A Total Waste of Makeup

by Gruenenfelder, Kim

  I am starting to feel cold, but then Dawn opens the door to the women’s locker room, and a whoosh of moist heat envelopes me.

  The large locker room is painted in a soothing tone of beige. We walk to the locker area and find our lockers. I open number 46. Inside is a beige robe and plastic slippers.

  “The steam room is right there,” Dawn says, pointing behind us. “Sauna’s next to that.”

  We both take off our clothes and put on our robes.

  I feel weird being here. I’m not sure why. Maybe it’s being naked in front of all these women with perfect bodies. I feel like I should have a swimsuit on or something.

  And there are “assistants” all over the place: girls who are cleaning up, handing patrons towels, stuff like that. I’m an assistant. I feel like a fraud letting these girls wait on me.

  “The Jacuzzi’s over there,” Dawn says, pointing. “I say that’s where we start.”

  We head over to the Jacuzzi area, which has two Jacuzzis surrounded by beige cement urns filled with washcloths in ice, and dry beige towels. The walls are painted to look…I don’t know, Greek, maybe? Paintings of cracks and urns. Maybe Italian.

  It would help if I had ever been to Greece or Italy.

  Dawn puts her robe on a hook, so I follow suit. One of the Jacuzzis has two women already lounging in it, so we jump into the other one.

  I sink into the Jacuzzi, lean my head back onto a folded towel, and try to relax. After a minute or so, I have to say, I’m starting to feel better.

  “So,” I say to Dawn as I sink farther into the water to let the bubbles jet against my neck. “Did you know Drew’s parents were coming to the party tonight?”

  Dawn’s eyes are closed as she talks. “Yeah. He called me this morning.”

  “You okay with that?” I ask.

  She shrugs and opens her eyes. “I don’t like meeting parents. Actually, I’m okay with it once they get to know me. But I hate that first moment of ‘Oh my God, she’s black.’ They never say anything, so it’s just this look of shock followed by not bringing it up for ages.’”

  I roll my eyes. “They’re not going to think that,” I insist. I’ve heard this argument from Dawn a thousand times, and I think it’s ridiculous.

  “Yes, they are,” Dawn assures me. “But that’s okay. Most people get past it fairly quickly.”

  I want to say more, but she closes her eyes again, and I know the subject is closed.

  One of the women in the other Jacuzzi yells Ssshhh, so we decide to be quiet for a while.

  Which gives me some time to obsess about Jordan.

  I checked my e-mail from Drew’s house this morning, and he hadn’t sent anything else since last night. Nor had he received my apology e-mail yet.

  Rats! I could be on the beach with him today, and instead…

  “Grab me a washcloth, will you?” Dawn says.

  I take a washcloth from the ice urn, hand one to her, take another for myself, and put it on my forehead. Aaaaahhhhh…This is pretty relaxing.

  Maybe I could get used to this.

  We spend the next forty-five minutes in and out of the Jacuzzi, and frankly I could have gone home happy just with that.

  But then our official spa day begins. We go into a room with a large bathtub on each side. I get into the tub on the left, and Dawn the tub on the right, as two women run the water for us.

  My woman asks if the temperature’s good. I say yes, and she smiles, and pours some sort of mud mix (I don’t know what they call it) into my tub. She swirls it around in the tub, and I get in.

  Once again, I feel weird. I’m really not comfortable with people waiting on me. But I do like my bath; it’s warm and smells heavenly.

  The women leave, and dim the lights. I close my eyes, relax, and sink farther into the tub.

  “Bet you never thought you’d be taking a bath with me,” jokes Dawn.

  I laugh. “Yeah, well, you’ve met my parents, so I guess we’ve moved to the next level.”

  Dawn giggles a little. “You’ve met them. Are Drew’s parents as nutty as yours?”

  “I’d like to think no parents are as nutty as mine. You know, you could see this as quid pro quo—you meet his parents, he’s got to meet yours.”

  “Yeah,” Dawn says dubiously, “that would work if I had told them about us.”

  “You haven’t told your parents about Drew?!” I say, maybe a little too loudly.

  “Ssshhhh,” Dawn says, lowering her voice. “We don’t want to be shushed again.”

  “But why not?” I ask.

  “Because we’ve only been dating a week?” Dawn says in a sarcastic “answering in the form of a question” tone.

  “Yeah, but…” I grasp for something else to say. “I don’t know. I just thought you guys were really clicking.”

  “Oh, we are,” Dawn says, closing her eyes and relaxing her neck against a bath pillow. “But, you know, I’m not sure where this is going. And, until I do know, I don’t want it around my old neighborhood that I’m dating a movie star.”

  “I guess…,” I say, wondering why that would be such a bad thing.

  We’re both silent for a few minutes, just enjoying our warm baths. Actually, that’s not true. I’m not enjoying the bath right now. I’m worried that if Dawn’s not telling anyone about Drew, she’s not serious about him, and he’s going to get hurt. I know Dawn, and I love her more than anything. But she can sometimes go through men faster than I go through bottles of shampoo.

  Or donuts.

  Well, okay, nobody goes through men as fast I go through donuts, but shampoo. Definitely shampoo.

  I finally decide to broach the subject again. “But you do like him, right?”

  “Hmm?” Dawn says, opening her eyes again. I think I woke her up. “Yeah, I like him a lot. He’s a good person. And really sweet, and adorably cute. It’s just, you know, there are issues.”

  I shouldn’t ask. I should just let it go. It’s none of my damn business. “What kind of issues?”

  “Hey, come on, every time I’ve ever seen Drew, there are women throwing themselves at him. Who needs that kind of aggravation? Besides, he’s your boss.”

  “Yeah, but…” I can’t think of a comeback. “I mean, I understand, it is a pain that women are always all over him. But, you know, you can’t really blame him for what they’re doing. And, as for him being my boss…I mean, you guys are already an item, right? So, you know, that train has left the station.”

  Dawn gives me this look like, Yeah, I guess you’re right. But I know she doesn’t completely believe me.

  I decide to let it drop, and relax in my tub to obsess over Jordan.

  At five minutes before noon, the two of us head to the “quiet room” and I sit in a big leather chair and pick up a woman’s magazine while I wait for my massage.

  I look at the cover, where a beautiful twenty-something has had her teeth whitened via computer, her body stretched via computer, and the flyaways in her hair airbrushed away.

  I think even I would look good if you ran me through a computer.

  Anyway, on the cover is an article that tells me, “Yes! You can finally change your body!” which is diagonal from the article stating, “Sorry supermodels—men on why they love us as is.”

  I put down the magazine, shut my eyes, and try not to obsess over Jordan.

  “Charlize,” a woman says from the doorway, and I can tell everyone’s looking around for Charlize Theron. Nope—just me. I get up in my robe and follow the woman through a hallway.

  An older, tiny Asian gentleman says, “Charlize?” and I am already dreading saying I had no preference between a man or a woman therapist. I should have said, “I don’t care if it’s a man or a woman—but not a Yoda.”

  The gentleman brings me to a room with lilting Asian music like you sometimes hear in yoga class. (Yes, I’ve been to a yoga class. Once.) He asks me to disrobe, lie on the massage table, and put the sheet over me. Then he leaves.

  I t
hrow off my robe and climb under the sheet. The man comes back in, and begins my massage.

  Ouch! It hurts like hell. But it’s a good “ouch,” and after my last few days of no sleep, I fall asleep immediately.

  He wakes me at some point and asks me to turn over, under the sheet. I do, and he begins rubbing the tops of my legs.

  Aaaahhhh…And, within a minute, I’m out cold again.

  The masseur wakes me again to tell me the massage is over. As far as I can tell, my massage lasted three minutes, and I slept the rest of the time. But I must say, I feel so much better. I feel energized—ready to take on the world.

  Well, ready to take on Jordan, anyway.

  The man leaves for a moment to let me put my robe back on in privacy. Then he comes back and leads me back to the quiet room, where I am to wait for my next session—something called an Emilee’s Intrigue.

  I don’t see Dawn, so I get back into my chair, feeling beyond wonderful, and pick up another woman’s magazine. There’s an article called “Orgasm Do’s and Don’ts: Make Him Go Wild For You.”

  I just can’t motivate myself to read it. I’m so relaxed right now, it seems like too much work.

  A middle-aged woman with a British accent calls my name, and it’s off to my Emilee’s Intrigue.

  Once again, the therapist leaves the room to allow me to disrobe in privacy. Only this time, I get on my tummy and don’t bother to pull the sheet up.

  She comes back in and, in her British accent, cheerfully asks, “Have you had an Emilee’s Intrigue before?”

  “No,” I admit. “Actually, until today, I had never even been to a spa.”

  “It’s pretty fantastic, isn’t it?” she says. “I gave my mum a spa day as a gift recently. She thought it was silly at first, but ended up loving it. Now, what I’m going to do is give you a massage, but I’m going to combine it with heated rocks placed on pressure points around your body….”

  “Oh, I already read about it in your menu,” I say. “It sounds great.”

  I get yet another massage, only this time there is heat involved, and man, I’m feeling so wonderful.

  I’ll admit, when we moved on to putting eucalyptus leaves all over me, I felt silly. But then the steam from the hot towels hit, my sinuses cleared up immediately, and when she started massaging my scalp, I fell asleep again.

  Aaaaahhhhhhhhhh…

  A little over an hour later, I went back to the locker room, where I had forty-five minutes to wait for my next session, the “Hunter’s Retreat.”

  I don’t remember having felt this relaxed and happy in my whole life. I’m telling you, my mother could be here with me, and I’d still be relaxed.

  Okay, maybe not. I mean, they don’t do miracles.

  I decide to slip into the steam room, which also smells like eucalyptus—I think. Well, it smells good, anyway.

  I lay a towel down on the wooden bench, and lie down on top of it.

  Dawn walks in about a minute later and lies down on the bench across from me. Neither of us say a word. All is peaceful in the universe.

  Until a minute later, when a woman in a towel swings open the door and yells, “Men are assholes!”

  I look over at Kate as she storms in. “How did you know we were in here?”

  “I didn’t. I’ve been walking from room to room, making that statement,” Kate says, taking her towel off and laying it on a free wooden bench. “And not one woman disagreed with me. As a matter of fact, several women told me if I couldn’t find you guys, I was welcome to join them and commiserate.”

  Dawn squints to see Kate through the steam. “Did you make it through your show okay?”

  Kate lies down on the towel. “I did better than okay. I opened my show with a new political topic: Male politicians: How are these fuckwits still in power? You should have seen the boards lighting up with callers.”

  “Won’t you get into trouble with the FCC for saying fuckwit?” I ask.

  “No,” Kate assures me. “I bleeped myself so it came out ‘beep’ wit. But I notice none of the women needed a cue card.”

  Dawn nods. “I take it the Mike conversation did not go well.”

  “Oh, not only did he spend the entire week not calling me, and avoiding me in the halls at work, but when I finally went to see him in his office today, he actually tried to hide under his desk.”

  “Final verdict?” I ask.

  Kate lowers her voice to sound like a man, “Hey, we had some laughs. Let’s not make it into a big thing.”

  “Sorry,” I say.

  “What makes it worse is, while I’m out thinking about that asshole, a perfectly nice guy is calling me every day, trying to convince me to marry him.” She sighs. “I’m telling you, I have sworn off men. That’s it. From now on, I’m just going to focus on my friends and my career.”

  Famous last words.

  The three of us spend the next half hour in a three-way debate about why anyone dates. Although, I guess it’s not really a debate if everyone is “con.”

  Then we head to the quiet room, where I pick up a financial magazine. “Are you ready for retirement?” it asks me.

  I don’t want to stress myself out, so I put the magazine back down.

  Ignorance isn’t really bliss. But some days, it’s just easier.

  A girl calls me for my Hunter’s Retreat.

  I go back down the hallway with a new therapist named Patricia, who leads me to one of the “wet rooms,” which sounds a lot raunchier than it actually is.

  I walk into the wet room, which is a large, white, tiled room that looks like a giant shower, except there are bouquets of flowers everywhere.

  I hang my robe, slide onto a big waterproof massage table, and prepare to be exfoliated.

  The huge showerhead turns on above me, and the water is perfect. As the shower cascades down on me, I become even more relaxed, if that’s possible.

  “Is this your first trip to the spa?” Patricia asks as she scrubs some sort of granular stuff on my back.

  “Yes,” I say, hardly able to breathe as she scrubs me down. We don’t say anything more. The whole thing is so relaxing, and everything smells so good, I think I fall asleep for a few moments.

  Patricia has me turn over, and we do the whole thing again.

  Patricia finishes scrubbing, then rinses me. Next she cleans me with—I’m not sure what. It feels kind of funny, like cotton balls in baby oil. “What are you using now?” I ask.

  “Wheat stalks. Soaked in essential oils,” Patricia tells me. As relaxed as I am, I can’t help but wonder who the first person was to be standing in the middle of a wheat field thinking to himself, “You know, we could soak these in lavender oil and sell them in New York City and Los Angeles. There’s gold in these here amber fields!”

  But the stalks smell good, and as I am being cleansed, I go back to thinking about Jordan.

  I’m wondering what he would think of a place like this. Would he make fun of it? Most men do. Then again, I did until earlier today. Does he even like baths? Or is he more of a shower guy?

  Damn it! I haven’t even kissed him yet, and I’m in the middle of this luxurious and decadent experience, wondering what someone else would think of it. What’s wrong with me?

  As I force myself to put Jordan out of my mind, I am rinsed again. Then Patricia asks me to dry off. I do. In the final part of the treatment, she massages oil all over me. It sounds weird, but nothing could be more soothing. I am ready to sleep for twelve hours.

  When I emerge from the wet room, I head back to the ladies’ locker room. I ask a spa attendant if they have any coffee. Relaxed is one thing—but I’m so sleepy I could pass out for a fourth time. She tells me that they only have herbal tea and water with cucumbers in it. Cucumbers?

  No matter. Back in the ladies’ locker room, I grab a towel and head for the steam room again.

  When I get in, I can’t see a thing. “Dawn,” I try to whisper.

  “Goddess in the corner,” she whispe
rs back jokingly. The wall of steam begins to clear, and I see we’re the only two in here. I put a towel down, and lie down on the bench below her.

  “How are you feeling?” she asks.

  “So good, I’d like to see about moving in here.”

  I can hear the smile in her voice. “I knew you’d like it. You make fun of me, but I know you pretty well.”

  “Oka-ay…,” I admit. “You were right.”

  “It’s just like that time in college when you said you didn’t like chocolate fudge Pop-Tarts.”

  “Oh, was I ever that young?” I ask nostalgically. “Where’s Kate?”

  “She’s at the front desk, trying to schedule a facial,” Dawn says. “So give me the latest dish on Jordan before she gets back and chastises you for ever allowing someone with a Y chromosome to enter your thoughts.”

  “Okay, but promise not to tell Drew,” I say.

  “Why would I tell Drew?”

  “You just have to promise. He doesn’t fall under the mate rule yet.”

  The “mate rule” is a rule that we made up in college that basically states that when you tell someone a secret, they are absolutely, positively not allowed to tell anyone other than their mate. The theory is that (1) you’re supposed to tell your mate everything, and (2) he’s a guy, so he won’t care most of the time anyway.

  But this way, you do get to spill the secret to one person. And, let’s face it, most of the time we told our boyfriends anyway, so there was no point in feeling guilty about it.

  “Once I meet his parents, does he count as a mate?” Dawn asks.

  “No!” I say vehemently. “Although maybe once he meets your parents.”

  “You know full well that could take years,” Dawn says, crossing her arms in frustration.

  “That’s what I’m counting on,” I say. “Which is why this is a real secret. No telling Drew.”

  “Okay, fine.”

  I let her in on every detail of the online conversation, followed by the instant message conversation from the week before, and how Drew interrupted both times.

  Dawn got the gist of my dilemma, and we talked for so long, we ended up walking over to get the pedicures together, babbling the whole time about what to do about Jordan. Then we talked through the pedicures, only taking a break to discuss what shade of red polish I should choose to match the red wraparound blouse I was going to wear tonight. (Guess who chose the red polish? Well, in my defense, sometimes Dawn does know what’s best for me.)