“I am like an artist.” Again he moves his hands with no regard for the steering wheel. “I see the rough marble and the beauty within. You just need a little refining, that’s all. It's what I do.”
I love my cousin. I appreciate all he’s doing for me. But he clearly has some seriously narcissistic tendencies that might need to be molded themselves. “Considering how rough I am, isn’t that reason enough for a complete overhaul before seeing the infamous man himself?” I ask.
“No, you need an immediate peek before your interview tomorrow. You need to get a sense of the place. I want you to feel his vibe. He’ll understand you’ve been traveling. He travels all the time himself. And he has to know I won’t let you show up in knockoffs for work. He knows my work at least that well.” He sneaks another look at my jeans. “But let’s run by my place and get you a pair of jeans out of my client stuff. I’ll lend you my credit card tomorrow.”
I suck in a deep breath, hearing the words of little Cindy Simmons (aka Spawn) taunting me about my tattered clothes in school. Remembering the day she stood in sparkly jeans and perfect pigtails with matching hairclips and told everyone I wore the clothes she used to wear after her mommy donated them to the Salvation Army. I can recall that day as if it were yesterday: “If I could have one thing in my life, God, besides my mom not drinking, I would want to look like someone cared enough to dress me in matching clothes and hair ornaments.”
Now, here Scott is, ready and willing with a credit card, and I don’t want a thing to do with it. It makes me feel as cheap as wearing Cindy’s castoffs did, if you want to know the truth.
As if she’s in the car with me, I hear Cindy’s screechy voice taunting me: “Who’s yer daddy tonight, Sarah Claire? Can’t he buy you some new clothes?”
Back then, I used to stick my tongue out, jamming two fingers in my ears. “Nyah, nyah. Sticks and stones will break my bones . . .” (Although I never finished the taunt, everyone knows that adage isn’t true.) But what I wouldn’t have given to tell her my daddy was hers.
I decided to be a hairdresser because of Cindy. I wanted everyone to feel beautiful, no matter what kind of clothes they wore. I never wanted to make any woman feel the way she made me feel. Like I was nothing.
“Tell me about the two-hundred-dollar haircut.” I close my eyes, thinking about being that good. About a day when I will be able share my expertise and command some financial attention for it. “What kind of people pay that for a haircut?”
Given the notion that it’s seeing through my dream or going back to the Hideaway Salon, I’ll dress any way I have to, even if it means donning a clown getup each morning to cut celebrity kids’ hair. Heck, I’ll even dress like a pork chop and cut their dog’s hair if it keeps me from going home and admitting defeat to my mother or Cindy.
Scott pulls a credit card out of his shirt pocket.
“Here. Use this for whatever you need, but don’t buy anything you can’t take back, in case it’s wrong.”
No pressure there.
“So tell me, what’s with the single names? The eyebrow lady named Anastasia you gushed about over the phone, now Yoshi. Is this supposed to be like Cher?”
“You earn the right of the single name. If I didn’t have such a simplistic, backwoods name like Scott, I wouldn’t have to use my last name either. By the way, your new last name is Winston.”
My eyes widen. “You want me to lie about my name too?”
“There’s no ethnicity in a name here unless it’s Asian or something exotic. Winowski is not exotic; it makes me want to pop open a can of Schlitz.”
I, who never drink, currently want to pop open a can of Schlitz. “So I’m basically lying that I’m from New York, lying about my name, lying about my résumé—”
“Look at it this way: at least you don’t have to lie about your weight.”
“Scott . . .” I shake my head. “I don’t think I can do this. Remember that time I tried to lie to Mrs. Eagleston about my dog eating the homework?”
“Well, that was just stupid. Everyone in town knew you didn’t have a dog. You can lie about a dog here.”
“I don’t want to lie.”
“It’s not lying. Think of it as morphing your image to the Yoshi standards.”
Cary Grant did it, I tell myself.
My mouth is bone dry just thinking about how I'm going to get away with so many untruths and not get struck by a bolt of lightning in the process. I can practically hear Mrs. Gentry’s sweet voice as my conscience.
“People come here every day and create the persona they want to be, fulfill their childhood dreams. That’s all I’m asking you to do. You want a better life? This is part of it. Become the part. Think of it as method acting.”
Think of Cary.
“You can take the girl out of the country, but can you take the country out of the girl and make her look like she’s worth a two-hundred-dollar haircut?” I can’t fathom what makes any haircut worth that. Unless I give it naked— and I do believe that’s illegal, besides being completely unpalatable.
“We’ll borrow from the designers while we’re getting you started on your wardrobe. I know the perfect pieces, and you’ll be fabulous. Yoshi will make you worth two hundred bucks. You just have to dress the part and learn from our tutelage. That’s all there is. For you, this is like paint-by-number.”
“Borrow doesn’t work for me. Borrow in Winowski-speak usually means it fell off the back of the truck—or was ’removed,’ ever so lightly, with help.”
“Borrow means to use something with permission and return it,” Scott clarifies. “In Winston speak.” He emphasizes the word to remind me of my new name. “It means to dress the part. You have to invest in any new business; this is your investment. You are the product, so shine it up like your mother polishes a shot glass.”
“Very funny.”
“Just one of the reasons you must think of yourself as Sarah Claire Winston from here on out. Besides, your mother’s already used your name. The last thing people want to see on their hairdresser’s credentials is a rap sheet.”
After an eternity on the freeway, we arrive at Scott’s condo. He’s letting me brush my teeth. I knew he still had heart. He pulls underground to the parking. It’s an odd feeling—the garage is dark and eerie but filled with highly expensive cars. After entering, it goes into lockdown and a giant metal gate crashes down behind us as if we’ve been eaten by the great car monster.
“This is creepy.”
“It’s no creepier than having your car not be here when you come out in the morning.”
“Touché.”
Scott exits the car and presses a button, and his car chirps. He halts. “There’s one more thing before we go up.”
“Don’t worry, Scott. I’m finding an apartment as soon as I get the job. If you think I want to live with you and your revolving door of girlfriends, you’re sorely mistaken.”
He shakes his head. “No, it’s not that.”
“You aren’t even going to try and deny it? Please have the decency to deny it. Those are someone’s daughters, someone’s sisters.”
“It’s every guy’s dream; why would I deny it? But that’s not it anyway. I told a girl that you were coming from New York and moving in with me.”
“Without explaining that I’m your cousin and you’re like my big brother, I’m assuming.”
“Correct.”
“Okay, so I’ve changed my name, I’ll be changing my clothes, I’m living with my boyfriend, and I’m from New York City and not Wyoming. Am I forgetting anything?” My faith, I think to myself. And my self respect—check it at the door.
“That’s pretty much it.” He starts walking again and pushes the elevator button. “Oh, and I have a friend living with me while he gets his kitchen remodeled. He won’t bother you, though. Think of him as Lurch on The Addams Family. He creeps about quietly and doesn’t offer much in the way of conversation. Always has his head in a big fat book of no interest.”
“Great. Just the kind of man I want to live with.”
“He’s harmless.”
“I want my pets to be ‘harmless,’ not my roommates. That word makes me thing of the Bates Motel. Is he gay?”
“No, he’s not gay! Why would you ask that? Why would I be living with a gay man?”
“I’m just asking. I wondered if ‘harmless’ was LA speak for gay.”
“You know, you just might want to not talk for awhile. Your ignorance is showing.”
“My ignorance is all I have left.”
We walk into the elevator and Scott uses a key to push his floor at the top of the building.
“He’ll be good practice. I told him you were from New York as well. But you’re really my cousin with him. Your last name is still Winston, though, not Winowski. I have a pair of jeans that should fit you, and we’ll be out of here to the salon. Brush your teeth and wash your face. Wear foundation, all right? Ready?”
“As if I have a choice.”
Step into the shoes of yet another persona and live to fight another day.
chapter 4
If a face like Ingrid Bergman’s looks at you
as though you’re adorable, everybody does.
You don’t have to act very much.
~ Humphrey Bogart
The elevator door opens to a sprawling, loft-style apartment with wide views of the city—the line of brown smog embracing us in its choking grip. It’s the first wave of homesickness I have. I miss the mountains and the expansive blue back home.
“It’s the air, isn’t it? You didn’t even look at the loft.”
“Am I that transparent?”
“No.” Scott laughs. “It was the first thing that struck me, too, when I came. I felt claustrophobic at first.”
Scott’s loft exudes fresh money with restraint. Its color scheme is rich, dark chocolate and black. It employs every schmaltzy, carefully placed (by someone else) hallmark of a bachelor pad. The modern equivalent to Rock Hudson’s place in Pillow Talk, and I can’t help but wonder if the bed pops out. For one thing, it’s entirely too clean for a guy’s place. I’m certain he employs a team of people to keep it looking as it does.
I wander in and take in all of its design details. “The kitchen is cherry.”
“Stained nearly black. It’s gorgeous, isn’t it?”
I nod. “I can’t believe you did this in six years, Scott. I am just so proud. Is this really all yours?”
“All three thousand square feet,” he boasts. Not in his typical bravado, but in that quiet, human side of him that shows his humble upbringing.
I wander around the room, shocked at all his space. I never thought we’d see the inside of a place like this, much less that it would belong to Scott. “I should have known when you were able to buy yourself the Camaro, you’d accomplish whatever you wanted.”
He smiles at me. “Your room is back there down the hallway. Let me get the jeans. You’re a 4?”
“I’m a 5,” I say with confidence.
“Designers don’t use Montgomery Ward sizing, all right? You’re a 2 or a 4, if asked. Four if asked by a woman, 2 if asked by a man in front of a woman.”
“Do I want to know?”
“Four makes a woman feel more at ease.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s more real-woman-sized than a zero or a 2, and it will put women at ease with you, make them think you’re their friend. A 2 in front of a man, though, lets them know you plan to compete and says you’re armed to do so.”
I roll my eyes. “I don’t plan to compete for that type of shallow man, and where on earth is a 4 real-woman-sized? Besides starving countries in Africa?”
“Look, you can’t be judging the way things are here.”
“Why not? You know, the rest of the world judges, and it's not like Hollywood doesn’t put itself on display for that very thing. Heck, I bet every ten-year-old in America is capable of copying the Paris Hilton pose. Besides, America thinks that sickly skinny look is disgusting. We want to hand those girls a hamburger and an oxygen mask so they can think clearly.”
“This is not the rest of the world. This is LA.”
I know I brought this on myself, but it’s like getting accepted at a Washington think tank on the basis of image. Except without the Washington or the think part.
“I’m not stupid, you know? I know about misses sizing.” Quite frankly, I don’t agree that LA is all that much more sophisticated if everyone’s lying about who they are. That’s no better than your average bar in Sable. Of course, there everyone knows your business and knows you’re lying. But they allow you to go on anyway out of respect for how shamefully boring your life really is.
“I never said you were stupid,” Scott yells from the other room.
“My first priority will be to find a church.” It sounds like I’m going to need one. Mrs. Gentry and gang are probably praying for my soul at this very moment.
“Whatever. You want to try Kaballah with me?” he yells.
“That’s not really Kaballah, what you have here, and, no, I don’t. Christianity actually works for me, and I don’t have to buy any red strings.”
Scott sticks his head in.“Scientology?”
“I’m not looking for a new religion, all right?”
“Jesus is so yesterday.”
“Can we talk about something else? I’ll go to church alone, all right?”
“Suit yourself.” He goes back into the bedroom.
The elevator doors open, and I turn to look.
Wow.
I blink a few times, rubbing my eyes, but when I look back the image is still there, etched into my mind as though I’ve walked into 1940. Like out of a time-traveling machine—or in this case the elevator—steps a man from a more romantic era. He’s tall and angular and wearing a fedora, just like Humphrey Bogart.
“‘Here’s looking at you, kid,’” I blather.
“Pardon me?” he asks, pulling his hat off to reveal deep brown eyes and a forehead that’s creased in confusion.
“Your hat. It reminds me of Humphrey Bogart in Casablanca. I thought maybe—” No, we’re not going to go there. No need for him to think I’m crazy in the first five minutes. There will be plenty of time for that.
He walks toward me and slides the fedora atop my head. “Finally, a woman who didn’t think I was trying for Indiana Jones. I think I’m in love.” He lifts an eyebrow in the most self-assured and entrancing way and smiles sideways. Actually, not unlike Harrison Ford, so I see why people think of him instead of Humphrey.
“It’s not the hat. You smile like Harrison. There’s more warmth in your eyes than Humphrey had.” I grin up at him, cocking the hat to the side the way Ingrid Bergman used to wear it in her promo shots. The hat smells good— like expensive cologne—and it’s still warm from his head. I close my eyes and drink the moment in, as this is probably the closest I’m going to get to my Hollywood moment.
“‘I remember every detail. The Germans wore gray. You wore blue,’” he says in a deep, Bogart baritone.
My eyes pop open and I meet his gaze. “I wanted one good Hollywood scene, and you made my dreams come true all on my very first day. Now what will I have to look forward to?” I fall into the chair against the wall and he walks closer.
“A Hollywood moment? You’re here to be an actress, I suppose,” he says disappointment.
“I can’t act, and I currently weigh more than eighty-nine pounds and like to eat, so no, not an actress.”
“Actor,” Scott corrects me as he returns. “They don’t call themselves actresses. They want to be taken seriously.”
Shut up, Scott. You’re ruining my moment. “Who might you be, so I know who to send a thank-you note to for my Hollywood moment?”
“Such formality, and I gave you my hat.” He pulls the fedora from my head, and I get another straight shot into his searing brown eyes. Yummy.
From the corner of my eye I can see Scott staring
at me, and I wish I could shoo him away as he used to do with me when he wanted to be alone with a girl. I give him my best “Go away” look.
“So you’ve met each other,” he says.
“Ilsa, is it?” my stranger says, referring to the movie.
Now, I’m a practical girl. Yes, I have my Hollywood visions, but unlike my mother, I have never expected a man to to rescue me from anything. It’s a great idea in theory, but I’ve sobered my mother up too many times to think it was possible.
Suddenly, I think it’s possible, and I’m giving my mother a tiny bit more grace.
“Sarah Claire.” I reach out my hand as I stand up. We’re still awkwardly close, so I step back to shake his hand properly.
“Dane Weston,” he replies.
Dane Weston. Dane Weston. Sarah Claire Weston.
“It’s perfect!”
“What’s perfect?”
“Your name. It suits you.” It suits me.
“I was going to tell you we all call him Lurch. Lurch, this is my cousin Sarah Claire. She’s from New York City,” Scott says with confidence, even though probably a good eighty percent of the sentence was a lie.
I’m still holding Dane’s hand. There’s a pulse shooting up my arm, and quite frankly, I’m not inclined to give it up any sooner than I have to. There are some moments you’ll remember forever. If I never see Dane Weston again, I will remember holding his hand, staring into his incredible brown eyes, and smelling the scent of his hat. Here’s looking at you.
“New York?” Dane asks, looking quite confused, as I’m sure I look about as New York as a Wyoming mule deer.
“By way of Wyoming,” I counter. Let’s talk about you!
“Stopping at the airport is not by way of Wyoming, Sarah Claire.”
I may not be LA-sophisticated, but I’m not sure anyone is going to fall for the necessary stopover in Wyoming. Lucky for me, Dane chooses to ignore the obvious, and I take the hat from his left hand again, not relinquishing my grip.
“You’re not Scott’s roommate?” I ask in a mere whisper. Exactly the voice I used to ask Steve Harris to the Sadie Hawkins dance in high school. He turned me down cold in front of the school cafeteria, so I choose a stronger voice now and try again. “Because I’d pictured you more . . . well, more like Scott.”
Split Ends Page 5