Younger (9 page)

“And these people, these, whatever—teachers?”

“All professionals. Your name for the time being is Lisa Jones. You’re an off-Broadway actress from New York who’s working on a one-woman show in which you’ll need to portray a twenty-five-year-old. You’ve come here and rented this house to study in preparation for rehearsals, then you’ll be taking the show to the Edinburgh Fringe before opening off-Broadway in the fall.”

“They fell for that story, that some unknown American actress has all this at her disposal to bone up for a part off-Broadway?”

He shrugged. “They fell for the high fees. Maybe they think you’re a wealthy and unrealistic dreamer. It doesn’t really matter, does it?” He handed her a folder. “Lisa Jones’s fact sheet is in here, as are brief bios of your coaches. You’ll have new coaches each week, as your looks change.”

“My looks? The results are going to appear that quickly?”

“Actually”—he pulled a paper from his portfolio—“because we’re speeding up the process a little, I need you to sign this consent for laser resurfacing. Aleksei will drive you to the facility Saturday. It’s low-intensity laser, solely to accelerate the absorption of the ingredients, nothing to be scared about. You’ll start using the three products immediately after the treatment: cleanser, moisturizer, and night treatment. Our nurse will explain it all to you. Face, neck,
décolleté
, hands, and arms only, and be sure to use the exfoliating cleanser on all areas first. The products are stronger than what we’re producing for everyday use—again, to accelerate the results. You’ll be switched to the normal strength after the three weeks.” He handed her a white tube. “In the meantime, you need to apply this high-strength retinol morning and evening, starting tonight, avoiding the eye area. Your skin will peel like a sunburn by Saturday, primed for laser. That morning, just rinse your face with water, nothing else. If you go outside any time when it isn’t raining, stay out of the sun and use sunblock as well—there’s some SPF 50 in your bathroom cupboard.”

“Retinol? Laser?” She shook her head. “Why wasn’t I told this? And how do I know it’s safe?”

“Retinol is given out like lollipops by dermatologists for skin renewal, and laser is done over lunch hour these days. You know that, Anna. As for safe, I can show you the statements from our labs showing that the Youngskin products meet FDA standards. I told you that.”

“And besides the classes, what is there to do? We seem to be in the middle of nowhere.”

He raised his eyebrows. “Well, yes, we are. You can’t just let people see you looking younger every day. Losing ten years a week is going to be pretty noticeable, Anna. Mikal and Mrs. McCallum have been told you’re having laser and plastic surgery. No one else except Aleksei knows anything. Have you set up the computer?” At her puzzled look, he said, “Your top desk drawer. The housekeeper should have told you. You’ll find your new laptop and your official BarPharm BlackBerry, which will be the
only electronics
you’ll use from now on. There’s Wi-Fi if you want to go online, but don’t order anything or have books downloaded. Don’t use your credit cards or anything with your real name on it anywhere from now on. If you want a book or DVD, tell me and I’ll make sure you get it.

“Also, you should start your diary on the rejuvenating experience right away. Write about the classes, how you feel, how you see yourself. How does your walk change? What do you think makes your voice sound like that of a woman in her fifties and how can you change it? That sort of thing.

“So you see? You’ll have plenty to do, plus homework. All the instructions are in the folder, which you’ll return to Aleksei intact when you leave here.”

She must have looked like she was freaking out—she certainly felt like it—because he quickly reassured her. “This is all just for confidentiality, Anna. Industrial espionage is always a threat, even more so in pharmaceuticals than in cosmetics. We need to be careful. We’re dealing with a very important product. Now”—he pushed his chair back, smiling—“I’ll tell Mrs. McCallum to bring your breakfast. I look forward to reading your first diary entry tomorrow.”

This is absurd,
she thought as she waited for her breakfast to come.
Movement. Grooming. Lifestyle!
Did he really think he could make a fifty-seven-year-old woman pass for twenty-five again? She was a good enough actress not to need these dumb classes, but her age was her age. No one was ever going to buy her as someone in her twenties. And all this cloak-and-dagger silliness about returning files and for-your-eyes-only? She knew companies stole each other’s formulas; she was used to some degree of secrecy. Was Barton a nutcase? She pushed that thought out of her mind as Mrs. McCallum arrived bearing a tray. This project was going to make her rich. Surely, that meant she could humor the man paying her and pretend that she, too, thought some skin cream might be a matter of life and death.

Netherlands, September 11, 2011

Anna was roused from her daydreaming as the conductor collected tickets. Her eyes opening was the cue the girl across from her had been waiting for. “Do you go to school in Berlin?”

“Me? Oh, no, I’m just traveling around. I graduated from college in the States. NYU.”
Stop overexplaining,
she told herself sternly.

“Oh, cool! You’re American, too.” Her seatmate, who wore a holey sweater as long as her miniskirt over ripped tights with clogs, clearly wanted to talk. She said she was taking a year to “hang” in Europe before returning home to Florida to face a master’s program. “I was in Amsterdam for a month, long enough. I’m gonna hang in Berlin until who knows when, because it’s, like,
the
place now. Amsterdam has too many old hippies for me.”

“It’s pretty, though, isn’t it?” Anna said, already barely remembering having been there. “I’m Lisa, by the way.”

“I’m Chyna. With a
y
.” Her grin was open and friendly as a child’s. “Hey, we should hang together in Berlin. I don’t know, like, a soul. It will be nice that I know somebody now.”

That was fine with Anna. “Where are you staying tonight?”

“Thought I’d head over to Prenzlauer Berg where they say the best hostels are. You?”

“I had the same idea. Maybe we can go together, if that’s okay?”

“Totally. If it’s not crowded, we might even be able to score a whole four-bed dorm to ourselves. You pay by the bed, not by how many people share the room. So we could end up with a deuce for the price of sharing a quad. Cheaper than renting a double.”

“Saving money sounds good to me.” As did Chyna’s being the one to show a passport at check-in.

“Cool, then.” Chyna stood and stretched. “I’m gonna walk to the bar car and get a Coke. You want anything?”

“I’m good, thanks. I brought a sandwich. By the way,” she added as Chyna turned to go, “what are you getting your master’s in?”

“Performance. I’m applying to schools that offer MFA programs.” She froze, then did some quick, expert robotic moves. “Please don’t hate me for being a mime!”

Then, giggling, she hobbled, bent over in imitation of an elderly woman, to the end of the car, leaving Anna to quickly bend over, too—over one of her books, pretending to read. But she couldn’t concentrate. She wondered what Chyna would say if she knew what a great performance artist Anna had learned to be, if she knew “Lisa” was probably older than her own mother.

Chapter 6

“Now, Lisa, put on these shoes and walk across the floor.”

Anna slipped into a pair of red stiletto heels, the highest she’d worn for at least two decades, and tentatively made her way across the industrial-carpeted floor of the gym in the old Gloucestershire manor house. Standing, arms akimbo, watching her every move, was a woman her age or older named Gilda, with a dancer’s lithe body. She wore, as did Anna, tights and a leotard, leg warmers, and shoes with six-inch heels.

“No, no, no. That simply won’t do,” Gilda pronounced when Anna had crossed the room and returned. “You look like a female impersonator who’s spent his entire life in a pair of motorcycle boots, pet. Do it again, but like this.”

Anna watched Gilda as she walked with sexy, sinuous steps, then smaller, faster steps. “You see? No bending forward. You aren’t walking into the wind. Lead with the thighs and let your bottom sway behind them.”

“May I have a glass of water first, please?”

Gilda shook her head with the firmness of a drill sergeant. “Break’s in fifteen minutes. Now, walk.” Anna was equally unstable walking, running, even just standing. By the time the lesson had finished, she’d decided she’d just have to insist on being a hot young thing in flats. Plenty of younger women everywhere wore ballet slippers and Doc Martens and UGGs. She’d have to—even if it meant accessorizing with a fake ankle cast as an excuse.

From Movement with Gilda, she moved on to a small meeting room, probably used for Barton Pharmaceuticals’ retreat seminars, and Speech with Sam, a fast-talking New Yorker in his forties who specialized in coaching British actors to sound more American. “I’m not used to working with someone who already sounds homegrown but needs to pass for younger, so it should be fun.”

By the end of the hour, Anna was speaking faster and dropping more
g
’s at the ends of words, which didn’t seem like all that big a deal. She thought she sounded young enough until Sam told her, “Your voice is too low and mellow, Lisa. That comes with maturity. Let’s see if we can push it up an octave. Everyone’s voice deepens with age, so a younger woman’s would have a higher pitch than yours.”

She was only slightly offended by being told even her voice was old, but surprised to find it wasn’t that easy throwing it higher. At first, she sounded like Tweety Bird, and she snorted with laughter as Sam watched her, smiling. “You have the register. I can tell by your laugh—it’s so much higher than your voice.”

“You mean my cackle? God, I’d love to change that. I hate my laugh.”

“Nah, keep it,” he said. “It’s cute. It has a lot of personality.”

She enjoyed every minute of Speech. Later, sitting at the desk in her room jotting down some reminders for her diary, she realized she’d enjoyed Movement, too, even if those shoes from hell had played their part. It was like being an acting student again or in summer stock. She thought it would be fun playing someone else.
Totally,
she added to herself—youthfully.
Totes
.

Grooming “class” was filled with surprises. Her coach, Fleur, was younger and more blue collar than her name implied. Perhaps Anna wasn’t the only one in the room who’d changed her moniker. The bio in Barton’s folder described Fleur as a twenty-seven-year-old who wrote an online hipster fashion blog.

That first day, Fleur asked Anna questions, then told her how wrong she was. “What’s your natural hair color?”

Anna shrugged. “I haven’t seen it for a long time. I guess kind of dark blond with some gray.”

“You gonna have a wig for your performances? No? Well, no one under forty except rich Russians has time for all that blond tortoiseshelling you’ve got anymore. Unless your director fights it, go red. I’d say medium auburn with flame and yellow stripes.”

“Yellow? You mean blond?”

Fleur cracked her gum and looked at Anna as if she’d just stepped out of a spaceship that had landed on the lawn. “Yellow, Lisa. As in,
yellow
. I’ll bring some shots on my iPad tomorrow, to give you an idea. ’Cause that style’s got to go, too. I’d pick short and spiky if I were you. Your face is kinda long for long hair. Don’t wanna look all Celine Dion.”

Celine Dion? Before Anna could even express horror at the comparison—she couldn’t stand Celine Dion—Fleur was on to the next thing.

“You’ll be doing your own makeup? When we meet tomorrow, wear makeup—I mean, wear it all—and I’ll critique it for you,” she ordered.

“I
am
wearing it all.”

That got her an eye roll. “What do you do, go into a store and ask for whatever they have in drab? I can give you some tips to spice it up.”

And so it went until, by the end of the hour, Anna felt as if everything about her had been shouting “Old broad coming through!” for years.

Her Attitude teacher, Meredith, described in her bio as a professional acting coach, was a far cry from Fleur. Anna’s age, she conformed to the caricature of a typical middle-class Englishwoman. Her appearance was dreary, from her dun-colored hair to her tweedy pantsuit. She went through a list of what she seemed to think were cutting-edge words, but most of them—like
hottie
and
hookup
—were nothing new.

“The thing is, Meredith, I don’t need to sound like a rock star, just like a younger woman.”

“You should learn the words before deciding you aren’t going to use them,” was the tart reply. She ordered Anna to go to urbandictionary.com and to follow young actors’ Twitter feeds in order to learn ten new expressions to use every day. “Now, let’s go over these words again.”

Anna could have used a few BarPharm pick-me-up prescriptions to get through the day. By the time Leo-Nardo showed up for Lifestyle class at five o’clock, she was exhausted, swamped by delayed jet lag.

Leo-Nardo was, in his words, “part Jamaican, part Argentinean, a slap of Chinatown, and a shitload of God Save the Queen.” He was small and sleek, with dark olive skin and hair that looked to Anna’s professional eye like an old-fashioned Jheri curl. He could have been the runner-up at a Prince look-alike contest.

She was told to call him “just plain Leo,” pronounced as “Layo.” He worked, she knew from his bio, as a deejay in various clubs around London. He could have passed for eighteen or fifty-eight, being such a mix of styles and tics; it was hard to pin anything down. He dressed “from the ’hood”—in half-laced bulky Nikes, jeans so low-slung the back pockets were almost to his knees, and a tight T-shirt that showed off his muscles and made him look younger than his weary, seen-it-all eyes.

“Imma give you a list of shit to do on the net tonight, and then tomorrow, we do iTunes ’n’ all,” he said. “But your producer”—Anna wondered if Barton had played that role himself—“says you gotta learn the hot covers, what a girl with her shit together would be into. Yeah? What music do you listen to now? House? Acid? Hip-hop? Rap?”

She shrugged. “You won’t be impressed. Sixties and seventies rock. Jazz. Opera. A little pop.” Trying not to sound mocking, she added, “
That
shit.”

Leo-Nardo burst out laughing. “Man, we got our work cut out for us this week. You probably love that Celine Dion, too, huh?” He collapsed in laughter, so amused that Anna didn’t bother to tell him she didn’t like Celine Dion. Or that she did
not
—in any way whatsoever—resemble her.

Monday, June 20

The “me” that my coaches seem determined to turn out doesn’t sound at all like me, the real me, and only slightly like me when I was in my twenties. I wonder if I’ll feel like a fraud or if the Youngskin product will make me actually
feel
youthful again?

One thing today’s sessions helped me see is that youth is about more than skin, though that is clearly of vital importance and will be to all Youngskin users. But age is a state of mind that runs the gamut from fashion to catchphrases to books and music and movies. The older coaches don’t seem all that different from me—I imagine Gilda, Sam, and Meredith spend their free time pretty much as I would. (By the way, Meredith doesn’t have a clue how
anyone
of any other age actually speaks; she’s useless.) But the younger ones, Fleur and Leo-Nardo, inhabit a different universe.

And in just a few weeks, I’m going to be passing myself off as one of them. Can I do it? Do I even need to? So much of what I’m being taught seems superfluous, behavior that might work in a movie but would seem absurd in real life unless I were a teenager. But I think my own judgment will let me emerge from my lessons with a believable new persona.

So out goes Anna, and in comes Lisa. She’ll be a whole new person if she survives this. A
young
one.

Berlin, September 12, 2011

The shared-room-at-the-hostel plan worked fine, and the next day Anna had appointments to look at rooms in three crowded, hipster areas: Friedrichshain, Neukölln, and Kreuzberg. Armed with Chyna’s cell number, she went out after locking up whatever she felt secure leaving behind. Those bolted-to-the-floor lockers were making her a hostel fan.

She bought a new German cell SIM at a shop down the street and scrapped the Dutch one she’d used only once. Was she safe? She had no idea. She hoped dyeing her hair a dull brown the other night would be a lifesaver. With a few drab brown hanks poking out from her knit cap and no makeup on, she wouldn’t have recognized herself as either Anna Wallingham or Tanya Avery. Then again, she wasn’t a killer on her own trail.

She slouched through the streets and on and off the U-Bahn, hiding behind her map like a tourist and trying to call as little attention to herself as possible, refusing to give in to the terror that made her want to check for dangers. The first apartment wasn’t a squat but might as well have been, more crash pad than home. One look at the congealed grease in the kitchen and mildewed spots on the walls and Anna shook her head. “Sorry,” she told the sullen German girl showing the place, “I’m a clean freak.” She got an I-could-care shrug in return.

She’d heard Neukölln was up-and-coming, but the zone the second flat was in was more down-and-going. She negotiated cracked cobblestones between graffiti-spattered buildings with a sinking feeling that proved justified when she was buzzed in only to practically trip over two nodding junkies in the trash-infested courtyard. She went back out front, rang again, and said, “Thanks . . . but no.”

Luckily, the third time was the charm. She found Kreuzberg lively and colorful, its streets filled with Turkish women buying produce, up-all-night goths heading home, and others of all types, races, and ages. She lunched on Tibetan noodles in a cute little restaurant, where a two-course meal cost less than a glass of wine in London.

The apartment was a first-floor walk-up off the busy Mehringdamm. Its door was opened by a tall blue-eyed young woman with hair the color of wheat. “I’m Kirsten,” she said. “Danish, not German. Come in.”

Anna entered, and Kirsten led the way down a long, wide hallway. “Not so pretty, this hall, because the owners covered the original floorboard with laminate,” she noted disdainfully. “I think they fear renting to anyone under fifty means their apartment gets wrecked.” Anna would have said she’d worry, too, but “Lisa” just smiled and nodded.