About Face (8 page)

After a quick high-five from Jane, she added, “The way I see it, there are saggers and there are prunes. Jane may be a sagger, but I'm more of a prune. But I have sagger tendencies, too. Like how my face kind of seems to melt off my skull when I lie on my side or, god forbid, face down. Right? Am I right? Know what I mean?” She nodded and widened her eyes, looking for universal agreement, which she got.

“It's gotten to the point where I never want to be on top because I don't want Gary to see how bizarre it looks when the skin on my face stretches down. In the olden days, I
wanted
to be on top so my boobs would look bigger, right? I guess there must have been a middle period when everything was just the right size and stayed where it belonged. But I don't remember it. Because, as you know, I can't retain anything.”

“Except water,” came the chorus.

Everyone took some food and a few refilled their glasses. Jane continued, “Everyone has some vanity. Even the little kids in my class. You should see the pictures they draw of themselves.”

“It's just a question of drawing the line,” Charlie said. “Some people draw it at flattering clothes. Some people draw it at makeup. Others think the line comes just beyond plastic surgery but before cryogenics.”

“But it's all connected to our limitless ability to feel bad about ourselves,” Sarah said.

“Wait a second,” Blanche said. “Isn't the topic something about products?”

“Good girl,” Charlie said. “
Someone
can remember the topic. Are you sure you're old enough to be in this group?”

All eyes turned to Ruth. Sarah spoke for the group. “So what's up? Why'd you want to know all this?”

“Remember, at the session when we talked about our work, I said I've always been ambivalent about working at Mimosa?” Ruth noticed her hands were wet and her breath was reluctant. She was going public for the first time—David didn't count—about an idea she'd been nurturing like garden peas in April. And these women were her target market, too. What would they say? And what would they think of her? Sure, they offered relatively unconditional acceptance, but still she wondered what they'd think.

“Yeah, I remember,” Jane said. “Ambivalent about a good job with good money. Talk about crazy.”

Ruth nodded. “That's me. But one of the reasons is exactly what Sarah said before, because my life's career is in an industry that can make women feel bad about themselves. And I'm part of it. So I was thinking about us, you know, us middle-aged women who are so beautiful on the inside and also, really, beautiful on the outside, too, just not like Isabella Rosselini.”

As she explained her idea for the new product line, she warmed to the subject and had no idea if she'd been speaking for five minutes or an hour. She poured herself a glass of wine and forced herself not to look at her watch. “So, I hope I haven't gone on too long, but I'd really like to know what you think. If there were such a product line for mature women, would you be interested? And do you think your friends would? Tell me true. Don't spare my—”

“I like it,” Blanche said. “I know I'm never gonna look like Naomi Campbell or Angela Bassett, so I like the idea of being appreciated. ‘Cause that's what it is, it's being appreciated instead of discarded. Right? Like years and years ago when they started having ads that actually showed … horrors!…black people in them. Isn't that what we've been talking about? Being included. Being visible. Being accepted. It's kind of revolutionary, so who knows what the corporate movers and shakers might think. But me, an unmover and unshaker, I like it.”

“What I'm wondering, though” Sarah said, only slightly louder than the general hubbub, but loud enough for everyone to stop talking, “is about the products you're talking about. What are they? Are they really different from the rest of the stuff out there? Or is this just a scheme for some new advertising campaign to try to lure us holdouts? ‘Cause, to me, it sounds like a way to fool the few of us who don't use makeup into finally buying some. And I wouldn't have anything to do with it. It's still about what you look like, not who you are, it's still about covering something up instead of letting something show. Isn't it?”

“Funny,” Blanche said, “I think you could look at what you just said in exactly the opposite way. It's only about changing your skin, not about trying to change who you really are. So maybe you don't need to be so … so defensive or … or so judgmental about it.”

“Nice try,” Sarah said. “I don't buy it. And I wouldn't buy this stuff.”

“Well anyway, I figure there are product lines for Asian women and African-American women, so why not older women. Besides, we're here to try to help Ruth, aren't we?” Blanche looked around.

“Ladies, ladies, Ruth knows I love her,” Sarah said. She looked at Ruth, who nodded. “But she wants to know what we think. And now she knows what I think.”

“And I'm with Blanche,” Charlie said. “I think it's a great idea. Just don't forget something for the neck, okay?”

“Me too, I like it a lot. I think it's safely on my side of the line between self-hate and a legitimate desire to present your best face. And there's your answer, Ruth.” Jane's summing-up voice and discrete look at her watch announced that, for her at least, it was time to go home. “One of us isn't sold, three are waiting for free samples.”

Everyone helped carry dishes and glasses into the kitchen and the meeting ended the way it had begun, like a film played in reverse. They hugged, they chatted, they sent regards to husbands and children.

Three to one, thought Ruth. Not statistically significant, to be sure, but as a testing-of-the-waters, it's not bad at all. Even Jeremy would like those numbers. I think.

CHAPTER 8

Some Things Never Change

 

 

THE TRIP FROM RUTH AND David's house in Northern New Jersey to Vivian and Carlos's apartment in Brooklyn crossed two rivers, three decades, and a state of mind. Ruth asked David to take the Parkway, slightly longer than the Interstate but more beautiful. Usually, his approach to life was the scenic route while hers was the Interstate, but this trip was different. She needed whatever balance the scenic route could provide. Also, it would take longer.

The brilliant yellow forsythia that crowded the northern end of the road's central island provided some good cheer right off the bat. As they traveled south, the bushy forsythia gave way to the stalwart daffodils, then the virtuoso fruit tree and dogwood displays, and finally some early lilacs. Seeing the mauve blooms on the way south meant she'd soon see them in her yard, an annual miracle.

She adored the lilacs, perhaps because of their short season and the fleeting allure of their scent. She always wanted more of the aroma than she could hold onto. Her other favorite was the daffodil, paradoxically, for the opposite reason: they were so easy, coming up every year with no effort, more of them than the year before. They were valiant, they were loyal. People fussed too much over their roses, over-valuing every little bloom, while daffodils didn't get their fair share of esteem because of their dependability. When she felt neglected, she liked to think of herself as a daffodil. Unlike her sister Marge, the prodigal, whose every rare smile was cherished.

Vivian, too, was more like a rose—unpredictable, hard to please, more independent, therefore prized. Before she knew it, she was reliving the fight at the Chinese restaurant, this time with the brilliant comebacks she'd composed afterwards.

“Oh, perfect. This is exactly what you do. You fall in love with someone, they're your best friend, then you drop them when you fall for someone else. You're still trying to reject your parents before they have a chance to reject you. Grow up.”

Or, “I guess you just can't stand someone who's different from you. It's too threatening to your neurotic need to be right all the time. Get used to it, you're not right all the time.”

It was easy now to look back and see the retorts, not so brilliant after all, for what they were, attempts to return pain. But it was still shocking that Vivian had been so willing to discard her.

Besides all the complexities of the friendship with Vivian, there was Carlos to be nervous about. He used to be so holier-than-thou. Was it youthful idealism? Could he have calmed down by now? Or was it in his DNA?

And she was embarrassed about having become such a straight arrow, “one of
them
,” as they used to say in the wisdom of their 1960's hippie-dom. At least her blue denim pants and white cotton sweater didn't look too suburban. Or did they? Anyway, here she was, Ms. Suburban Corporate Executive, while Vivian and Carlos were still making the world a better place.

“Are you okay?” David asked after awhile.

“Mmmm, I guess so.”

He looked over at her. “Meaning… ?”

“Just wondering again about what will happen today. Wondering about what Vivian's like. And Carlos too.” She kept her gaze straight ahead.

“It'll be fine.”

She explained, with only a hint of a whine, that she kept seeing herself through their eyes and felt self-conscious. They'd stayed so pure, with their ideals on the outside where everyone could see them, whereas hers, while they were still there, were covered up. “I'm afraid I'm going to feel like I need to prove myself.”

“You're assuming we've changed and they haven't. And it also assumes they'll look down on us suburbanites.”

She turned to face him. “Right. But I'm assuming it because it's true. We
have
changed. And you should have seen Vivian in the women's room that night. She was—”

“You're putting them in a category, you're prejudging them. Just what you're afraid they'll be doing to us.”

“But—”

“Let's not assume anything, just see what we see.” He rolled down his window, sniffed, and said, “Doesn't that air smell great?”

She returned her body to its forward position and her gaze to the speeding lilacs by the side of the road.

“I have to chew on that one. But you're not supposed to be able to reason with your emotions, you know. That's why they're called emotions.”

“Like you said, I'm just amazing.” He beamed.

Ruth realized David thought she'd complimented him, but the truth was that she suspected David's emotions weren't as “real” as hers. How could they be, if they could be corralled so easily? Before she knew it, she was imagining a vigorous “My Emotions are Bigger Than Yours” debate. Maybe a TV game show. She giggled.

“What?” David asked.

“Oh, nothing,” she said. “Just thinking about someone at work.”

They crossed the first bridge, the mighty George Washington. Whoever dreamed up suspension bridges sure didn't have Jeremy for a boss, she thought. What an idea, hanging the roadbed from cables running between two towers instead of stretching it from one side to the other. It reminded her of a giant mother with open arms supporting everyone's troubles.

As they continued down the East Side of Manhattan, Ruth watched the woman in the car to their right. She was about Ruth's age, with long hoop earrings that bobbed as she shook her head, which she did constantly. Ruth realized the head-bobbing was accompanying the kind of lusty singing an empty car invites. And then she saw the woman was singing along to the same music she and David were listening to on the radio, a station that played rock and roll from the sixties and seventies. Ruth enjoyed how she remembered every word of every song, even those she hadn't heard for years. She started singing, too, hoping the woman would look over. When she did, they had a good laugh as they sang together, neither one able to hear the other. The virtual duet lifted Ruth's spirits and kept them elevated the rest of the way, over the Brooklyn Bridge, to Brooklyn Heights, and into a lucky parking spot practically in front of Vivian's apartment.

Carlos opened the door. There was a breathless moment while the three old friends squared their memories of the other faces with the reality.

He was much older. His hair was still long, but not so thick, not so dark, and he now wore it in a ponytail. His long, thin face was lined and tired, though his dark eyes were still steel-bright under stern brows, and his gaze was firm. Tall and trim as ever in what looked to be the jeans he wore in the Peace Corps—like him, a little older, a little more worn—he hunched over just a little, as if something hurt.

Ruth imagined a video of Carlos's younger face gradually aging until it got to its present state, like police projections of kidnapped children's faces. It didn't feel like her life passing in front of her eyes, exactly, the way people said happened at times of great urgency, but it
was
coming up against the passage of time.

Ruth let out her breath first. “Carlos, I'd know you anywhere, you look exactly the same. You haven't changed even the tiniest little bit.”

Carlos looked down. “I don't know about that,” he said in the husky voice she'd last heard in Africa, now with the addition of a slight Spanish accent.

David said, “Oh Carlos, allow me to let you in on Ruth's code. Now you're supposed to say, ‘Neither have you, Ruth. You look exactly the same as you did when you were twenty-five. Actually, you look even younger. And thinner.' Not that she's lying about your looking good, though. You do.”

Carlos looked back up to meet David's eyes and smiled gently, as if to say he got the joke, but wasn't playing the game. “It's good to see you two. It sure has been a long time. I remember once, maybe it was the last time the four of us were together, when we were at the Café de Paris. In Dakar.”

“Probably playing Scrabble,” David said.

“Even though half the pieces were missing,” Carlos said.

“And we were probably arguing about something,” Ruth said.

“Like whether ‘beatnik' is allowed in the game,” David said.

“Which it was, just like I said. I looked it up later on.”

“I can't believe you did that. Okay, okay, you win.”

“We were probably also wrangling about who'd pay for the beers,” Carlos suggested. “I'm pretty sure it was your turn.”

“Or about how long it would take us to save the world,” Ruth said. She instinctively stepped forward to hug Carlos. He was so stiff she felt like she was hugging a coat rack.

Carlos and David shook hands energetically. “Come on in. It's
muy bien
that you're here. Vivian's so excited, she's been telling everyone we know. Talking even faster than usual.”

As they entered the apartment, Vivian emerged from the rear. “Ohmygod David. Oh. My. God. I can't believe it. It's so incredible to see you again. Incredible. You look terrific, you haven't changed at all. I'd know you anywhere. Oh, I can't believe it, here you two are, in my house. I'm sosoSO happy to see you.” She hugged David warmly, standing on her toes, patting his back, breaking away from her hug to take a step back and look at him, then hugging him again.

She approached Ruth. “It sure is lucky we were in the same place at the same time and both had to pee.”

Vivian showed them around the apartment. A floor-through on the bottom of the brownstone, a half-level below the street, it was dark, even at mid-day. As she led them into the living room, she turned on the lights.

Crammed among a couch covered with threadbare Indian-print fabric, two painted rattan armchairs, and pine desk was a hyperactivity of objects. Photos filled the walls, the bookshelves, the desk. Ruth and David walked around and watched Vivian and Carlos's daughter, Ida, grow up in pictures. The proud parents silently observed their rapt attention. Ruth gave an occasional “Aaahhh.”

There were also photos of Vivian and Carlos at work, she with her clients at the Brooklyn Shelter for Women, where she was a counselor, he at his desk as the Assistant Executive Director of the Prisoners' Rights Foundation. Some photos showed them at political rallies and retreats where the causes and the clothing changed, but the energy remained constant.

When she saw the photo in the African print picture frame on the windowsill, Ruth brought her right hand to her chest as something between a sigh and a gasp escaped her mouth. There she was, twenty-five-year-old Ruth, in the hut she and Vivian had shared in Djembering, surrounded by crintin, Ada the refrigerator, the orange crate bookshelves, and a bunch of smiling children who would now be about thrty-five years old. She turned to look at Vivian, who was already looking at her. Vivian's silence was more expressive than her words ever were.

Besides the photos, there was a traffic jam of African art on every wall and horizontal surface, as well as on the floor. There were wood sculptures and masks, some with metal trim, some with straw, some with cowrie shells. There was an assortment of fabric hangings, the black and white mud-painted Korhogo cloth from the Ivory Coast, the brightly-colored Abomey toiles with fabric appliqués of animals and traditional symbols, and the striped blue Malian weavings. All the art was African, even after all these years. Houseplants added to the frenzy, big ones on the floor, smaller ones competing with the photos for room on the desk and bookshelves, and hanging baskets. The small space was filled to bursting.

The clutter didn't bother Ruth as she would have expected. Nor did the water stains on the walls or the creaking and uneven planks in the ancient wooden floor. She knew this place was very different from her own orderly home and recognized the irony of her envying a life that had yielded fewer material possessions than her own. Carlos and Vivian had taken a different path than she had, and she wondered what it would have been like if she'd chosen that path too. No fancy house in the suburbs, no debt-free tuition for Josh, no corporate perks, but maybe idealism. Maybe passion.

“It's beautiful,” Ruth said.

“Well, we like it here, we really do. It's kind of funky, sort of like us. But we can afford it and it's a decent commute to our jobs, so that's good too. I know you probably live someplace that's much more—”

“And the neighborhood's great,” Carlos added. “The block association holds pot luck dinners every month. And a great public library a few blocks away. Too bad Ida's grown up, because the public school's terrific, a nice mix of middle-class and working-class kids. Very progressive program.”

They continued through the living room and out the other end, careful not to knock over any of the items they slalomed around on the way. The apartment was laid out in a long line from the living room on the street side of the brownstone to the kitchen at the back. As they entered the next room, Vivian turned on its lights while Carlos doubled back to turn off the ones in the living room