Mirror, Mirror

by Judy Baer

“Can’t. It’s ingrained in my bones. Besides, you don’t even taste that stuff you’re jamming down your throat.”

  “I might as well eat myself into a stupor,” Maggie moaned. “First Randy, then the health-club disaster. What’s the point of trying anymore?”

  She rested her chin in her hands and studied herself in one of Pete’s many pieces of mirrored art, a large vase filled with sunflowers that sat in the center of the table.

  “If only I could…”

  The silence that followed was tense. Maggie’s “if onlys” had caused us trouble more than once.

  “I want you to tell me more about that job offer you got, Quinn. The one for that reality-television show.”

  “Not much to tell. I haven’t pursued it.”

  “But you’ve got a chance at being the host of the show?” Maggie skewered me with a look. “Take it! You’d be awesome.

  “I don’t understand why, when you have a big chance, you consider turning it down. It’s a job, after all.” She plucked at the elasticized waistband of her workout pants. “Maybe the club was right to decide against me as their model. They realized something I didn’t—that I was going to double in size in the next couple months.”

  “If you keep licking melted chocolate off candy wrappers, you might, but otherwise there’s no danger.”

  “At least with hand modeling I don’t have to worry so much. I have very slender fingers.” Maggie waggled her piano octave-straddling digits. Not a hangnail in sight.

  “Speaking of that—” her brow furrowed “—I thought I would have heard by now….”

  Her cell phone rang. “I’ll bet this is the call.” She dug her phone out of her pocket and flipped it open and said brightly, “Maggie here.”

  “So she does know how to be cheerful.” Pete moved closer to me. “She should try it on us sometime.”

  “Maggie is venting. She doesn’t have to put on a mask for us.”

  I flinched as Maggie’s cell phone unexpectedly flew through the air and hit the wall behind me.

  “Whoa,” Pete muttered as we both spun to stare at her. “What’s up?”

  Maggie jumped to her feet and began to pace the floor, flapping her arms and raging at no one in particular. “I can’t believe it! It’s totally ridiculous. Mine are perfectly fine. Great. People tell me so.”

  “Maggie?” Pete ventured.

  She looked up, her eyes wide and furious. “Those…those…idiots!”

  “Which idiots are you referring to specifically? There are plenty of them out there.”

  “The hand-lotion idiots. This is ageism or just plain idiot-ism. I can’t believe it!”

  Idiotism?

  “They turned me down for the hand-modeling job. Said my hands looked more ‘mature’ than they wanted for the product because the market is for teens and college-aged women. I know exactly who they hired. The girl after me was fourteen years old and had spiders painted onto her fake nails!”

  “Spiders?” Pete echoed. “Why would anyone paint spiders on their nails?”

  Maggie was still ranting. “If they’d had to choose from photos of hands, they would have picked mine. But because they saw how much older I was than the child after me—”

  “You don’t know that, Maggie.”

  Her shoulders sagged as the truth of my words hit home. She collapsed heavily into Pete’s chair, too depleted to rant anymore. “I can’t even get a job as a hand model. First Randy, then the health club and now this. What am I going to do?”

  “This is just temporary, Mag,” Pete attempted to reassure her.

  “We all go through rough spots in this business.”

  Pete and I offered all the platitudes and tired expressions that don’t help one iota. Who really does know what to say when the rug of a friend’s life is pulled out from under her? Although we attempted to minimize the damage done by her latest disappointment, talking to Maggie is like convincing a brick wall that it is actually a basket of flowers. Not easy.

  When Maggie disappeared into the bathroom, I voiced my frustration aloud. “Why is self-esteem so hard to come by?”

  Pete chewed nervously on his lower lip. “Probably because we have the idea that we can earn it by ourselves.”

  I curled up on his ultracontemporary faux suede couch, which is surprisingly comfortable if you don’t mind sitting six inches off the floor. “Tell me it isn’t so!” I mocked. “You mean the television commercials that say you’ll have more self-esteem if you lose weight, work out, go to school, whiten your teeth and buy a new car are wrong?”

  “We’re so caught up in the idea that if we buy the right brand of jeans or designer purse it will make us better and more accepted that we don’t untangle it to see what’s really true.”

  Pete sank down beside me. His long legs looked even more ridiculous than mine, with his knees splayed near his ears. Then he stretched them out and looked more proportional again. “If we depend on our looks, accomplishments or the praises of others to feel good, we’re in big trouble. You and I know that but Maggie…”

  “‘As I looked at everything I had worked so hard to accomplish, it was all so meaningless. It was like chasing the wind. There was nothing really worthwhile anywhere.’” I quoted. “Even King Solomon struggled with it.”

  “And the struggle is pointless, like Flash chasing his tail.”

  Flash, hearing his name, opened one eye and closed it again. Dash, comatose, never twitched.

  “My grandmother says that if you are right with God, everything else falls into place.” Pete shifted on the couch, looking for a more comfortable position.

  I recalled how difficult it had been as a child for me to believe that God wanted to—and could—manage my life for me.

  “Thy will be done” were hard words to get out of my mouth. What about my will? I’d pray. Maybe You won’t give me what I want. Do You even know about that doll I like at Toys ‘R’ Us?

  It wasn’t until I was sixteen, a foot taller than any boy in my class, acne dotted and skinny as a straw that I ran across a bit of scripture that changed my outlook. There was nothing, it seemed, that I could do to make myself shorter or more like the giggly, flirty girls in class who got all the dates.

  Trust in the Lord with all your heart, do not depend on your own understanding. Seek His will in all you do…don’t be impressed with your own wisdom. Instead, fear the Lord…then you will gain renewed health and vitality.

  Corny as it might sound, the verse hit me right between the eyes. I couldn’t keep my skin from breaking out or guys calling me “Giraffe” because my legs were so long. I was glad there was someplace else to go, something beyond myself to depend upon. I certainly wasn’t doing anything special for myself.

  When I turned things over to God, my skin didn’t miraculously clear up and none of the cute boys immediately grew to match my height, of course, but it somehow didn’t matter so much anymore.

  That’s what Maggie needs right now, to do exactly what that old cliché says, let go and let God.

  Instead, she was in the bathroom slathering on hand lotion and thinking of new ways to wear her hair that would make her look less “mature.”

  “Do you think she’ll stay in my bathroom forever?” Pete asked gloomily.

  “Not forever. She’s got to gather her wits about her though. You remember what it was like for Maggie at home with her sisters. Now, every time she’s rejected she’s fourteen again and feels unattractive and unwanted.”

  “She needs to start moving ahead with her life.” Pete fiddled with his pencil, tapping the end on his coffee table. “Another bad thing just can’t happen.”

  The scream from the bathroom could have cracked all the mirrors in Pete’s house. Both Dash and Flash whined and tried to cover their ears as they lay tangled on Flash’s huge red dog bed.

  Pete blanched and I felt blood drain from my face, as well. He was the first to his feet and knocked over a chair in his haste to get to the bathroom. I raced after him w
hile Flash and Dash ran in the other direction. They are not conflict-loving animals.

  The door was locked. Pete pounded on it so hard I was afraid it might splinter.

  “What’s wrong in there? Should we call an ambulance? Maggie?”

  Finally we heard the lock click open and the door swung away to reveal Maggie still intact with no blood pouring down her head or great gashes on her body.

  “What happened?” I demanded.

  She lifted her hand, her thumb and forefinger pinched together so tightly that the pads of her fingers were turning white. A single strand of hair was pressed between them. Maggie stared at it as if it had floated down from a flying saucer.

  “I found a gray hair.”

  To most people this is an unpleasant little shock the first time it happens. To Maggie, it was the equivalent of a body blow.

  Pete, of course, didn’t get it.

  “So? You’ve got black hair and you’ve always said your family turned gray early. What’s the problem?”

  Maggie slammed the door in his face.

  Men can be so linear and obtuse.

  “It’s one more knife through the heart. A small one, granted, but it could be the straw, er, hair, that breaks the camel’s back.”

  “We should never have let her go into the bathroom,” Pete groaned. “You know how bright the lights in there are.”

  “Like sitting in a police station getting the third degree.”

  “It’s no wonder she found a gray hair. I’m surprised she didn’t find dozens of them. Still, it’s nothing a little touch-up won’t cure.”

  My own mother, whose hair is brown, was actually happy when she started to get gray. “Frosted hair without the bill at the salon,” she’d say. And it looks good on her, making her striking in a way that Dad says “drives him wild.”

  To that, Mother mumbles that the only way to tame my wild father is with a dart gun which usually starts a conversation about going on safari and they’re off and running. I think Mother enjoys these adventures as much as Dad, although she won’t admit it. It was her idea, after all, to dogsled in Alaska to get a feel for what the Iditarod is like.

  But for Maggie to find gray hair after being dumped by Randy and losing those jobs is an entirely different matter. She is slipping off the deep end of the pool and Pete and I can’t keep rescuing her forever.

  “What are we going to do with her, Pete?”

  “Pray for her.”

  I threw my arms around Pete and hugged him until he yelped. Then I gave him a big wet kiss on the cheek.

  “I love you, Pete, you are so sweet.”

  “Sweet Pete, Saccharine Pete, that’s me.” He wiggled out of my grasp. “Now get your hands off me, it’s like being kissed my sister. Disgusting.”

  If I know Maggie as well as I think I do, she’s already imagining herself hawking prune juice, denture cream and Depend.

  She’s probably decided she is the perfect new poster girl for AARP. Not bad for someone not quite thirty yet.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Settled on our large couch with a bowl of popcorn, a liter of soda and the television remote, we’d been involved in an old-movie marathon for the past two evenings. Maggie is having a difficult time being alone with her own thoughts. My days are taken up with work. I’ve done several photo shoots in recent days, but I’ve saved the nights for Maggie.

  “Quinn?” Maggie’s voice was small and tentative, as if she were building up courage to ask me for a favor.

  “Hmm?” I handed her the popcorn, assuming that was what she wanted. We never argue over the remote, but we both like to be the one in possession of the popcorn bowl.

  “I have something I want to ask you.”

  “Okay. Shoot.” Engrossed as I was in the previews for an upcoming movie, I didn’t give her my full attention. Not, that is, until she said, “I searched Google for Chrysalis today.”

  A little trickle of apprehension bled down my spine. “Oh?”

  “It sounds interesting.” She said it a little too casually.

  “You think so?” I feigned indifference, but my heart pounded harder in my chest. This is exactly what I’d hoped wouldn’t happen. She wasn’t what Eddie and Frank wanted as hostess of the show and I didn’t want her disappointed by another rejection.

  “So you really aren’t going to take the job as hostess?”

  Here it comes. Maggie’s going to ask if she can apply for the job.

  “Why do you think it’s so bad? What’s wrong with women having their dreams come true? If they want to look better and they get the chance, I don’t see what’s wrong with that.”

  “It’s not necessarily bad. People do have things they’d like to change—a scar from an accident, crowded teeth or protruding ears. Maybe they are unhappy with loose skin left over after they lose weight or the chin they inherited from Uncle Ole. But that doesn’t mean they go out and ask to be made over from head to toe.

  “Shows like this feed people’s insecurities and make them think they aren’t okay when they truly are.”

  “But what if they aren’t—okay, I mean?”

  “In whose estimation? The people who love them? Their friends? God? Seems to me it is important to be right inside ourselves first so we have the wisdom and discernment to make decisions about our outsides.”

  “It’s easy for you to say, Quinn. You’re beautiful.”

  “And you’re not?” I couldn’t keep the incredulity out of my voice.

  “This is the twenty-first century, Quinn. It’s tough to keep up. Besides, I’m almost thirty. That’s old for a model. I don’t see anything wrong with having minor nips and tucks if it would help me keep up in my field.”

  “Times are changing, Mags. There are incredible older models working all the time now. Besides that, neither of us has ever said this is the only career we’d ever have. That would be like trying to keep up with Olympians year after year. They’d keep getting younger and younger while we’d grow older and more decrepit.”

  “Decrepit, that’s me. Thanks for the cheery words, Quinn.” She grabbed a pillow and hugged it to her chest. “I don’t want to grow old. It’s too hard.”

  “Give me a break, Mag.”

  I thought she was going to respond, but she seemed to reconsider. “Turn up the sound on the television, will you? And quit hogging that soda.”

  I was surprised and relieved that she didn’t pursue the issue further.

  I was looking forward to a reprieve the next afternoon when I rang the Harmons’ doorbell. One more encounter with a high-maintenance person this week could bring me to my knees.

  Jack opened the door and blinked like a sleepy grizzly bear when the light hit his eyes.

  “Sorry. Did I wake you?”

  “No. Just watching movies. Come in.” He moved aside and I entered the dusky house. The blinds were closed and the curtains pulled. It looked like a movie theater—or a dungeon.

  “Dad, is Quinn here?” Ben’s small voice came from the family room.

  “Come in.” Jack led me to the large-screen television flickering in the dimness.

  Ben greeted me from the depths of a leather couch. “We’re watching old movies. Stuff Dad says he watched when he was a little kid.”

  “Ben’s not feeling well. He couldn’t sleep last night and his pain is bad today. I’m thankful that we arranged for you to come. It’s difficult for him to be in school like this.”

  I saw it immediately in Ben’s eyes and in the paleness of his skin.

  “Are you going to teach me something today?” Ben sounded tired and his little-boy’s voice was reedy. “My dad said he’d get my books and lessons from my teacher.”

  “Are you up to learning something?”

  Ben seemed to perk up a little. “What?”

  “We could do a science experiment. An ooky one, if you like. We could make slime.”

  “I don’t think….” Jack began to protest but was drowned out by Ben’s enthusiastic �
�Yes!”

  “If you have Borax and white glue we’re in business.”

  “In the laundry room. The cleaning lady keeps it pretty well stocked.”

  Making slime with a man you care about is one of those special moments that just don’t happen very often.

  I’m sure most women are grateful for that.

  We measured Borax and water into a solution, mixed it with glue, divided it into zippered plastic bags and hunted through the cupboard looking for food coloring. All the time we discussed how the Borax was responsible for connecting the glue molecules together to make the thick, slimy gel with which Ben was entranced.

  “You can’t feed this to the dog or to other little kids,” I warned. “And please don’t put it in the carpet.”

  Ben let the stuff ooze through his fingers and smiled. “I like this.” He played with the slime for several minutes before his smile began to falter. “Dad, I’m tired.”

  “I’ll go,” I offered, hoping I hadn’t exacerbated his weariness.

  “Wait. I’ll tuck you in on the couch, Ben. You can rest while Quinn and I visit in the other room.” Jack lifted his son so gently than Ben could have been made of soap bubbles and he would not have broken.

  I finished cleaning up our project and then went to the formal living room at the front of the house. Jack had pulled the drapery open a crack and was staring out into the street.

  “He likes it dark when he’s tired and hurting,” Jack said absently. His chiseled features grew melancholy. “It comforts him. He’s been that way ever since he was little.”

  Much to my unease I realized I wished I could draw my finger along his jawline and put my arms around him to comfort him. Instead I said, “Ben is still little.”

  “I know.” Jack’s shoulders sagged. “I wish it were me, Quinn. I’d be happy to trade places with Ben so that he could have a chance at being a normal child.”

  His gaze pierced through me. “I wanted to trade places with Emily, too, but that couldn’t happen, either.” Then Jack’s even teeth flashed in a faint, lopsided grin. “It’s a good thing you came by. I was feeling pretty sorry for myself. Every time Ben goes through a good stretch I convince myself that we’ve got it licked. Then…”