to raise the topic with me. But after days of him not bringing it up, I couldn’t take it anymore. Especially since Bret had been evasive about work since his business trip. “I’m so burned out on work, Alison—can we talk about something else?” was a line I was hearing regularly.

“Why am I being such a girl about this, Madison?” I asked, shutting Sally’s door so I could make my personal call from her office. “I should feel comfortable enough to bring it up with him—it’s Bret! Why does it take me so long to speak up to people? It’s like hurdle after hurdle with new people. I have to get over this dumb fear. But seriously, he should have told me about it.”

“I know,” she said. “Yes, he should have told you that his company would be pursuing options with yours so that you could hear it directly from him. A formality, but still. And you’re doing great—better and better at advocating for yourself. Bret’s probably not sure how to tell you. It’s killing you—rightly so. Just ask him. Casually.”

“Got it. I won’t make it seem like a big deal. Call you after. I’m going to ring him now.”

I hung up with Madison, and before I could think twice, I dialed Bret’s office line. The meeting was set for the next day so I had to sort it out. Quickly.

“What are you wearing? I didn’t see you this morning before I left.” Bret had left my apartment earlier than usual for a business breakfast.

“I guess you’ll have to see later tonight,” I teased. “I’m running into a meeting, but I have a quick question for you.”

“Yeah, shoot.”

“My boss had me put in a meeting on the calendar with RIZ Capital. Isn’t that your company?”

I could hear him swallow and clear his throat. I knew from his pause that the answer would be yes.

“Yeah, it is.” He didn’t say anything after that. I waited a second before replying.

“Were you going to tell me about it?”

“I was. It’s just . . . it’s complicated.”

I had to remind myself to breathe deeply. My limbs were tensing up in my chair. I had just brought it up and now I had to run into a meeting.

Pause. “Okay. I have to go. I have a meeting in five. I guess you can tell me over dinner tonight.”

“Wait, Alison. Hold on a sec.”

“Bret, I have to go. I have to get to my meeting. This can obviously wait until later since it’s waited until now anyway.”

“Okay. We’ll talk later.”

I hung up the phone. My good world and my bad world were colliding, and it churned inside me in the worst way. Would Bret be at the meeting the next day or would it just be his boss? The thought of Sally and Bret in the same room made me uncomfortable. When I saw that the meeting was scheduled to take place at the corporate office, I made sure to set up an appointment for myself at the studio.

From: [email protected]

To: [email protected]

Subject: Tonight

Hey,

I’m still stuck at the office so will be back later than planned. Why don’t we cancel our res for tonight and cook dinner or order in? Would you mind coming to me since I know that Jill is home and we should probably have some time just us. Let me know, OK? Kiss.

“Am I overreacting?” I asked Madison on the phone as I walked to Bret’s. It felt good to walk and talk and breathe the fresh air. “I’m happy that we’re going to talk this out, and I’m going to try to be as open as possible about it, but still.”

“No, I don’t think you’re overreacting at all,” replied my loyal friend on the other side of the country.

“I want him to do well, but I hate Sally, and now all I can see is Bret’s company making her tons of money. Yes, I’m super sensitive about this and going to that extreme place, but it makes me really angry.”

She listened patiently as I ranted on.

“I told him so many things about my company, work, me, and of course how I feel about Sally. And then he went behind my back to do something good for them. I don’t get it.”

“I know,” she replied kindly. “You’re right. And it’s not like they had been in the cosmetics business and knew of Sally Steele Cosmetics. They purchased tanning salons, right? You and I both know that’s very different from cosmetics.”

“And I really wanted to have sex tonight.” We laughed. “Now I don’t feel like it at all.”

“Maybe there’s an explanation for it. Give him the benefit of the doubt but stay strong. And look super hot.”

“Thanks, Madison. I love you.”

“I love you, too. Call me if you need me.”

I was feeling a bit Stepford, cooking dinner to distract myself from empty waiting while my man was on his way home after working late. And I wasn’t sure if that was a good or bad feeling.

I was anxious but tried not to let those feelings overwhelm me. Dinner was ready and Bret’s table was set when he walked in the door. He gave me a kiss and a box of Sprinkles cupcakes. Ordinarily, those would have warranted a big, mushy kiss, but today, we pecked each other, said “hey,” and Bret went off into his room to change out of his suit. This tension was a first for us. I hoped he would assure me there was nothing to worry about.

It was unusually silent between us when we sat down for dinner. After Bret complimented my apricot chicken, brown rice, and baby bok choy (which, by the way, was delicious), he knew it was time for us to discuss.

“Look, Alison, I’m so sorry that you didn’t find out about the meeting from me.” My plan was to listen to him and try to interrupt as little as possible—a tough task for me. “It all spiraled a bit out of hand, and because of your feelings for Sally and your job, I didn’t want to hurt you. And things are so great between us that I kind of avoided it.”

I didn’t realize it, but I was using my fork to squash the remaining pieces of brown rice on my plate. Lots of little flat rice patties were forming as Bret spoke.

“So what happened, then?” I had to interrupt. “How did RIZ coincidentally, suddenly, have a meeting with my company? I can’t imagine that after only taking over a tanning company, you guys knew to say, ‘Hey, let’s go to Sally Steele Cosmetics. They are privately owned and need financing.’ You’re mostly guys; it just doesn’t make sense, Bret.”

He answered my question slowly.

“No, you’re right. I was in my boss’s office one day, about a month ago, and he was asking me about you and what you do. Of course I didn’t think anything of it at the time. He’s a good guy. He obviously didn’t know you worked in makeup until I told him. An innocent question. So anyway, a few days later, he asked me if your company was owned by one of the big kahunas, and I said no. He told me that he asked his wife about Sally Steele and she said that the makeup was good, that she sometimes purchased it on TV. I said that I had heard, obviously confidentially, that Sally had some screws loose, but that you and I didn’t talk about the financials of the business. And then I left his office. Next thing I knew, he was researching the hell out of you guys and it was too late.”

Bret’s eyes pleaded with me like a puppy dog and his forehead crinkled with concern, but it didn’t make me feel any better.

He continued, “My boss got the bug for Sally and wanted to suss it out. And honestly, I’m sure it won’t be anything special tomorrow. You said she’s difficult and crazy, and he can spot that right away. Not that it scares my boss, but I’m sure it won’t go anywhere. I’m rambling, but that’s the truth.”

“I believe you. I just wish you had told me. This puts me in a weird position. Sally hardly ever takes these meetings and complains about them like crazy. Maybe she knows you’re my boyfriend and wants to check you out. I wouldn’t put that past her. Whatever. Are you going to be at the meeting tomorrow?”

“I wasn’t going to be there until I was asked to attend today. That’s why I was late coming home tonight. I had to prep for it since I hadn’t been slated to go.”

“Great. Just, great,” I said as I transferred my glare from Bret to my horribly abused rice.

“Alison, I don’t know what you want me to say. It’s my job and there could be an opportunity here. Or not. But we won’t know until we go.”

I started to cry. I didn’t want to cry in front of Bret, but I was frustrated. And my tear ducts often had minds of their own—windows into my true emotional state. I was falling in love with him and suddenly he was going to be in meetings with the woman who made my life so miserable that I was losing hair and sleep.

Hiccupping, I continued.

“I just—I am having visions of my two worlds colliding and it really scares me. And my boss is going to charm the hell out of you tomorrow. I know for a fact that she is, and I’m going to look like the crazy one.”

Bret moved his chair next to mine and started rubbing my back. I moved away from him and began clearing the dinner dishes.

“I’ll clean up, since you cooked,” he said.

You’re supposed to tell me that it’s going to be okay
.

I went to the bathroom and cleaned my face. I hated how puffy and splotchy I looked after crying, but more than that, I hated Bret seeing me so weak. Rudolph-nosed, I went back out into the kitchen.

“I’m going to head home, okay?” I said it like a question, but it really wasn’t one. “I think I want to sleep in my own bed tonight.”

“Honey, no. Please don’t go. I’m sorry you’re upset.” He gave me a big hug. I squirmed out of his grasp.

“I’ll talk to you tomorrow, all right? Good luck with your meeting. I really mean that.” And I did.

I walked out of his building and headed home.

Crap. The Sprinkles. I forgot about those. Damn.

Oh well—I could buy my own cupcakes on the way home if I wanted one so badly.

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

Shown to Help Support Cellular Communication

S
o Bret got a good review.

When Sally introduced RIZ Capital to Patti, Ira, and the rest of the employees in the meeting, she boldly mentioned that Bret was “Alison’s boy toy.” Yes, she used the phrase “boy toy” in an investment meeting. I assumed that Bret’s boss had let the cat out of the bag when he’d reached out to Sally. From this little disclosure, I received exactly two emails and one phone call praising Bret for various things: smart, cute, handsome, knowledgeable, commanding. Great, they loved him. Couldn’t he have had an off day? I guess not.

At 5:23 p.m., after all of Bret’s praise had made its way to me, Bret sent me a text.

BE:
Hey sweetheart. Meeting finished. Do you want to hear about it or are we going to move on and not discuss? Up to you. See you at Babbo at 8, k? BTW—your intern makes terrible coffee.

I’m not sure if his comment about the coffee was supposed to make me laugh, but I suddenly felt defensive.

ALI:
Rather not discuss. See you at 8.

It was probably a good thing we were going out to dinner with Bradley and Andrea that night, or I would have had a hard time not asking about the meeting.

At the end of the day, just as I was getting my things together to leave work, Elliott ran into the store and told me that Sally wanted to speak with me in her car.

I didn’t even bother putting on a fresh coat of lipstick before heading out to the red Mercedes. Elliott, in the meantime, played in the studio basement. I was scared she would tell him to go through my things while I was in the car. You never knew what that sneak would have her son do to spy on us. And poor Elliott probably had no idea about the manipulative spell he was under by virtue of his genetics.

“I’ll forgive your not wearing lipstick, because your boyfriend is very cute, Alison” was the first thing Sally said upon my entering her car.

“Thanks, Sally. What’s up?”

“So tell me,” she said, in almost a drawl, “how long have you been together, I bet he’s good in bed; does he make good money? He must make good money. They were very impressive today. Oh, and is Bret’s boss single?”

She had to be kidding me. Was this really why she came to the studio? She had nothing else to say?

“Do you have anything work related to talk to me about, Sally?”

“Oh, this is work, my dear. I met with your boyfriend, his boss, and members of their company today. This is fair game.”

She was really hitting me in the wrong spot right now.

Sensing my agitation, she pressed the Lock button on her door. The click startled me. I was trapped in her red portal to hell.

“Sally, I’m going to keep my personal life and professional life separate. I’ve been with you for a while, I’ve been with Bret for a while, but I am not going to mix those parts of my life. I’m going to unlock the door now and get back to work in the studio.”

“Are you meeting up with Bret tonight?” I was silent. “Alison, I will not stop asking you questions until you answer me.”

Jesus.

“Yes, Sally. He’s taking me to dinner at Babbo. Can I please leave your car now?”

“Yes, you may.”

I hopped out of the red devil as fast as I could, but just as I was closing the door, she called my name.

“One more thing. He’s a very handsome guy. I would have thought someone like that would have liked girls like this.”

She held up her right hand, which was clenched into a fist, with one finger pointing up.

Is she giving me the finger? Oh, no. It’s her index finger.

“I’m just saying that men like Bret like women who are thin—” She kept on talking but I slammed the door and cut her off.

How dare she.

Did I not have the right to a handsome boyfriend because I was curvy? I was not fat. Not at all. Actually, what Bret loved most about me were those “assets” that weren’t present on Sally’s straight index finger. I needed to diffuse my anger before going to dinner. How dare Sally hit me in a place where I was vulnerable. And coming from her, what an insult!

I gathered my things and stormed out of the studio.
Sally is wrong
, I thought as I walked. And walked.

Focus on what you know, Alison. What’s real.

“I love your body,” Bret had said recently in a moment of intimacy while we were messing around in my bed. I let that memory replace Sally’s words.

“Oh yeah?” I’d questioned devilishly as I’d sweetly traced his torso with my finger.

“Yeah,” he said. “But you know that.”

“I don’t know it if you don’t tell me,” I said coyly. Yes, I was clearly urging him to go on. I leaned forward and rested the top of my body on his chest.

He laughed as we cuddled. “You know I love your—”

“My what?” I cut him off.

He paused.

“Your bed. It’s sooooooo damn comfortable—like a cloud. I just want to sleep in the cloud bed all the time.” We both burst out laughing, and as I pretended to go in for the smack, Bret caught my arm and flipped us both so he was on top of me.

The memory made me smile, especially since we’d been arguing lately about guess who? The Mongrel. And the lingering sick feeling permeating my mornings at the mere thought of going to work wasn’t going away.

In fact, it increased when I learned about additional scheduled meetings between RIZ Capital and Sally in the upcoming weeks. It was like there was an elephant in the room. It would go away sometimes but would always come back.

“How was your day?” I asked as usual, a few weeks after Bret’s initial meeting with SSC, trying to appear normal but hoping he wouldn’t mention my company.

“It was good. Productive,” he replied. “I had a long conversation with Ira today. Big meeting tomorrow.”

“You know what, Bret? Let’s keep the stuff with your company and mine separate. I don’t need to hear about it.”

“Alison, I want to share my day with you. That includes dealing with Sally Steele. And you asked me about my day, so which do you want?”

“I’m sorry, Bret,” I replied, softening a bit. “It’s just hard for me to handle.” I couldn’t look him in the eye.

His face turned hard and I could see his frustration take hold. “You have to get over it, and yourself, right now. This is business, Alison.”

Not the reaction I was expecting. He grabbed a banana from the fridge and walked into the other room without another word.

I know
.
It’s your business, my business, our relationship, and a boss who will use and abuse. Recipe for a damn disaster.

It was soul crushing, thinking my job was causing the deterioration of my relationship—and I was trying to get a new job. Could I get a break?

No matter what my plans
were, and even though it was late April and not quite a year for me at Sally Steele, sending out résumés became my morning and my evening priority. I finally received a call about an audition to be a QVC host in response to the demo that I’d sent months before. That was something different, a subject I knew a ton about. I said I would consider it, even though relocating from Manhattan to West Chester, Pennsylvania, was a big deal. But hosting would be an exciting job, and I would be perfect for it. With my experience at QVC, my sales knowledge, and my theater and film background, maybe it would be the right thing for me. Nothing to lose in trying, right? I decided to go for it.

I used a personal day for my audition. I had enough unused days and wanted to be fresh and stress-free when I went in, so I figured, why not? The weather outside was an optimistic tease of spring, which only added to the day’s excitement.

“Here are your instructions,” my agent said to me over the phone when she called about the audition appointment.
Audition
. In reality, I hadn’t thought I would be hearing that word, at least as it related to me, ever again.

“You need to bring a product with you to the audition, and you will sell it to the casting director. It has to be something that would actually be sold on QVC, not something like an iPhone, toilet paper, or bottle with nothing in it. And you’ll be put on tape, so be camera ready.”

Um, obviously
.

“How long will I be selling this item?” I asked.

“He said anywhere from about thirty seconds to two minutes, so practice a long and a short sell. And just have fun, Alison. It’s not a part, it’s you. You can do that. It’s what you’re good at. Oh, and it’s on Twenty-Third Street and Sixth Avenue. It’s nice that they’re doing this in the city and you don’t have to schlep to Pennsylvania.”

I picked what I knew best—Sally Steele Cosmetics. That was a no-brainer. I could sell the hell out of the makeup that I spent so much time with. I was sick of being Sally’s voice—tweets, emails, marketing materials. It was time to use my own.

The outfit: stylish and sophisticated. I went with a hot pink dress with black accents, and a black cardigan over it with a thin patent leather belt. I adorned my feet with sexy yet classy high boots—not hooker-like at all. I splurged on a GLAMSQUAD blowout (no family run-ins) and prepped my face so that it was camera ready.

The sell: a trio of face powder, blush, and lipstick. The perfect face for on the go—everything you need to walk out of the house in a pinch. Throw on some big movie-star sunglasses and no one will know that you were out late last night, because your skin will look radiant and your lips perfectly kissable.

My taxi driver didn’t seem to mind that I was selling makeup to no one in particular in the backseat of his cab as he drove me downtown. I was prepared and confident and kept telling myself that I was the best candidate for the job. Shoveling the doubt into an unreachable area of my mind, I didn’t worry about nerves. I deserved the gig as much as anyone else!

When I reached the eighth floor, I put away my cell phone—no distractions!—took a deep breath, exhaled, and walked through the glass doors to the audition studios. After signing in, I waited. That familiar feeling of shakes and cold started to creep into my body. Lucky to have some control over it that morning, I shut out the negativity with positive thoughts.

“Alison?” a young, pretty, and put-together Asian woman called from the door down the hall.

“Hi, that’s me,” I replied, feeling like I was back in the commercial auditioning world. Yet this time with a supreme sense of confidence.
Yep, that’s me!
I walked through the ranks of women lining the walls to where I would audition.

“Thanks for coming in. I’m Mary, and this is Dave Captin,” she said as she pointed to the casting director for the session. I heard the door click shut behind me and suddenly felt ready for anything.

“Alison,” Dave said, “we’re excited to meet you. I’m going to ask you a few questions about yourself, which we will get on tape. Then you can go into your sell. Oh, and try to keep it under two minutes.”

I have to say, I don’t even remember what was asked of me or how my sell went. I know I used the line about the sunglasses. And the kissable lips. But I just went for it. Being in the zone felt good, and the minutes on camera went by in a blur.

“It was great, but I feel stressed,” I said afterward to Madison, who had been waiting for my call after the audition.

“I’m sure you were fabulous, and now you have to leave it up to fate,” she said.

Such a California girl.

“Yes, you’re right. It’s out of my hands now. I need a vacation from my life, I think.”

“So take one. Come out to LA for a few days or a week. Your bedroom is waiting for you. You should come! Girl time!”

Running around LA with Madison for a week sounded surreal from where I was standing. I told her that if I could catch an airfare sale I would book the trip, and disconnected the call.

My phone buzzed me back to reality as an email came through, adding to the many that had piled up while I was auditioning and on the phone. I opened the one from Bret first. He must have sent it just as I was walking into the audition room.

From: [email protected]