Hostile Makeover

by Wendy Wax

  “Well . . . I’ve been working with Luke and the creative team. Judy assisted with some of the research.” She raised her chin. “But the majority of it is pretty much me.”

  He nodded as if he’d expected as much. “That would explain the bathroom redecorating expenses at Tire World locations across Atlanta. And the proposed Tire Talk radio show. The tire as art charity auction is an interesting touch.”

  She started to relax a little. OK, there was some sarcasm in his tone, but even he couldn’t ignore the fact that she’d generated activity in so many of the dormant accounts he’d dumped on her.

  “Of course, the cost of those things is chump change in comparison to the weeklong shoot you’ve booked in L.A. for Furniture Forum. The one that includes,” he paged through the reports until he found what he was looking for, “first-class travel and accommodations at the Four Seasons Hotel for all of Simms’s people as well as our own.”

  She’d known he’d react to the expense, but she wasn’t going to give up the opportunity to make contact with Selena Moore, nor was she going to tell him about the account until after she’d won the right to pitch it. If she told him too soon, he’d assign someone else or, God forbid, take it himself. She reined in her temper and ordered herself to stay calm.

  “Do you have any idea what that’s going to cost?”

  “Why, yes,” she said carefully, “I believe I detailed that in my budget report.” She looked him in the eye and offered the only explanation she’d been able to come up with. “It’s imperative that Simms know we think that highly of him. The contrast between what he’s done for himself and what we can do for him has to be significant.”

  “We DON’T think that highly of him,” Ross ground out. “I don’t think that highly of anyone.”

  Shelley blanched at the capitalization, recognizing it as the yelling that it was.

  “You cannot possibly justify that kind of money for production. This man’s NEPHEW has been shooting his commercials with the equivalent of a family video camera. He’ll never spend this kind of money on a commercial shoot.”

  “But don’t you see?” She was determined to stay calm and professional—at least on the outside. “It has to cost a lot more. If we’re just going to do what he’s been doing and charge him more money, he’ll never agree. I promised him a giant leap and this is it. Plus I got his nephew the coolest production gig in the world.”

  Ross shook his head. “You know, I keep telling myself that your enthusiasm is a good sign, that it makes up for your lack of experience and spotty work history. You’ve put in long hours and Luke seems impressed with some of your ideas.” The last was offered reluctantly. “But you have NO CONCEPTION OF MONEY. You can’t go throwing it around this way.” He held up the budget reports and actually shook them at her. “I’m not your father and I’m not going to approve a shopping spree.”

  Being treated like a child who’d asked for an unwarranted increase in her allowance made her blood begin to boil. Really. She could feel the heat coursing through her veins. She had to clamp her lips together to keep them from opening. Her brain formed arguments, all of them beginning with “Listen, you big jerk,” and escalating from there.

  She bit back the words, swallowed them whole. Nothing she wanted to say right now would help her achieve her goal.

  “Has Brian Simms seen this proposal?” he asked.

  “I’m not sure if he’s seen it yet, but it was sent to him at the same time it came to you.”

  “I told you I wanted to see everything first.”

  She shrugged and tried to look regretful. She’d thought out how to handle this, too, and in the end had decided to take her chances with Brian Simms. Ross might be pissed off for a while—well, OK, there was no might about it—but what was he going to do, fire her?

  “Sorry,” she said. “It was an accident.”

  “You’ll have to call him first thing Monday morning and tell him this was a mistake. That it was just a preliminary and that you did NOT have approval to send it out and that you are going to rework the budget.”

  “I can’t do that. He’ll lose all faith in me. It’s vitally important that we do this the way I’ve laid it out.”

  “No. You’ll call Brian Monday and explain the situation.” He picked up the Simms budget, the one he’d shaken at her, and dropped it in the trash can.

  She stared at him, mute, while the blood rushed to her brain and made her light-headed. She closed her eyes and began to count to ten, but abandoned the idea when she got to twelve and couldn’t remember what number came next. She was too far gone to count herself back to normal.

  “Talk to him, Shelley. Do it first thing Monday morning. Or I will.”

  Ross’s phone rang and with a curt nod of dismissal, he reached for the receiver.

  She wanted to scream at him. Or punch a hole in the wall with her bare fist. Or find a quiet place to cry. She was tempted, so tempted, to shove her anger in his face and quit right there on the spot.

  But that was what he wanted, wasn’t it?

  His eyes slid over her as he brought the receiver to his ear and without so much as a return nod, she left. Her heart was pounding and her legs were shaking. The picture of him sitting behind her father’s desk was now embedded in her brain forever. She hoped like hell Howard Mellnick could help her dislodge it.

  chapter 16

  From the hallway, Shelley called Howard Mellnick’s office to say that she was running late, then called Nina from the car to let her know she couldn’t pick her up as planned. They agreed to meet in the psychiatrist’s waiting room instead.

  Nina sounded a little strange on the phone, but Shelley was too upset herself and in too big a hurry to get into it. Plus it was really hard to hear over the grinding of her teeth.

  She was supposed to be at dinner at her parents’ at seven, but she should be able to fit in a drink with Nina beforehand. After the day she’d had, she needed a psychiatrist AND alcohol before she had to deal with her mother.

  Ten minutes late, Shelley raced into the empty waiting room. Finding the reception area empty as well, she knocked on Dr. Mellnick’s office door and was ushered inside.

  Where she immediately burst into tears—great honking sobs that came from somewhere deep down inside.

  Helping her to her usual seat, he plucked a tissue from the box on his desk and pressed it into her hands. Then he waited quietly while she cried, handing her a new tissue when the one she had grew soggy, making it clear through his silence that there was no rush.

  Shelley sobbed loudly and thoroughly, slightly surprised at the racket she was making. She avoided his gaze as the tears streamed down her face and the sounds of her jagged breathing filled the room. Finally the pressure in her chest and behind her eyelids began to ease, and she licked the salt from the corner of her lips.

  Dabbing ineffectually at her wet cheeks, she drew in a shaky breath and let an even bigger one out. Her heartbeat began to slow. Drained, she dashed away the remaining tears and looked beyond the psychiatrist to the clock on the wall. Unbidden, her brain registered the time elapsed and began to convert it into dollars. If her math was correct, she’d just blown thirty-five dollars crying. She could do that on her own time for free.

  For a long moment, she and Howard Mellnick contemplated each other in the now-silent room.

  “Let me guess,” he finally said in a teasing tone, “they didn’t have your size at the Saks trunk show?”

  Shelley shook her head.

  “Somebody else required a birthday orgasm at an inappropriate time.”

  Another no, but she felt a smile tugging at her lips.

  “Things aren’t going so well at work.”

  Shelley nodded and she sniffed one last time. Thank God for Howard Mellnick. “Work,” she said, “is a total disaster.”

  “Now, is this because it’s so new, or—”

  “Actually, it’s not the work that’s a disaster. As it turns out, the work is pretty great.
It’s my new boss who sucks the big one.”

  “And that would be,” he looked down and flipped back through his notes, “Ross Morgan?”

  She nodded emphatically. “He’s so concerned with the bottom line, he can’t see what’s in front of him. And he doesn’t trust me at all.”

  Mellnick listened and nodded, his solid presence offering its own form of encouragement.

  “It’s clear that he’s trying to make me quit, even though I’m working my butt off and Judy and I have come up with a really novel approach to the Tire World campaign.”

  “Is this your sister, Judy, you’re referring to? The baker?”

  “Yeah, only she doesn’t have time to bake anymore. I’ve got her scoping out Tire World bathrooms and planning a grand opening party.”

  Mellnick made a note on his legal pad.

  “And she’s not the Goody Two-shoes I thought she was, either.” Shelley hiccuped and brought the tissue up to the corner of her eye.

  He smiled and scribbled something on the pad. As always, Shelley wondered how he knew which things merited a notation when everything seemed to pour out of her mouth in one long, equally important, stream.

  “And the worst thing is that even when I’m so mad at him I want to scream, I’m totally aware of him,” she sniffed, “you know, as a male. And he’s got these really incredible buns.” She did a sort of half snort, half sniff, and her voice trailed off. “Of steel.”

  She started to cry again although she was fairly certain it wasn’t because of Ross Morgan’s rear end. Through the sheen of tears, she ventured a peek at the therapist and was relieved to see he wasn’t writing that part down.

  “So.” Howard Mellnick sat back in his chair and crossed one leg over the other, studying her from behind his frameless glasses, his intelligent brown eyes both appraising and comforting. “What happens now?”

  Shelley mirrored his body position and tried like crazy to imitate his calm. The crying had left her slightly numb, and she had to sort through all the soggy nerve endings in her brain to get to the possible options. As it turned out there weren’t a whole lot of them. “I guess I just have to keep slogging along, trying to do my best.”

  She heard the words and considered them. They didn’t sound like nearly enough.

  But Howard Mellnick froze for an instant. Then he broke out in a smile and did his own imitation of a, well, she thought it might be a bugle or a trumpet. “Da-da-da-dah!” he announced, “Shelley Schwartz has just had what we in the mental health field like to refer to as a breakthrough!”

  “Me?” She looked around as if there might be another Shelley Schwartz somewhere in the room.

  “Yes, you.” He looked, well, happy. Or at least incredibly pleased. Which might have made her feel better if she’d had any idea why.

  “Do you realize what you just said?” he asked.

  “That I have to keep trying?”

  “Yes, that.” He smiled again. “Don’t you dare shrug that off as if it’s nothing. A month ago if you’d had a run-in like this with Ross Morgan you would have quit, or sabotaged yourself. Or ditched our appointment to go shopping.”

  She wanted to deny it, but he was absolutely correct.

  “But today you did none of those things. And you’re not quitting. You’re gritting your teeth, and soldiering on. That’s huge, Shelley. Absolutely huge.”

  She wished she could feel as good about this as he apparently did. Howard Mellnick was practically glowing. She, frankly, still felt like shit.

  And she really wished she hadn’t brought up Ross Morgan’s buns.

  There was a noise out in the waiting area and they both turned toward the door.

  “I don’t have any appointments scheduled after yours and I know Irene’s gone for the day,” Dr. Mellnick said. He rose.

  The sound became more distinct. Someone was crying. There was a loud sob and what sounded like boo-hooing. Shelley was very glad no one had been outside while she was sobbing her guts out. At their next session, she was going to suggest soundproofing.

  “Nina,” Shelley realized. “I asked her to meet me here.” Looking down at her watch, she realized the session was pretty much over. The crying grew louder. “Can we make sure she’s OK?”

  Together they opened the door and walked into the waiting room. Nina sat hunched forward in a chair, her blond hair forming a curtain around her face. She looked up as they entered the waiting area and her hair fell perfectly back into place. Her blue eyes were moist and dewy and her lips, though quivering, still looked plump and pink. The nose against which she’d pressed a wad of tissue paper didn’t look even the tiniest bit red or runny. Shelley didn’t have to look in a mirror to know that her crying jag hadn’t left her looking anywhere near as tragically beautiful.

  “Oh, Shelley,” Nina wailed as she stood and wobbled over to throw her arms around Shelley’s neck.

  “What is it, Nina? What happened?”

  Her friend drew in a ragged breath. “I saw Rabbi Jordan today.” She looked up and her face crumpled ever so delicately as Howard Mellnick looked on. “He won’t let me join his conversion class. He said I don’t have a good enough reason for wanting to be Jewish.”

  Too drained for serious drinking, they left Nina’s car in the parking lot and Shelley drove the two of them to her parents’ for Friday night dinner.

  “Don’t you worry,” Shelley soothed on the way. “You heard what Dr. Mellnick said. You just have to do a little research on your own so that you can express your reasons for wanting to convert more . . . convincingly. You probably shouldn’t have been quite so honest with Rabbi Jordan.”

  “But I couldn’t lie to a rabbi!” Nina looked horrified. “I might burn in hell for that!”

  Shelley smiled, her first real smile in hours. “There’s no hellfire and brimstone in Reform Judaism, Nina. That’s one of the best parts. But I didn’t mean you should lie, exactly. You just need to come up with a few more reasons than snagging a husband.”

  Nina nodded slowly.

  “You do have other reasons, don’t you?”

  “Um, sure.”

  Shelley didn’t press the point. Chances were, once Nina grasped the realities of conversion, she wouldn’t be quite so eager to become one of the “chosen people.” “Mom’s setting an extra place right now. I bet we can get her to help with your Jewish education. And maybe we could get Dad to speak to the rabbi on your behalf.”

  Nina sniffed one last time and smiled. Despite all her crying she looked like a movie star ready for her close-up. It was a good thing she was such an old friend.

  Shelley spent the rest of the drive complaining loudly about Ross Morgan, but her session with Howard Mellnick and the flood of tears she’d released seemed to have extracted some of the poison. If the good doctor thought she’d made some kind of breakthrough, who was she to argue?

  When they arrived at her parents’ they found the usual cast of characters preparing for dinner. Craig and her father sat in the living room debating the economy while Shelley’s nephews argued about which one of them was going to fill the water glasses.

  In the kitchen Delilah, their longtime maid, ladled out matzo ball soup and passed the bowls to Judy and Great-aunt Sonya. Her mother flitted in and out supervising the final touches to the table, refilling drinks, and hunting down a pack of matches to light the Sabbath candles.

  Shelley and Nina plunked their purses on the kitchen table. “We’re here!”

  Delilah turned from her place at the stove. The affection reflected on her mahogany features was in direct contrast to her flippant tone. “Well, look who the cat done dragged in.” She motioned to both cheeks and Shelley and Nina, used to this ritual, came over to the stove to peck the spots she pointed to. She studied their faces for a long moment, and Shelley was glad they’d repaired their tear-streaked faces in the car. “You two been up to mischief again?”

  Shelley filched a black olive from a bowl of crudités on the counter. “Who, us?” />
  “Don’t you pull that innocent face on me. I’ve known you girls since you was wearing pigtails.” She turned to the others. “What you think, Aunt Sonya? You think they’re up to something?”

  “That’s a pretty safe bet,” Sonya replied.

  Shelley accepted her great-aunt’s hug and did a quick scan for any sign of excessive baked goods. “So, what’s for dessert?” she asked the room at large.

  Judy smiled over the bowls of soup she was juggling. She was still dressed from her day at the office, and it was a trifle disconcerting to see Career Barbie in their mother’s kitchen. “I don’t know. I think Delilah made an apple pie or something. Between the kids and my slave-driver boss I don’t have time to bake.”

  As if summoned by their mother’s words, Sammy and Jason stormed into the kitchen and accosted Judy at the counter. She looked like a pygmy in the center of them; a tired, harassed pygmy.

  “Mom, why do I have to do the water? Jason was supposed to do the ice cubes and he hasn’t done anything.”

  “Why do we have to do it at all?” Jason countered. “I want to play Game Cube. It was my turn.”

  Judy set the bowls on the counter. “Stop this right now,” she said. “You have to do it because I asked you to. It’ll take you two minutes.”

  “Hey, Jude? Can we get some more of that snack mix out here?” Craig’s voice carried into the kitchen, his tone as petulant as his children’s. Judy sighed and went to the pantry to look for the snack mix.

  “Are his legs broken?” Shelley joined her sister in front of the pantry. “Why does he need you to wait on him? You worked all day, too.”

  Judy’s smile was not a happy one. “I think that’s the point. All three of them seem totally pissed off that I have anything on my mind or in my life besides them.” She located the box, poured out the snacks at the counter, and turned to take them out to the living room.

  “Don’t you dare,” Shelley said, snatching the bowl out of her sister’s hands. “I’ll take them.”