Opportunity Knocks

by Alison Sweeney

  “Don’t worry, Mom.” Mark stops trying to tug the chipped pasta bowl out of my hands before I’m finished scooping out my portion. “Sean and I went over the deets yesterday.”

  “I’m going to bring on two extra crew Monday so we catch up to the pool, Winnie.” Sean finishes off Mark’s thought. I tune out the family business talk, focusing on my mom’s favorite group meal—pasta with veggies.

  “Delish, Mom,” I say between bites, in case it’s obvious I’m chowing down to facilitate a quick getaway.

  “Thanks for saying so, princess.” My mom smiles at me warmly. “I worry about you, off in those remote locations.” In my mom’s mind, when I’m working in the family office, I’m safe. Out on my own? Who knows what could happen? She doesn’t say it out loud, but that is what she means.

  “Yes, Winnie, it’s great,” Sean says, diverting me from getting into the familiar family conflict. I meet his eyes to thank him. I’ve resigned myself to the fact that my parents will never stop being overprotective of me. But some days it still gets under my skin.

  They love me, but they trust Sean. He runs their business while I file papers on Fridays. If it were up to Mom and Pop, I would work for them forever. And before beauty school, I might have settled for that, too. But I’ve finally found a career; doing makeup is exactly right for me. Now I just have to prove I can make a living at it.

  “Perfect-o, Mom.” Mark does a fake Italian accent and kisses his fingers. Mark works at Pool Paradise, too. My dad runs the business end so that Mark and my mom can focus on designing the layouts. Did I mention Mark’s an architect? As if I needed another sibling to show me up. Between my heroic oldest brother and Sam, it’s already a tough household to get a word in edgewise.

  So, my parents had Brett, then Sam, then decided they wanted to try for a girl. Since my mom was a little bit older at that point, it took some help from the modern technology of the nineties, and what do you know? She got pregnant with triplets. At least she got the girl she wanted. Well, two of us, actually. My sister isn’t here, either. She would totally gang up with Mark against me, which is one reason why I’m glad she’s not. Another reason is that Juliet works for Teach For America. She sends me these incredible daily email updates about the really dangerous neighborhood in West Texas where she’s teaching high school students how to read. She says it’s her calling.

  My point is, every one of my siblings has known what they wanted out of life since birth. Somehow that family tradition of drive and ambition skipped right over me. It’s like the chicken or the egg—I don’t know if they babied me because I didn’t know what I wanted to do with my life, or if because I was so babied, I never figured out what I needed to do with my life.

  “Hey, Al. Quit daydreaming and pass the wine.” I instinctively dodge Mark’s elbow and try to smack him in retaliation. He is equally quick in avoiding me.

  “Children, enough. No wine for either of you if you can’t act like adults.” My father is a practical disciplinarian. Just like the threat of taking away my nail polish kit worked when I was twelve, the threat of having to go through the rest of this dinner without a fabulous Santa Ynez syrah—my parents always splurge on good wine—finally settles both Mark and me into adult behavior.

  With one last severe look, my dad seems satisfied with our silence and passes the wine. Sean stifles a chuckle as he hands me the bottle and I refill my glass before maturely passing it to Mark.

  “So, Alex, how did your photo shoot go today? You said it was for a wall calendar?”

  I try not to choke on my wine. I consider myself a pretty cool, modern chick, but talking to my mom about the type of calendar I did today is just way outside my comfort zone.

  “Who makes wall calendars anymore, anyway?” Leave it to Mark to zero in on the heart of the matter.

  “That’s a good point. Other than… um…” Sean hesitates over how to describe it… “Sports Illustrated,” he recovers smoothly, “who’s making calendars?”

  “Lots of people.” I’m finding it impossible not to sound defensive. “I think they were building up Web content for their company, too.” I search for innocuous details I can share. “We were shooting out at a ranch in Agoura Hills. There were horses and stuff. It was really pretty. But super hot. I kept having to touch up the models; they were sweating just sitting still.” There. That feels like a safe enough amount of information.

  “I hope you kept your water bottle with you. Heat is one of your triggers.” My mom reaches over to pat my hand, and then quickly changes the subject before I can remind her I’m actually a grown woman. “Remember that pool we did for that musician in Agoura, Greg?” My mom turns her attention to my father, and they both chuckle. I polish off the last of my wine to keep from interrupting to defend myself with the fact that I haven’t had an attack in months, but since Sean is already refilling my glass and Mark is carrying on about a new building going up downtown, it seems wiser to just let it go.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Why, why, why? Normally the fact that the San Fernando Valley is consistently ten degrees—if not more—warmer than anywhere else in LA is one of my favorite things about it. I love being warm, as demonstrated by my closet, full of skirts and shorts and a colorful pile of sandals. But today, we’ve got to be well over one hundred degrees. And it’s March. And I had to interrupt the photographer at least a dozen times already to touch up the clown makeup on the model.

  Obviously, it was not my idea to do clown makeup on this guy. I was just hired to do a job, and for once, I might get a pretty cool image to add to my website, if the model stops dripping sweat through his white foundation. My phone pings as I step away back into the tiny patch of shade I’ve found.

  Emma: Wow! That clown looks so sad.

  I sent Emma the pic I took right when I finished his makeup. Before this heat wave melted my artwork.

  Me: he’s supposed to look sad. It’s art. Lol.

  Emma: Where did you find this photographer again? What kind of twisted childhood is he making up for?

  Me: it’s a she. The photog is a chick. I think—it’s hard to tell through the black camo gear.

  Emma: Lol.

  Me: seriously… she has vision. We’re in this alley with chain-link fence, beat-up cars on blocks, and graffiti on this really cool yellow garage door.

  Emma: That sounds—really cool?

  Me: yeah, it’d b cool—if it weren’t so hot 2day! over 100. clown is sweating all over the place. It’s so gross, & impossible to take more than 3 pics in a row w/o having 2 fix something.

  Emma: I wish I could send you some of our cold.

  Me: send me a pic of your freezer! bet your show has a freezer full of goodies. homemade popsicles?

  Emma: You know I’m not allowed to take any behind-the-scenes pictures. :-/ And besides, I’m already layered up like the kid from A Christmas Story for my run around the reservoir today.

  Me: work out for me. XO

  Emma: XO

  I put my phone away just in time for J—that’s what the photographer goes by, just J—to glance my way.

  “Hey, Alex. A little help on the right side. His teardrop is starting to smear.” I rush in to touch it up, but when I look closely, the sweat has created a perfect black streak down his face from where I painted in the tear.

  “J, what do you think? This actually looks really cool to me.” I tilt the model’s face for J to zoom in with her camera.

  “I like it. We’ll do a few like this,” she says decisively. I leave the smudge, and instead of removing the sweat marks, I add a few more. So he looks like it’s a stress issue rather than overheating.

  “What if he’s holding the coat over his shoulder, J? So you can see his white shirt is so sweaty? I mean, really… embrace it?” I walk back behind the lens. J pulls her pierced face away from the eyepiece of her fancy camera to size me up. It is a bit risky—I mean, this is her vision and she just hired me to help carry it out. “If you hate it, I can clean him all up i
n ten minutes,” I quickly promise. J gestures for the hapless would-be clown to strip off the thick wool coat he’s been suffering in. He swings it over his shoulder and all of a sudden the visual goes from cool and interesting to really edgy and intriguing. The white shirt is practically see-through in some places from sweat. And when he leans back into the chain-link fence with the colorful garage in the background, his face totally pulls focus, even on the mini viewfinder. This is a low-budget passion project for J, so she didn’t spring to have the Mac on hand to review the images.

  I can tell J loves how it looks now. She keeps snapping away; the shutter speed can hardly keep up with her. She hunches down and then goes up on her tiptoes, playing with camera angles, barking out orders for the model to change poses as she rotates around him.

  When she’s finally exhausted every possible combination, she comes back to where I’m standing, camera hanging around her neck. She pulls out a cigarette and sighs like she’s just had the best sex of her life.

  “That was a genius move, Alex. You have a good eye.”

  “Thanks, J.” It is a super-rewarding feeling to know I helped make her vision a success. “You’ll send me a jpeg I can use for my site? This will make an amazing image for my home page.” And given that I took the job for fifty dollars, the jpeg is really the prize here. I’m desperate for content on my site; I know I won’t ever get legit work if I don’t have real photos, professional photos, on my page to show what I can do.

  “Yeah, sure. I’ll get it to you by the weekend. And I’m definitely going to call you again. You do beauty makeup too, right?” Before I can answer she goes on, not even looking at me now; she’s scrolling back through the images on her camera’s viewfinder. “I have a real job next week. I’ll try to get you on it with me. That’s more traditional stuff, you know, a catalog job.” Thank God she can’t see me practically foaming at the mouth. She says “catalog job” like it is poison, but to me it sounds like heaven. If I can get actual jobs that pay real money, I can move out of my childhood bedroom, which still has paint chips missing from the infamous Lost Poster Incident. How was I to know that the tape keeping Matthew Fox over my bed would ruin the faux paint scheme? I was thirteen. Yeah, moving out, that’s definitely step one in proving to my parents I’ve finally got my act together.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Emma is coming to visit this weekend! Well, she’s coming here for work, but still, we’ll get to hang out. We’ve been planning it for months, since the daytime TV show she works on announced they would be shooting on location in LA, but it always seemed so far away. And now, knowing I’ll see my best friend tomorrow totally makes my day. Which I need, because every other thought in my head involves wanting to stab my eyes out. Doing the filing at the Pool Paradise office is by far the worst part of my week. But every Friday, unless I can actually justify skipping it with a legitimate makeup job, I have to drag myself into my parents’ office in “appropriate business attire” and answer phones all day. My gladiator-style sandals are the nicest pair I own. They are a simple white, which matches my flowy white blouse. I put a white tank on underneath so no one would have an excuse to comment on how tissue-paper-thin the fabric is. It’s hard to tell what my mom will consider “fancy” versus “inappropriate.”

  “Pool Paradise, may I help you?” I flick the computer screen away from one of the beauty blogs I follow, back to the company website.

  “Hey, babe. It’s me.”

  “Oh, thank God. Sean. I don’t know if I can make it until lunch. You have to come rescue me.” He chuckles at my dramatic desperation. Sitting behind a desk is killing my creative spirit.

  “Somehow I knew you were going to say that. I was going to suggest you bring down the payroll so I can give the paychecks to the crew this afternoon. You could swing by and grab lunch…”

  “Yes! I’ll do it!” I don’t even let him finish. Whatever it is that gets me out of here, I’m in. And of course, the fact that Sean is asking lends legitimacy to the request. If it were my idea, my dad would roll his eyes and remind me of my deal with my parents to work “just one day a week”—the implication being that’s not asking too much—in exchange for living at home again.

  “Dad! Where’s the crew paychecks?” I holler into the narrow back office area. “Sean wants me to bring them out to the site.”

  “I haven’t done them yet,” he yells back.

  “When will they be ready? He asked me to bring him some lunch so he can work straight through.” Stretching my legs, I go to stand in his office doorway. If I keep my body open to the main area, my dad’s closed-in little office space won’t affect me. But I take evenly timed breaths just in case. “He says he thinks he’s going to be able to wrap this job up by next week. So we can put both crews on the Melkans.”

  “Honey, I’ll bring them out to you.” He gestures me away from his door before his eyes return to the computer screen. I immediately breathe easier back in the wide-open front area. Dad raises his voice so I hear, “I can get it done in the next hour, before I head out to bid on a new job.” I’ll take that as a yes.

  Knowing it’s only an hour until freedom, I’m actually motivated to get some work done. I organize the bills and fill out some paperwork my dad left on my desk to get done today. It’s not that I can’t do this kind of work. I do oddly have a knack for math and numbers. I just loathe it.

  I’ve been tough for my parents to deal with, but I couldn’t help being a late bloomer. My dad will forever see me as the little girl whom he couldn’t help. The agonizing minutes before the firemen came to get me out probably traumatized him more than me. My occasional bouts of claustrophobia certainly haven’t helped either of us get past it. I love him for wanting to take care of me, but it’s also restricting that they keep trying to mold me into what they want me to be instead of seeing that I’ve finally figured my life out. Makeup really is a dream come true for me. I love it, and am not going to give up on it just because it’s tough breaking into the industry. I believe in myself, for once. It’s just going to take time for me to prove it to everyone else.

  “Here you go, sweetheart.” I look up from the online billing program my parents are switching over to—way to join the twenty-first century, Pops—and see my dad extending a stack of envelopes toward me.

  “Thanks, Dad. I’ll be back by two.”

  “Sounds good. Don’t forget to lock up; your mother isn’t coming in today.” And with that he’s out the door. It takes me another twenty minutes to finish up my work. I may hate it, but I’m not irresponsible. Finally, I make my escape.

  “TEN DOUBLE-DOUBLES. With onions. Can you make one of them protein style?” In the turnaround waiting to pull up to the cashier window, I update my Instagram account with a cool angle of the In-N-Out sign and the bright blue skies behind it.

  Me: on my way with burgers.

  Sean: sounds great. don’t eat all the fries before you get here.

  Me: omg… I only did that ONE time!

  Sean: And stop TEXTING! You’re driving!!

  Me: Not driving yet. Eating your fries in the parking lot. :) jk

  Sean: you got me. Lol. See you soon.

  I wipe my greasy fingers on my dark jeans—the ones with no rips in them—and roll up the paper bag so I’m not tempted to keep snacking on those damn delicious fries on the way to the work site.

  The GPS on my phone—my bare-bones preowned Prius didn’t come with any cool technology—leads me to a gorgeous Mediterranean-style home in Encino, south of Ventura Boulevard. The side gate is open as I find a place to park on the gorgeous pepper tree–lined street. I follow the sound of eighties rock music to the backyard, where the Paradise Pool crew is hard at work. Today they’re laying in the steel rebar grid. There’s steel mesh in stacks near the edge of the pool, which will be layered in this afternoon. The second my big white paper bags of Double-Doubles are in view, everyone drops what they’re doing.

  “Just in time, babe. We were starting to decide w
ho we were going to sacrifice first.”

  “Glad I got here before that vote took place.” Sean pulls my protein-style burger out of the bag and looks at the big lettuce leaves like they’re snakes that might bite him. I take it from him before he drops it.

  “What’s wrong with a bun?”

  “You know I’m trying to cut back on gluten.”

  “Really? Isn’t that what pasta is? Gluten?”

  Of course, I am fully equipped to retaliate equally passive-aggressively. “Don’t you mean ‘Thank you so much, Alex. You probably waited in the longest line ever at In-N-Out. I really appreciate it’?” I mimic his low voice and then, switching to an exaggerated falsetto version of myself, add, “Oh, you’re welcome, sweetie! I’m happy to do it!”

  “Okay, okay. Thank you for the burgers.” He takes a big bite of one, but still manages to add while chewing, “Even though I know you did it just to get away from the office.”

  It seems a good idea to drop the subject, so I take a bite and enjoy every drop of special sauce as it’s oozing onto my fingers.

  “So what do you want to do this weekend?” There is a nonexistent pause that leaves no time for my input before he continues. “Let’s go down to the beach again tomorrow—a bunch of guys want to play volleyball.” Sean wolfs down the rest of his burger and licks his fingers. “You could be our cheerleader.” He runs his hand along my thigh.

  “I can’t.” I never thought I’d look forward to doing a wedding. But spending the day making sure “the guys” have ice-cold Coronas on hand isn’t the fun day at the beach I once thought it would be. “I have a wedding tomorrow, remember?”

  He gives me this puppy-dog look with his big brown eyes while polishing off some fries. I snatch a few from his basket and can’t help but laugh at his cute face. “I could come afterward? We’ll meet for drinks at that bar by the courts?”