What Pretty Girls Are Made Of (5 page)

CHAPTER SEVEN

Cruelty Free—Not Tested on Animals

W
aiting for me on my desk bright and early the next day was a hot cup of coffee in a Starbucks to-go cup. Written on it:
Beyoncé
. Sally was nowhere to be found.

Beyoncé
, I thought.
Copy that
.

“Can you believe that Sally requires her cups of coffee to be the color of Beyoncé?” I gossiped to Madison later that day.

“Considering the fact that you never make personal calls from your office, and you’re calling me from there, this is clearly a big deal,” she replied. “Wait, like her skin color?” she asked, digesting what I had said. “That’s nuts. Who would even think of that? You should keep a color swatch for her coffee. Not kidding, Alison—do it.”

“I should,” I said, both a little amused and slightly scared. “Better yet, I’m going to paint a swatch this exact color next to the coffee machine. For the good of the office, of course.”

I received a FedEx the next day at the office marked
OVERNIGHT DELIVERY / PERSONAL
. I opened it to find a color printout of Beyoncé with three Benjamin Moore paint swatches clipped to it. Madison’s note:

Three copies of Benjamin Moore Greenfield Pumpkin, HC-40—I mean, Beyoncé. A swatch for your desk. A swatch to tape to the coffee machine. And the last for Sally, for when she tells you that you’ve given her Eva Longoria.

I tucked the swatches into my desk and smiled at my best friend’s generosity, laughing more at the ever apropos Beyoncé lyrics now in my head:
Smack that, clap, clap, clap, like you don’t care. (I know you care.)

Date night with David quickly
approached and Carly offered to do my makeup for the big night out. I wore a blue cotton dress with thin gold pinstripes and a belt, and she had planned on doing something fun with my eyes.

“Can you please not do the same eyes as you do on your dead clients?” I asked as she waved her mascara wand. It still freaked me out that Carly practiced her skills on the dearly departed, but I understood her need to make more money, since the girls hadn’t received a raise or bonus in three years.

“My favorite corpse look is with Strawberry blush and Lipstick Sixty-Four. Such a great color,” she whispered so the clients in the studio wouldn’t hear.

“Does Sally know that you use her makeup at your other job? Actually, does Sally even know that you have another job?”

“Absolutely not,” Carly shot back with a concerned look in her eyes. “You won’t tell her, right?”

“Of course I won’t! I just think it’s hilarious.”

The thought of having multiple jobs again made me shudder.

But I did wonder what Sally’s reaction would be if she knew how many different types of people were wearing her makeup.
Not tested on animals—just dead people.

Feeling sparkly eyed and taller than my five foot two with my shoulders effortlessly lifted, I knew I projected confidence when I left work and walked over to the Polo Bar to meet David. He was waiting outside when I arrived and was taller and better looking than in his photos. Way to go, Ira: lower the expectations so they can be exceeded.

He greeted me warmly but told me there was a glitch in his plan. The Polo Bar was so new, it hadn’t yet opened, which he hadn’t realized. I could hear Keira’s voice in my head:

“Did he really think you’d be able to walk in on a whim to the newest, hottest place in town?”

“Not a problem,” I assured him, ignoring my alter ego. “We can always find another place around here.”

After learning about each other’s food likes and dislikes—David not liking Indian or Thai and me being open to pretty much anything—David recommended that we head to one of his family’s favorite sushi joints, only a few blocks away.

“Hey, let me switch places with you so your shoes don’t get caught in the grate,” he offered as we reached Sixth Avenue.

“A gentleman,” I said.

“But of course. It’s how I was raised.”

I smiled.

“And do you know who should go first through a revolving door?” he asked.

I indulged him. “Who?”

“I should, so that you don’t have to do the pushing.”

The hostess walked us to our table when we arrived at the restaurant (not through a revolving door), and as I put my things down on the chair next to me, I noticed that David was no longer behind me. He was talking with an older couple at the front of the restaurant.

I wasn’t sure whether I should wait at our table or walk over to him, but he caught my eye and motioned for me to join him.

“Alison, meet Jane and John Morgan, my parents.”

Was this a joke Keira had set up?

Or did David know that his parents were at this restaurant when he suggested it? I wouldn’t have been surprised if Ira, Keira, and Patti jumped out from behind the sushi bar, throwing edamame in the air like confetti and yelling, “Surprise!”

“It’s so nice to meet you both,” I said politely. “Thank you for making this connection through Ira.”

“It’s our pleasure,” Jane said. “Ira has said such wonderful things about you, so we were excited to make the match.”

I hoped this conversation wasn’t going to last long. So awkward.

“I’m sure you kids are looking forward to getting to know each other, but you’re welcome to join us. We’ve only had our appetizers, so you’re not too far behind.”

Please say no, David. Please decline their kind but very weird offer.

“Thanks, guys, but we’re going to get back to our table,” said David.

Point one for mama’s boy.

“Do you bring your parents on all of your first dates?” I teased him once we were seated.

“Only on the special ones,” he remarked with a smile. “Takes the pressure off down the road.”

He didn’t ask for my
phone number, but I had a good feeling that he would at some point. I arrived at work the next morning to an in-box full of emails, with one from David, sent the night before at about 9:45 p.m. Sally hadn’t yet pushed for my work emails to be forwarded to my personal iPhone (which I embraced), so each day I arrived to a packed in-box. But at least I wasn’t waking up in the middle of the night and checking to see what would be waiting for me in the morning.

From: [email protected]

To: [email protected]

Subject: Hi

Hey, Alison.

So I just got home and see it’s only 9:45. I forgot just how quickly a sushi dinner can go! This is great because I will be rested for my presentation tomorrow morning. But it’s also quite bad because I think it would have been nice if we had spent more time together.

How about a movie sometime? Or maybe a joint golf lesson at Chelsea Piers? Have a great night.

Dave

Nice. Maybe David’s mom should add a matchmaking division to her recruiting company.

Whether it was the new
responsibilities or the new setup, I now felt like I mattered more to the company than I had before, and like my coworkers—and Sally—saw that my work resulted in direct financial benefit to the business.

This fueled me in ways I wasn’t used to—a different kind of motivation bubbling in my stomach. I could contribute to a play, movie, or commercial—when I was in one—but now I was reveling in a production of my own making.

I had the liberty to play on Facebook as much as I wanted, and reaching out to Sally’s fan base was a lot more stimulating than managing Sally’s schedule, which had turned out to be far more difficult than I was told it would be.

“Jesus Christ, Alison,” Sally said to my voice mail a few weeks earlier. “How dare you do this to me!”
Do what?
I thought, bracing myself for the prerecorded answer
.
She paused with grave emphasis
.
“Pushing my lunch fifteen minutes robs my family of money. You’re worse than Obama. Change my lunch back to its original time.”

I pressed 9, saving her ridiculousness. Especially since I had no idea what lunch she was talking about. My voice mailbox was quickly filling up with saved voice mails.

“Let’s go over this again,” her next message began. “I need hard copies of my schedule printed and replaced every day with a four-month view—one for the car, one for each office, and one for my apartment. Got it?”

Click.

I called back and was immediately put through to voice mail.

“Sally, I’m happy to get your schedule to you however you prefer it, but FYI, I update it electronically and it’s linked to your iPhone. You can see it in real time, which may be easier for you and save some trees.”

Click.

An email arrived almost instantly:

Nah, just email it to me each night in addition to the printouts and I’ll chk it that way. Missed my hair appointment the other day because you didn’t enter it in the schedule, btw. It’s a good thing I’m not very gray this week.

Hair appointment? First time I’m hearing about it. And my fault?

I was getting used to being blamed when she canceled, missed, or made a commitment without letting me know.

Sally’s travel arrangements, whether personal or for business, weren’t a piece of cake, either. Like her long weekend to Florida, happening in three short weeks.

“Alison, I only sit in business class, and only on an aisle,” Sally said.

“I’m booking you on JetBlue, which you requested, and they don’t have business class. Would you like me to book you on another airline?”

“Which airline is the cheapest?”

“JetBlue,” I told her. A slight pause followed.

“Then bulkhead and an aisle. And write a letter to JetBlue telling them to consider making planes with a business class section for people like me.”

Um, seriously? Again?
Yes, we went through this rigmarole every time a flight needed to be booked.

Viral marketing, electronic outreach, and communicating directly to people really felt right to me but only exaggerated the contrast between my new responsibilities and the mundane assistant tasks that remained on my plate. I was juggling two full-time jobs.