by Katia Rose
“Can I have a word please?” I ask.
He looks up at my foot-tapping, hands-on-hips, sassy-Portuguese-woman-with-a-problem pose and offers to speak in the hall.
“Lingerie?” I burst out, as soon as the door is closed behind us. “With Aaron Penn?”
A smile flashes across his face, but fades when I cock my head to the side and refuse to drop my angry glare.
“Christina, I realize the situation might be challenging, but that’s the—”
“Challenging?” I blurt out. “This could cost me my grade, Gary. He has the maturity level of a thirteen year-old boy and you give us lingerie. I mean, I’d even take pierogies over this.”
“Christina.” Gary waits a moment to see if I’ll interrupt again, and then continues when I stay silent, my foot still tapping against the floor. “In the business world, you may not always be working with people you get along with. In fact, I can guarantee that you won’t. Cooperation will always be one of the biggest challenges this industry has to offer. You’re one of my top students, though, and I know you have the skills to get through this.”
I take in a breath, trying to get myself under control. “I know freaking out at you like this isn’t exactly professional, and normally I’d try to handle things better, but this showcase means a lot to me.”
I pause, trying to come up with a way to make him understand.
“It’s everything I want,” I continue. “This is who I want to be, and it’s just...I mean, level with me Gary. It’s lingerie.”
I throw up my hands in exasperation, but the tension breaks a bit and I let out a small smile at how ridiculous this day has just become. Gary grins in return.
“If it really becomes a problem,” he tells me, “you can always come and speak to me. I expect my students to disagree with each other, but I also expect them to show respect. I’ll make sure Aaron knows that.”
“Thanks,” I reply.
We turn towards the door, and Gary adds one more comment before we head back inside. “And Christina, just remember, Aaron is one of my top students, too. You’ve both got the skills to do this well. You just have to make it work together.”
I nod as I step into the buzzing classroom and look over at Aaron’s desk. His smirk slides back into place when he sees me and he gives a little wave, pulling out the chair beside him and making a sweeping gesture for me to sit down.
I square my shoulders and cross the room, pulling the chair several inches away from him before taking a seat.
“So what should be our star product?” he asks. “The sassy thong or the sizzling merry widow?”
I throw some shade that is both sassy and sizzling before opening up my computer. I have a feeling that ‘making it work together’ is going to take more patience than I’ve got.
2
Highway to Hell
I shoot an email off to the client for my latest freelance project and push my chair back from my desk, rubbing at my eyes. It’s only half past seven, and I’ve already spent an hour trying to come up with a unique Etsy marketing campaign for handmade soap.
Handmade soap. On Etsy.
It’s probably one of the most oversaturated markets in the world; unique angles are few and far between.
I close down the half dozen tabs I have open on my laptop and head to the kitchen, pouring myself a coffee and trying to ignore the sounds of my roommate, Sofia, and her boyfriend getting their morning glory on.
My phone buzzes just as I’m about to pop some bread in the toaster and I look down to see a reminder about the video call I have scheduled with my dad in a minute. My parents retired once I finished my undergrad and now spend half the year in Portugal. My dad insists on calling me at least once a week and gets up at all hours to accommodate my schedule.
I head into our tiny living room and take a seat on the futon as a cry of “Tão bom!” accompanies an apartment-shaking slam against Sofia’s bedroom wall. She’s Portuguese as well, and keeps up the ‘passionate lover’ stereotype enough for the both of us.
I decide to move back into the kitchen before pressing the call button and wait for my dad to pick up.
“Olá, amorzinho!”
An image of Dad’s ear appears on the screen of my phone, and I shake my head while laughing.
“Papai,” I tell him, “we’re doing a video call. Put the camera in front of your face.”
Some shuffling occurs, and then a close up of two warm brown eyes and some greying eyebrows replaces the picture of the ear.
“A little father back, Papai.”
The camera zooms out and there’s my dad, the tanned lines of his face twisting up into a smile that beams like a spotlight. He’s wearing one of his ever-present AC/DC shirts.
“Desculpe, minha filha. I forget these things.” He keeps smiling at me like I’m the sun breaking through the clouds on a rainy day. “So, my love, tudo bem?”
“Yes, everything’s good. I’m tired, but that’s nothing new.”
His face falls slightly. “You work so hard, my rock star. You must have some fun while you are still young.”
“I do have fun, Papai. I told you about my kickboxing.”
“Ah, yes!” He makes a fist with the hand that isn’t holding his phone and jabs it towards the camera. “My strong fighter girl! I’m TNT! I’m dynamite! I’m TNT! I’ll win the fight!”
I grew up listening to my dad sing AC/DC at the top of his lungs, but even after twenty-five years, hearing the words of Angus Young belted out in a heavy Portuguese accent always makes me laugh.
“Mostly I just hit punching bags,” I tell him.
“Still, you are my rock star,” he insists. “And how is your school, minha filha?”
“School is alright. We got our partners assigned for that big project I told you about, the one for the advertising fair. My partner is...Well, I don’t know how well working with him is going to go, to be honest. He is muito irritante and this project is just so important to me.”
“But this is why you know kickboxing: so you can take that idiota on the highway to hell!”
He starts jabbing his fist at the camera again, belting out the chorus of ‘Highway to Hell,’ and it doesn’t surprise me that we’re not even five minutes into our conversation and he’s already on his second reference to the band.
“It might come to that, Papai. It just might.”
I look up at the sound of a door opening and see Sofia emerge from her room, wearing only a men’s t-shirt and sporting some of the craziest sex hair I’ve ever seen.
“I should go now,” I tell my dad. “I have to head into school soon and I haven’t eaten breakfast yet.”
“Okay,” he replies. “Tchau, meu amorzinho, and don’t forget!”
I watch as he throws a few more punches towards the camera.
“I won’t, Papai. Tchau. Tell Mamãe I said hello.”
I end the call as Sofia glides into the kitchen and hops up onto the counter, sitting with her bare ass directly on the linoleum. I give her a look, but all she does is grab my coffee mug and drain the last few sips.
“Meu Deus, Christina. Your pai is so fucking cute.”
I snatch my mug back and drop it in the sink.
“You know there is an entire pot of coffee sitting right behind you,” I tell her.
She glances over her shoulder. “Oh, right. Sorry, Chrissy. I have just-been-fucked brain right now. Nicholas is some kind of sex god. I swear, the carahlo on that boy...” Throwing her head back, she closes her eyes and sighs. “He’s waiting in my room for us to go again. Are you leaving for school soon? Because he really wants to do me in the kitchen.”
“I’m practically out the door,” I announce, making a beeline for the hallway when I hear Sofia’s door open. I know Nicholas will probably be wearing even less clothes than she is, and that is one carahlo I have no interest in seeing.
“Just clean up after yourselves, please,” I call as I step out of the apartment. “I eat in there.”
I rush
down the stairs to the parking garage, knowing I’m already behind schedule. My phone buzzes again just as I turn the ignition on and give up a small prayer of thanks when the car actually starts. Glancing at the screen, I see my second reminder of the day:
Planning session with Aaron in thirty minutes.
“What do you mean you don’t think it should be about sex?”
I stare at Aaron across the cafeteria table, looking up from the half dozen sheets of paper we have strewn between us. Brainstorming notes are scribbled across all of them and most of the ideas have already been crossed out.
“I just think it would be more successful if we went with something less...obvious,” Aaron replies, leaning back in his seat and crossing his arms.
The motion makes his muscles strain against his sleeves and I try not to roll my eyes at the fact that even his muscles look douchey.
“There’s obvious, and then there’s the actual function of the product,” I reply. “You don’t see me walking around in body stockings as my everyday wear, do you?”
“No,” he answers, “but now that you mention it, I wouldn’t mind.”
I shoot daggers at him but the smirk doesn’t fall from his face.
“Right, right,” he concedes. “The rules.”
He lifts up the corner of one of the papers on the table, the only one whose contents haven’t been scratched out with frustrated pen strokes.
Rules for Aaron, reads the title, followed by a list:
No suggestive comments about lingerie
No suggestive comments in general
No distractions or procrastination
No personal inquiries
No more calling me Peaches
NO MORE CALLING ME PEACHES
“Are you going to add ‘No fun’ to this thing?” Aaron asks.
I raise an eyebrow at him and then pull the rules sheet towards me. ‘No fun’ gets listed as number seven. Aaron lets out a laugh and then instantly claps a hand over his mouth, his eyes going wide.
“Whoops,” he whispers from behind his hand. “I broke the ‘No fun’ rule already.”
I roll my eyes. “Don’t make me add ‘No mocking’ on there too. Anyways, we’re getting distracted which, as you can see, is also against the rules. So, you were talking about sex?”
I stare at him, tapping my pen against the table as I wait for his response, but instead of answering, he presses his lips together and I see his shoulders start to shake from the effort of holding back a laugh.
“What is so funny?” I snap.
“I know I’m not supposed to have fun, Christina, but the fun...It’s...” He grips the edge of the table, feigning alarm. “It’s taking over...I...I...”
Then he starts singing the chorus to ‘Let’s Talk About Sex’.
I look up to the ceiling and mutter the words of one of my mom’s Portuguese prayers.
“I’m sorry,” he says, noticing my reaction. “Am I being too irresistible for you? Are you praying for self-control?”
“Yes,” I respond, “for the self-control to avoid punching you in the face. It’s been almost forty-five minutes, Penn, and we’ve got nothing.”
He leans forward, the languor leaving his body as his expression turns all business.
“Okay, here’s my pitch,” he begins. “Lingerie isn’t about sex; it’s about being sexy. I know it sounds similar, but there’s a difference. Ninety percent of guys will tell you that if it was only about logistics, they’d rather have a girl waiting stark naked in their beds than in some strappy, cagey, lacy thing that makes vagina access difficult.”
I scoff at the term ‘vagina access’ but let him continue.
“What makes lingerie so appealing isn’t the lingerie itself. It’s the effort behind it, the desire to make an impression, to be confident, to say ‘I’m so hot my body justifies spending seventy dollars on a bra that doesn’t even cover my nipples.’ Women don’t wear these things to look good for guys. They wear them to feel good for themselves, and there is nothing more attractive than confidence.”
“So what are you getting at?” I ask.
“My opinion is that we focus on that; we focus on confidence, on the feeling lingerie creates in the women who wear it, not in the men they supposedly wear it for.”
I just stare at him, trying to figure out how Aaron Penn, the smarmy campus heartthrob, could have been hiding an inner feminist all this time.
He takes my silence as a sign of doubt. “It is a topical angle. How many times have you heard the phrase ‘real woman’ in advertising lately?”
I nod slowly. “That’s true, but I mean, can we really apply that to lingerie? It makes sense for, I don’t know, sporting goods and tampons, but lingerie still seems kind of objectifying.”
“So we change that,” urges Aaron. “Let me give you an example. What does your bra look like today?”
My eyebrows draw together. “Seriously, Penn? Was this all a ploy to get me to describe my underwear to you?”
“Indulge me.” The corner of his lip draws up and I glare even harder. “Come on, Dominguez. I’m trying to prove a point.”
I roll my eyes. “Well, if you want the details, it’s dark red, with lace over the cups, and a sheer back.”
Locking my gaze with his, I wait for him to give some kind of provocative response. I can practically see all the suggestive comebacks forming in his mind, but he holds them back.
“And you would consider that a nice bra? Is it one you like?”
“As a matter of fact it’s one of my favourites,” I answer in a clipped tone. “It’s very stylish, and I wear it when I want to feel—”
I cut myself off and my jaw drops open as the realization hits. Aaron watches my reaction with a smile, leaning back in his chair and giving me an I’m-right-and-you-know-it kind of shrug.
“Confident?” he suggests. “Powerful? In control? Or was picking that bra out just about sex?”
I don’t give him the satisfaction of letting him know it, but my brain has just been kicked into hyper drive. Dozens of ideas clamour for my attention, and I grab the nearest sheet of paper.
“Okay, Penn,” I admit, not lifting my eyes from the paper as I scribble down a few slogans, “you have a point. A pretty good point, for someone whose head is filled with so much ego they barely have room for a brain.”
“Hey, I’m proud of that ego. I work hard on it.”
“Meu Deus, you’re even egotistical about your ego.”
“Trying to seduce me with your Portuguese?”
I just tap my pen against the rules sheet in response.
After I’ve finished jotting down the slogans, I push my paper away and focus back on Aaron. “I don’t know how you got such a deep understanding of the way women feel about their underwear. It was probably just so you could find more ways to get them out of it, but I like the sound of this: a lingerie campaign that focuses on empowerment.”
“Are you going to admit you think I’m a genius, or are you just going to keep saying it with your eyes?”
I’m going to need dentures soon, with all the teeth grinding I do around this guy.
“I’ll be saying something very different with my fists any second now.”
“So violent, Dominguez,” he chides. “You should get that temper under control.”
He’s rescued from the pen I’m about to throw at his head when a bleach blonde bombshell walks by our table and stops beside Aaron. She sweeps her hair to the side and leans forward a bit to talk to him.
“Aaron, I told my friends about that tattoo you showed me in Communications class, but none of them believe me. Will you do me a big favour and come show them I’m not a liar?” She giggles a bit and then glances at me. “If you’re not busy, that is.”
I’m about to make a throat clearing noise and tell her we’re in the middle of something, when Aaron hops up out of his chair.
“I’m never too busy to defend a woman’s reputation,” he announces. “Take me t
o your friends.”
She leads him across the cafeteria, and I’m sure there must be steam rising off my body as frustration sets my blood boiling. I watch as they stop in front of a group of girls and Aaron pulls up the sleeve of his t-shirt, making all the girls gasp and let out high-pitched laughs.
He stays chatting with them for a few minutes, and every tick of the second hand on the cafeteria clock heats the anger up in me by another degree. By the time he trots back over, adjusting his stupid beanie and grinning to himself, I’m about ready to get up and start overturning tables.
“Excuse me Aaron Penn, but you are busy right now,” I spit out. “Rule number three: no distractions. That includes girls like Strawberries or Cherries or whatever fucking fruit it is you call her after.”
He’s still looking over at the table full of the blonde’s friends and doesn’t see the danger in the glare I have fixed on him right now.
“Oh that was not a cherries kind of girl,” he drawls. “That girl was all melons.”
I feel my jaw drop open and I slap both my palms onto the table. “Wait. You call me Peaches because of my BOOBS?”
His head snaps towards me at the increase in volume, and I watch as his eyes go wide when I stand up and tower over him.
“What the fuck is wrong with you?” I shout. “Do you realize how inappropriate and insulting that is? All I ask is for a little professionalism. In case you didn’t notice, we’re in the middle of a planning session for one of the most important projects in this entire program. That might not matter to you, but it sure as hell matters to me, and I expect you to treat this like the business meeting that it is. You wouldn’t go wasting a client or co-worker’s time by wandering off to flash your tattoos for random girls, so why is it okay to waste mine?”
I see his Adam’s apple bob as he gulps.
“I’m sorry,” he begins. “You’re right. That was really rude and immature of me.”
I put my hands on my hips. “Are you saying that because you’re scared of me or because you actually mean it?”
“I mean it. I’ll focus more. This is an important project. I do realize that. Also, I know you think I’m a douche, but I’m not bad enough to have a fruit-based rating system for boobs. It was a joke.”