What Pretty Girls Are Made Of (11 page)

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

May Cause Irritation

M
y return to work on Monday was met with questions and impromptu studio visits. And the exhaustion from the weekend had me testy from the start.

“How much did she sell?”

I don’t know exactly, but she did really well.

“Can I take off the two days before Christmas?”

You have to ask Sally, not me.

“She’ll say no; can you just ask her for me?”

“We just got this shipment of products in—it’s ten boxes. Do I have to put them away?”

Obviously, yes.

“There’s a rumor that a new manager named Jennifer is starting. Is that true? I heard she’s gorgeous, wealthy, and has a ton of celebrity friends.”

You’ll have to ask Sally.

I just wanted to decompress from the weekend away and get my work done, but the girls were like needy children. So when Sally’s email came in, I actually looked forward to the distraction of reading it.

From: [email protected]

To: [email protected]

Subject: Call meeeee, Aleeeeeeee. Abt holiday party.

She was either butt dialing or had waaaaaaayyyyyyy toooooo much coffeeeeeee.

So I called, bracing myself. I knew I’d be required to do some of the planning and execution for the holiday party, and I wondered how difficult she would make the process.

“I’m setting it for a week from Friday,” Sally said. “It’s going to be a dinner at the corporate offices. I pay rent for a reason, so let’s use the space.”

“Okay, sounds good.” I had no place to argue. Was I being a brat in hoping we would eat at a restaurant so I didn’t have to be on setup and cleanup duty?

“I’ll order the food from Tony’s Di Napoli,” Sally said. “My brother is a manager there and can get us a discount. Unless you can find a way to make it happen for less than my discount; what do you say, Alicat?”

“Happy to make a phone call and try,” I replied, feigning sugary sweetness and knowing full well that I’d get the retail quote. “Will we get dessert from there as well?”

She waited for a moment. I hoped she was considering some delicious options. “Let’s just use the holiday gift baskets that have been sent to our offices from vendors and clients. There’s stuff in there. Yes, let’s go with that.”

What was the chance of one of our vendors sending us cakes and ice cream? Probably slim.

“Okay,” I said, not wanting to argue. “Can I order red and white wine, as well?” We all knew that Sally loved her red.

“Yes, order three bottles of red and three bottles of white and have them delivered to the office. Oh, and have ten bottles—five of each—delivered to my apartment while you’re placing the order.”

“So six bottles for thirty people?” She was evidently giving everyone a shot of wine over the course of the night but would have plenty waiting for her at home.

“You’re right—we need more than that,” she said, picking up on my tone. “Hike it up to four bottles of each and call it a day.”

“I know that you’re trying to keep costs down for this, Sally, but I feel like we should have at least double that much wine. It’s for thirty people and it’s a holiday party, you know?”

“Why are you so difficult sometimes? I just don’t understand,” she said. “Do what I tell you. Stop spending my money. Why is that so hard for you?”

Just wanting to end the conversation, I replied, “Eight bottles of wine it is.”

As if the day hadn’t tried my patience enough, just as I got off the phone with Sally, I saw my crazy aunt Farrah saunter into the studio. I watched through the monitor, paralyzed at my desk, as she looked around, doubtlessly trying to clock my location. I had known the day would come.

“Hi, is Alison in today?” I heard her ask Jolie. Farrah was dressed for the wrong season and looking eerily more like her own mother than my mom’s sister.

Jolie told her I was on a call, knowing exactly who she was—thank God for that watch list.

“I’ll wait for her to come out of her office,” Farrah said as she took off her coat and sat in the front of the store. Waiting. Patiently reading magazine after magazine while scouring the scene. I let her sit. And wait. And scour. But after three hours of the girls and I delighting in the silent power we held over her, it was time for her to go.

“I need you to leave, Farrah,” I said, sneaking out of my cubby in the back, noticing that she was mid–magazine story. She looked up, stunned that I came out to see her. Her eyes bored into mine.

“Are you here to buy makeup?” I asked.

“Well, no. But I’d like to talk to you about some things.”

“You are welcome to shop and purchase products, but loitering isn’t allowed, and I don’t talk about family business at work, so go home.”

“You can’t just throw me out.”

“But I can. So please leave.” She didn’t move. “Farrah, please leave.”

The whac-a-mole took heed of the mallet this time and sulkily made her way out. But where would she pop up next?

I held a secret pride in how I handled myself around Farrah of late. Perhaps it was the inner courage that came from knowing that she caused my mom pain, but I didn’t second-guess myself. Yet why was it that I couldn’t speak up to Sally, another significant woman with severe boundary issues? I had to take the courage from handling one and apply it to the other. And I had to start speaking up for myself.

To shake off the negative
familial energy and feign some holiday cheer—
play the part, Alison—
I asked Carly to put all the employees’ names in a hat so that we would have ample shopping time for Secret Santa. We settled on a twenty-dollar maximum, and since Giuseppe wasn’t in the studio for picking time, he would get Sally. This way, none of us would be stuck buying a present for the Beast. I drew Laramie.

Laramie was smart and a hard worker, especially for an intern, but corporate took advantage of her.
No surprise there.
I had been feeling overwhelmed with work lately, especially with the holidays looming, and Ira had given me permission to have Laramie help at the studio three days a week. She didn’t understand the brevity required of Sally-speak. She used roundabout sentences that made Sally say things like, “Speak English, please. I really don’t understand what you’re saying and I certainly can’t follow your thoughts if you don’t know the English language.”

Laramie had been born in Russia but had lived in the United States since she was six months old. She was a college grad who spoke and wrote in perfect English.

Thank goodness Sally wouldn’t, or couldn’t, walk downstairs to the basement where Laramie sat. Sally liked order, and Laramie reveled in disorder. It wasn’t uncommon to find food left out on her desk for days and papers scattered and torn up everywhere. But the thing with Laramie was that she was absolutely meticulous with her work. She moved on the slow side, but everything was consistently done correctly and I appreciated that.

Since Sally was always complaining about Laramie’s Lady Gaga–inspired hairstyles, I bought her a cute banana hair clip, essie Midnight Cami, and a fun teal scarf for the cold weather. She always wore a black coat and I knew that it would be her style and would give her some pop.

I was happy to be Laramie’s Secret Santa, and I ended up spending a bit more than twenty dollars, because while I was away on vacation for Christmas and New Year’s, Laramie would help cover my desk. I put her on social media duty and had her in charge of tweeting and posting on Facebook as Sally. I gave her a list of posts she could use and told her to get creative and have fun with it.

The holiday party was the last big work event separating me from my vacation. Once past that, I would have two more days of work and then freedom until the new year.

I craved the familiar hot California sun that I felt when visiting Madison every year at holiday time, and that’s where I would be in less than a week. Perhaps the vitamin D would help fill in the lost hair that preferred my shower drain to the top of my head.

My morning routine before work
was starting to take longer than ever, but not because of weekend partying or lack of sleep. Though I would still wake up before my alarm clock, more often than not I would want to roll over and forget about starting the day.

I would take epic showers and just stand under the water, letting it run. The water would transport me elsewhere, to a world of fairness and worth. “Please let me not have to go to work today,” I would say to the faucet. The faucet wouldn’t respond.

My twenty-block walk would take longer and longer as my pace slowed, with frequent trips to the drugstore for something that I absolutely needed before the day was out.

I had never known a company where every single employee was miserable. Okay, to be fair, maybe I didn’t know a ton of companies in general, but for
everyone
to be miserable?

“We all know it’s unbearable here, kid,” Carly said to me one slow day. We were in Sally’s office, Carly sitting at Sally’s desk, bouncing back and forth in her chair, the rhythm clearly pushing her thoughts out with each rock. “But what can I do in the makeup industry that’s better than this?” There was sarcasm, sadness, and resignation to her tone. “Work at a department store where I have to stand all day and compete with young, pretty girls?”

I just listened, already grateful for whatever was coming next.

“I made a deal with the devil, you know, and I keep deals I make with the devil.”

“What are you talking about, Carly?” I prodded gently, not wanting to interrupt her rhythm or take her out of her momentary trance. The room was quiet, save for the gentle creak of the chair’s leather.

“We all have our reasons for staying here.”

I waited for her to continue.

“Years ago, I’d been here for just over three months when I passed out at the studio—flat on the floor in the middle of the day. We were a much smaller operation back then, just a few of us. That was when the office was out of the back of the studio.”

I nodded. I had heard that was how this all started—out of just one room. One storefront. One window.

“Sally scooped me up and took me to the emergency room. And she paid for the hospital and the procedure to take care of what badly needed to be taken care of. The whole thing, she paid for. But she made it very clear to me that she owned me then. Kind, yes, but selfless . . . no.”

“Thanks for sharing that with me, Carly. Like you said, everyone has their own reasons for staying here. I’m learning that. And I’m just figuring out mine, to be honest.”

“Ownership can come through money, work, mentality. It’s sad, but people can be bought . . .” Carly trailed off. “Don’t let your perceptions of this industry be tarnished by just one experience in it.” She slowly tilted the chair down and then up one last time, and then left. As she passed me on her way out, she stopped and gave me a kiss on the head.

Her maternal gesture sent a pulse of warmth through my body as I tried to comprehend what she had just said.