“What?” I heard her words but they didn’t register. I’m not a very good listener—I’m a mutant-baby-maker with no friends.
“Let’s just say that the big fucking mess women have made for themselves is very good business for me.”
I raise my glass. “Cheers.”
It’s after midnight when I arrive home. I move the heap of Lila’s dresses that I forgot to take to the dry cleaner today and flop into my favorite chair. I’ll have Eva take the clothes in tomorrow, see how that fits with her Life of Style.
I think I have a life coach but I’m not sure. Ellen marked up the copy of The Infinite Woman that she’d left for me at the office. She said that in particular I should read the chapters Stuck and Getting Unstuck. I guess she thinks I’m stuck. I scan the first page of Stuck but my head is cloudy so I skip ahead and find a quiz that’s supposed to tell me what I’m good at.
I’m an independent thinker who’s best suited to working alone or with a small group of like-minded people. I’m creative and would rather give direction than take it, though I may have issues with delegation. I am an introvert by nature. I may have a tendency to be overly critical of myself and of others. My standards are high, apparently, but obviously not too high because I’m drinking a bottle of nine-dollar wine with a twist-off cap. I may be impulsive and exercise poor judgment on occasion. I may be reactionary and avoid confrontation. I’m likely to place more value on working at something I enjoy than on making money. Working for or running a small business in a creative field may be the ideal career path.
I stumble over to my desk and log on to my e-mail and find a copy of the latest financial statement Ted sent me. Snap hasn’t been a small business for a long time. We own property and stores, we sell ads and companies back up dump trucks of money to our door so we’ll tell them what’s cool-hot-hip-phat-sick-rad. Ted’s a suburban dad who’s fucking my assistant’s cunt. I haven’t shot one DO or one DON’T for next week’s issue and I couldn’t care.
I’m spinning—even my desk chair is too high off the floor. I slide onto the rug and pull the wastepaper basket beside me and throw up into it—pieces of nuts covered in vile elastic red goo. My chest is tight. I can barely breathe. My lower abdomen cramps. I make it to the bathroom but just in time. The stink of diarrhea makes me vomit again. I light a candle, I draw a bath. My breathing is choppy and I think I should get a paper bag but I don’t have one. I empty cotton balls out of a bag onto the bathroom counter and affix it over my mouth. I breathe in deeply once and out and then it occurs to me that the bag is plastic and I’m going to suffocate and for a moment this doesn’t seem like such a bad thing at all. But I put the bag down and climb into the bath counting slowly in my head, trying to regulate my breath. I wash myself with a ginger scrub and my breath returns to normal. I think my breasts are sore, but my whole body is sore and I try to measure the soreness levels in different places by poking myself hard in the thigh, the arm, the breast. My stomach churns and makes an inimitable sound. The mutant baby is not happy.
I have options. I can call in sick and stay in bed. I can take a handful of Advil with coffee, put my sunglasses on and go to work. These are not the options that Ellen probably had in mind when she told me I have options or when she had printed Because life is all about options on her business card.
I compromise and take the morning off, sending Ted an e-mail saying I’m out scouting for DOs and DON’Ts. I lie in bed but now lying down makes me feel sicker than standing up so I take the Advil and drink the coffee. I want to wear my contacts but they sting every time I try to put them in so I’m stuck with glasses and big baggy eyes everyone can see. I put on the terry cloth pressure bands and head out into the sun.
It’s especially muggy and on especially muggy days it’s easy to find DON’Ts. People have frizzy hair, everyone is grumpy, women wearing makeup find it halfway down their face in minutes and most people smell, which I’ve often wished would register in the photos because it would up their DON’T factor that much more. No one cares what they’re wearing; it’s one of those days that cool and comfortable trumps style. I’m no exception in my white cotton dress that’s cute on a hanger but I know makes me look big and disgusting and my size-ten ass at least a fourteen. But I’m the one taking the pictures, not posing for them, and I really couldn’t give a fuck what anyone thinks because I’m hungover with no sunglasses and I’m laden down with a purse and camera gear and a laundry bag and a mutant baby who doesn’t drink red.
I decide to devote this week’s DON’Ts to shirtless guys after snapping two on my way to the dry cleaner. Eva should be doing this but she’s not because no matter how much pleasure it would bring me I cannot ask her to take in my dry cleaning without confirming that I’m a smarmy dirtbag cliché, which I am but I don’t need Eva to know this.
I walk in the muggy heat looking for shirtless guys. I find two more and then just as I’m close to Connections bookstore-café I see the ultimate DON’T: a pasty shirtless man wearing nothing but a red Speedo and flip-flops carrying a laptop bag. I’m excited in the way I used to get when I spotted a spectacular DON’T. This guy is amazing, he’s perfect, I love him. I ask him to move down the block a bit, so he’s standing in front of the boarded-up tailor’s shop with the Satin Rules graffiti. He poses and ignores my no-smile rule. “I’m a big DON’T, right?” I make a mmm sound and the Speedo Man laughs. “It’s great—I love it!” This guy is a rarity, he really doesn’t give a fuck. This guy knows what’s going on. This guy needs a shady tree and a Wi-Fi connection, not a life coach. This guy is so much my hero I want to make him a DO.
I am going to Connections to return the copy of Ellen’s book that I bought but turned out not to need because of the free copy she gave me. I’m not doing this because I’m cheap, but because if I don’t then I’ll be the girl with two copies of The Infinite Woman in her apartment and as much as I like Ellen, I can’t be that girl. If they won’t refund my money maybe I can get coffee credit.
“Good book?” It’s George Jr. of George’s bar, the DON’T who wore white socks with a black suit and thinks my work is silly.
The clerk informs me that I can’t get coffee credit, only book credit, and holds up The Infinite Woman, scanning the barcode and frowning in a way that doesn’t strike me as appropriate for someone who works in a store that sells healing stones. I wish she’d put the book down or under the counter. “Oh, hey,” I say to George.
“You’re an Infinite Woman, huh?”
“No. I’m just—I’m just returning it.”
“Being an Infinite Woman is no fun?”
“No. I mean, it is. It’s my friend’s book. She wrote it.”
“So you’re returning your friend’s book?”
“She gave me a copy but I already had one but I hadn’t been into my office and didn’t know it was there so I bought one and, well, I don’t need two.” I’m feeling sick again and softheaded. I wonder if the mutant baby will know it’s softheaded or think it’s normal and that its head—or two heads—is the same as everyone else’s. I think it would be better not to know.
“Ah. It all makes sense now.”
“It does?”
“Not really.”
We stand in silence. George Jr. sips his coffee. I glance at my imaginary watch. “I should get going.”
“Off to find more DON’Ts?”
“I already have.” I start to tell him about Speedo Man, but stop abruptly in the middle of the story. I sound too enthused. George was a DON’T. I’m an insensitive bitch. I feel really sick now, like a wave of crap and puke is going to explode out of me at any moment. No one wants that. Maybe I need a healing stone. George asks me if I’d like to have lunch at the bar. I do not need lunch. I need a toilet and then to get to work. I need to find some DOs. I need to have a fucking abortion. I do not need lunch. “Sorry. Can’t” is all I can manage to say before I’m out the door charging down the street toward Esther’s place and praying she’s home.
; There is nothing I can do about the smell. I puke and shit and flush the mess down Esther’s toilet. I wipe the flip side of the seat and the rim of the toilet to make sure I haven’t left any physical evidence and flush again. I look for matches or a can of aerosol air freshener but find nothing. There’s perfume in Lila’s room on her dresser but there’s no way I’ll be able to sneak out of the bathroom and back in again without Esther noticing. I do find a container of Cornsilk face powder, the kind that comes with the big puff. I pat the puff in the powder and wave it around the small room. It smells somewhat better but the powder is yellowish and fine and covers every surface and looks like dusty grime. I find a cloth and do my best to clean it off. Then it’s the breathing again and this time I feel like I’m choking. I’m sweating and manic, I hurt all over and I want to scream but my voice is locked. I force myself upright and open the bathroom door. Esther is setting out a plate of biscuits on the coffee table.
“Sara, dear. What is it? Oh my goodness, you look terribly ill.”
I try to speak but can only wheeze in gasps. Esther helps me into Lila’s room and onto the bed. She fetches me a glass of water, which I manage to drink without drowning. She puts her hand on my back. I wince and she takes it away. Her face is close to mine and I can see every line, the slackness of her skin, the way her eyelids hang down, obscuring her lashes.
I don’t know at first where I am. I sit up and bring my hand to my face; my glasses are still on. It’s Lila’s room and I’m lying on her bed, my white dress bunched around my hips. I can hear Esther talking in the other room. “I understand,” she’s saying, “but she’s very sick.”
“Esther,” I call out in a creaky voice.
“Just a moment. I think I hear her.” Esther taps on the door frame. She has my cell phone and is covering the mouthpiece. “It’s someone named Diane, about a television show?”
I reach out and Esther hands the phone to me. “Shit, Diane.”
“It’s three-thirty, Sara. Where are you?”
“I’ll be there in twenty minutes.” Stylemaker. I’m supposed to be at the studio being a judge. “I promise. I’m sick. I’m sorry.”
“Just get here as fast as you can,” Diane says and clicks off.
“Shit,” I say.
“I hope you don’t mind that I answered your phone, Sara. It kept ringing and ringing and I was afraid it would wake you, so I’ve taken some messages—from Ted and one from Genevieve and two from Ellen Franklin.”
“No. That’s great, Esther.” I stand up and am so dizzy I sit right back down. “I’ve got to get to the studio. My friend Diane…I said I’d be a judge on her show….”
“You should be in bed, my dear.”
“I have to go….”
“Then I’m going with you.” Esther is at Lila’s closet pulling out black dresses and tossing them onto the bed. She holds up two—one in each hand. “Which one do you like better?”
I point to the shift with the three-quarter sleeves. It’s hot and muggy, but I refuse to go sleeveless on television. And the studio will be air-conditioned.
“Thank you so much, Esther.” I’m dressed and we’re driving to the studio. I comb my hair and put red lipstick on without using a mirror and hope I don’t look too deranged.
“You can stop thanking me and just tell me what’s going on. Is it that sticky situation with your friend Ted and your assistant?”
“No. Yes. Partly. I just—” Oh great. Now I’m going to cry.
“What is it?”
“I just can’t do it anymore.”
Esther is quiet. She lights up a cigarette. “Then don’t.”
I have to do this. It shouldn’t be hard. All I have to do is sit in a swivel chair and not swivel as per the instructions of the director, who I can tell is pissed with me for being late—and make comments about the contestants’ personal style. Only three of the original ten remain—two women and a man. Their challenge for this episode was to hit the streets and find the biggest fashion DON’T they could. Then someone rounded up the three chosen DON’Ts, got them to sign releases, probably told them they were going to be on TV and TV is awesome and brought them to the studio, where they sat in a room with a one-way mirror like you see on those detective dramas and at focus groups and made them watch while the contestants pointed out all of their style shortcomings to the three regular judges.
I watch this on tape as a woman—who I can tell is also pissed at me for being late—does my hair and makeup. The contestants are imperious and smug as they point out the flaws of their DON’Ts on photographs that have been blown up and placed on easels. Then I watch the reactions of the DON’Ts. There are tears. Sequestered behind the mirrored glass they look simultaneously furious and broken. The footage is unedited so I see the producers calming them down, coaxing them and baiting them with interview questions. How do you feel about what you just heard?
Then it’s back to the contestants and the reveal of the twist: your DON’Ts are here and your challenge today is to make them over into your personal image!
The DON’Ts walk onto the stage to join their respective contestants. Offstage, Diane urges them to stand a little closer to their photo blow-up. It’s ugly and intense and I understand why the show is so popular.
They don’t show me the tapes of the makeovers-in-progress. There’s no time, Diane says. “It’ll be better this way,” she adds. “You’ll be coming at it really fresh—no biases or preference for one contestant over another.” I don’t tell her that I hate them all.
With my makeup done, it’s judgment time. The first contestant, Marie, trots onto the stage from behind a curtain which has a larger-than-life projection of her DON’T before photo. Marie faces us, gives some bullshit wordy definition of her personal style and how she really, really liked imposing her look on her DON’T but she doesn’t say imposing. The DON’T comes out and the two women hug and the DON’T looks like a fatter, weirder version of Marie. She can’t walk in her heels and I want to jump onstage and show her how, but I don’t because she looks happy and Diane would kill me if I did. So I ask a couple of questions and make some doodles on a pink index card that a production assistant gave me to score the contestants.
Next up is Yves, who’s made over Marc, who looks surprisingly hot—better than Yves—now that his baby-blue jeans and chambray denim shirt have been replaced with rock-star black and he’s had a haircut. Yves is ecstatic and nearly drooling over his creation as he gushes about his look, his style. I write blow job on a pink index card because Yves is looking at Marc like he’d drop to his knees and give him one in a second if Marc—who strikes me as very straight—would let him and I find this endearing.
Finally, there’s Heather and Amy. Heather is striking with razor-cut blond hair to her shoulders, a heart-shaped face and perfect bow-tie pixie mouth that would not be conducive to blow jobs. Amy has a similarly shaped face and mouth and with her hair colored and dressed in a dress that’s short and angular and very modern mod, she could pass for Heather’s sister. It’s impressive, but Amy is clearly uncomfortable and Heather is clearly a bullying bitch. When I ask Amy if she’s happy with her makeover she says, “It’s not really my style,” which prompts Heather to explode.
“It’s my style. You have no style.” I wonder if they’ll edit that out.
The contestants and their DON’Ts huddle backstage and get interviewed again by producers as we debate who should win and who should be eliminated. I immediately say Marie wins, Heather goes, Yves stays. The other judges look at me like I’m insane. It’s a toss-up, they all agree, as to whether Yves or Marie goes.
“But Amy was miserable up there,” I say.
One of the judges looks confused. “That’s Heather’s DON’T,” says another, clarifying.
“This isn’t about making people happy, it’s about personal style,” says the first judge.
“It’s about bullshit,” I say and all three of the resident judges gasp. The male judge, who’s the fashion d
irector at a national magazine better known for its recipes than its fashion-forward thinking, clutches at his throat, aghast. He’s wearing an ascot. I am quickly outnumbered, outvoted and ignored. Heather wins, Marie goes, Yves stays to compete in the final episode. We tape the announcement, I say goodbye to Diane and am done.
Esther is waiting for me in the lobby. Diane wouldn’t let her in the studio. The season has started airing and she can’t have word leaking out about who makes the finals. “She’s seventy-five,” I said to Diane, but there was no convincing her.
“How are you feeling, dear?”
“Dirty,” I say. Esther looks unsure as to how to respond. “Never mind. It’s over.”
“We should get you to a doctor. You’re still looking peaked.”
“I’ll be okay. I just need to get some sleep.” I’m feeling worn and achy and the nausea still comes in waves, but it’s better. I think I can breathe. I want to go home.
Before Esther drops me off she has me promise I’ll go to the doctor on Monday or to the hospital tonight if I have to. She asks me to call her in the morning to tell her how I’m feeling and invites me for tea if I’m up for it and says that she’ll come over to my place and bring me whatever I need if I’m not.
The phone is ringing as I walk in the door and I run to pick it up more out of habit than any actual desire to talk to anyone. Gen once told me that pregnant women can be very moody and scattered. I pick up. It’s Ted wanting to know where I was today, what’s going on, why Esther answered my cell when he called earlier. I am limp, my exhaustion a full-body sensation.
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