Paulina & Fran (12 page)

Distressed by the idea of Renaldo seeing her unwashed dress, Paulina ran off, her bag weighing her down like an anchor. After an hour of fruitless wandering, she shoplifted a premade sandwich from a bodega and devoured it in the weeds behind a nearby gas station, listening to the wind roll a crushed beer can over the pavement and teenagers bicker over a lost bet. On the subway back, she lay across three seats in low spirits. She ran through the rain to the Starbucks bathroom, where she sat on the toilet long after she was finished, ignoring the knocks and voices, then brushed her teeth with the tattered toothbrush she kept in her bag.

I had so much potential,
Paulina thought as she looked for a spot to sleep in the park.
But I am renowned for nothing!
She moaned loudly, stirring the dealers from their benches. Two scuttled toward her in the darkness, trying to sell her drugs.

The next morning, when Harvey was again unavailable, Paulina read off the number of the pay phone to the secretary.
This time she added that it was
Urgent!
and that she’d be leaving the country very soon.

All day she sat in the phone booth, eating old croissants from the bakery across the street. Finally the phone rang. Paulina took a deep breath, smoothed her eyebrows, and answered it as professionally as she knew how, but it was a woman asking for Percy. Though men of all shapes and sizes walked by with briefcases and dogs, holding phones to their faces, smoking their cigarettes, Paulina insisted there was no soul in sight. When the woman kept chattering on, Paulina hung up.

She left the booth only to pee and get water. She watched birds peck at a pizza crust until it was just a few burnt crumbs. Every time the phone rang, it was the same woman. “I can see no man living or dead,” Paulina said, tired of life.

“But Percy gave me this exact number!” the woman cried.

“What does he look like,” Paulina asked. “In case he shows later.”

“He’s short and pale and has eyes like the devil, and he’ll be drunk because Aggie doesn’t care right for him—”

“Just give me your number,” Paulina said. “I’ll write it down.”

The woman repeated her number twice, and Paulina said uh-huh after each digit, but did not write it down, did not care what became of Percy or anyone else. She slumped against
the cold glass. She felt like a useless body of itches, pains, and wants.

She spent the night in the phone booth, awakened twice by crazy people who wanted the phone, and once by a cop with something to prove. Harvey didn’t call. After a second day by the phone, she was dreaming of the old college town. Could she live in some unused studio, getting swipes off freshmen’s meal cards? A hunched woman poked Paulina’s bag with a stick. Paulina shooed her away.

T
hough Gretchen had outgrown Fran professionally and emotionally and now had more than a dozen friends she much preferred, she still spent an occasional hour or two with Fran if she showed up outside Gretchen’s office after work. She still found relief looking at Fran’s face—it truly was like a face from a painting, the eyes staring into thoughts, the mouth open slightly in the moment before or after speaking.

It had been more than a year since Fran moved out of Gretchen’s apartment. While they inhabited the same space, Fran’s life seemed to crawl by one minute at a time, as Gretchen waited for her to get an interview, and then an outfit, and then an apartment. You could at least do the dishes, Gretchen had thought every day she came home to find Fran lying stoned on the carpet with a T. Rex song on repeat. After Fran moved out, her life seemed to move at an accelerated pace. Every time they talked there was some boy or roommate
or coworker taking up her thoughts, as it had been before with Julian and Paulina.

At a bar, Gretchen half listened to Fran’s issues with her latest boyfriend, a psychology major who insisted on biking to Fran’s Bushwick sublet and always arrived late, exhausted, and ranting about animal rights. Once Fran had taken him to a party at Gretchen’s and he’d sat in a closet, reading the
New York Times
on his laptop. Before him she had been seeing a waifish sound recorder Gretchen had never met, but whose penis Fran had twice drawn for her on a napkin.

Since Fran made little money painting ceilings and walking dogs, while Gretchen landed client after client, Gretchen regularly paid for their meals and drinks, while Fran mumbled things about “getting a real job” and “taking whatever I can get.” This time, when Gretchen was about to lay down her card, Fran stopped her and put down cash instead.

“Okay, so here’s the real news,” Fran said, nearly skipping toward the subway. “That career counselor got me an interview for a job writing test questions. I had it yesterday. I got it!”

“Congrats!” Gretchen said, truly startled at the news.

“I bet it will give me a lot of painting ideas.”

“Really?” Gretchen asked, no longer hiding the doubt she so often hid by forcing her eyebrows straight and her voice even.

“Well, it’s visual art test questions, so it’s creative.”

“Where is it?”

“Ohio.”

“You’d leave all this for Ohio?” she asked, pronouncing the word like it was an ancient place no longer on the map.

“There are still people in Ohio. There are bars. I think there’s even art in Ohio!” Fran was showing some of the old, senseless passion that Gretchen had forgotten. “Jim Dine is from Ohio. Jim Drain is from Ohio . . .”

“I know someone who fucked Jim Drain,” Gretchen ventured.

They silently crossed the street.

“Yeah?” Fran waited for Gretchen to ask her more about the job, but Gretchen was covertly checking her phone. More and more often Gretchen chose the tiny world in her phone over Fran. She scrolled through the little pictures of the little people in the phone, her face lighting up with a ghost-white glow.

“I thought you’d be excited for me,” Fran said, staring at a homeless woman sleeping under cardboard.

“You should be painting, not selling your soul,” Gretchen said without looking up.

“Since when do you care about my paintings?” Fran asked, watching Gretchen drop the phone into her leather purse. “You know, I saw that drawing I gave you. You folded it.”

“What? The one you were going to throw out anyway? The one I rescued? Does it have a sort of dog person licking an angel?”

“It was Marvin as a deity, I think,” Fran said haltingly. It wasn’t such an achievement, Fran admitted to herself, but folding a drawing was inhumane. This kind of moment was occurring more often between them. It was like the bending of a stick—a moment where one could push harder and finally snap the bond. Fran would feel Gretchen’s view of love was callous, or Gretchen would challenge Fran’s nostalgia for school, but always they let the disagreements die in silence, protecting the tradition of the friendship, though sometimes that was all it was. They saw each other because they saw each other. They saw each other because they’d seen each other.

But Fran was thinking of her new job now; she no longer cared about the drawing. Burn the past to light the future, she thought, though the words came from an unknown source. “Anyway, I’ve been packing and stuff. I’m excited.” She pictured herself at a desk, in her own cubicle. She imagined a digital display of all her earnings—big red numbers climbing quickly, like the ones near Union Square.

Gretchen suddenly remembered the coat she’d once lent Fran, a Rebecca Taylor coat that was surely the most expensive item in Fran’s closet.

“I don’t know how my roommates will take it,” Fran said thoughtfully. “I haven’t told them yet because I wanted to wait until I really—”

“Can I have my coat back?” Gretchen asked. “I mean before you pack it up.”

“What?” Fran searched her pockets for her MetroCard as they took the steps down to the L train. “Oh yeah, of course.”

The donate/destroy pile took up half of her room. Boxes of plaid stockings, gold leggings, fringe-covered boots, a zip-up one-piece with racing stripes, a tinfoil crown, ribbons, garish
SUPERTHRIFT
purses, high school friendship rings, mix tapes from boys, depressing underground comic books, old art history handouts, and a globe that Marvin had painted black. “I won’t need this stuff in Ohio,” she told Gretchen, who pawed through the clothes without finding a single thing worth adopting.

“Yeah, all you’ll need is a fleece and, like, a deli sandwich,” Gretchen said, reunited with her coat.

“What’s wrong with fleece?” Fran asked self-consciously.

“Nothing. It’s just the opposite of fashion. It’s a gateway drug to an unglamorous life of sitcoms and deli sandwiches and watching sports . . .”

“But it’s cold in Ohio,” Fran said. “And I like deli sandwiches.” Gretchen laughed. With the potential end of their
friendship finally so near, both girls felt a giddiness, and then a clinginess, but they could stay in touch, they reassured each other, if they wanted to, they thought.

Paulina sat in the desk chair in Harvey’s office, looking over the figures. “This is how much you’ll give me just for the ingredients?” The number made her tingle. She acted bored by it. The week before, she had demonstrated her products on Harvey’s sister-in-law in her Upper West Side apartment. Then, a few days ago, Paulina and Harvey had met with a hair scientist who confirmed its effect.

Recently, Paulina had been sleeping in the cramped apartment of a chubby drum teacher named Devon. She cooked dinner and cleaned for him while he gave lessons. At first this arrangement worked fine, but after Paulina failed to attend a band practice of Devon’s, he acted coldly toward her. His roommate started latching the deadbolt. Sometimes Devon wouldn’t answer his phone, and then Paulina either slept by his door or went out and found some other lonely soul. Sometimes it took hours.

“For the ingredients and the right to own and manufacture the products,” Harvey said. “That is, only if it’s approved by the FDA.” Over the last week, Paulina had gotten used to Harvey. She liked his suits and his mannerisms. His eyes were always flickering, doing the quick work of his mind. He
repeatedly ran his hand over his bald head. Paulina liked his wife, Viv, and their Chelsea apartment, and the world of deals and design, private cars and business meetings.

“But what about me? You need me!” Paulina told him. She was wearing her best clothes. She wagged her finger at him.

“I like you, but I don’t
need
you. You know nothing about business. What are you, twenty-three? With a
what
degree? An arts degree?”

Paulina gritted her teeth. His original figure was more than enough. It would set her up for a few years. She could finally rent her own place. She so badly wanted a bathroom of her own. She wanted a refrigerator filled with food. A bed she didn’t have to share. But why should Harvey have all the fun? What if the labels were tacky?

“Who’s going to be the spokesman for this thing?” Paulina asked. “Some middle-aged man? No offense, Harvey, but only I can represent this company! Don’t you know anything about PR? Wouldn’t it be great press if a twenty-four-year-old genius started her own company? A woman-owned company for a women’s hair product?”

Harvey watched Paulina fiddle with the sculptures that decorated his desk. He pictured her face on the website, her signature on the bottle. “What would you call it?” he asked her.

“
SUPERCURL
,” she said with no hesitation.

That sounded okay to Harvey. Nothing mind-bending, but it sounded sharp. She was making all the right points. Still, he could do it without her. He could use his sister-in-law, Rebecca, as the spokeswoman. She had the same kind of hair. “This number is more than fair,” he said. “But I can throw on a few more thousand if you’ll feel better about it.”

Paulina scowled at him. “Listen. I’ve done my research. I’ve been to salons. I’ve seen the horror work they do to curly hair. You can’t comprehend the physical pain and mental suffering!
SUPERCURL
will be the world’s best product line for curly hair!”

She was smart, this one—he had to admit it. She’d kept him laughing all week, telling him and Viv all sorts of crazy stories at dinner. And her poor mother had gotten into a horrible boating accident. Harvey could see Paulina’s vision and see beyond it. They could make curly hair seem like a cult. Hell, it
was
a cult. Even Rebecca and Paulina, who had little in common, had quickly bonded over their curls.

“
SUPERCURL
,” he said to himself. The phone rang.

“That’s right,” Paulina said, spinning side to side in her desk chair.

Harvey turned and took the call.

Paulina listened to him talk to someone about something. When he laughed, she worried that it might be at her. She stood as if to leave, to get his eyes back on her, to show him
he needed her, but he motioned for her to stay and she sat back down.

Marveling at the cows in the fields, the roadkill on the highway, the schizophrenic voice of the radio, Fran drove her rental car to a small town outside of Cleveland where she had already paid first, last, and security for her new apartment. She flirted with the high school boys who worked the supermarket registers. She befriended stray cats. She took long breaths that meant:
My new life, I am ready, begin!

It isn’t half bad,
she wrote in a letter Gretchen took weeks to answer.
There’s a record shop and a crêpe place and a park where local bands play in a gazebo.
Fran moved into a basement apartment in an all-studio building. There was always a tenant smoking dejectedly under the awning, even when it was raining, especially when it was raining.

On Fran’s first day, Meryl, the woman who interviewed her, led Fran through the Levrett-Mercer office, introducing her. Meryl’s tanned skin was loose on her bones. She wore long skirts that failed to conceal her white tennis shoes. Her plainness, her frumpishness, seemed to certify that she was good at math and work.

Meryl pointed to a girl with short red hair. “This is Jane. She’s been here for two years. An artist like you.” Jane smiled. She had sunken eyes and thin lips. Besides this, she wasn’t bad
looking. She was even pretty, Fran thought. But Fran found herself focusing on the sunken eyes and thin lips, as if it were a competition to be the prettiest girl in the expansive corporate building.

“I went to MICA,” Jane said. Her gray dress pants fit well on her long legs, and Fran saw the outline of small breasts through her white button-down shirt.

“I went to art school too,” Fran said, feeling satisfaction from having gone to a better school. Jane smiled, then turned back to her work. Meryl nodded.

“You’ll be a floater, like Jane. So every day just come to me when you get here, and we’ll find you a spot.”

Floaters rotated around the abandoned cubicles. Sometimes one would be referred to as Fred’s old cubicle, or Roy’s, and Fran would wonder,
What happened to Fred?
And she would imagine a tragic end. The cubicles were nearly identical. Each had a faux wood desk, a boxy black monitor, an adjustable desk chair, a file cabinet, and a company calendar that shrunk the whole year to a few inches.

Fran slouched in an ergonomic chair. She was to write multiple-choice questions for a test to certify high school art teachers. Some of the questions referred to specific pieces of art. Fran could write, “In this painting by Paul Klee, the composition creates which of the following effects?” Then she would write the correct answer, along with three equally
plausible answers. The answers had to be similar in sentence construction and length. The format had strict guidelines. Some words could never be used. Only certain artists were eligible. The rules didn’t bother Fran—they freed her. She felt glee whenever Meryl approved a new question she’d written. Everyone else used a computer, but Fran wrote on a yellow legal pad. She started wearing panty hose and heels. Her days filled with small problems and small solutions.

The trademark
SUPERCURL
was registered, and the company founded, in a single week. Paulina was named founder/spokeswoman and Harvey signed her to a generous contract based on projected profits.
SUPERCURL
filed for patents on Paulina’s homemade concoctions for conditioner, styling gel, and frizz guard. There were designers to hire and chemists to consult. After preliminary testing and approval by the FDA,
SUPERCURL
started outsourcing production. The
SUPERCURL
conditioner wasn’t as strong as Paulina’s original recipe. Dyes made it white instead of its usual brown. Fragrances disguised the potent smell.

With Harvey’s connections, the company grew quickly. They scouted models, held photo shoots, and signed advertising contracts. High sales in England gave Harvey’s investor friends confidence. Some people dismissed Paulina, as if she were the
SUPERCURL
mascot or even Harvey’s daughter,
but others seemed to respect her as their colleague. Now she dressed very chic in silk and suede. What she didn’t understand, she had her secretary research.