Girl Before a Mirror

by Liza Palmer

  “But, at its core, the book is about becoming your own heroine, right? It’s supposed to be empowering. I mean, isn’t the title based on that Nora Ephron quote: ‘Be the heroine of your life, not the victim’?” I say, flipping through the pages.

  “I mean, maybe—but Brubaker’s is better. Be the heroine, so you can find a hero. Be the heroine—”

  “Find your hero, yep. Wouldn’t want to . . . sure, I got it. But if we used this book as a jumping-off point, we might have something,” I say.

  “What . . . I mean, how would that work?” Sasha eyes the Chinese takeaway container of rice but takes a long drink of her bottle of water instead.

  “Clearly, this book is what women want right now. Whether it’s the book itself or the message. If we could tap into that trend . . . that idea of empowering women or seeing ourselves as romance novel heroines or whatever it is. That’s it. It’s exactly what we’re looking for, don’t you think?”

  “That’s brilliant,” Sasha says. She smiles and I can see her mind start working.

  “What else do we know about this Helen Brubaker?” I ask. I find her website and click around.

  “She’s kind of a legend,” Sasha says.

  “Seriously,” I say, reading the biography. I click on the tag Books. “She must have written over a hundred books.”

  “That’s why she’s such an expert,” Sasha parrots. I click on Events to see if there’s one where we can see her speak or if she’s into that sort of thing at all. I don’t know what I’m looking for yet, but I know it’s somewhere down this rabbit hole. I scan through her various speaking engagements, book signings, and Be the Heroine retreats, and find an event coming up where Mrs. Brubaker will be.

  “What’s RomanceCon?” I ask, clicking on the link. I turn the computer screen so Sasha can see it, too.

  “It’s the annual conference for romance novels in Phoenix,” Sasha says, leaning forward.

  A click and my entire computer becomes a circus of reds and blacks. Large, flowery script writing announces RomanceCon all along the top of the website. I flick through photos of lines of fans wending their way around hotels, huge romance novel covers blown up and hanging aloft, and beautiful men in various states of undress like some kind of debaucherous slideshow.

  “It’s a conference about romance novels,” I repeat.

  “All the famous authors are there. They have tons of panels and workshops. A huge book signing, nightly parties—theme parties—and then? They have a pageant for the guys on the covers.” Sasha takes the Be the Heroine book, closes it up, and points to the ridiculous he-man on the cover. “Him. Those guys. Can you imagine?” Sasha has now draped herself across my desk and is speaking more animatedly than I’ve yet seen her.

  “No, I cannot. I can’t imagine what any of that would actually look like outside of my nightmares.”

  “Is Helen Brubaker going to be at this year’s?” Sasha pulls my computer screen toward her, helping herself to my mouse as she ably clicks around the website.

  “Do you read these? Romance novels?”

  “Of course. I love them!” Sasha finds the schedule of events and begins scrolling through for Helen Brubaker.

  “But aren’t they . . . I mean, come on,” I say, keeping the flush at bay.

  “Have you ever read one?”

  “No.”

  “Then you can’t say anything.”

  “I just—”

  “What I find is that the people who insult romance novels the most have never tried to actually read one.”

  “I haven’t tried letting a wild dog bite me in the face, either, but—”

  “Uh-huh,” Sasha says, her eyes narrowed.

  “What?”

  “What’s your favorite movie of all time?” Sasha asks, now sitting on my desk.

  “What?”

  “Just answer the question. What is your favorite—”

  “Ladyhawke.” No doubt.

  “Ladyhawke?”

  “It’s this 1980s cheesefest with Rutger Hauer, Michelle Pfeiffer, and a very young, adorable Matthew Broderick,” I say, my voice now animated.

  “I’ve never even—”

  “Isabeauuu!” I say, my fist shooting into the sky.

  “What now?”

  “Oh, that’s what Navarre yells. He’s the captain of the guard and she’s the beauty that the evil guy coveted. But she loves Navarre! So”—I dip down and my voice becomes serious—“the evil guy cursed them. By day she is a hawk and by night he is a wolf.”

  “She’s a ladyhawke. Ah. I see,” Sasha says, laughing. I shoot her the side-eye as I try to decide if she’s making fun of me or not. Hmpf.

  “He had this amazing black horse,” I say, sighing.

  “Did he now,” Sasha says, taking a delicate sip of her water.

  “And there’s this brieeeef moment at sunrise and sunset when they can aaaalmost touch each other, but no! It cannot be!” I say, exhausted by it all. I lie back in my office chair, succumbing to the utter brilliance. “I’ve been waiting for Navarre my entire life. Navarre or Han Solo.”

  “So, that’s what it’s like to love romance novels,” Sasha says.

  “What?”

  “What if I told you Ladyhawke was stupid?” she says.

  “Um, what?”

  “Yeah. It’s cheesy and lame and who cares,” she says.

  “But Isabeauuu!” I wail. Sasha just looks at me. “Also, you just said you haven’t even seen it, so . . .” Sasha arches an eyebrow. She waits.

  Oh. Wait.

  “Ah,” I say. Sasha smugly eats another piece of her sashimi and lets her genius wash over me.

  “And before you say it’s not, it is exactly the same thing. I’ve been reading romance novels since I was thirteen. And the way you lit up when you talked about that Ladyhawke movie?”

  “That Ladyhawke masterpiece, you mean,” I say.

  “I’m just saying.” Sasha shrugs. “There’s nothing wrong with thinking men should be a bit more like Navarre and a little less like”—she motions to the bull pen—“guys who only want one thing.” She looks down at her lap and starts picking at her fingernails. “Nothing wrong with a little honor.”

  “No, I guess not,” I say, unable to look at her.

  Sasha hops off my desk and motions for me to get up out of my desk chair. “My turn.” I stand, take my sushi, and settle in one of the client chairs on the opposite side of the desk. “Okay, The Brubaker is going to be there for . . . it looks like a whole one-day workshop. That would be so amazing.”

  “We’re just calling her ‘The Brubaker’ now?”

  “I still don’t get what this has to do with Lumineux,” Sasha says, her eyes flicking over to me between orgasmic outbursts about something else going on at this year’s RomanceCon.

  “I don’t know, either. I almost have it. It’s . . . it’s part empowering women. Part seeing yourself as a heroine. Part escapism. Part of it can be that honor you were talking about. Maybe it’s a little bit about . . .” My eyes fall on the photos of the men vying for Mr. RomanceCon, the romance novel cover model of the year. “Maybe it’s a little bit about them.”

  “It can be all about them if you want,” Sasha says, clicking on last year’s winner. “Ryder Grant. Swoon, right?” Sasha says.

  “If it’s a hero women want, why don’t we give it to them?” I ask, motioning at Mr. Ryder Grant.

  “I don’t—”

  “They’re having a pageant, right? What if we could impress upon the RomanceCon higher-ups that this year’s pageant winner would have the opportunity to be the new Lumineux spokesman? I mean, it wouldn’t be guaranteed or anything, but if we land the campaign then—”

  “They land the campaign,” Sasha interrupts.

  “Exactly. And if not—”

  “It’s still great coverage.”

  “He’d be every woman’s hero, so to speak.” I pull over a yellow legal pad and begin furiously writing. “But it’s not just that. It�
��s the world. It’s that world. There’s something . . . The Brubaker tapped into something in romance novels and we can, too. In finding your hero, you . . . you have to believe that you’re worthy of being the heroine, right? That the story . . . this life . . . is about you. And what woman ever puts herself first?”

  “Not one.”

  “Right. That’s what’s—”

  “That’s why I love reading romance novels. It’s where I’m allowed to be . . . I don’t know . . . it’s where I feel like I get to be the woman of my dreams.”

  “Right there. That’s it. That’s what we have to . . . Lumineux Shower Gel takes you to a place where you’re the woman of your dreams. Just like romance novels. The pitch would center on women empowering themselves by believing that they can be the heroine of their own stories. Going about their daily grind, but with this thread of that romance novel world. So, coming in from work and having that guy—”

  “Navarre,” Sasha offers.

  “Yes. Navarre. You walk in from work and there’s Navarre cooking dinner and the kids are sitting at the table already doing homework. I’m missing something. I . . .” I think back to this morning. My own list of what I really want out of this life. Sasha is quiet.

  I want to be happy and not feel guilty about it. I want to be curious without being called indulgent. I want to be accepted regardless of what I look like, what I do for a living, my marital status, whether I have kids, or whether you think I’m nice enough, hospitable enough, or humble enough to measure up to your impossible standards. I want purpose. I want contentment. I want to be loved and give love unreservedly in return. I want to be seen. I want to matter. I want freedom.

  And then it comes to me.

  I want to be . . . I want to just be.

  “We just want to be,” I say.

  Sasha and I look at each other across the table. That’s it.

  “I love the idea of these vignettes of a woman’s daily grind with some hot guy just amid it all, you know?” Sasha says, motioning for me to switch places with her. I oblige. She picks up her sketchpad and starts drawing. “That we matter. That we’re worthy of a hero.” Sasha draws as she speaks, her voice growing stronger and stronger. This is what I want to tap into. “No, that we are the hero.” The change in Sasha even thinking about the prospect of being a heroine is what is at the root of this idea. “That we’re human. And sexual. And vital. And equal. Every version of us.” Sasha is on the edge of her seat now, pulling different colored pencils from her bag. I wait. She turns the sketchbook to me and I’m blown away.

  It’s a rough sketch of a woman walking into her kitchen in a business suit to a clearly besotted, gorgeous man looking over at her—he has a dish towel slung over one of his broad shoulders, wears worn-in jeans and an old T-shirt, and is elbow-deep in soapy water. The kids sit around the dining room table with textbooks and school supplies strewn about, and dinner is bubbling on the stovetop. She looks happy.

  And in beautiful clean writing, Sasha has written “Just Be” along the top of the picture. The Lumineux logo is on the bottom—nondescript and tasteful.

  “Wow,” I say.

  “Right?” Sasha says, beaming.

  “It’s perfect.”

  “Lumineux Shower Gel. Just Be,” Sasha says again.

  “That’s it.”

  3

  We haven’t slept. Sasha and I board the Metroliner that will take us into Manhattan for the big pitch at the Quincy Pharmaceutical headquarters—the very high-rise I vowed to return to several months prior. For the last twelve hours, I’ve subsisted on nothing but romance novels—flushed cheeks be damned—black tea, and these terrible green juices I’m trying to work into my diet. As we settle into our seats, I realize I’ve fallen into an alternate world where gauzy curtains and hot Sahara nights have become the norm. Is that businessman’s shirt going to be ripped from his body, only to hang on his biceps in tatters? Is the man with the bicycle going to growl my name as we reach the apex of our passion as one? I’ve gone from teenage prude to an adult who can talk and talk about romance novels . . . without actually letting them affect me in any way, of course. I’ve sped right past flushing cheeks all the way to dissecting overt sexuality as if it were a splayed-out frog smelling of formaldehyde. Regardless, I have at least two and a half hours on this train before the biggest pitch of my career. Sasha and I hunker down and use the time to prep and perfect our pitch. We both know the stakes couldn’t be higher—or at least one of us does.

  When we arrive in Manhattan, my first hurdle quickly becomes how not to walk into Quincy headquarters looking like a pit-stained wretch who likes getting her hair licked by a cat. We duck into the elaborate, art deco bathroom in the lobby of the Quincy building in Midtown to collect ourselves. It’s hard not to compare myself to Sasha as I stand next to her at the mirror, reapplying lipstick and trying to make something of my hair. Pushing six-foot, she’s all legs, she has black pin-curly hair, and she actually knows how to put on eye makeup. But then I remember what it was like to actually be in my early twenties and all that envy disappears. The tiny apartments, the paralyzingly low self-esteem, the terrible jobs with a parade of incompetent bosses—wait, that actually doesn’t feel as far away as I smugly thought. What I do know is that in my twenties I thought happiness was always out there—that job, that man, that body. After my year on Time-Out, I now know that happiness is within—or at least I know it just enough to be pissed off that it’s not, despite what I do for a living, something I can buy.

  “You ready?” I ask, looking at Sasha in the mirror of the bathroom.

  “I feel like I’m going to throw up,” Sasha says.

  “We’ll be fine,” I say.

  “This is my first pitch,” Sasha says, unable to look at me.

  “I know,” I say.

  “Last week I was freelancing whatever art work I could find and paying the bills by working as the coat check girl at a club Chu—Mr. Holloway, I mean—a club Mr. Holloway frequented,” she says, bending over the sink. I am quiet. “He caught me doodling once. Said his family owned an ad agency and that they were hiring.” She tugs a paper towel from the machine and dries her hands. “Looking back, of course, I should have known. He switched the meeting at the last minute to a dinner.” She doesn’t look at me. “I didn’t know until I got there that the address his assistant gave me was for his apartment.” She tosses the balled-up paper towel toward the bin. It bounces off the rim and falls to the floor. A little scornful laugh and she walks over to pick it up. “There I am riding up in the elevator, still trying to make up other possible scenarios, holding my portfolio and practicing the pitches I had for Holloway/Greene clients I’d researched beforehand. I even bought an outfit I couldn’t afford.” She bends over, picks up the balled-up paper towel, and throws it away. This time, it goes in. “This outfit, actually. Anyway, I figured out pretty quickly that it wasn’t my art degree from NYU or the time I spent interning in France or my apprenticeship at Vogue or any number of sketches I tried to show him that night that got me that meeting.”

  “What a douchebag,” I say. “Not to mention blatant sexual harassment. You have a pretty good case, should you—”

  “I don’t need a sexual harassment case, Ms. Wyatt. I need a job.”

  “But—”

  “And I’ve had much worse.” She finally looks over at me. She couldn’t be more than twenty-five? Twenty-six maybe? But in that moment she looks ancient. I nod. She continues. “He was nice.” A look from me. “In the beginning.”

  “I’m so sorry you had to go through that.” She looks surprised. “That must have been . . . well, you must have felt so alone. Is that it—is that the right—”

  “No, that’s exactly it. I thought I met a nice guy and was finally going to get a real job. Turns out . . .”

  “Yep.” A beat.

  “I didn’t sleep with him that night.” She turns to me. “I need you to know that.” I nod and she allows a small, relieved smile.


  “You don’t have to—” I pause as Sasha runs into one of the stalls and throws up. “Explain yourself to me,” I say to myself as she retches into the toilet.

  “Breathe. There’s a cafeteria past the elevators. We’ll get you a bubble water. Here’s some antacids,” I say, pulling a bottle from my purse and dropping two tablets into the palm of her hand. She pops them into her mouth as I throw the bottle back into my purse and am finally ready to go. She takes a big, deep breath. “It’ll settle your stomach.” Sasha gives her lipstick one more pass and we’re out of the bathroom. After a quick stop at the cafeteria we’re armed with bubble waters and speeding up to the executive floor within minutes.

  “Anna Wyatt and Sasha Merchant from Holloway/Greene to see Preeti Dayal,” I say to the receptionist. The entire Manhattan skyline is just behind her. Beautiful.

  “Yes. There you are. Have a seat and they’ll be right with you,” she says. Sasha and I sit down on a long, gray, modern couch along the far wall next to a couple of men. It’s quiet in the waiting room. We all keep to ourselves and are either scrolling through our phones, looking over paperwork, or quietly whispering to whomever we arrived with. I let myself stare out onto the Manhattan skyline and go over the pitch. A deep breath. And over. And over. Like a script. Hand gestures, when to show the artwork, when to smile, when to lean in, when to make that joke, and when to tell a “personal” story. Visualizing Preeti Dayal leaning forward in her chair with a smile or a question as she gets more and more engaged in our vision.

  The door to the waiting room opens and the assistant gives us a regal nod. I gather my things and walk toward the door, Sasha at my heels. A deep breath. I open the door and walk through to the inner offices of Quincy Pharmaceuticals. There is an assistant waiting for us outside the conference room about six feet down the hall.

  “We’ve got this. They’re going to love us. Just breathe,” I say to Sasha, who looks as though she’s on the verge of losing it. Upon my urging, she takes her first breath since we left the waiting room.