Her Winning Ways

by J. M. Bronston

  And those were probably the last coherent words Annie heard for the next couple of hours, as she sank into a maelstrom of activity and attention. As though she was a precious egg being packed for special handling, she was led down a flight of glass stairs and escorted into a deep leather chair that reclined, tipped forward and back, cradled her head, raised her legs, massaged her spine, and rode up and down like a slo-mo carousel horse. There were mirrors all around, hand-held, wall mounted, backlit, magnifying. There were powerful lights picking out every square millimeter of her skin and its every variation of hue, texture, and tone. Eyes peered at her through magnifying glasses, hands worked creams and lotions into her, seriously analytical evaluations were being discussed by apparently expert consultants and miracle workers. Muds and herbs and foams and gels were packed and smoothed and scrubbed into her pores. And when they’d finished with her face, they started on the rest of her. A manicurist sat to the side, a pedicurist at her toes, a masseuse pummeled her, first painfully then lovingly. There were ice packs and hot lamps.

  And then, when they were done, it was time for the makeup.

  Beyond the blindingly bright lights that were trained on her, she could occasionally catch a glimpse of human faces studying her, and snatches of voices in consultation, conferring, disagreeing, agreeing, making choices about her.

  “I want to go with cat eyes—no, no, totally wrong—just a thin stroke of dark liner here along the upper lid—what do you think?—I’d like a light dusting of lavender above that, too—or lilac?—a line of gold along the lower lid—”

  She felt like a specimen fixed onto the glass under a microscope’s lens. An odd sensation, at once both gratifying and terrifying. Never had so many eyes been so intimately, and yet so dispassionately focused on her.

  “ – and look at those eyebrows, they’re perfect—don’t need a thing, just a bit of gel—such a fresh look, don’t want to mess with that—go easy on the blush—she has great skin—not what I expected—isn’t she from a ranch in Wyoming?—shouldn’t she be all leathery?”

  Annie didn’t know whether to laugh or to be indignant. She knew what every western woman knows: if you live in a super-dry climate, where the humidity is single-digit, the winds are powerful and the sun is even more so, you learn to slather on the moisturizer. That’s a no-brainer.

  But at last her handlers were done, and with a flourish and many big smiles, they released her from their clutches. They returned the chair to its upright position and gave her a chance to look at the revised Annie Cornell.

  She was stunned. Without changing anything about her, they’d turned a normally pretty girl into a photo-ready, fresh-looking, lovely beauty!

  What a confusion of exhilaration, embarrassment, pride, and discovery swirled through her. With a warning to herself not to get too full of herself, she decided everything—so far—was all right with the world, and she was in good hands. She gave herself a mental thumbs up.

  “I love it,” she said. “You guys really are miracle workers.” She lifted her chin, turned her head this way and that, admired the enhanced Annie that preened for her in the mirror. “But I’ll never be able to do this on my own. I couldn’t possibly have kept track of everything you were doing—all the creams and lotions and things you were using—”

  “Oh, don’t worry about that.” Sandi-K. handed her a colorful canvas Lady Fair tote bag and a thick sheaf of papers. “We keep notes as we work. These are the handwritten pages, but I’ve made copies and I’ll be transcribing them. You’ll get a fully typed printout. With tracings of your face so you’ll know what goes where. And Lady Fair and Galliard’s will send you home with a full supply of each beauty product we used today, and guidelines and suggestions. You’ll be able to reproduce our work any time, on your own.”

  “I told you these guys were good, didn’t I?” Annelie was ready to escort her to lunch for an hour’s break before the next batch of specialists could have a go at her. “The food in our Lady Fair cafeteria isn’t exactly scrumptious, but nobody eats anyway. Also, it’s handy so there’s no need to go anywhere else. Dinah will be joining us so she can chat with you and get background for the piece she’ll be writing, and you and I can talk about the program for the rest of the week. After that, the hairstylists and colorists will be waiting in our studio upstairs. They should be done by about three or three thirty. That will leave you free for the evening.”

  Thank God for lunch! What a morning this has been! And then my hair. What can they possibly do to my hair? But whatever—as long as they finish with me by three thirty.

  She hadn’t forgotten the other matter, also on her agenda for the day.

  There’ll be plenty of time for me to get to Troop B Headquarters.

  And thank God for the New York City mounted police.

  The whole outrageous mob scene from yesterday flashed through her memory.

  I could have been trampled into mush. He really was cute—and the TV said he’s sort of famous—the horse, too—what was the horse’s name?

  Like the Lady Fair reception space, the cafeteria was all interior. It reminded her of the Green Parrot from last night—full of sparkly lights and yet somehow a dark space.

  How do they do that? And why do they do that?

  She loaded up her plate with a pasta-and-tuna salad, a big bunch of carrot sticks, and a couple of tiny corn muffins. She made one stop at the coffee urn to add a tall French roast with sugar and cream to her tray, and followed Annelie to a table up against the wall.

  The muffins were okay, the pasta salad was routine cafeteria quality, but the carrot sticks were fresh. She ate most of them and wrapped the rest in a napkin to be saved for later.

  Maybe it’s a way to keep people’s minds on their work, and not on their stomachs. Not that anyone around here seems to feed their stomachs. I don’t see so much as an ounce of body fat.

  She looked around. Sure enough, the super skinny, super chic types who worked at Lady Fair seemed to have no interest whatsoever in what was on their plates. She’d noticed, at the meeting that morning, they’d put food on their plates, but no one had eaten anything. With one exception. Now Annie remembered: she’d been mystified by the bagel-eating technique of the food editor—a gorgeous Asian woman with a perfect cut of the shiniest, straightest black hair. But she was so thin, Annie had wondered where in her body there was room to store her vital organs. With meticulous care, the woman had pinched off infinitesimal bits of the bagel, and nibbled on each bit as slowly and thoughtfully as a medieval scholar trying to calculate the weight and age of the earth. By the time the meeting had ended, she’d made her way through less than one eighth of the bagel!

  I’ve got to try that sometime. It must be a dieting technique.

  Across the table from her, Annelie was consuming a plate of steamed kale on which she’d sprinkled some lemon juice. And a glass of iced tea. Silent moments passed while Annelie focused all her attention on chewing down her allotted portion of greens, seeming to view them more as a penance than a pleasure. When she’d eaten up the last bits, she was ready to talk.

  “You have the itinerary for the week,” she said. She laid her copy on the table between them. “We’ve tried to leave you time to be on your own, without being tied a hundred percent to Lady Fair and Galliard’s. New York is a great walking-around city, and even if there isn’t time to see all the sights, or go to a Yankees game or whatever, if you do nothing else but walk and walk and walk, you can have a marvelous time here. You’ll find the city is a show a minute just walking around, and whatever you do, it will be an adventure. But we do also have a schedule of planned activities, and we can go over those now.”

  With one perfectly manicured fingernail, she indicated, point by point, the schedule of events that would fill up most of Annie’s week in New York.

  “Tomorrow, at nine thirty, there’ll be the ribbon-cutting at the store, with TV coverage. The mayor will be there and Galliard’s president. Also Greta, our events direct
or—you met her this morning—and some others. You’ll be asked to say a few words, so have a little speech ready. I do mean little.” She looked up from her schedule to check Annie’s reaction. “You don’t have a problem with that, do you?” It had just occurred to her: Annie Cornell is a librarian from a small western city. Maybe public speaking is too unfamiliar, too intimidating, all those cameras, the attention—

  “I’ll be okay.” Annie tactfully suppressed her smile. Hadn’t she led thousands—whole stadiums—full of fans, cheerleading for Wyoming U’s teams? If she could do that, dressed only in her skimpy little brown and gold outfit, she was certainly not now going to be shy about appearing or speaking in front of small gatherings. And anyway, at that moment, her attention had been deflected to the bit of kale that was stuck between Annelie’s front teeth, and she was figuring out the best way to let her know. Her first thought was to get her little makeup hand mirror out of her bag and offer that as tactfully as possible. But of course, her bag was not with her. It was waiting for her at Troop B Headquarters, and as soon as Lady Fair’s elves were finished with her hair, she’d have to grab a cab and get over there.

  “I’ll be okay,” she repeated. “Actually, you have something—” She gestured toward her own mouth.

  “Omigod!” Annelie whipped out her own makeup kit, checked her teeth and used that well-manicured nail to capture the embarrassing green bit. “Thank you, thank you. I could have gone around with that all day and no one would have said a thing.”

  Annie just smiled, openly this time. “What’s next on the agenda?”

  Back to the agenda page. “After the ribbon-cutting, you’ll have a two-hour tour of Galliard’s, with cameras following. You’ll go floor to floor and choose fifty thousand dollars’ worth of clothes, accessories, perfumes, whatever you like. You won’t be rushed, but you’ll have to be efficient.” She checked Annie’s face to watch her reaction and saw Annie close her eyes and take a deep breath.

  Annie had seen enough high fashion this morning to know that her usual L.L.Bean and Eddie Bauer wardrobe might need a rethink. Would a tour through Galliard’s high-end displays turn her self-image upside down?

  This still isn’t real. But I’ve got to get my head around it by tomorrow morning.

  All around her, Lady Fair people were picking at their leafy rabbit-food lunches, sipping at their stevia-sweetened drinks, keeping themselves rail-thin and couture-chic. Would that be a good thing? Was she ready? Would she be sorry she’d won this damned contest—or would it turn out to be the big adventure she’d been eager for?

  “And on Wednesday,” Annelie was saying, “you’ll be here at Lady Fair for fittings of all the clothes you’ve chosen, so our wardrobe staff can have them ready for your TV runway appearance on Friday.”

  Annie took a deep breath.

  “Don’t worry,” Annelie went on. “Our people will be right at your side. They’ll do your makeup and your hair, and they’ll see to it that it’s a wonderful day for you, for us, for Galliard’s, and for the audience. It’ll be fun, you’ll see.” She took a quick look at her BlackBerry, where a message was waiting. “That’s Dinah. She’s on her way now to interview you. She’ll need about a half hour, and after that, Damien and Louis will be ready for you.”

  Dinah arrived, bringing her notebook, a Starbucks latte, and a staff photographer. She parked the coffee on the table, she set the photographer in motion around Annie getting shots from all angles, and in twenty minutes, she learned enough about Annie’s life to write many thousands of words about this lucky winner. She also learned that, though Annie could be very forthcoming about growing up on a ranch, making better than average grades in high school, and loving her work in the university’s veterinary division as its head librarian, she could be circumspect when she chose. She could twist gracefully away from allowing more than the simple information that both her parents had died before her seventh birthday, that her sister, Liz, who had been only a teenager herself at the time, and their aunt Velma had taken over her care, and that no, there was no man in her life. Dinah was not entirely satisfied—she rarely was—but she knew she’d gotten all there was to get; she left the cafeteria with her latte untouched and a notebook full of usable information, but she left the photographer, assigned to get a carload of shots to be available for the final version of the story.

  “Oh, honey. This is going to be so much fun.” Louis was already preparing batches of color, like a wizard stirring up a magic potion. “You’ve got such great color to start with—look at this, Damien.” Louis ran his fingers through Annie’s hair, lifting it as though it were a fragile veil. “So bright and natural. And not a sign of fading yet, like a ten-year-old’s. But still, I think we’ll add a tiny bit of highlights, just to make it more magical, and maybe some lowlights, too, just for a touch of drama.” He spun Annie’s chair so he could face her. “What do you think, honey?”

  Annie just nodded helplessly. She’d already been divested of her shirt, robed in a neck-to-toe black robe, and handed over to Louis like a plate of pastries. Whatever was going to happen here, she knew it would all be new to her and she’d best just let the experts have their way with her. In minutes, Louis was all happy chatter as he expertly separated thin sections of hair, painted each with its carefully selected compound, and wrapped it in a square of foil. Annie laughed at the effect when he was done; the reflection in the mirror showed a cartoon character, silvery and metallic, ready to be beamed up into some galaxy far, far away. Assistants, like elves, scurried around her, eager to keep her comfortable, offering her coffee, magazines, anything to amuse her while she waited through the setting period. Twenty minutes later, she was transferred to an improbably big leather chair that apparently had a mind of its own; throughout the removal of the foil squares and the rinsing out of the chemicals, the chair massaged and pummeled her back and neck. And then she was combed out and handed over to Damien.

  Damien was all gentle charm as he ran his magic fingers through Annie’s hair, fluffing it and familiarizing himself with its texture. “This is going to be such a pleasure. For such fine hair, it has more body that I’d expect. And it even has some wave. Unusual in such fine blond hair.” He had his iPad ready for her to skim through. “Now, what are we going to do with you? Let’s see what you’d like and what would work best with your hair.” He tapped through a voluminous array of photos, commenting as he went. “Side parts are in. Everyone’s wearing them this season. The center part, the vampire look, that’s so out. And it would be so wrong for you with your bright sunny color. Maybe swirly down the side—how would you like a light braid, just near the ends? Very casual?”

  “Oh, I’d rather not.”

  “A chic chignon—?” But before she could respond, he nixed that. “Nope. Sophistication is great,” he said, “but you’ve got years to go before you get to that. Let’s go fresh and lovely.”

  “Yes, I like that.”

  She liked Damien’s style. Easy and comfortable, as though he always knew just what he was about. And he was sensitive not only to a woman’s hair; he was sensitive to the woman herself.

  He stood behind her, studied her reflection in the mirror, stepped around from right to left and back again, examining her profile, the shape of her head, her reflection in the mirror, her “good” side, her “other” side, found she was pretty symmetrical, confirmed his initial impressions and choices, and then proceeded to do his special magic with comb and scissors. And all the while, the photographer was darting around her, here and there, busy with before-and-after shots, a few of which would be culled and used in the magazine’s Galliard Sweep-Spree story.

  When Damien was done, there wasn’t a whole lot of hair on the floor, and yet what remained on Annie’s head was unquestionably the best job of hair styling in all New York, loose and soft and young and innocently seductive. Damien held the hand mirror for her to inspect the rear view, but she didn’t need to—she was already in awe: how had her familiar self just disapp
eared, before her very eyes, into the stylish Annie she saw in the mirror; how had her formerly adequate ponytail-do been undone and transformed into something glamorously simple yet glamorously up-to-the-minute?

  “Damien,” she said. “They’re right. You do have magic fingers.”

  Damien just smiled. He’d heard that many times. Now he just whisked away the towel from her shoulders, gave a last pat to the top of her head, and said, “I’ll look forward to seeing you in Lady Fair.”

  Annelie rode with her down to the lobby and took her leave. “You look so fabulously great,” she said. “Every guy is going to fall totally and completely in love just looking at you.”

  These folks all talk in superlatives. Do they ever just say something is nice? Does everything have to be “great” and “fabulous” and “so totally awesome?” She raised an arm as an empty cab cruised by.

  And I’m not sure I’d like it if “every guy” fell in love with me just like that.

  “Troop B Headquarters,” she said to the cab driver. “I hope you know where that is.”

  I’ve had guys in love with me. It doesn’t always work out so well.

  Chapter Seven

  Headquarters, Please

  Monday Afternoon

  Ikechukwu Ndibe hadn’t been long on the job, so he needed a rapid-fire conference with his Igbo dispatcher to find out where he’d find Troop B’s headquarters.

  Which gave Annie a minute to sit back, catch her breath, and think things over. She settled into her seat and enjoyed the first restful moments of this extraordinary day. The mirror told her she was looking her very prettiest. And for once in her life she had no complaints about her hair—thanks to the wonders worked by New York’s humidity, Louis’s chemical wizardry, and Damien’s magic scissors. She flipped her hand through her new hairdo and felt generally very pleased with herself.