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Lulu's Lipsticks (working title) 2 chapters
Current mood:  chipper
Chapter 1
“Hello...hello...” Tap, tap, tap. “This thing on?”
“Yeah, we can hear ya, George,” Mum yelled, cupping her hands over her mouth as if Dad were on the other side of the Grand Canyon. Annoying, since our table was only a one-inch, nostril-viewing distance from the stage.
“Always did have a big mouth,” Nan grumbled, puckering her lips in that funny way of hers. I nodded, and puckered my lips, too.
“Thank you all for attending Lulu’s going away party. Special thanks to the Silver Dollar Saloon for putting up with us. Thanks Ethel, for decorating the place and for once again providing us with your notoriously infamous shrimp voluvounts.”
Nan rolled her eyes at the big words thinking it some type of undo praise. Mum puffed and smiled.
“Now--” Dad cleared his throat.
He looked quite handsome in a pudgy sort of way, standing there at the microphone, taking charge in his new blue crew neck sweater, strip of hair carefully circling his head to hide the bald spot.
“There’re a few folks who’d like to come up and say a word or two about our Lulu. Don’t worry, Lulu, it’s not a roast or anything.”
I squeezed my bottom into the chair and smiled. I’m no ham like Mum and Dad. Birthday parties, school recitals...damn, even ordering coffee at Carol’s diner causes my cheeks to redden and my heart to pound.
Better get used to it. From now on my life will never be the same. I’ll have to talk at meetings, explain myself confidently and articulately. But, on the other hand, my ideas will mostly be drawings and notes, and those ought to speak for themselves--
“Lulu, are you listening to your father?”
“Oh, sorry Mum, bit tired after all that packing.”
What about my accent? I’ve spent the last twenty-eight years cultivating a British accent. Should I lose it? Could I lose it? Maybe New Yorkers have no idea how a girl from Butte Montana is supposed to sound. Maybe I should--
Mum poked her elbow urgently into my ribs. I looked up quickly from my lap and horror of horrors, Dad’s strand of hair had wilted under the stage light. It hung limply down the left side of his face, turning him into a ridiculous and sad one-sideburned Elvis impersonator. Poor dad. Twenty-five years working at Barton’s hardware store, and all he gets is an obsession with his bald-spot and a small house on Albert Street overlooking the Angel of Mercy cemetery. And here’s me, the whole world dropped right in my lap. Me. Me, out of thousands and thousands of eager young girls.
“Quiet please. Quite!” Dad cleared his throat and tucked the rouge strand skillfully behind his ear.
“My daughter--”
“Our, daughter.”
“Excuse me. Our daughter Lulu, as you all know, is a very special young lady. Three years straight she entered that competition in er...that women’s magazine...Whatjamacallit--
“Cos-mooo-politan!” Mum sang through her hands, and I thought vaguely of a green pastured mountain and the Ricola adverts.
“Yes. And using her amazing--although I don’t quite get what it is she does exactly--artistic talents, this time she’s landed herself a big position, out in New York at that hugely famous make-up company--”
“Rev-el-aaaa-tion Cooos-me-tics!” Mum yodled.
“Ethel, you can have your turn in a minute. Now, shut the hell up.”
The room rumbled with quiet, knowing laughter and Mum shot a threatening narrow-eyed glance at Uncle Gordon and his clan.
Good ‘ole Dad. He does well to keep up with Mum. Much of the time she runs around in circles making everything important when none of it is, and if you’re not careful you get pulled into it, like a paper bag into a dust devil.
I wish they would move away from the graveyard. It’s never been frightfully positive imagery for our family. Nan hates it most of all. And I think Mum simply feels lost now that John and I are all grown up. So she just whirls around in her hand-made storm looking for a place to land. Before the final one outback, to which they have owned twin plots since 1970.
I sighed and wondered if a visit to the can so soon after the last would trigger another round of cruel jokes about the long, long bus ride to Manhattan and my inevitable and ultimately failing battle with nervous diarrhea. Could always blame it on Mum’s shrimp volouvonts.
“I’m so proud of my little girl.” Dad wiped his red forehead. “Tomorrow she sets off to start a new...l..l..life--”
Oh no.
Dad’s face buckled into sweaty creases.
“Thanks Dad,” I waved a limp, embarrassed wave.
“For what?” Nan grumbled into her sherry glass. “Making a damn skeptical of himself?”
“It’s all right, George.” Mum trundled up onto the stage, hugged Dad clumsily, causing the mike to squeal and everyone to wince.
Dad slunk off and headed over to Uncle Gordon’s table, leaving Mum in the spotlight. She took her turn boldly, retelling some of my more embarrassing childhood tales as if I wasn’t present, then made a toast, raising a glass of champagne. It looked somehow out of place in her thick working class hand. I thought of the old adage, You get what you settle for. Why hadn’t Mum forged herself a life where champagne in a flute was the norm, not just an awkward artifice at weddings, anniversaries, and off-spring going away parties? God knows she had the energy.
“My Lulu...” She beamed at me, and I could see my own face in hers. Chin a little longer than mine, more jowly, but underneath all the years and choices, was me. I smiled back.
“You’ve done us proud sweetheart. My daughter--the big shot. Always knew one of us would do something worthwhile one of these days. Makes me feel like a winner, too.” She laughed.
My Mother. My flesh and blood Mother. Underneath that pumpkin orange sweater, is the belly that carried me around for nine months. Like a little parasite, I’d leached my way into this world, taking from her all that I’d needed. I owed her everything.
“One more thing...” She looked at Dad. “George, do you have the...you know...”
“Do it later, Ethel.”
“Okay. But we have something for ya, Lu. Don’t go disappearing.”
Next, Mrs. Grayson from Park Street Elementary lumbered onto the stage. She did a heart-stopping slip on the cheap tinsel curtain, regained her composure, and took the mic. Planks of wood creaked beneath her elephant legs, and I had a horrible vision of her falling through, being impaled by a sharp plank of wood and the whole town turning on me like a bunch of angry Dawn Of The Dead vampires.
“For twenty five years it’s been my privilege to teach art to the children of Butte...Blah, blah, blah.”
I stifled a yawn. Mrs. Grayson, Mrs. Grayson, hate to be so mean, but you always send the class to sleep just like Dramamine.
“Young Lulu Bradock, although unruly at times, always showed talent...blah, blah, blah. Now we see that, not unlike geniuses from times gone by, such as, Blah, blah, blah, blah blah... And now I do declare, Lulu has proven to us all that it can be done, no matter how small or...blah, blah, blah...and New York has recognized Lulu’s unique aptitude for the fashion-cosmetics industry, which by the way was first established in blah, blah, blah, blah... And we wish her all the best. Don’t forget us, Lulu, and when you return to visit, perhaps you’d consider speaking to the students?”
I smiled, and squeaked a ridiculous, “Yes of course Mrs. Grayson.”
Me? Squeaking to the students? Me, a role model? I must be dreaming. Only three short months ago I’d been sitting in my bedroom at 2 a.m. thinking up names for the beautiful lipsticks that sat shiny on the pages, and then, two months and three weeks ago I’d received a letter stating that I’d won. They’d chosen me! And now the whole town was going ga-ga. Me! The one they’d teased at school for faking a British accent. Called me The Limey, they did, right to my very obviously, English-ancestored face. Every night I’d pray for God to get me out of this shit-hole town. But this--to be taken under wing by Revelation Cosmetics, the Revelation Cosmetics in Manhattan, New York--it was a dream-come true. A fairy tale. Maybe I’d meet Prince Charming, too. I glanced over at Brad Haines, my ex-boyfriend, picking his teeth, feet up on the table, extra twenty pounds gained since high school hanging unpleasantly over his waistband.
I looked back at the stage. Madge was up there, touching her hair and getting ready to speak.
“Everyone at the Salon is going to miss you, Lu, ‘specially me. Everyday you made the women of Butte beautiful.”
Nan tutted loudly at that.
“Best of luck to you. Congratulations.” Madge’s poise crumbled under a giant wave of applause. Sniffing, snot bubbling disgustingly through the speaker, she fished for a Kleenex and honked her nose.
And so the night wore on. Compliments, accolades, getting ripped. Although, even in my drunken state, I think I knew down deep it was wrong of us to let Uncle Phil climb onto that wobbly table to sing his slurry rendition of “For She’s A Jolly Good Fella.”
It was, actually, pretty funny when he fell. His arms spinning like a windmill on crack, landing on Grandma who, true to form, screamed bloody murder till her top teeth dropped out and knocked John’s beer into Mum’s purse. This prompted Nan to slap both John and Uncle Phil around their heads and pronounce them good for nothing scallywags. I secretly wonder if she enjoyed making a big deal out of it due to childish jealousy over me being thrown a big party while her eightieth was all but ignored. I might add, the family was all for an eightieth party, but Grandma phoo-phooed it off.
Don’t get me wrong, I love Nan. I love them all, but I’m just not like them. Maybe I’d been found in the bulrushes, out at Skrimshaw Lake and Mum hadn’t the heart to tell me.
Then of course there was the Touristing-Royal-Family fantasy. But Butte is in the middle of nowhere and apart from the copper mine that sells one postcard every fifty years, it’s not really much of a tourist trap. So the Windsors of London somehow losing me, the only heir to the throne, out here on the empty and joyless streets of Butte, was a little farfetched, even for me. I shifted in my chair and pulled the Union Jack thong out of my butt crack.
Lulu the spearhead, the figurehead, Ambassador of Butte Montana heading out to New York City. Fucking g-string.
I would’ve taken the damn thing off, but I was deterred by a vision of it somehow escaping from my purse and winding up twirling around Henry Baxter’s middle finger, him whooping and jeering drunkenly around the dance floor with it.
I made my way over to Mum who was standing by the buffet looking a little forlorn. The shrimp volouvants hadn’t gone over as she’d hoped, and most unfortunately someone, Henry Baxter was my guess, had turned the remaining into mini ashtrays, one butt stabbed nicely into each.
“Oh, I’m not bothered,” Mum said. “Simple minds for simple kinds. The cheese and crackers flew away, though, didn’t they dear?”
“Mum,” I said, putting my arm around her hefty shoulders, “I’m going to miss you ever so much.”
She hugged me tight, then whispered into my ear, the familiar smell of Tums on her breath. “We pitched in sweetie. Now, I don’t want any arguments. You take this, and know that we’re all proud as can be to help.” She reached into her huge brown bag that she’s had since I was a kid, and pulled out an envelope.
“Mum,” I whined. “What’s this about?”
“Go on, take a little look. Be careful, though, don’t flash it around. I’ll put it in the bank if you like. Doubt you’ll have time in the morning before the Greyhound--” I hugged her hard.
The envelope was heavy. Mum said even John, who’s always broke, had put in fifty bucks. And Dad would rather see his little girl on her way than waste the dough on that custom-made weave he’d been salivating over for six months. “And me,” Mum said, “I can visit the Liberace Museum when you take your vacation. It’s not going anywhere. We’ll all fly first class. How’s that sound love?”
“Sounds great, Mum,” I said, tears spilling down my cheeks. “It’ll be my treat. Promise.”
“I know, love, I know.”
We hugged. I breathed deeply, pulled back my shoulders, kissed Mum on the cheek and went around the bar saying thank you to everyone.
At 3 a.m Jacob rang the bar bell for the fourth and last time. “Ya’ll cut off. I’m closing this place, losers.”
I held the door open for Nan. She scowled and bustled through, grinding her teeth. “You all right, Nan?” I asked knowing Nan was never all right. “Did you have a good time?”
“Load of Baloney!”
“I know, Nan. Uncle Gordon taking you home?”
“Lulu...”
Momentarily stunned, I stood there. Nan has ever addressed me as anything other than--hey you, England-face, girl, Ethel’s youngest, or Queen Dumb-shit.
“What, Nan?” I replied, feeling suddenly sober.
She beckoned to me. I bobbed down to her height, thinking how much she’d shrunk over the years. I remember when she was taller than me.
“I know I’m a crotchety old woman, and sometimes I’m a little...short.”
She’s a frigin’ mind reader! “No, Nan, you’re--”
“Shut up, girl! Listen. I had dreams too, a long, long time ago, back before TV and all that crap.” Nan watches TV continuously. “Back then, I dreamed of being a circus performer.”
I snatched back a laugh and coughed as if something had gone down the wrong pipe.
“But before I knew it,” she went on, “I was married to Lionel, and popped out your mother, and...the other four, and that was the end of that. Now here you are, still wet behind the ears... Life’s given you an opportunity girl, one I never had, nor your mother. Don’t mess it up!”
“I won’t Nan,” I said, glad at least she’d stopped calling me Lulu.
“I want you to have this.” She rummaged around in her pocket and pulled out a gold and ruby brooch that I’d never seen before. “It’s special.” She rubbed her fingers over it, as if it held a genie inside. A genie she’d never been able to coax out. “Deserves to see the world, deserves to be worn by a winner. It’s yours now Lulu.”
I hugged her, and I felt our hearts beating. Hers faster, like a bird’s. She was soft for a few seconds then stiffened.
“Get off me, you stupid girl. Where’s Gordon? I’ve got to get home and take my pills. I’ve already missed that ‘Starsky and Hutch’ marathon ‘cos of this. Load of Baloney. Phaa.” She turned away, but before she did I saw her milky gray eyes glistening.
“Thanks, Nan,” I said as Uncle Gordon took her arm and led her to the car.
“Phaa,” she replied, flapping her hand behind her.
Chapter 2
This bug-infested, dirt-crusted urban rat-hole screamed a far cry from our proper little house on Albert Street. I sat on the tiny bed, and gazed out the window at an ugly brick wall. An air-cooling unit blasted from beneath the window, flapping the curtains, but cooling nothing.
I moved my eyes to the ceiling fan and watched it plough lazily though the soupy air. I’d arrived about an hour ago.
The cross-country Greyhound trip had been a nightmare. Half the time I was stuck next to a smelly Frenchman who had obviously consumed pounds of garlic especially for the trip. He disembarked in Chicago. The remainder of the journey I spent partnered with a sweaty salesman from Oklahoma who’d lost his life’s savings in Las Vegas and was headed to New York to hit-up his sick brother for dough. He coughed a lot and I wondered more than once what ailed his brother, and whether or not he might have it too. I didn’t ask though, I just held my breath from Chicago, Illinois, to the downtown Manhattan bus station.
But at least my stuff was safe, and I was in one piece.
And here’s New York City, right outside my window. The honking, the shouting, the general din, all as promised. There were other sounds too, coming from down stairs. Evidently I’d been placed above an elderly lady. She must be hard of hearing because her TV blared out Lawrence Welk at ear-bleed volume, and louder than that even, was the intermittent cackling of her high-pitched laughter.
Ha, hah, hah, hah, hah.
I might have been annoyed, very annoyed, but something about it--the evil laughter, the crazy loud TV--reminded me of Nan. I fingered the brooch. Lulu the spearhead, ambassador of Butte and Bradock family in general, has finally arrived in New York City.
Ha, hah, hah, hah. Vroooooooom.
I cocked my ear. What would Nan be doing with a power tool?
I laid my suitcase on the bed and began unpacking, taking out clothes, pencils and sketch pads, a container of volouvonts that should have soured over such a horrendous journey, but hadn’t. A snap of genius told me--take them down to my neighbor as way of introducing myself and of making her aware that someone is now living upstairs, someone who might like to get some rest after a long, arduous journey.
Ha, hah, hah, hah. Vroo Vroooooooom.
Down the smelly stairs, Tupperware in hand. I knocked on the door. A second later it was opened up by a man.
“Yes?” He squinted at me. A shirtless man with death-white skin and very see-through underpants. He sweated and sneered, in a strange un-neighborly way.
“Hi, my name’s Lulu Bradock. I just moved in upstairs. I thought I heard... Do you live with your--”
“Just me lives here. What’s that ya got? What do ya want?”
“Oh, yes, I brought these for your...you. My Mum made them.”
Suddenly his face lit up and he smiled, revealing hideous yellow-brown teeth covered in foam.
Do not judge thy neighbor. Do not judge they neighbor.
“Gifts eh? You from another country?”
“Well, maybe you detect a bit of an English accent, although, actually, I haven’t ever been there. I’m from Butte Montana--”
“Ah, Haaaa. Come on in...” He opened the door a little wider.
“Well, I’d love to, but I’m tired from the trip. It’s very nice of you to ask though, perhaps--”
“How’s ‘bout in the morning then? Do you cook?”
“Well, I’m not sure what I’m doing--”
“Don’t let me down, now. Dada don’t like that.”
Just then, a Hispanic lady in a very short skirt and colorful bruises on her arms walked by and glared at us.
He muttered something, then slammed the door shut.
I said, “Hello,” to the lady but she didn’t acknowledge me. She stumbled a little and moved on. I sympathized. It was airless in this corridor. I felt rather dizzy myself. I left the volouvonts on his doorstep and hopped away up the stairs.
Back in the apartment, dog tired, I took a long cool bath. Only the remainder of today and tomorrow to get rested up for my new job.
Ha, hah, hah, hah. Vrooooooooom.
Fat chance. Oh well, better call Mum and let her know I’m here and alive.
My cell phone didn’t work in the apartment building, and not surprisingly, the phone in the lobby didn’t work either--but I could hardly complain. The rent was cheap compared to what I’d expected. Figured I’d stay until I got my first paycheck, then get the hell outta this dump. Somewhere uptown, I thought, as I wiped icky stuff I’d acquired from the phone, off my hand and onto my skirt.
Then the man from downstairs appeared, grinning and snaking along close to the wall. Now, I might be from Montana, but I’m not totally stupid. I could see what was going on. Obviously he was pretending to live alone and hiding his poor mother so he didn’t have to pay extra rent for double occupancy. Well, his secret was safe with me. I didn’t feel uncomfortable knowing I had something over on him. His name was Hubert, and after our second conversation, I decided to pass on our morning date. I’d slip a Dear John under his door before I went out shopping.
Monday morning. Today is the day. Lucky to have scored a seat, I studied my fellow train travelers. So many of us crammed into such a tiny space. Already packed way beyond what must be legal, and still it kept getting fuller.
I caught the eye of a skinny Asian girl, smiled and raised my eyebrows as if to say--oh boy, here we go again, right? Fellow veteran train traveler? For a second she seemed disoriented, unsure what to do. A moment later her eyes slipped subtly out of focus, and she was no longer looking at me, but through me.
The smile faltered on my lips and I glanced down into my lap, embarrassed. I lifted the portfolio from between my feet and fiddled with its copper colored latch.
Will I ever make any friends? I wondered. Everything’s so foreign. For instance, this tubular piece of metal charging through the dark like a rocket ship. Taking all these straight-faced people with un-focused eyes to their daily jobs on Wall Street or where ever. So far Hubert from downstairs was the only person I’d had more than five words of conversation with. And clearly he wasn’t right in the head. Hiding his mother away like that. In this heat. Yesterday I’d slipped a note under his door saying, sorry I couldn’t stop by. Some other time, maybe. Your friend, Lulu. A little while later I was awoken by a very loud bout of cackling and power tool activity. I hope his mother wasn’t taunting him. Poor Hubert.
I got off at Central Park, took a deep breath, glad for air that hadn’t been pre-warmed by the lungs, throats, nasal cavities and, horrible but true, assholes, of fifty close proximity strangers. Strangers who shared such intimate conditions yet balked at the notion of eye contact. I was going to have to be very careful about dating.
Weaving my way through crowds of people, I finally made it to the Gossamar building on 84th.
I gazed up, awed at its hugeness.
“Excuse me lady, can you spare five dollars?”
I lowered my gaze to a dusty fellow with a beard and a hat with money in it. “I’m sorry, I don’t have any...dollars.” I said.
I’d been told specifically not to entertain street people. That’s what Mum had said. Don’t entertain the street people, no matter what you do. You might feel sorry for them Lu, but they could be mass murderers for all you know. Hiding from the law.
“Fucking cunt!” he hissed, then moved on to someone else.
“Wow,” I said disapprovingly, only when he was well out of earshot. “That’s not very nice.”
After another long indulgent, dream-filled gaze at the Gossamar Building, I checked my watch. Still forty-five minutes early. Either I walk around the block--avoiding dusty people who’ll insist on talking to me and spotless people who would rather take an axe to their own eyeballs than do so--or stop in for coffee at the place I’d spied across the street.
By the time I crossed, the line had miraculously gone from nothing to out the door. I joined the end, feeling rather more like a dusty person waiting for a handout than an important career woman.
Finally it was my turn. The patrons directly ahead of me had ordered so effortlessly and confidently, that I’d been lulled into a false sense of ease. Suddenly the spotlight was on, and I’d been sleeping in the sidelines. I gawked at the board. After a few false starts, the woman behind me, a tight aura-ed blonde in a red skirt-suit with matching red brief case, sighed loudly to help me along. I swallowed and ordered the thing with least foreign words in it. “A medium drip coffee, please.”
The counter life rolled her eyes, pointed at a nearby shelf with three varying sized cups on it, and said, teacher to toddler, “This is a Full, this is a Grand, and this is a Massive. Which do you want?”
“Give me the massive,” I said coolly and without honest consideration.
I took my massive and sauntered off, looking for milk and sugar. A dense collection of suits were gathered in the corner, so I headed over there. But no mater what, I couldn’t seem to make it to the front. I was suckered again and again by their deftly honed pushing-in skills: Body language that said, “’scuse me, already been at the milk station once, just returning for a forgotten bag of sugar;” the clever, “please ma’m I’ve got a limp;” then of course the ballsiest of all, “I’m supposed to be here and I’m coming through.” Also known as The Reservation. Finally I’d had enough and “Montana cave-womaned” my way to the front.
Carefully sitting down my top-heavy Massive, I reached for the milk. As I did, something horrible happened. The cuff of my new, gently used Dior jacket caught on the lid and pulled it over. A steaming brown tidal wave rode across the milk station, cresting then smashing against the Red Cliffs of Dover--being, of course, the lady in the red skirt-suit. She screamed. “Jesus Christ, you fucking imbecile.”
“I’m so, so, sorry,” I heard myself say. “It was a total accident. I’m so sorry.”
She stood there glaring at me, her wet skirt stuck to her legs, which were wide apart, arms poised high and away from her body. She looked like a hawk about to dive on a mouse.
“I’ll pay for it to be cleaned. I’m really sorry.”
“Gah!” She finally stopped posing as a bird of prey and started wiping herself with napkins, looking at me from the corner of her eye.
“It was an accident,” I said again.
Eventually she stopped fussing, shot me one last dirty look, and left.
The Gossamar Lobby was enormous. Marble floors, crystal chandeliers, a huge fountain with seven naked cherubs spitting water at one another. I clopped across the marble, eyeing the cherubs suspiciously. Spitting cherubs, slippery marble floor, 3 inch heeled Gardenia pumps, is not a happy combination in Lulu’s book. An eternity of careful clopping, and I was finally to the other side.
A silent space-age elevator catapulted me up to the fiftieth floor. My insides did a summersault or two, and giddily I touched Nan’s brooch. Bad Nan for spilling coffee all over that bitchy lady.
The sleek doors swished open. I tripped, fell out of the elevator, dropped my portfolio, and wrung my foot.
“You new here?” asked a plump black lady who’d stopped to peer down at me.
“Yes,” I said straightening my clothes. “Thanks. My name’s Lulu Bradock. I’m from Butte Montana.” I stuck my hand out at her.
She shook her head and laughed. “You new all right. Please ta meet ya, Lulu.” She didn’t shake my hand, but she was still the friendliest person I’d met so far.
I walked up to the reception desk, which was of a huge, circular construction. It seemed that no matter where I stood around it, the receptionist’s back was always to me. Like the picture of Jesus in Nan’s bedroom, where his eyes are always watching. Only the opposite.
Finally, accidentally, she saw me. “Yes?”
“Hi, my name’s Lulu Bradock. I’m the winner of the Rockin’ Revelation Color Contest,” I said, sure this would melt her cold manner into one of warmth and acceptance.
“Sit over there.” She pointed sharply to a chair in the corner of the room.
“Ooo-kaay...” I said skeptically, wondering if maybe she hadn’t heard me right. I sat myself in the chair and waited, smiling at everyone who came by. Fewer and fewer people getting off the elevator now, still I waited.
Once, I ventured off my chair just to see if she remembered I was there, and was confronted with an ice pick stare aimed directly between my eyes. She gave me a chilling order to sit back down, and said that someone would be here to ‘see to me,’ she said it like ‘dispose of me,’ soon. I hurried back to my chair and did as told.
Eventually, to my horror, the elevator door opened and there, now wearing a blue skirt-suit, was the red skirt-suit lady. She looked at me and squinted.
“What do you want? What are you a stalker? Forget the dry cleaning bill, I got bigger fish, gimmie a break.” She walked over to the receptionist. “Wynona, what’s the latest on the Durham order?”
A thin smile had slid over Wynona’s face during this interaction. “Nothing new, Claire.” She nodded in my direction. “Lulu Bradock from Butte, Montana. The Rockin’ Revelation Contest winner.” She said it just the way I had. I was momentarily flattered that she’d been paying attention, then of course I became insulted and frowned.
“Jesus, you’re kidding?” Claire said, turning and looking at me in disgust.
“I’m sorry about the coffee,” I said, pulling myself out of the chair and walking over to her. I shot my hand out toward her. “I hope you won’t let that--”
“Forget it,” she said, backing away as if I had a frappachino hidden in a squirter up my sleeve. “Just get your ass down to the mailroom.”
She looked at Wynona. “Send her down to Harris.”
Then she was gone, whoofed off behind some important looking door.
Wynona punched a button and began talking into thin air. “Harris? Yes I’ve got her here. Yes, up here. Please do. Right now.”
I was standing close to Wynona. She seemed uncomfortable and pointed to the chair in the corner with her eyes, but I was taking no more of her shit, no more Jedi mind tricks. She was only a damn receptionist. I stood there, right in the middle of her foot traffic.
What a crock of bad luck. My only consolation was that Revelation Cosmetics is a huge affair, and my manager was named Josh, not Claire, so, unless she was somehow his superior, in which case I was truly fucked, I would have to see it merely as a coffee stain in the armor. And actually she wasn’t any more unpleasant than anyone else I’d met. Maybe we’d end up as friends, maybe even roommates, sharing fine red wine and discussing the industry’s Winter Season color directives, and the artistic merits therein.
An eternity passed. Finally out of nowhere, a voice.
“I’m Harris.”
A short man had appeared before me. A very, very short man in a dirty sweaty T-shirt and short-shorts, looking completely and utterly out of place. His hair was slicked back with grease or sweat, and there were big wet patches around his armpits.
“That all you got to wear?” he asked. I considered asking him the same thing, but restrained myself as I was getting a horrid suspicion he knew more than I. “Yes...why?”
“Come on, let’s go.”
I followed him through the corridors, deeper and deeper, narrower and dingier, the doors progressively closer and closer, the huge decorative palms morphed into scraggily pots of plastic geraniums. Finally we reached a two-door industrial elevator. “Revelation owns the basement level.” He laughed. “Goin’ down to the boiler room.”
But it wasn’t a joke. A minute or two later we were in the bowels of hell. He punched the elevator door to make it open. “A knack,” he told me, I’d have “to get the hang of,” if I didn’t want to wind up stuck in the damned thing.
“This way,” he said, marching forward.
I took off my jacket and slung it over my arm.
The lights, yellow, and blinking horror movie style, were in wire cages for chrissake. Dozens of huge machines lined the entire warehouse, sorting conveyer belts, tiny busy people fussing around sweating and, I hate to say it but, stinking. What was I doing here in this...this diabolical basement sweatshop? I followed Harris into a locker room.
“Why exactly am I here?” I finally managed to ask. “I’m the winner of the Rockin’ Revelation Color Contest.”
“So you are dear, so you are. You’ll have to take that up with Mr. Granger, Josh, when he gets back on Friday. Ms. Havershim, Claire, is in charge till then.”
“So, Claire’s not his superior then?”
“Nope.”
I sighed in relief. Obviously the woman was still angry and trying to punish me. I’d go along with it. Pay my dues. Let her get it out of her system. We’d be sipping wine and sharing stories in no time.
“Put these on, and we’ll find you something to do.” He handed me my skivvies--a pair of off-white shorts, and an off-white t-shirt. They didn’t quite work with my three-inch heeled Gardenia pumps, but Harris assured me I looked fine, and just to watch my step.
He wedged me in between a Korean lady named Cho, and a Russian lady named Vera. I was taught how to sort the mail, how to return orders, and how to avoid the bums outside in the loading dock, who seemed very admiring of my sophista-slut outfit.
I carried, I lifted, I stacked, I piled, I pleaded, and at 1 p.m. I was given a lunch break. My arms and shoulders were aching madly and I feared the flickering lights might be triggering some latent epileptic tendencies. I changed back into my own clothes and Vera took me back up to the main office floor. We walked in the direction of the cafeteria.
I had to do something. I couldn’t stand a whole week of this, even if it meant Claire getting into trouble. I’d thought I could go along with it, but I couldn’t.
I sniffed at my armpit. Phewww. Victoria’s Secret Pear Blossom deodorant couldn’t cut the mustard under these conditions. Something must be done.
I asked Vera with whom I should speak, and after stumbling around our huge language barrier a few times I came to understand I needed to speak with Jack Montiglow. Evidently, he was in a different department to Josh Granger, but with the same authority.
I knocked on Jack’s door and he called me in.
“Well, well, well. You’re a new face in town. What can I do ya for?”
“Sorry Mr. Montiglow I--”
“Call me Jack. First names around here.”
“Okay. Jack. Hi. I’m Lulu Bradock. I won the Rockin’ Revelation Color Contest. To get to the point, somehow, I’ve been mistakenly put in the mailroom. I don’t want to get anyone in trouble but--”
“Let me guess...hmmmmm...Claire did it!” He began to suggestively suck on the tip of his pen.
I pretended not to see it. “Yes.” I said, “I think Claire and I might have gotten off on the wrong--”
“Well that’s just awful, Lulu, just awful. Downright shameful, in fact.”
I nodded, but for some reason I felt he was a tad less than sincere.
“Lulu, where are you from?” Now he was leaning back in his chair, feet on the desk, contemplating me. Thank God I wasn’t still dressed as sophista-slut.
I shifted awkwardly from foot to foot. “Butte, Montana.”
“Ohhh, cowgirl country. How’s the haystacks out there?” He smiled, and loosened his tie.
“I...er...fine. Ha, yes, funny.”
“Tell you what I’m gonna do for ya Lulu. You go ahead and finish the day in the mailroom--I personally, don’t want to get on Claire’s bad side. She’s got an awful temper ya know--”
“Yes, I--”
“But tomorrow, you can report to me for duty, and we’ll see if we can’t find you something a little more fitting. Can you file?”
“A little...” I hesitated, “But...Jack, aren’t I supposed to be in the Creative department, coming up with ideas and--”
“Listen, Lulu.” Now he averted my gaze, staring out his window-wall at the dynamic view of Manhattan. “That’s not my department. You’re gonna need to have a little chat with Claire. Get things up to speed. Dig? She’s at a lunch meeting now. But catch her on your way out tonight. Okay then, sweets?”
The meeting was over. I left his office and started walking the maze of corridors back to the industrial elevator, and the boiler room. Yo, ho, heave ho. Yo, ho heave ho. I’d come to New York expecting to be a pampered protégé, and instead I’d landed in a Charlton Heston movie where slaves are used as mules, grinding grain and pulling oars till their backs break and they die of heat exhaustion.
“Hey! Lulu ain’t it?” Becky the friendly black lady was coming out of one of the smaller offices. On the door it said: Customer Complaints.
“I have a complaint,” I whined.
“Oh, yeah? ‘Sonly your first day, girl. What you got to be complainin’ ‘bout?”
“Nothing... Claire. She hates me.”
“Hoooo, tha’s no good, sugar. You don’t wanna be gettin’ on her bad side, let me tell you!”
“Too late.” I said, with not a small spoonful of self-pity.
“She hasn’t ordered your horoscope, has she?”
“What?” I looked questioningly at Becky. She was frowning.
“Sister, that lady is some kinda witch. There’s a lot a stories ‘bout Claire Havershim. She has this personal astrologer, he live out west somewhere, and she plan all her moves, all her meetin’s, everythang around what he tell her in her horoscope. She uncanny with it.”
Becky went on to tell me several urban legends about Claire, stopping every now and then to look over her shoulder. She said that Claire was on her way up the ladder. Cutting successful business deals, going out on limbs, making left field choices that turn out to be right. Becky also hinted that at least two of Claire’s competitors had left the firm under mystifying circumstances, and that Becky had it on good authority that Claire had been seen in Personnel researching their birth dates and other personal info.
I thanked Becky for the insight and departed down to the sweatshop. Astrological mumbo jumbo. I didn’t believe it. Although I did believe that Claire had instigated these rumors, turning herself into some type of mythical voodoo queen. A control device if ever I saw one. Madge at the salon did the very same thing. Admittedly the stakes were far lower, but still, she insisted that her haircuts were lucky, and that Janice Kraut across the road, who did cuts on the cheap, and who one day fell down the stairs and broke her arm, quite simply--had it coming.
Claire was no bogeyman. I would think of something to put it right between us. She’d be my friend yet.
I changed back into my sweaty rags and finished out the day. During a smoky coffee break with Vera and the bums outside in the docking area, I noticed that the huge dumpster off to the left had sparkles dripping down the side. Vera told me this is where they dispose of all the old samples. Lipsticks, shadows, rouges, foundations... Gingerly, I lifted the lid and took a look inside. She was right. Boxes and boxes of colorful cosmetic waste. What a shame it should end up in here.
Finally it was five. Everyone crowded around the elevator like a bunch of anxious miners waiting to be taken to the light. “Get me the hell out of hell.” Vera whispered. I nodded, and felt sorry that she would have to be here tomorrow and the next day, while my visit was simply a mistake.
I hurried over to Claire’s office, praying I hadn’t missed her, and knocked on the door. There was a substantial pause then...
“Who is it?”
“Lulu Bradock... Remember, I won the--”
“Yes, yes, yes. Come on in.”
Claire’s office was sparse, spotless, with a glass desk and a terrific view. She motioned to a chair by her desk and I sat down.
“Claire. I hope you understand, I’m really sorry about the coffee thing. I’ve been so nervous since I got here and--”
“Didn’t I say forget about it?”
I looked at her. She really did seem like she meant that.
“Yes, I know, but, you know, sending me down to the mailroom, I figured--”
She laughed, throwing back her head and smiling.
I was confused.
She righted her gaze, then spoke to me seriously. “Listen. Sure, no one likes having scalding hot coffee tossed on them--”
“But I--”
She motioned at me to hush. “...but, I came prepared. I was aware something like this might happen today, so I brought a spare set of clothes in my car.”
I looked at her wide-eyed, then squinted. She probably always brought a spare set of clothes in her car.
“But anyway, that’s beside the point. About you dear...”
I watched her stand and pace the room. She was truly a sleek, gorgeous looking woman. About my age I guessed, although I felt like an infant in comparison.
“I hope you aren’t expecting too much from our little arrangement.”
“I’m sorry?”
“You did read the very fine print in the document we sent you, didn’t you darling? I mean...you did have it analyzed by someone intelligent?”
I thought back to Dad, holding his rite-aid reading glasses over the letter, varying the distance from lens to paper, trying to get it in focus. “Looks like a bunch of legal talk. Think they’re just trying to cover their asses in case one of us already works there or something. Damn legal bullshit. Can’t buy a carton of milk these days without signing a release form.”
“You do understand the terms, don’t you?” Claire stopped pacing and looked at me intently. Smiling, hovering, hawk like again.
I coughed, tensed my butt checks and spoke in shaky little bursts. “I’m an employee. I won a job here. You guys liked what I did best out of all the other contestants and...” I trailed off.
She was smiling hugely now. Her perfect white teeth filling her whole face--Frozen, I stared, watching her incisors descend. “You mean you came all the way out from Bumsville, without even understanding what the hell you were getting into? Lulu, sweetie, you’re only an intern. You don’t even get a wage. You didn’t know that. Did you. Holy shit.” She seemed incredibly amused. “You don’t get paid, and we only need you for three months. You have a three month unpaid internship. Do you understand?” Now she stood, readying for the kill. “And what’s more Ms. Lulu Bradock, it wasn’t a competition with judges and shit. Get real. It was a drawing. A random drawing. Get it?”
I stared blankly at her as the words sunk in. My face was hot, and I felt like the biggest fool on the planet. How could I have been so stupid? Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.
“I see.” It was all I could manage.
“Well, deary, I’m sorry and all that. I have to get going. Big deals to make tomorrow, you know how it is...”
She smiled, and numbly I understood that I’d just made her day, maybe even her week. No. Just her day. I wasn’t big enough to feed the likes of her for a week.
I left, barely noticing Wynona, or the fancy elevator ride down, or the clackity marble floor of the main lobby, or Jack as he waved salaciously from his Porsche.
I took Nan’s brooch off and put it in my pocket.
10:02 PM
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