Chapter Thirteen
Lily
The feedback coming in all over social media had been a mix of positive and negative so deliciously virulent that I decided to keep quiet for a day. Ignoring the trolls and even the death threats was easy, though a few of the more creative ones tempted me to offer my congratulations. Even more tempting was when a few of my fellow journalists chimed in. The men who were real pros had a way of baiting that was more subtle and that much more effective.
They started coming out with articles—though calling them “articles” gave them far too much credit—which started out taking a well-reasoned, conciliatory tone that was right on the line of deliberate condescension. Anyone who knew what they were doing knew they actually had both feet over the line, but they could parse their own words in self-defense the minute anyone might try to go after them. Every sentence was a trap, leading to a bigger trap, all wrapped around the juiciest trap they could devise. It would have been a lose, lose, lose for me to engage, but they were good, and I almost did.
One of the jackasses even had the balls to try, “Far be it from me to ever use the loaded, completely off-limits word ‘shrill’ to describe my colleague, both during her interview in the tunnel—at which I was present—and in her subsequent article, but I would appreciate it if someone with a sensible head on her shoulders would get me the most recent list of approved language to describe it when someone’s voice makes the whole room’s skin crawl and ears hurt. Even the cheerleaders were looking at her as if she’d scraped a blackboard with her fingernails.”
This drew the ire of one starlet who was either a damn good writer in her own right or had one hell of a publicity pro on retainer. Her short and sweet tweet said, “What kind of man hides behind ‘far be it from me to use’ the word he uses? Ditch the pen and run for office already, candy ass.”
He ‘liked,' retweeted, and linked her tweet on his blog, and his organization did the same in every location they had, including the accounts of their radio station, and his little article got a hundred thousand extra views in the first twenty minutes after her words started to spread.
That was fine. It all poured back to my article. I was going to make it right for Parker, and that’s another reason I didn’t engage. I did, however, do something during the day, after Parker left, that I couldn’t resist.
I had been doing some research over time on cheerleader pay and what those talented, highly trained ladies are expected to do, both to get and keep their jobs.
I had also done the exact same kind of painstaking research on the officials, the referees of professional football, all male. My article led to the obvious conclusion: pay these people more, men and women, give them benefits, treat them consistently in every game for every team, and bring some integrity to a sport that sorely needed it.
My bait was better than theirs. The men who had played their little game of exclusivity in that tunnel and all their compadres who had been taking potshots at me and my article, and chortling over how clever they were with their cute little formulations and toeing-the-line…I knew all of them were actually spluttering. Many of them were unable to resist doing it publicly, in their writing, so frustrated their attempts at logic came out like nothing but what was under the surface: basic, bred-in-the-bone sexism they’d been immersed in so long they couldn’t even recognize it. They were making idiots of themselves and the number of hits on my articles started scrolling upward in our servers’ counters like broken slot machines.
Friends of mine sent me short audio clips from sports talk shows on radio stations all over the country. I’d kicked them in the balls with substantive research, irrefutable statistics, arguments they had made themselves before in lesser ways and did it while rubbing their noses in the way they ignored how women were being treated all over the country. All of that without making a single little whiny, snide post anywhere on social media. I was writing articles—damned good ones—on subjects that provoked comments from people within and without the world of sports.
Hell, even a few female and male members of congress got together and issued a statement, threatening hearings on the topic and scolding the male species in general for its inability to evolve out of the caves.
I didn’t get to bed until two am.
Then my phone range.
It was Parker.
I didn’t know what to say, so I just went with simple. “Hi.”
There was a pause. I was afraid he’d been online, and something was winding him up again. If only that were the case.
“Hey you,” he said.
I could practically smell booze coming through the phone. “Are you okay?” I asked.
“Why the fuck wouldn’t I be?” he asked. “I’m gonna be rich. Playin’ on Sundays.”
“What’s the matter, Parker? Where are you?”
“Shit, I’m right here in bed in my hotel. Wanna come over?” he slurred.
I’d have considered it, even in the state he was in, if he hadn’t continued.
“What the fuck was that today in your office, anyway?” he said.
“What do you mean?”
“Are you tryin’ to mind fuck me, or just fuck me?”
It felt like he’d slapped me. I’d just gotten done outdueling a bunch of professional wordsmiths, and Parker had left me speechless.
Out of the blue, he added, “Jason was one funny motherfucker, you know that?”
“You told me.” I remembered my interview with him and felt a pain in my chest for Parker, wondering why all of this was going on inside him now.
“Never laughed so much in my life than when I was with him.”
“Do you need to talk about it?”
He shifted slightly to yet another gear. “Well, it was like the other day. Good ol’ Grogan kicked my ass in the bench press, an’ then scared the shit out of Silvius and Coniglio tonight.”
It felt like watching doubles ping pong with two balls going at once, but I remembered Shawn Grogan at the combine, and I knew the running back he was talking about, Silvius. Coniglio didn’t ring a bell, but I stepped from my bed in my nightie, over to my laptop and googled the name. Christ. A tier four agent, at best, and that was what he chose for his promo portrait? If I was a mother pushing my stroller down the street and saw that walking toward me, I’d jaywalk during rush hour to get to the other side, baby and all.
Parker was scaring me now. Transposing his dead high school best friend with Shawn Grogan was worrisome enough, but being this drunk and mixing it up with Silvius and Coniglio seemed imminently dangerous. I pulled out my pen and grabbed a notebook, and I set an app on my phone to start recording for good measure.
“Parker, tell me exactly what happened tonight,” I encouraged him.
“Why, you taking notes? Looking for another fuckin’ story on my sorry ass?”
“What if I told you I was trying to help?”
“I’m Parker fuckin’ Shtarr, don’t need help from nobody.”
He trailed off. As drunk as he was, it was the first real slurring I’d heard since he got on the phone.
“Are you still drinking?”
There was no answer. I held my breath for a second and thought I heard slow breathing on the other end of the line. Then he inhaled and said, “Hey, guess what? I’m going to that Thorne party. Wanna come?”
Stone sober and with all the preparation in the world, he couldn’t have come up with a line that would have thrown me for more of a loop at that moment. I’d wanted to go to that party since the first year they threw it. For someone who knew how to network, it was the treasure room hidden below the fake treasure room kings built to distract the master thieves in old stories. Two hours at an event like that and nothing and nobody would be able to short circuit my career for as long as I wanted to be in it. For one, the pictures alone would establish me as a bona fide elite. Secondly, just a few pleasant conversations with no gaffes and the right kind of intelligent responses, these people would think of me as a solid publicity contact, a pro they could speak shorthand with, and I would have the right to call their private secretaries and get two minutes on the phone with them. Pure, solid gold.
There was Parker, drunk off his ass, treating me like shit, then practically ripping open his rib cage to show this powerful, red, beating heart that was suffering for reasons even he didn’t understand, and then offering me an opportunity he had no clue about, like he was asking me to go get a beer from one of those bars in college that served them in cheap, clear plastic cups.
“Parker, really? You want me to go with you?”
“Sure, why not?”
“Can you even…I mean, isn’t your invitation just for you?”
“Sec.”
I heard him fumbling with his phone, muttering, “Tristan, no…Amy. Here. Right here. Can you hear me?” he asked me.
“Yes,” I replied.
“What?”
“Yes!”
“My email from Amy—she’s his PA, nice lady, was fun down in the lobby with her when I signed that kid’s back…”
I jotted that in my notes to ask him about later, wondering just how nice this Amy woman was.
“What?” he mumbled.
“I didn’t say anything, Parker. You were reading your email?”
“I was? Why?”
“About the party, whether you could invite me to go with you or not.”
“Oh, shit. Right. Here, yep, plus one. Says it right here. That means I can invite you, doesn’t it?”
“It sure does. I’d love to go with you.”
“It’s a date, then.”
“Are you even going to remember you asked me?” I teased.
“You know? That’s actually not a bad point.”
“What if you send it to me in text, right now, while we’re still talking?”
“Heh. You’re funny.”
“You don’t have to—” I started to say.
“No, no. S’alright. I’m a man of my word. Hang on.”
I looked around my dark apartment, wondering what the hell was going on. This was surreal. Half a minute later, my phone buzzed.
“And you said I was funny,” I laughed as I read it. “Just be a smarty and come to the party?”
“Not bad, huh?”
“You could be a poet,” I said.
Silence for a moment.
“Are you okay?” I asked, wondering if he’d passed out.
“Huh? I’m fine, Lily. What time is it?”
“Time for us to get some sleep,” I said, hoping he’d actually do that.
“Alright. G’night, Lily.”
“Good night, Parker,” I said back, but I didn’t hang up.
I waited.
“You still there?” he asked.
“I’m here, Parker.”
“Why? You said goodnight.”
I giggled. “I don’t know.”
“Too late for you to come over?” he asked.
I sighed, quietly. My bed seemed too big, too cold. Tempting prospect, except for the fact he was drunk off his ass. “Would you be awake when I got there?”
“Good point. Did I say that already?”
“You did.”
“See you soon then, ‘kay?”
Suddenly I wanted to tell him to jump in the shower, do something to stay awake, that I would come to him. Part of me was angry, another big part — that I am not completely proud of — was purely ambitious, calculating that if he treated me like something he could insult then receive comfort and then insult again, well I could chew him up and spit him out as much as any queen bitch he was ever going to run into. But mostly, I wanted to hold him. I even had a thought that I’d had before, that he might just put his head in my lap and find a little peace in the midst of whatever storm he was going through, like I was some princess who had magical powers born in some kind of innocence and kindness that went as deep as the core of the earth.
Which made me feel foolish, and full of heartache for no earthly reason other than the simple fact that this boy, this man, this beautiful creature with the raw soul, had gotten inside of my heart years ago and never left.
“You still there?” It was me that time. He hadn’t hung up, but I could hear him breathing softly, in deep rhythm. I turned off my lights and pulled the covers back over my bare legs and listened to him breathe until I fell asleep.
* * * * *
Early in the morning, too early, I woke, and wondered whether our phones knew to hang up if there had been no conversation over a certain amount of time, or he’d hung up. I climbed in the shower, tired, trying to get the warm water to wake me up. I was so groggy it wasn’t working, and my usual thoughts of figuring out a new subject for an article only made me want to climb back under the covers. I wanted to check the ongoing social media war I’d started, but I knew it could wait until the morning actually got going for the rest of the world. The idea of my usual five a.m. workout made me want to cry.
Which led me to my first brilliant idea of the day. As nothing was working to wake me up, I decided maybe letting myself have a brief moment of fantasy would do the trick. I thought about Parker touching me, and suddenly I was so aroused I could tell the warm water from the shower was already mingling with warm wetness from me. This was no way to get clean.
I turned around and fumbled for the body wash, breathed deeply through my nose. Now was not the time. I cleaned up in record time and got the heck out of the shower, trying to leave that unbidden fantasy in the dissipating steam.
At least I wasn’t tired anymore.
One thing I knew, if I was going to attend the Thorne Enterprises party with Parker Starr, I was going to need something new to wear. It had been a long time since I’d called my friend, Alicia, who also happened to be my stylist.
“Lily!” she shouted into the phone. “You know I was starting to think you’d dumped me.”
“Never! It’s just been a madhouse,” I assured her.
“You think? I thought you had them hopping yesterday, but it’s a new level of bonkers today.”
“I figured,” I said.
“You mean you haven’t been following it?” she asked.
“Not this morning.”
“Honey, you got picked up in the New York Times. Everyone keeps using the word ‘transcendent, ’ and I keep thinking they have no idea what it means.”
“To be honest, I’ve already moved on. I have bigger things to think about.”
“Oh, really?” she chided. “And might this onward movement involve a certain set of professional skills I just happened to have honed to perfection? And by that, I mean they involve a man.”
“Well . . . they might. I’ve been invited to the Thorne Enterprises party.”
“Holy shit.”
“I’m also rethinking my makeup approach.”
“Well good. I was going to say something next time we spoke. But this isn’t about those assholes is it?”
“I hope not, but why were you going to say something?” I asked.
“New trends.”
“Less is more.”
“That’s the old trend, Lily. Now it’s ‘lesser than less is, er, more-er than more.’ Did that hurt your ears?”
“My soul,” I groaned.
We laughed.
“Do you have time for me, honey?” I begged.
“Lily, you’re my friend, but you’re also the most famous journalist alive, at least for another few hours anyway. I’d be crazy not to make time. Okay if I snap a few pictures?”
“Knock yourself out. Heck, I should probably pay you! But, we can post after pics on Twitter together,” I suggested.
“Are you kidding? I should be paying you.”
“What was that?” I teased.
“Oh, nothing, nothing. So, are you coming over now?”
“On my way.” I was out the door as I hung up.
Alicia was one of those rare women who not only dreamed of being a full-time fashion consultant, going on shopping sprees and talking hair, makeup, and fashion all day and all night long, while getting paid to do it, she had actually pulled it off, and was making an excellent living. I’m not saying she didn’t put in the work, but more than anybody I knew, her work was identical to her fun.
Her apartment was only a few blocks away from my office. She met me before I even got to the buzzer. I liked that we didn’t have to go through the squeal and shuffle, hug and kiss routine, which we both could do with the best of them. She just took my arm and leaned in with a quick squeeze as we walked.
“I missed you, Lily. It’s good to see you.”
“You too. I’m sorry it’s been so long.”
“Honey,” she said, “you are kicking ass. You never have to apologize to me.” She always knew the right things to say. “So, what did you have in mind?”
I told her my thoughts and showed her the picture of the red-lipped anchor I’d admired during my research earlier.
“Oh, she’s sexy. You’re right, you can pull that off, with a few touches all your own. What about the Thorne party? How did you get that invite? I’ve been trying for years!”
“Parker Starr invited me.”
Her eyes grew wide. “The guy you raked over the coals?”
I chewed my lip, remembering how strange he was on the phone the night before. I realized I was probably about to drop thousands of dollars on a dress and whole new look, and there was a very good chance he’d eventually check his phone and wonder what the hell he was thinking with all that booze in him. Just as I was about to tell Alicia it might be better to wait a day or two, my phone buzzed. The timing was so perfect it actually gave me a strange sensation in my stomach. It was a text from Parker.
Hey, just saw our texts from last night. Was I acting a little crazy? You can tell me about it at the party. Send me your address, and I’ll pick you up at 8, night of.
I showed Alicia, then sent him the blowing-kiss emoticon with a little note.
“Wow!” she said.
I was thinking the same thing and tried to hide my massive sigh of relief.
“Shopping first? Or hair and makeup?” I got straight back to business.
“Lily, you’re the client and more than most you know what you’re doing. But if you’ve got the time and the endurance, my advice is shop, hair, makeup, shop. We’ll stop for food, coffee, and cocktails as we go.”
I giggled. “I’ve got all day . . . and night for that matter.”
“Perfect.”
We started at a cute little shop near her apartment, but it was just a warm up. A friend of hers ran the place, and it did have some adorable, unique stuff, but nothing for the party. I bought a pair of comfortable strappy sandals and wore them out of the shop. By that time, the driver Alicia had ordered was out front.
“A limo?” I eyed her curiously.
“Why not? We’ll have refreshments, room for your bags, and by the end of the day, a foot massage and pedicure while we’re on the way to our next stop.”
“Oh.” It was brilliant. It was early, and I was excited, feeling ready for anything, but after the tenth shop, I knew my feet would be more than ready for some professional hands.
The next shop was one in which I’d spent thousands of dollars over the last few years. The women there were all extraordinary salespeople, able to make men break out in a sweat and pull out their credit cards in a matter of minutes, and more than double a person’s mental budget with about four grabs from their amazing racks. The shop’s owner was the buyer, and she spent more than half her time traveling to exclusive shows and maintaining her relationships with designers who gave her first-look at much of their work.
The women were no match for Alicia, though, and they knew it. When she walked in the door, they toned it down to a minimum, knowing their best shot at a big sale would be if we came back later in the afternoon. Still, they gave me a few things to try on that had my credit card hand itching to do a quick draw. There were skirts and tops I’d never seen before, that seemed to be made just for me. One of the blouses was just far enough outside of the pink range that I was willing to try it on. It wasn’t salmon or red, either, or peach, but it looked so good against my hair and brought out my eyes that I didn’t want to let it back out of my sight. Alicia made them hold it for me, along with the Diane von Fürstenberg skirt that in spite of having five layers was lighter than air and could have gone with everything in my color wheel. I left, almost walking backward, pining for my new babies while Alicia kept a firm arm looped in mine.
The next four boutiques were new to me, each one laid out with such individual taste and style I could have spent a day browsing and getting to know the people who worked in them. They all knew Alicia and worked well with her, and even though I was not a complete stranger to the scene, I was overwhelmed by the amount of completely gorgeous pieces I felt I shouldn’t live without. It wasn’t that I wanted to spoil myself, it was that they were so beautiful and so well crafted, I thought I might miss the opportunity to own something that seemed so perfectly suited to me.
“It really has been a long time since we’ve been out together,” Alicia announced out of nowhere.
“This is different, though, isn’t it, Alicia?”
“Well, yes. I’m pulling out all the stops today.”
“Why?”
“Two reasons. One, you’re hot, honey, in every sense of the word. The amount of buzz surrounding you right now doesn’t come around very often, so showing you off to all my contacts is a big bonus for me, but don’t worry, by the end of the day it’ll come back to you.”
“Fair enough. What’s the other?” I asked.
“Something’s going on with you. I call this ‘catharsis by shopping.’”
That was the other thing about Alicia, just like on some of those cable shows where they give a person a wardrobe makeover, and he or she ends up having a complete breakdown for the whole world to see, she was doing so much more than finding clothes and getting someone a good haircut. I swear, if you put Alicia in a room with the world’s top five psychiatrists, I’d give even money each of them would admit they could learn more from her than the other way around.
“What do you think is going on with me?” I asked her, wondering what I was going to learn about myself.
“Well, it’s not really for me to say, but you look fantastic, your career is incredible. You’ve let yourself get just a few months behind the curve in fashion, which is really no big deal, especially when it comes to sports. But then out comes this article where you lay waste to men, and next thing you know, you’re invited to the world’s greatest party with the very man who inspired your article. How long have you really known him?”
I looked at her. “We met my last year of college. He was a freshman.”
“What made you fall for him so hard?”
I stopped in my tracks and took a deep breath. “Umm. Is it that obvious?”
“Sorry, Lily. Am I coming on too strong? I don’t mean to be—”
“No, it’s good. I haven’t told anyone. I really can’t give details, but he just—you’re right—he got to me. It was the best interview I’ve ever done and…I don’t know.”
“You two never got together, did you. You were a grad student for two years?”
“Two and a half. And that whole time we were both there, I only caught a glimpse of him a few more times.”
“Well, today we're giving you a glimpse of yourself you haven’t had in a while, either.”
“I think I’m going to need that cocktail sooner than we planned,” I joked.
“Um, no. Sorry. Recipe for disaster at this stage. Coffee for now.”
At least it was a latte, with caramel.
We pressed on. I still felt like each shop was holding hostages of mine. I had to resist the urge to sneak off to the bathroom, whispering on my phone for the salespeople to charge my credit card and have a courier drop things off at my place. Then we arrived at the salon. It was a whole new moment of the day’s game, “Let’s get inside Lily’s head and shake it up.”
Alicia stood quietly as I sat in the chair and spoke with the stylist. He prompted me with a few questions about what I was thinking and when Alicia could tell we were connecting, she left without a word. I told him about the way women in my business had been doing their hair, using it like armor, and how that had been changing. He nodded and kept me talking as he sat me back and went to work washing my hair.
It was already clean, but what he really did was give me the most amazing scalp massage I had ever experienced.
“Ohhh, I didn’t know my neck was so tight.”
“People never do, honey. You just relax,” he recommended.
He didn’t stop until the tension was gone, from my neck, temples, the back of my head, and even my jaw. Then he sat me up and said, “Do you trust me?”
“Well, we’re talking about my livelihood here. What did you have in mind?”
“I’m not talking a full pixie, short-hair-don’t-care thing, but I want to go short.”
I looked dubious. Long hair was the safe play for women in media. There were those who pulled off different looks just fine, but there had also been disasters that literally took some women off the airwaves. I wrote my own material, but sometimes I had to appear on screen. Messing with my look made me a little antsy.
“Lily, darling, I’m sure about this, but it’s not something I can do halfway. We can keep it long, and I’ll just fix you up a bit, but if you let me do my thing you won’t regret it.”
“How short?”
He showed me a spot all the way up close to my ears, and I gulped. I looked for Alicia. She was nowhere to be seen. Before I could help myself, I thought, “Men like it long.”
I watched my face in the mirror. My cheeks grew red and my jaw set, it was like I was looking at somebody else, someone I could admire, getting very angry.
He pulled out his scissors and a comb. “That a girl.”
I nodded, and he began to cut.
He spoke to me about delightful things. He spun me around and I caught glimpses of long strands falling.
“Honey, don’t let anyone talk you into color. If I could bottle what you’ve got going on, I’d be rich.”
I knew what he was saying but wanted to hear more. “Oh, it’s just dark brown.”
He laughed at me. “Sure, dark brown, from about a thousand different shades. You’ve got reds and blacks in there, along with the deepest highlights I’ve ever seen. If I tried to match this, I’d need a week and I’d have to spend a month in a clinic after.”
I saw Alicia step by in the outer room and called her in. She came in backward. “Are you done yet?”
“Just finishing,” the stylist said.
“Oh, then call me once you’ve finished it. This part’s between you two,” Alicia said.
We shushed her at the same time and insisted she get her butt over to the mirror. Before I could even see, she gasped and did a very un-Alicia-like thing by tearing up. Then I felt my chair spinning, and I looked up, I let out the softest little breath, touching my fingers to the tips of my hair.
I never wanted to move again, and yet I wanted to run outside and spin in the air. I wanted to go dancing or hold my future baby in the park. It was that amazing.
“What have you done?” I asked, my voice full of wonder.
“It’s all you, sweet thing. I just helped bring it out a little bit,” the stylist said.
“I’ve never felt so beautiful. My God. Thank you.” My eyes were filling up, but I wanted to see. Somewhere inside me something told me to get a hold of myself. It was just a haircut, I was being foolish. But the truth is, the man was an artist, plain and simple, and my hair looked fucking awesome.
“I— can I get it to look like this the night of the party? Did you do anything?”
“Like I said, it’s all you, honey. Some women aren’t so lucky. But if you like, I’ll stop by when you’re getting ready and give you a little tune up.”
“Oh my God, yes,” I squeaked.
I could tell a similar story about what happened next, with my makeup. The woman showed me some new product, and taught me the latest tricks, and showed me what I looked like with a more natural style than I’d been using. It wasn’t all that different, but it seemed so to me, and that was more than doubled by the new hairdo. The makeup artist agreed to come by on the night and make sure I was doing it right, and I asked Alicia to be there too, just so we could make a party of it.
I felt like a queen, and I didn’t care. Every woman should have a chance to feel like I did, more than once.
We went back around to the same shops, and I was surprised how particular I was now being, armed with my new look and a feeling of raw beauty I hadn’t known I’d set aside for awhile. Half the items I’d placed on hold went back on the racks. The other half were discounted in ways these stores did not do.
“Alicia, how—”
“Just called in some favors,” she said with a wink. “You’ve helped my business today in ways you don’t know. Just, if you don’t mind, when you wear some of these, snap some selfies or do some photo bombing or something. Get some shots up on Twitter. Nothing pose-y or formal.”
“I can manage that.”
“So, how’s your energy?” She smiled.
“Limitless.”
“Then it’s time to get your dress.”
I couldn’t believe it. My mouth actually dropped open. Alicia laughed. I had gotten so swept up in my new look and adding to my wardrobe that I had forgotten the reason the whole day had started in the first place.
We got back in the limo and drove for fifteen minutes. When we stopped, I was confused because we were at one of the city’s newest, poshest restaurants. An outdoor lawn and garden held white tables nestled amidst trellises and strings of lights that even during the day managed to add a touch of magic to the setting.
“Alicia, I thought we were—”
“We are. You’ll see,” she said.
We walked under the lights up to a wide porch and it felt like walking into fantasy. The entire room was made of light, warm, wide wooden planks. There seemed to be no order to the size or placement of the tables. It was as though a town back in the horse and buggy days had decided winter was over, and it was time to get together. The smells of fresh herbs mingled with toasted spices in a way that seemed both wonderfully American and somehow exotic. The maître d’ greeted Alicia like an old friend and me like an honored guest, and asked us to follow him. As we moved toward the back wall, I realized it was constructed to be an optical illusion. What appeared to be a closed corner was actually a narrow hall, which opened into a private room of the same construction. Two tall, long tables were placed strategically. On them were an assortment of hors d’ouevres, appetizers, amuse-bouches, fresh sliced raw vegetables with strange and delicious dips, fruit that looked as though it had just fallen off trees in the tropics, and a massive platter of classic Italian antipasti with thin sliced charcuterie, a wide assortment of pickled vegetables that smelled of vinegar and herbs, and olives.
“This can’t be all for us.”
“Oh, they’re just showing off. I’m sure they’ll find a happy home for anything we don’t eat,” she said dismissively.
“Alicia, what is going on?”
“You still don’t get it. I’m giving you the full treatment because, well, you’re my friend, but also if I can’t get into the Thorne party, at least I can do the next best thing. If you’re getting chummy with sheiks and pop stars, bankers and A-listers, and all those athletes with wives, then when they ask you where you got your hair done or found your dress, or who did your makeup, all you have to do is put them in touch with me. Assuming you’ll want to. And every place we’ve been to today, including this restaurant, trusts me. So if I tell them to pull out all the stops, baby, they do.”
“Well, I suppose that’s fair.”
“Look, just because we’re friends, you’d probably recommend me anyway, right?”
“Of course,” I admitted.
“Now you’re not just doing a friend a favor. Now you’re a client. But you know I’ve got your back, too. I wouldn’t do anything to hurt your reputation. In fact, I might enhance it.”
Everything she said made sense, and I appreciated her usual, blunt approach. She wasn’t using me, and I wasn’t using her. This was what all the businessmen I ever heard about when I was growing up called a “win, win,” and we were doing it woman-style.
I smiled and cocked my head at her. “Now can I finally have a cocktail?”
“How about some champagne?” she suggested.
“I’d love some.” Before the words had left my mouth, a gorgeous, slim waiter wearing tails and looking as though he’d just got off the boat from Sicily materialized by my arm with a silver tray holding two flutes of bubbly. His five o’clock shadow was so dense and dark it almost appeared blue and looked as though it could scour the rust off a cargo ship. Why that turned me on, I don’t know, but I looked away and took a large, refreshing drink of the cool, crisp champagne, and it was so delicious it made my eyes go wide.
Two more lovely men brought in a foldout partition made of bamboo and silk, with a classic Japanese print of a narrow ship and desperate hunched oarsmen facing magnificent waves. It couldn’t have been more out of place yet appropriate, and then they brought in the dresses, all hanging on a simple rack, along with an assortment of shoes, clutches, scarves, and other accessories, and with Alicia’s help, I simply went to town.
I thought I felt like a queen earlier, now I felt like a princess who still had a few years before she had to actually sit on the throne. The first dress seemed like an appetizer in its own right. Plain, black, gorgeous, and then I had a nibble of caviar on a point of toast. It was old fashioned, but oh so good with the champagne.
The next dress Alicia pulled out was that same color as the top from the morning. It was so stunning it made me suck in my breath.
“It’s from the same line. I called the designer this morning after you tried on that top and he tracked this down for us,” she announced.
“I’m not sure there’s any reason to try on anything else. I can’t stop looking at it.”
“I know, but that could be just because the color is so unique. I would have bought it myself, but it’s got a touch too much orange in it for my skin. There are two others in there that might work better for you.”
“Which ones?” I asked enthusiastically.
“I’m not telling you.” She smiled and took a sip.
They all looked good, and I dearly wanted them all. I didn’t have to ask to know I could have sold my BMW and still not paid for even half of what was hanging on that rack.
“Look, we’re practically the same size. If you think I’m doing the rest of this alone, you’re crazy,” I announced.
“Twist my arm.”
We nibbled and changed. The waiters were discreet, but with everything going I’m sure they managed to catch an eyeful. Every time I thought about how gorgeous they were in their tuxes, I thought of what Parker would look like in one, and that was all I needed to completely ignore them. Alicia, on the other hand, managed to flirt with ‘my’ scruffy Sicilian.
If eyes could speak, his were saying, “Try me. I’ll show you what it’s like to feel like a real woman until the sun comes up.”
Then Alicia handed me another dress. By this time, I was no longer even able to concentrate. The champagne was mingling with exhaustion and happiness, and I just stripped and changed like a robot. Then I saw myself in the mirror.
“This one,” I declared.
She was nodding, her eyebrows furrowed in concentration, walking around me.
“Mmm-hmm. Mmm-hmmm. Hmmm.”
It was a gown of black with embroidered golden butterflies climbing from a field of water fronds up into soft discs of golden light that could have been stars or fireflies, or just dreams. It was so beautiful it made me want to cry, and I hadn’t seen it that way until it was on me. The neckline plunged to a high embroidered band just below my breasts. It was all mesh and so light I wanted to wear it to bed. I noticed the waiters trying not to stare, and failing so nicely I wanted to give them all a kiss on the cheek.
Finally, Alicia nodded. “Yes, this one.”
I bought the colorful one, too, along with two pairs of shoes, a new clutch, and a shawl in case of cold evening balconies bathed in moonlight.
When I got home, I was too exhausted to do anything but put my new things away and throw on my most comfortable pair of pajamas. Alicia sent me a photo collage of me with my new hair and makeup, wearing the colorful dress, looking over my shoulder as the Sicilian stood with champagne on a silver tray, his eye glancing at my bare shoulder. I gave her permission to use it with my name.
I browsed movies to stream, bored, none of the chick flicks catching my eye until I saw Audrey Hepburn’s eyes staring at me. I’ve always thought, if I were a man, the picture of her alone would have me wrapped around her finger for all time. Today, I felt like her sister. Breakfast at Tiffany’s was just right for my mood. I watched her and George Peppard break each other’s hearts, giggling at the silly parts while letting it blow my mind.
Afterward, I finally checked social media for the first time that day. Talk about mind blowing. After the New York Times ran a brief piece picking up on my research for the article on Cheerleaders and Referees, thereby taking the entire frenzied mess that I had started earlier in the week into the mainstream, the professional jackasses that had been chumming the waters scurried for their stinking dark crevices. During the day, they came up with no more cute formulations, asking women which words they could use and which they couldn’t, instead, trying to shift the whole spotlight to something else, anything else. Their problem was, they didn’t have a hold on the actual hardware and were left looking like idiots trying to grasp and shove the bright circle of the beam as it landed. The asses that had been pushing me around in the tunnel now found themselves dodging their own interview requests, lamely protesting they were not the story and coming up with the exact same excuses they spent their careers scoffing at when some poor athlete didn’t want to talk about the car wreck he’d caused
I checked email. I had my own interview requests, along with some messages from my editor and our in-house publicist. I sighed. One by one I went through the requests and separated them by yes and no, along with my reasoning where I knew the publicist might try to change my mind. Just as I fired off the emails, another one came in from her, saying, “Brilliant!” and linking me to Alicia’s social media post. Unlike the amateurs who were desperate for eyeballs, Alicia kept her following exclusive. When she posted, she simply put one thing up on her personal account, instead of trying to dovetail it all in with a corporate page and some kind of phony paid network that claimed to be able to shill out the buzz. I looked smoking hot, along with a short, funny, and classy note: “Hair by…, makeup…, dress …, waiters by…”, that last presented the name of the restaurant, and you’d better believe women all over the city, if not the world, were already calling for reservations.
The thing that got our publicist so thrilled, though, was that the same pig who’d gone with the “I would never call a woman ‘shrill’…” approach lost his mind. He tried to claim that posting a picture of me wearing a dress, makeup, and new haircut was the opposite of what a “woman who cares about women’s issues should do.”
He went on to lecture me on the proper way to be a feminist and even had suggestions on what I should wear and which issues I should champion.
Now had a woman written it, some New York Times hardcore feminist who, I don’t know, was against all makeup on philosophical grounds, I might have called her and asked her to go out to lunch to hear what she had to say. But this asshole?
If he was doing it on purpose, it was brilliant, but I couldn’t believe he actually wanted to end his career. Every word of what he wrote seemed sincere, angry, cynical, and earnest, and there was no wiggle room for him to claim the next day it had all been in jest. If you’d read his article without actually seeing the pictures, you might have thought I’d gone full porn queen and just spread ‘em for all the world, but it was just a little bare shoulder and a young, gorgeous stud of a waiter trying and failing to be discreet.
Within fifteen minutes of going live, his article was removed, and an apology was posted, not by him, but the conglomerate that employed him. He was being suspended without pay, pending further decisions forthcoming by management.
Ten minutes later, they’d changed that to simply firing him.
I tried to feel bad for him, but every time I thought of him shoving those meaty hips stuffed in those rumpled gray slacks against me, snorting at my questions then calling me shrill by not calling me shrill, I somehow couldn’t find the charity in my heart to feel bad, at least not tonight.
I suggested to my boss and the publicist that I just go about my business the way I had been. No interviews, not with me as the subject. My next on-screen appearances would be with me holding the mic, speaking with some carefully selected guests who, without even bringing up the subject of gender, could bookend the entire conflagration nicely. I let them know, without divulging who invited me, about the Thorne party, and told them not to let that leak. Both of them freaked, then went over the moon, then agreed they couldn’t even tell ownership otherwise word would get out in a way that could get my invite canceled. I was no friend to Thorne Enterprises, or any sports agency for that matter, and would investigate them as soon as any potential story. They agreed to hold a firm firewall over all details, but tell management that we had our strategy and were absolutely confident in it. I thanked them and told them I was going to sleep for twelve hours and see them early at the office.
I climbed in bed, amped and relaxed at the same time, and for the next hour indulged in thinking about Parker the way I’d imagined him that morning in the shower, his muscles working over me, straining. I resisted the urge to go for round two, knowing by this time that only the real Parker had any hope of satisfying me.