Adventures with Max and Louise (10 page)

“I haven’t worn a dress since the night my mom died.”

His eyes meet mine. “Is this like a new disease? Toxic dress syndrome? I can understand why some bridesmaids get it, but you . . .” Martin wraps one arm around me and gives me the warm, reassuring squeeze that makes him such a wonderful friend. “Every time you wear a dress someone will not die. Molly, please. You can look pretty and sexy, and you can wear a dress.”

“I hate this.”
Why can’t I believe him?

Martin moves on, concentrating on the clothes. “Have you called Trina yet? She’s going to be so happy when she hears about your date. She thought the operation would give you self-confidence, not superpowers.”

I turn to Martin, lowering my voice. “It’s been really weird, Martin. It’s like there’s another person in me.”

He frowns. “What do you mean, another person?”

I don’t like the look on his face. “Well, not another person.”

“That’s what you said, another person.”

“I meant I
feel
like a different person.”

“Okay, okay, different
feeling
person; how about we try you in some different
feeling
clothes. Will you just trust me? Try a few of these dresses on?”

Every dress is a disaster: too tailored, too loose, too flashy, too dull, and mostly not me. After ten years of hiding in sloppy jeans and sweats, I’m not really sure what is me until I try on the last dress. The transformation is astonishing. The simple gray dress emphasizes my curves. The sweetheart neckline frames my face. I pat my hair, thinking it’s a minor miracle that my curls, in this weather, have not deteriorated into frizz. Lifting my shoulders, I think, Mom was right; good posture does help. I twirl around on my tiptoes. Not bad, not bad at all. My mind whirls with horrible possibilities: insanity, schizophrenia, and yet not one shows.

For the first time in a decade, I feel pretty. The scars, pulled down under my new breasts, have changed from thick pink slugs to delicate white lines. They’re nearly invisible. The exposed skin, though perhaps slightly shiny, is clear, pink, and glows. My breasts swell gently, balancing the fat on my hips.

“It ain’t fat, honey,” Max says.

“It’s fat.”

“Hmm; ’ou ever ’ear of a chap called Rubens? Paid plenty to paint women much ’eavier than yours truly. You’re a woman, luv, not some ’alf-starved über waif that gets paid to impersonate a coat ’anger.”

Martin speaks up from the hallway. “Hello? Anything work?”

“One thing.”

“Can I see?”

“I need different shoes.”

“Show me the dress.”

Opening the door, I tentatively step out.

Martin is checking his BlackBerry, frowning at the screen. “I was afraid you’d boycott everything and run across the street to the Gap,” he says before looking up.

Striding toward him on stocking feet, I turn in front of him like a hip-jutting runway model. He sits up straight, biting his lip.

“What do you think?”

There are tears in his eyes. “You look amazing. Just amazing. If Chas baby doesn’t ask you out on a second date, I will. You don’t even need jewelry with a dress like that. All you need are some great heels.”

I groan. “Martin, I cannot walk in heels.”

Martin’s face turns serious. “Trust me on this one. I might not be straight, but I know men. Even the ones who say they love that whole Birkenstock hairy-legged thing, they’re lying. You’re wearing them. You’ll learn how to walk in them.” Reaching out for the price tags dangling off the sleeve, he unpins one and expertly rips the rest off without damaging the fabric. “Here’s your extra wool.” He slips the plastic envelope with some gray threads into my purse. “In case you want to darn something. Hurry up, let’s skedaddle. You need some grown-up shoes.”

Gathering my old clothes, I insist, “No heels.”

“We’ll talk about it.”

At the register, Martin hands the salesperson the tags. “Don’t tell her the price. She needs a couple glasses of wine first.”

The salesperson laughs and rings up our purchase.

“Molly, can I ask you something personal?” Martin puts his hand over the credit card receipt while I sign.

“Sure.”
Oh no, he’s going to ask me about the other person inside me comment.

“Well, Mr. Bullitt asked me again about your cookbook,
The Evolution of Eating
.”

Six months ago, the owner of the newspaper, Harrison Bullitt, asked Martin if his star columnist, Diner X, had a cookbook in the works. Martin said I did. Mr. Bullitt set up a meeting with an editor and a cookbook publicist from Sidney-Brace Publishing. We met in their hotel suite at the downtown Fairmont. Although I was a nervous wreck and nearly threw up before I entered the suite, I managed to pitch my cookbook by keeping my eyes closed, pretending I was talking to a friend. Amazingly, they loved it. What they didn’t love was the fact that I wouldn’t do publicity. They’d yammered on about all the radio and television shows they’d line up for me, promising me the
Today Show
. When I’d said, in a pathetically small voice, that I couldn’t do publicity, it was like flipping a switch: their eyes drained of light, smiles wilted. In stilted voices they’d promised they’d call, which, of course, never happened. End of story.

“He remembered the title?” I picture myself in this dress on the cookbook cover, no, maybe in red. Isn’t that what the publicist had said, red?

“Yes. He loved it. And so do I. So, well . . . don’t be mad. I called that Liz woman at Sidney-Brace and told her that I was your agent.”

“I didn’t know I had an agent.” A tingling sensation creeps along my spine.

“I’m the nosy kind of agent who will feed off your celebrity, not your paycheck.”

“Shoes?” I ask the salesperson as she hands me a shopping bag with my old clothes. I still have to get through this date.

“First floor.”

We head toward the escalator. “Did she even take your phone call?” As we meander through the shoe department, picking up shoes and discarding them, I flashback to our last encounter.

Liz Dolpha was an angular, slick shark of a woman who’d tried her best to talk me into doing publicity. “Molly, people don’t buy cookbooks for the recipes. They’re buying a lifestyle, a dream. They see Martha Stewart’s farmhouse, and they want to be in that big clean kitchen making soufflés, not in their crummy split level dumping Costco chicken into a pan. People have enough cookbooks. They’re buying you.”

Her thin counterpart, Dave Webster, broke in, his silver eyeglasses glinting. “You’re the brand. Think Martha. Think Rachel Ray.”

“Diner X is your launch pad, Molly. Time to take off.”

I began to sweat slightly, freckles beading lightly on my nose. Martin, who had come along to hold my hand, raked his hand through his hair. I could tell he agreed with them. And so did I. But I couldn’t do it. Not then. I’d listened and nodded and probably gave them the impression that I agreed with them, but really it was fear.

Dave had given it one last try, telling me that Julia Child was the pioneer. She came on television like a baster-wielding Amazon, and American attitudes about food changed. Her show launched a thousand vol-au-vents. The children of her vision, Emeril Lagasse, Bobby Flay, Rachael Ray, even the Jamie Oliver, all climbed to the top through television, books, magazines, and radio. Not one of them sat back and waited for the people to come to them.

“You need to be 100 percent focused on joining their ranks,” he said. “That means radio, television, print, and anything else you’re lucky enough to get. The top of the heap is a show on the Food Network. Do you know how many people are out there peddling cookbooks who would kill to get a meeting like this? Liz here is one of the best publicists I’ve ever worked with. If she’s telling you her plan, you’re damn lucky.”

And for the last time, I’d said no. Liz muttered something under her breath about being done with first-time authors. She and Dave rushed off to catch a car service to the airport. Martin, who’d set up the meeting, was silent the entire drive home. He never mention the meeting again. He didn’t have to. I was furious with myself.

Now he’s eyeing me cautiously as we stroll through salon shoes, wondering if I’m going to balk again. “She wants it if you’ll do media. All media,” he says ominously. “Web, radio, TV.”

“That’s all I have to do, and I’m a published author?”

“She wants it in writing, Molly. She wants to know that you will absolutely do all publicity with no backing out. It will be part of your contract. They’re so sure of this they’re going to rush the book into production if you agree. Cookbook sales are booming, and they want your book to ride that wave.”

We are descending smoothly toward the bustling main floor. I concentrate on the metal grooves of the escalator sliding into the floor. I take a deep breath, lift my shoulders, and concentrate, for a moment, on my posture. If I can just stand straight and think, maybe everything will stop moving so fast. First Chas and now this. I’ll be able to publish my cookbook if I do publicity, and that’s a big if. One part of me cringes in the corner, thinking it’s not too late to hide. The other half wants to jump up and down and shout to the world, “I’m going to be published! I wrote a great cookbook, and Sidney-Brace agrees!” The tingling in my spine expands into a warm glow. Could I really face crowds of people and share my philosophy of cooking for every stage of life, from baby purees to casseroles for elderly relatives?

“A published author. Chas would find it bloody sexy,” Max interjects. “I can get you through those interviews like a flippin’ star. Scout’s ’onor!”

Before we reach the main floor, I give Martin my answer.

Chapter Eleven

B
Y ONE O’CLOCK,
I am a slightly trampy Cinderella. Angeli has applied lotions, powders, lipstick, and glosses to give me what she considers a “natural” look. Natural is achieved with face cream, toner, eye cream, two shades of blended under-eye concealer, lip and eyeliner, cream blush, carefully smudged eye shadow in three coppery hues, a puff ball of whispery light powder over it all, a smudge of lipstick, then gloss, and a tub of mascara.

“Voilà you have the fabulous dewy skin of a teenager,” she proudly pronounces.

“I look like a hooker.”

“No, you don’t. It’s a fall palate. Faded summer tan with raspberry lips. Tell her, Martin.”

Martin nods in agreement. “She’s right.” I can’t tell if he’s lying.

I take one last look in the mirror before I face them both. “Wish me luck.”

“Break a leg,” says Martin.

“I probably will in these horrible shoes,” I say, wobbling in my new kitten-heeled slides.

“You look amazing,” Angeli says with pride of ownership. She hugs me as if I’m about to walk down the aisle.

“It’s just lunch.” I adjust the knit dress. I’ve never worn anything so clingy.

“Oh my God, your nails are awful!” Angeli gasps. “And your eyebrows are out of control.”

With a promise to let her shape my brows and do my nails later, I run out into the street. There’s just enough time to pause in front of a store window, carefully rubbing half of the makeup off with a tissue until I look more like myself.

“Thata goil,” Max says in his bouncing Cockney.

Gazing at my reflection, I can clearly tell, by close examination, who is talking. My breasts look identical; they don’t move. It is a tightening, a tension, nothing sexual or arousing. A new and startling fact; another teaspoon of craziness in an overflowing day.

Rubbing off more blush, I whisper, “What do you mean? I thought you wanted me to look all hot and bothered.” I check to see if anyone is around. Pedestrians scurry with the single-mindedness of rats in a maze. This is downtown. No one cares if I talk to myself.

“Ah, Molly,” Max sighs. “When will you get it? Nothin’ is sexier than a bird that knows what she wants.”

“What if she wants to go back to bed and pretend like this whole day never happened?” I spit on the tissue and rub off some of the glittery eye shadow.

“Leave it,” Max said. “You’ve got gorgeous eyes. ’ave you ever winked? You know, at a bloke. It’s bloody sexy.”

I start walking. “Do I look like a woman who winks?”

He chuckles. “You’d best hurry now.” I speed up. “Not that fast. You don’t want to get there first and be waiting on ’im.”

Checking my watch, I glance down into my cleavage. “You got a watch down there too?”

A passing man sees me talking into my cleavage. He turns to gawk, smacking face first into a stop sign. I have a rush of pity but can’t help chuckling.

After a few blocks, during which I think about the logistics of Max, I blurt out, “Surely if you’re in my breast, you can read my mind. This whole talking out loud thing is a little awkward, don’t you think?”

“Do I look loik a bloody fortune teller?” Max asks as we round the corner and stop at a light.

I glance at the people waiting at the light beside me, businesspeople on their lunch hour. I speak as quietly as possible. “I don’t know. What do you look like?” He sounds like the London cabbies I’ve seen in movies.

“Creamy white, nice, rounded shape, jaunty pink cap.”

I’ve become accustomed to such levels of insanity, such outlandish possibilities, that my only reaction to his comment is laughter. There is a moment, I suppose, where you just have to jump off the cliff, take the plunge, and otherwise embrace the madness. Perhaps, I think, as I reach my destination, I’m at that point.

I stop for a moment at the front door of the restaurant, jumpy and nervous. Max feels like an ally and a friend until I think about my date with Chas. His perfection, built up with the sugar-coated memories of high school and hardened with time, makes my legs tangle; the ground becomes syrup. Not to mention my silent right breast.
The boob you know,
I ruminate,
is better than the boob you don’t.

“Luv, you’re a strong, confident woman with a dazzlin’ career, a dashin’ outfit, and a tantalizin’ set of ta-tas,” Max sings out. “Although, the left one is quite a bit perkier and livelier than the right.”