I’m just too busy to worry about a
broken date.
I
swatch a selection of corals on my inner left wrist. Eye shadows, blushes, lipsticks, glosses and
even a lip liner. I can’t tell the
fucking difference, powders or creams, leaning toward pink or orange. So I grab some makeup remover, wipe it all
off, start swatching it again and still can’t discern anything. My oracle has died and all the ashes look the
same.
Shit. What an asshole. Brad knows how much I worry about money,
always and with the deep paranoia from never having any growing up. He grew up in a normal home with all the
safety that privilege confers. My mom
sold cosmetics, always Estee Lauder, after my dad killed himself when I was
two. Now you know how Gail and I bonded
at yoga one day. Some things, and
definitely people, will forever remain a mystery. Why? For
one thing, they’re dead. But for life
and people both there is no easy answer, as with a multiple choice question
where all we need do is pick a, b, c or none of the above.
All I know is that
my family struggled and for too many years I hated the man who deserted us. A quick bullet and all his problems got
dropped on our shoulders. Now I mostly
work and date men who’re too arrogant to imagine a world without them. Like Brad….the asshole who just told me to
lose weight if I wanted funding. As if
my profitable business is a joke. And
while he advises, I create.
The
light from the sunroof is hitting at just such an angle that my corals
glow. Wow! Now that effect is gorgeous. Imagine light hitting a woman’s cheek bones
like that. She’d be an angel, glowing
and alive, but also ethereal. Standing,
I stare down at the colors haphazardly slayed before me. A rainbow of options, much as I might yearn
for black and white choices.
Even
though I have real work to do and my phone has begun to ring I ignore it all
and go over to a big cabinet in the corner of my office. Looming large and bursting with old products,
I open it and grab some glittery shades and balance them in a hammock I make of
my shirt. Digging through the drawers
with my free hand, the other holding my shirt, I dig for other shimmers I can
remember. More organized and patient
people would also start grabbing brushes but I know what I need to see and want
it fast. I’m escaping a fight and trying
to turn that energy into a creative outlet.
It beats eating, which I’ve evidently been doing, and alcohol, which I
just might do tonight.
Digging
through the drawers some more, I know what I need: a bronzer and all the soft shimmers I can
find. No chunky glitter, just the
softest shimmer. Ad a bubblegum pink. I want to make an angel powder with a
peach undertone, as pinks are too cliché and I want a beach angel, as befits my
locale. Why can’t I mix those pinup
girls of the 1960’s with a beach and a soft angel sheen? It works in my mind and I walk back to my
table, gently laying out my powders in a heap.
I
can see the girls in the ads, one with almost white hair and light green eyes,
with the other very dark. They both need
long hair and contrasting skin tones.
But warm undertones and in white bikinis on Santa Monica Beach. No Tahiti here. Surfboards and opaque coral lipstick. Super retro.
With blues, greens and an almost white, sparkly, on their eyes.
My
phone rings and I knock my knee into the table as I crack the powders out of
their compacts with a pencil. Then I
mix, ignoring traffic, the phones and a siren.
My eyes well up with tears and I know that I’m escaping my breaking
relationship by trying to create, which comes so easily in a way that men never
will.
Why
does he do this? And again I see that
smile, wicked and full of fun, but ultimately so empty. I want to get away but then he says something
funny and acts like he knows what I should be doing and I fall for the act yet
again. But slowly I’m losing myself. I can’t help but wonder if he does provide my
company funding whether I’ll eventually lose the company someday too.
The
term sheets he sends others are so full of traps that, if anything goes wrong, they
always disadvantage the company to Brad’s advantage. Money men hold the strings, contractually, or
they don’t provide funding. And once you
take that money you start to run. Fast
and successful and they’ll shower you with more and make you run faster so they
can double down on a winner and increase their earnings. Get tired or fall behind and they swoop in to
“save” the company, including kicking out founders and bringing in new
management. I know all this because of
the stories Brad tells me.
“They
take the money because they’re greedy to succeed faster or desperate,” he says
about entrepreneurs. “We exploit the greedy
and ignore the desperate. Everyone has a
way that they can be manipulated and it’s my job to find it. I need to do that so my own investors make
money and I keep my job,” he told me at dinner a few nights ago. A nice overpriced Italian restaurant with
waiters imported from Southern Italy. I
twirled my pasta, trying to spear a scallop amidst tomatoes while he picked at
a huge grilled Branzino fish nestled in a bed of roasted potatoes.
And
I wonder how I got here. So I mix my
powders and wonder if he’ll finally dump me today, solving one problem only to
create another. We’ve been fighting a
lot lately. He’s been disappearing more and
I know he broke up with his previous official girlfriend only after we started
dating. I didn’t know then that he had a
“girlfriend” and probably a few women “friends” on the side. But what goes around comes around and I can
see a few warning signs, my weight included.
Los
Angeles is a competitive city when it comes to men, especially attractive and
wealthy ones like Brad. My friends all
tell me to appreciate him more, work harder to keep him happy and all of that
crap. As if I don’t have a company to
run. I cry into my orange/brown/shimmer
powder and smear some on my wrist. It’s
perfect and exactly as I imagined. I can
make my sea angels come alive and bring that glow to regular women. But I can’t seem to make my man happy. If he’s still my man.
Can
I still add this concoction to my new line?
Probably not. But I can introduce
new products after a respectable wait following the initial launch. These don’t fit the spare aesthetics of the
initial concept but I was already planning to build complimentary add-ons
later. The whole line is coloring
driven, with “prescriptions”, or recommendations, based on undertones, hair and
eye coloring. Even personal style. I had a software engineer write a program
that can customize a million flattering looks so customers don’t need to judge
for themselves, unless they want to. Why
make people rely on online swatches or bad fluorescent lighting to pick colors? Why not customize looks and product lines
based on complex but easily programmable algorithms? It isn’t like a computer
can’t do so in a second. And women want
to look more beautiful. A match made in
heaven.
Brad
called me a genius when I pitched him the initial concept so I went ahead with
it. But that was about six months
ago. Now we fight over the fact that
he’s frequently rude and impatient and my tone isn’t always correct. Another tear hits a dusty coral mound and I
realize I’m feeling sorry for myself. He
has always hugged his smartphone and acted like an asshole – it just bothers me
more now. Why?
My
phone keeps ringing but Frankie, my assistant, has been doing a great job of
dealing with all those people calling. I
have a button I can hit when I don’t want to be disturbed and believe me it’s
on. I don’t freak out often but I know
that when Brad threatens he means it and he just hit my weak spot. This company is all I have and at this point
I’ve invested too much in this new line not to get that additional last bit of
funding to meet ALL the orders I have. Indeed,
I actually got too many orders, usually a good thing, if you can fund
them. And he knows it and I guess I
should have expected he might pull this sort of cheap trick to try to get part
ownership in the company. Brad, my
advisor and confidant, knows better than anyone how successful it is!
I
remember when I first met him and he made me laugh so much. He was tan and tall, we bumped into each
other literally, when I backed into him at a friend’s Fourth of July
party. Brad was juggling a few beers
while I was rushing back to my best friend with two overstuffed barbequed
burgers. That difference would always
divide us. I like to eat while he
prefers to drink his calories. Different
personalities, right? I think so. I dig into things while he likes to keep all light
and distant. Full versus
inebriated.
“Want
a few beers to go with that? Your
boyfriend would want a drink too,” he said, and smiled in that crafty way he
has when he thinks he’s being smart. And
I fell for the trick.
“Oh,
I don’t have a boyfriend,” I responded quickly, not wanting to discourage such
an attractive man whose eyes ran up and down my expanse, legs covered by only
scraps of some denim shorts I could pull off then. “This is for my friend,” I finished lamely,
the light dawning. And of course he
asked me out and suddenly, before I knew it, I had a boyfriend.
I
met him because I didn’t want to. I hate
how when I say that I really don’t want to date I end up dropping into a
relationship. And my company was just as
demanding then as I was expanding distribution into major retailers. Brad was my ready shoulder. I had so much work to do then. And now.
The
phone rings again and I finally kneel in my overstuffed chair studying the mess
and bending over my table. I know none
of the calls is Brad. He’d never show
such weakness. He lets everyone wait and
knows the power of not responding or reaching out first. A negotiating tactic he taught me. I’ll die before I call so soon to apologize
for hanging up on him. Meanwhile, he’ll
never apologize for his transgressions, which I consider worse but he’ll just
laugh about it with a friend over drinks later.
I know him that well by now. I
too have been that companion lounging with him at some dark bar, in awe over
his prowess in life.
My
door opens and I brace myself. If
someone at this company ignores my closed door and do not disturb phone block I
know it’s serious. Frankie, my vegan
part time yogi assistant rushes in, her zen calm gone and clearly
agitated. Many of those I hire come from
yoga since my studio is one of the few places where I actually meet people as
I’m mostly working or with Brad. What
got her so riled up?
Frustrated,
trapped, but not quite desperate, I lean over my table and blow, watching my
magical glittery powder lift off into air, dispersing like the ethereal dream I
know it is. Later I’ll deal with angels
and craft an image around that concept.
For now, I need to deal with real people and life itself.
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