Girl Before a Mirror

by Liza Palmer

  every woman deserves on a daily basis.

  No.

  Because luxury is something every woman deserves each day.

  No.

  Women deserve luxury every day.

  No. Almost.

  Because luxury is for every day. . .

  each day. . .

  on a daily basis.

  No. Come on. Think.

  Lumineux:

  The everyday luxury all women deserve.

  YES.

  YES.

  YES.

  I look at what I wrote. That’s it. That’s the missing piece. It’s one thing to convince women it’s okay to luxuriate in romance novels and long hot showers with a fresh-smelling shower gel. I want this ad campaign to give women permission to sink into these things without all the baggage. Wanting to be happy does not make us bad people. Allowing ourselves to feel pleasure should not make us feel guilty. We are not being selfish if we don’t always put your needs first.

  We are women. And we can be the person we want to be, not the version you wish we were.

  We’ll repackage Lumineux. Beautiful and simple, stark whites and deep blues. A modern font with few words. No pink. No sparkles. And absolutely no glitter. Women are, although this may upset the applecart, neither idiotic nor little girls.

  I text Sasha to see if she’s up yet. She replies that she is. I suggest we meet before the pageant and head down together. She agrees. I balance the cell phone on the armrest of the chair, idly spinning it around as I blow on my tea. I take a deep breath and look at the time.

  Four forty-three P.M.

  The pageant starts at seven P.M. That leaves me with just over two hours with Lincoln until . . . until who knows.

  Thing is? We both know. This isn’t that scene in a romantic comedy where the audience wishes the two main characters would just talk to each other. Tell the truth! Tell him you love him, they yell to the movie screen. Sometimes you can have the most honest conversation of your entire life and the timing still isn’t right to fall in love with someone. At least that’s what I’m telling myself right now. I finally take a sip of my tea.

  The door clicks and Lincoln tromps in with an armload of snacks and drinks. He dumps it onto the bed with a ta-daaaaaaa and an oddly executed curtsy. I watch him as he scans the candy. A brush of his chin as he thinks, and I can’t help but smile.

  “It’s an embarrassment of riches,” he says, running his hands through his muss of hair. He plucks a bag of roasted peanuts from the pile and rips it open. “I need protein.” He pours the bag of peanuts into his waiting mouth.

  “It’s almost five o’clock,” I say, my voice calm and low. Lincoln chews and swallows the peanuts, washing them down with a newly purchased bottle of water. I’m just about to start speaking again and he nods no. Another gulp of water.

  “You’ll come back here after the pageant,” he says. I am quiet. He crosses the room, kneeling down in front of me. He takes my cup of tea, sets it on the bedside table, and takes my hands in his. “Just come here after the pageant.” He squeezes my hands.

  “Okay.” He pulls me in for a kiss. It’s . . . urgent. Desperate.

  “Good,” he whispers, so close to my face. Another kiss.

  “So, I’ll go get ready for tonight then. Now that this isn’t . . . you know.” I can’t say it. Another kiss and I wriggle past him, my hand brushing his shoulder as I pass. I walk into the bathroom, grab my toiletries, and come back out into the room to find him sitting in the chair I just vacated. His bathrobe is cinched tightly around him and he just sits there.

  “Hurry back,” he says, his voice tight. I nod, looking down at myself. The same droopy pink tank top, the oversized striped-blue pajama bottoms. The clothes I wore yesterday are in a pile by the closet, and I pick them up, nestling them in the crook of my arm. He stands and walks over to me. “Here.” He motions for me to hand him over everything. I oblige. A shake of the head and an “I mean . . . come on, love.” He takes everything and dumps it on the bed next to the snacks. He tidies and zips up my toiletry bag, folds my clothes from yesterday, and stacks them underneath the bag. He turns around and takes me in. He walks over to the dresser and pulls a blue V-neck sweater from the drawer. “You can’t go out like that. Up.” I raise my hands high and he threads the arms of the sweater onto mine. I pop my head through the neck and he pulls the sweater down over my body. It smells of him, that’ll be one of several things that break my heart tonight. A kiss. And I just look at him. I try to stay rational about this . . . everything. I smooth a hand over the cashmere and the softness of it starts to break me open. “Just come back after the pageant.” His voice is quiet, pleading. Whether he’s begging me to return or begging me not to lose it right now, I don’t know. Probably both.

  “Okay,” I say. I curl my fingers around the lapel of his bathrobe, and I am immediately taken back to those first few minutes in the elevator less than three days ago. And unlike before, when his eyes were surprised, confused yet wanton, today his eyes are just . . . sad. But the stillness. This man has a talent for stillness. I pull him into me and let myself burn up in those moments. Letting go. Giving over. Losing myself.

  “And just like that, you’re going to be late,” he says, and we’re on the bed once more, laughing and happy. Apparently he’s just as comfortable with being in denial as I am.

  I’m getting out of the shower back in my own hotel room when I hear a text come through. Ferdie? No. Lincoln. It’s a picture. Of him surrounded by empty candy wrappers with just the words Look what you made me do. I laugh. Time ticking away. I pull my towel off and finish drying myself. I carry the towel to the bathroom and hang it on the hook on the back of the door.

  hahahahahahaahah, I text back to Lincoln. I realize that this is the only picture I have of him. The only thing to remind me that he was real.

  I switch screens and text Sasha that I’ll knock on her door in fifteen minutes.

  what??? TOO SOON TOO SOON! I smile and throw the phone back on the bed.

  I put on the bare minimum of makeup and put my hair up into some passable updo that doesn’t look like a style called “bedhead plus unwashed.” I spray on a little hair spray and finish getting dressed in the one moderately formal dress I brought to Phoenix—an orange, belted shirtdress with a nice pair of espadrilles I pull from the bottom of my closet. I throw my pajama bottoms, the dingy tank top, and Lincoln’s sweater into my purse along with whatever basic toiletries I’ll need for tonight. I don’t have time to think about tomorrow morning. Flights and airports. Saying good-bye or asking questions with no answers. I shake my head, grab my hotel key, close the door behind me, and walk across the hall to Sasha’s room. She opens the door in just her bra and panties.

  “Come in, come in . . . ,” she says, pulling me in and closing the door behind me. “You’re early.” It’s barely 6:15.

  “We’re supposed to be there by six thirty,” I say, walking over to the desk and settling in the chair. “How are you feeling?” Sasha’s notebook is on the desk, opened to the notes she took during Helen’s workshop.

  “I’m okay. I’ve taken too many antacids and maybe some Gas-X and definitely too many aspirin. I’ve tried to stay hydrated and of course I’ve already taken my hangover cure,” Sasha says, stepping into her slinky black dress. She walks over to me and I zip her up.

  “Hangover cure?”

  “Doritos Nacho Cheese and a Coke,” she says, hurrying into the bathroom, where she finishes putting on her makeup.

  “Is that the official hangover cure?” I ask, scanning Sasha’s notebook.

  “It should be,” she calls out.

  Underneath Sasha’s doodles of a wedding cake topper, I find what Sasha has entitled “The Rules of Romance.” They are as follows:

  1.Everyone deserves to be worshipped.

  2.There’s a hero inside all of us.

  3.The hero and heroine are fine on their own but know they’re better together.

  4.Risk your hear
t, it’s worth it.

  5.Always believe in a happy ending.

  I can feel the emotion rising in my throat, a particularly violent kind of joy. At the bottom of the page, Sasha has drawn a sunset and a couple walking hand in hand toward it. I brush my hand over her little drawing. Always believe in a happy ending.

  “It looks so easy,” I say.

  “Whaat?” Sasha calls out from the bathroom. She walks out, putting an earring on. “What?”

  “The happy ending thing,” I say. I point to her notebook. “The Rules of Romance.”

  “Oh. Yeah.” Sasha’s entire body deflates just enough for me to become concerned.

  “What is it?” I ask.

  “I know we have no time and we’re going to be late, but I have to tell you something,” Sasha says. My stomach lurches. Has Audrey told her we’re off the campaign?

  “Okay.”

  “It was Chuck. Chuck Holloway? That’s who I had that date with and that’s who I’ve been texting,” Sasha says. She breathes. “So go ahead. Tell me I’m terrible. But you know what? You don’t even have to! I know I’m terrible. I was looking at those rules last night or this morning, I don’t know, it’s been kind of a haze, but I wasn’t doing any of that. I wasn’t doing anything in Helen’s book; I wasn’t even doing anything from the romance novels that I say I love. Nothing. And there I was talking to you about how you should do this and ‘well, in romance novels that means that,’ and I was the one who was going behind your back with the villain!”

  “The villain?”

  “Yeah. I mean, if this were a romance novel, wouldn’t Chuck Holloway totally be the villain of my story?”

  “Him tricking you to his apartment would make a pretty good argument,” I say.

  “I know, but I told myself—lied to myself, really—that I should be flattered. He’d gone to all that trouble just to go on a date with me. Wasn’t it romantic?”

  “No. No, it is not.”

  “No, it is not,” Sasha repeats. “It’s creepy.”

  “Not for nothing? If you take a scene or relationship out of a romantic comedy and put it into real life, though? A lot of it? Creepy.”

  “Right?”

  “Oh, absolutely. I can see why you liked him.”

  “He was funny.”

  “I can see that.”

  “He’d been flirting with me for months before he made his move. I thought it was cute. What I was texting about in the elevator—remember?”

  “I think so,” I say. I absolutely remember and it’s been killing me.

  “A girlfriend of mine who still works at the club where I used to run the coat check said he’d been playing the same old line on another of the waitresses there. This time he was going on and on about how smart she was and how she could totally come work for him and . . . well, basically all the same stuff.”

  “Oh, sweetie. I’m so sorry.”

  “Me too. I’m pissed that it took something like that for me to see it. Like . . . what if I’d never found out? Am I really not able to police myself? You know what I mean?”

  “I think you’re being a bit hard on yourself.”

  Sasha flounces off to the bathroom and calls out, “I should have known.”

  “Sasha, you’re not the bad guy in this scenario. Chuck is. It’s not a bad thing that you’re a romantic. It really isn’t.” She walks out of the bathroom and steps into her stiletto heels, grabs her glittery clutch, and motions for me to head out. I stand and follow her out of the room.

  “You’re sweet, but it kind of is. Because I’m a romantic with a self-esteem problem. Which means I build romance novels around losers. All they have to do is show up and I fill in the rest.”

  “Join the club,” I say, as we rush down the hotel hallway.

  “I was thinking about your ‘Thunder Road’ story,” she says.

  “Oh?”

  “I think I need a Time-Out, too,” she says. “Because you’re right, it’s not a bad thing that I’m a romantic. I just need to stop falling for the villain. Because right now? I’m the poor girl that gets shot jumping in front of some loser as he holds the hero and heroine hostage, you know what I mean?”

  “I think I do.”

  “Aww, you finally speak romance novel,” she says. I can’t help but laugh and, oh my God, it feels amazing. It’s so needed.

  In the elevator, Sasha looks at herself in the silvery reflection of the closed doors and couldn’t be less impressed with what she sees. She is quite literally the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen in real life. And like a lightning bolt, it hits me. I finally get what we’re trying to do with the Lumineux campaign.

  I remember when Sasha and I were back in D.C. and I had one of those green drinks that I’d started drinking. I felt very smug and noble touting the beauty of cold-pressed this and four-times-the-vegetables that and “it really should be in a glass bottle, but . . .” When Sasha asked me about it, I insinuated that she should drink them, not because they’re healthy and she’s healthy and everything’s great, but because something was lacking in her diet and the juices would “fix” things. That’s what we do in advertising. We’re the frenemy who makes you feel just bad enough that you’ll reach for our product to fix you. Sure, you’re passable, but with this? You could be perfect. For now. And this tactic works like a charm because it mirrors how we women communicate with the people we call friends. How many times have I sat across from someone who “meant well” and been shamed into trying some new exercise program or cleanse or makeup or salon treatment?

  That’s what’s at the root of Helen Brubaker’s success. She doesn’t make women feel lacking in any way. Hers is not a dating book based on how you can change yourself to best ensnare some low-hanging fruit. No. Be the Heroine is a phenomenon because it finally does the one thing women have been waiting for: it respects them.

  “If you think you need a Time-Out, then . . . I trust you,” I say, as we step out of the elevator and make our way through the lobby. Sasha just looks at me. Brow furrowed. Her mouth opens and closes as she stops and starts several sentences. I say, “You know what’s best for you, so . . .” Sasha’s eyes narrow. I give our ticket to the valet.

  “So you think I should?” Sasha finally asks.

  “I can definitely say that my Time-Out changed the trajectory of my life.”

  “I want that. I want a new trajectory.”

  “Then there’s your answer,” I say, as the valet brings around our car. Sasha is quiet as we drive to the conference hotel. She’s elsewhere. That makes two of us. She spins her cell around in her hands and has taken to reading passing signs for Phoenix businesses out loud. We pull up to the conference hotel, valet our car, take the same escalators up, up, up, and—

  We are met with every kind of rendition of gangsta/gangster one could imagine. Women in 1940s garb with plastic tommy guns next to B-boys and super 1980s break-dancers with clocks around their necks and a few flappers here and there. One thing is for certain: this is the night everyone went all out.

  “Why are you not more mad about the Chuck Holloway thing?” Sasha asks.

  “I don’t know. It’s in the past and . . .” I stop. We’re threading through the crowd, winding our way back into the Silver Ballroom.

  “And?” Sasha asks, pulling her black dress down a bit.

  “And you’re my friend,” I say.

  “I am?” Sasha asks.

  “Yeah,” I say.

  “Why am I crying?” Sasha asks.

  “I don’t know, but . . .” I realize I’m a bit misty-eyed as well. “I feel like I’m seven years old or something.”

  “I feel like we’ve been in Phoenix forever,” Sasha says, pulling a tissue from her glittery clutch.

  “Me too.”

  We crane our necks to see which of the doors is unlocked as the crowd of gangsta women begins to line up for tonight’s festivities.

  “Anna?” Sasha says. We try a couple of doors. Locked.

  “
Yeah?” A single door on the far end of the hallway opens and Ginny Barton peeks out. She motions for us.

  “You’re my friend, too.” I smile at her as we hurry toward Ginny. We squeeze past her and she slams the door behind us.

  The ballroom has been transformed. Rows of chairs fill the room awaiting the horde of women who gather just outside. The stage is done up just as it was the night the contestants were announced; their banners still hang from the rafters. Conference volunteers bustle around the room with chairs and placards and headsets and clipboards all while garbed in full gangster regalia. There is no sign of the contestants. Probably backstage primping.

  “Thank you for coming; it’s quite crazy here,” Ginny says. She then offers an answer, a direction, and a nod to three volunteers asking three different questions. Ginny is wearing a beautiful fringed silver dress right out of the 1920s, her curly brown hair tamed with a sparkly headband and accented with a large white feather at her temple.

  “Everything looks amazing,” I say, taking it all in.

  “We didn’t dress up,” Sasha says, stating the obvious.

  “Don’t you worry about that,” Ginny says, giving Sasha a maternal pat. Sasha softens.

  “Exciting night,” I say.

  “It is, indeed,” Ginny says. Sasha gives me a look. Exciting night? I just shrug. Not all my material is going to be revolutionary.

  A harried volunteer. And another. A quick sound check. A lighting check. Another emergency, another fire to put out, and Ginny scans the room for anything else that needs her attention. Sasha and I are hovering. Droolingly hovering.

  “Ms. Dayal is already at the judges’ table along with Mr. Grant. If you could,” Ginny says, motioning for us to join them.

  “Oh, right. Okay, good luck tonight,” I say.

  “And you,” she says and is off to open the doors. “I’ll join you as soon as we let everyone in.” Sasha and I make our way to the judges’ table, which is situated on risers right in front of the long walkway extending from the stage. Sasha slows as we near the judges’ table. Ryder.

  “This is where I used to have to slink up here. But now?” Sasha motions for us to climb the stairs to the judges’ table. I oblige her. The volunteers at the base of the steps check our badges and wave us on. I grab the cold metal handrail. Sasha’s shoulders are back, her head held high. “Hey, Ryder.” A little wave, a hair flip, and Sasha slides into her seat. Ryder can only shift in his chair and check his phone. I settle in next to Preeti, letting Sasha take the seat at the far end. Sasha can’t stop smiling.