About Face

by Carole Howard

  While Ruth went outside the brightly-lit seating area to turn on the video cameras, the three who remained looked at each other. Sarah said, “Who wants to start?”

  Charlie leaned forward as if she were serving up the ball in a hotly-contested tennis match. As a weaver whose work commanded high prices, she dressed as the high-class artist she was. “I’ll start.” As she spoke, she nodded, and her dangling silver earrings shimmered and caught the light, an effect that looked particularly good with the snowy whiteness of her hair.

  “I wash and tone my face and then use moisturizer. I use any old product, usually the drugstore kind. I do it in the morning. I know you’re supposed to do it at night, too. Before you go to sleep. But I’m usually too tired.”

  She looked around from one woman to the next as she spoke. At first, she glanced at the camera occasionally, but by the time she finished what she had to say, she’d forgotten about it completely.

  “Makeup’s another story. I draw the line at makeup. Cleanliness is good. It’s healthful, right? But it seems like makeup is a way of saying you don’t like how you look so you want to try to look different. Want to hide yourself. Know what I mean? It’s a kind of self-hate. It’s very anti-feminist. I just don’t know if I could do it.” She raised her eyebrows and brought both palms up. “Hey, I went to Berkeley in the sixties and I can’t help myself. It’s marked me for life. But if I thought it would really work….”

  Even though Charlie’s gaze eventually settled on her, Ruth avoided it. She’d learned long ago, when driving Josh and his friends in her van, that keeping quiet allowed others to forget about her and talk as if she weren’t there. She was sure if she stayed invisible for awhile tonight, she’d get good material to use in the meeting she’d set up with Jeremy for the following Tuesday. Maybe even a few of his beloved numbers.

  “I don’t agree,” Blanche said. “It’s not about self-hate. Any more than choosing flattering clothing is about self-hate. Actually, choosing clothes that make you look fat is more like self-hate. In my opinion. Makeup is just like that. It’s about looking your best.”

  Meanwhile, Jane had arrived, amid chants of “Run, Jane run. Sit, Jane, sit. Have cheese, Jane, have cheese.” She settled herself on the rocking chair and took some cracker and cheese snacks while they filled her in on the topic.

  Blanche continued, though she first made sure the clasp of her necklace was in the center of the back of her neck.

  “I for one like to present myself in a good light. And it’s not just because I want other people to think I look good, but also because it helps me feel good. So, to answer your question, Ruth, I use cleanser and toner and moisturizer, too. But I also use foundation and blush and mascara. Oh, and lipstick, too, of course.”

  “Of course’? What do you mean, ‘lipstick of course,’” Sarah boomed. “I don’t wear lipstick, or any make-up. Because that’s just buying into a false image of female beauty. And the main effect is to make most of us feel terrible about ourselves. Because, really, very few of us measure up to the media image.”

  The founder of the group, Sarah was also the oldest and least ambivalent about her opinions. “I’ve worked with a few anorexic girls and let me tell you what the ideal of female beauty has done for them. They just want to present themselves in a positive light, too, you know.”

  “It’s not always—” Jane was pointing her index finger at Sarah, looking every inch the schoolteacher.

  “Let me finish. I was also going to say that it’s also too much trouble to do all that stuff. Especially since it doesn’t do any good anyway.”

  “What if it did?” Blanche looked over her red glasses with an impish half-smile.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Suppose, just for the moment, that all the goo did what it says it does—sorry Ruth, I don’t mean to imply it doesn’t, it’s just a way to frame the question for Ms. Sarah the supremely sincere and authentic. Suppose it did make you beautiful and young-looking. Then would you go to all the trouble?”

  “Troublemaker.” Sarah put her two hands out, palms up, like a balance scale and alternated lowering one, then the other. “Politics. Vanity. Politics. Vanity. I have to think about that one.” Her serious face transformed itself, with a girlish grin surrounded by wrinkles and listless gray-brown hair.

  “A whole new side of Sarah,” Blanche said. “Interesting, very interesting.”

  “You know,” Jane said as she rocked back and forth, “I think it’s very hard line to draw between self-acceptance and self-help. You know?” If Sarah was the conscience and the sage, the stern mother-figure of the group, Jane was the understanding one, the loving aunt you’d go to when you had to talk to someone about the kids in school who were picking on you. Her round face, short curly hair, and front-tooth-gap gave her an androgynous air, which contributed to the role. So did her voice, soft except when provoked. She was the teacher they all wished they’d had.

  “Like when you look at yourself in the morning when you’re getting ready for work. Come on, now, is there anyone here who wants to pretend that they look in the mirror and they don’t see something they’d like to change?”

  Silence.

  “Right. See? That’s what I mean.”

  “I’m pretty happy with the way I look,” Blanche said. “Except for the belly, I guess.”

  Sarah said, “You’re belly’s just fine, Blanche.”

  Jane shot back, “I thought we were talking about how we feel.”

  “You’re right. Sorry,” Sarah said.

  “Maybe my belly’s okay and maybe it’s not, but I feel like I wish I could just slice that belly away.”

  “It’s like what Sarah said, sort of,” Blanche continued, pantomiming a balance scale as Sarah had done. “Vanity. Denial. Vanity. Denial. On the one hand, I feel like it’s unrealistic to want to look twenty-five when I’m fifty-five, and I should just accept myself and not do that whole rejection thing. I tell myself I should be more spiritual than that.”

  Baritone Sarah jumped at her opening. “That’s just what I’m talking—”

  “Don’t validate my spiritual side until you hear about the other hand, which is that I feel like I should be going to the gym and working out.”

  “And while we’re on the subject of the other hand, and the sound it makes when it’s clapping,” Charlie looked pleased with her little turn of phrase, “I hate the way my face and especially my neck, are turning into corduroy. I wish I could iron them.”

  “You think wrinkles are bad?” Jane asked. “I’ll tell you what’s really bad. Folds. When you get folds like I’m starting to get—” she stretched out the skin on either side of her mouth—”then you’ll wish you had wrinkles again.”

  “Except maybe for those little ones around your mouth,” Charlie said, “that make your pucker look like an asshole.”

  After a quick high-five from Jane, she added, “The way I see it, there are saggers and there are prunes. Jane may be a sagger, but I’m more of a prune. But I have sagger tendencies, too. Like how my face kind of seems to melt off my skull when I lie on my side or, god forbid, face down. Right? Am I right? Know what I mean?” She nodded and widened her eyes, looking for universal agreement, which she got.

  “It’s gotten to the point where I never want to be on top because I don’t want Gary to see how bizarre it looks when the skin on my face stretches down. In the olden days, I wanted to be on top so my boobs would look bigger, right? I guess there must have been a middle period when everything was just the right size and stayed where it belonged. But I don’t remember it. Because, as you know, I can’t retain anything.”

  “Except water,” came the chorus.

  Everyone took some food and a few refilled their glasses. Jane continued, “Everyone has some vanity. Even the little kids in my class. You should see the pictures they draw of themselves.”

  “It’s just a question of drawing the line,” Charlie said. “Some people draw it at flattering clothes. Some
people draw it at makeup. Others think the line comes just beyond plastic surgery but before cryogenics.”

  “But it’s all connected to our limitless ability to feel bad about ourselves,” Sarah said.

  “Wait a second,” Blanche said. “Isn’t the topic something about products?”

  “Good girl,” Charlie said. “Someone can remember the topic. Are you sure you’re old enough to be in this group?”

  All eyes turned to Ruth. Sarah spoke for the group. “So what’s up? Why’d you want to know all this?”

  “Remember, at the session when we talked about our work, I said I’ve always been ambivalent about working at Mimosa?” Ruth noticed her hands were wet and her breath was reluctant. She was going public for the first time—David didn’t count—about an idea she’d been nurturing like garden peas in April. And these women were her target market, too. What would they say? And what would they think of her? Sure, they offered relatively unconditional acceptance, but still she wondered what they’d think.

  “Yeah, I remember,” Jane said. “Ambivalent about a good job with good money. Talk about crazy.”

  Ruth nodded. “That’s me. But one of the reasons is exactly what Sarah said before, because my life’s career is in an industry that can make women feel bad about themselves. And I’m part of it. So I was thinking about us, you know, us middle-aged women who are so beautiful on the inside and also, really, beautiful on the outside, too, just not like Isabella Rosselini.”

  As she explained her idea for the new product line, she warmed to the subject and had no idea if she’d been speaking for five minutes or an hour. She poured herself a glass of wine and forced herself not to look at her watch. “So, I hope I haven’t gone on too long, but I’d really like to know what you think. If there were such a product line for mature women, would you be interested? And do you think your friends would? Tell me true. Don’t spare my—”

  “I like it,” Blanche said. “I know I’m never gonna look like Naomi Campbell or Angela Bassett, so I like the idea of being appreciated. ‘Cause that’s what it is, it’s being appreciated instead of discarded. Right? Like years and years ago when they started having ads that actually showed … horrors!…black people in them. Isn’t that what we’ve been talking about? Being included. Being visible. Being accepted. It’s kind of revolutionary, so who knows what the corporate movers and shakers might think. But me, an unmover and unshaker, I like it.”

  “What I’m wondering, though” Sarah said, only slightly louder than the general hubbub, but loud enough for everyone to stop talking, “is about the products you’re talking about. What are they? Are they really different from the rest of the stuff out there? Or is this just a scheme for some new advertising campaign to try to lure us holdouts? ‘Cause, to me, it sounds like a way to fool the few of us who don’t use makeup into finally buying some. And I wouldn’t have anything to do with it. It’s still about what you look like, not who you are, it’s still about covering something up instead of letting something show. Isn’t it?”

  “Funny,” Blanche said, “I think you could look at what you just said in exactly the opposite way. It’s only about changing your skin, not about trying to change who you really are. So maybe you don’t need to be so … so defensive or … or so judgmental about it.”

  “Nice try,” Sarah said. “I don’t buy it. And I wouldn’t buy this stuff.”

  “Well anyway, I figure there are product lines for Asian women and African-American women, so why not older women. Besides, we’re here to try to help Ruth, aren’t we?” Blanche looked around.

  “Ladies, ladies, Ruth knows I love her,” Sarah said. She looked at Ruth, who nodded. “But she wants to know what we think. And now she knows what I think.”

  “And I’m with Blanche,” Charlie said. “I think it’s a great idea. Just don’t forget something for the neck, okay?”

  “Me too, I like it a lot. I think it’s safely on my side of the line between self-hate and a legitimate desire to present your best face. And there’s your answer, Ruth.” Jane’s summing-up voice and discrete look at her watch announced that, for her at least, it was time to go home. “One of us isn’t sold, three are waiting for free samples.”

  Everyone helped carry dishes and glasses into the kitchen and the meeting ended the way it had begun, like a film played in reverse. They hugged, they chatted, they sent regards to husbands and children.

  Three to one, thought Ruth. Not statistically significant, to be sure, but as a testing-of-the-waters, it’s not bad at all. Even Jeremy would like those numbers. I think.

  CHAPTER 8

  Some Things Never Change

  THE TRIP FROM RUTH AND David’s house in Northern New Jersey to Vivian and Carlos’s apartment in Brooklyn crossed two rivers, three decades, and a state of mind. Ruth asked David to take the Parkway, slightly longer than the Interstate but more beautiful. Usually, his approach to life was the scenic route while hers was the Interstate, but this trip was different. She needed whatever balance the scenic route could provide. Also, it would take longer.

  The brilliant yellow forsythia that crowded the northern end of the road’s central island provided some good cheer right off the bat. As they traveled south, the bushy forsythia gave way to the stalwart daffodils, then the virtuoso fruit tree and dogwood displays, and finally some early lilacs. Seeing the mauve blooms on the way south meant she’d soon see them in her yard, an annual miracle.

  She adored the lilacs, perhaps because of their short season and the fleeting allure of their scent. She always wanted more of the aroma than she could hold onto. Her other favorite was the daffodil, paradoxically, for the opposite reason: they were so easy, coming up every year with no effort, more of them than the year before. They were valiant, they were loyal. People fussed too much over their roses, over-valuing every little bloom, while daffodils didn’t get their fair share of esteem because of their dependability. When she felt neglected, she liked to think of herself as a daffodil. Unlike her sister Marge, the prodigal, whose every rare smile was cherished.

  Vivian, too, was more like a rose—unpredictable, hard to please, more independent, therefore prized. Before she knew it, she was reliving the fight at the Chinese restaurant, this time with the brilliant comebacks she’d composed afterwards.

  “Oh, perfect. This is exactly what you do. You fall in love with someone, they’re your best friend, then you drop them when you fall for someone else. You’re still trying to reject your parents before they have a chance to reject you. Grow up.”

  Or, “I guess you just can’t stand someone who’s different from you. It’s too threatening to your neurotic need to be right all the time. Get used to it, you’re not right all the time.”

  It was easy now to look back and see the retorts, not so brilliant after all, for what they were, attempts to return pain. But it was still shocking that Vivian had been so willing to discard her.

  Besides all the complexities of the friendship with Vivian, there was Carlos to be nervous about. He used to be so holier-than-thou. Was it youthful idealism? Could he have calmed down by now? Or was it in his DNA?

  And she was embarrassed about having become such a straight arrow, “one of them,” as they used to say in the wisdom of their 1960’s hippie-dom. At least her blue denim pants and white cotton sweater didn’t look too suburban. Or did they? Anyway, here she was, Ms. Suburban Corporate Executive, while Vivian and Carlos were still making the world a better place.

  “Are you okay?” David asked after awhile.

  “Mmmm, I guess so.”

  He looked over at her. “Meaning… ?”

  “Just wondering again about what will happen today. Wondering about what Vivian’s like. And Carlos too.” She kept her gaze straight ahead.

  “It’ll be fine.”

  She explained, with only a hint of a whine, that she kept seeing herself through their eyes and felt self-conscious. They’d stayed so pure, with their ideals on the outside where everyone could s
ee them, whereas hers, while they were still there, were covered up. “I’m afraid I’m going to feel like I need to prove myself.”

  “You’re assuming we’ve changed and they haven’t. And it also assumes they’ll look down on us suburbanites.”

  She turned to face him. “Right. But I’m assuming it because it’s true. We have changed. And you should have seen Vivian in the women’s room that night. She was—”

  “You’re putting them in a category, you’re prejudging them. Just what you’re afraid they’ll be doing to us.”

  “But—”

  “Let’s not assume anything, just see what we see.” He rolled down his window, sniffed, and said, “Doesn’t that air smell great?”

  She returned her body to its forward position and her gaze to the speeding lilacs by the side of the road.

  “I have to chew on that one. But you’re not supposed to be able to reason with your emotions, you know. That’s why they’re called emotions.”

  “Like you said, I’m just amazing.” He beamed.

  Ruth realized David thought she’d complimented him, but the truth was that she suspected David’s emotions weren’t as “real” as hers. How could they be, if they could be corralled so easily? Before she knew it, she was imagining a vigorous “My Emotions are Bigger Than Yours” debate. Maybe a TV game show. She giggled.

  “What?” David asked.

  “Oh, nothing,” she said. “Just thinking about someone at work.”

  They crossed the first bridge, the mighty George Washington. Whoever dreamed up suspension bridges sure didn’t have Jeremy for a boss, she thought. What an idea, hanging the roadbed from cables running between two towers instead of stretching it from one side to the other. It reminded her of a giant mother with open arms supporting everyone’s troubles.

  As they continued down the East Side of Manhattan, Ruth watched the woman in the car to their right. She was about Ruth’s age, with long hoop earrings that bobbed as she shook her head, which she did constantly. Ruth realized the head-bobbing was accompanying the kind of lusty singing an empty car invites. And then she saw the woman was singing along to the same music she and David were listening to on the radio, a station that played rock and roll from the sixties and seventies. Ruth enjoyed how she remembered every word of every song, even those she hadn’t heard for years. She started singing, too, hoping the woman would look over. When she did, they had a good laugh as they sang together, neither one able to hear the other. The virtual duet lifted Ruth’s spirits and kept them elevated the rest of the way, over the Brooklyn Bridge, to Brooklyn Heights, and into a lucky parking spot practically in front of Vivian’s apartment.