Cherries In The Snow (8 page)

‘That would be fantastic. I don't drink Coke or coffee. And neither should you. It's green tea. Detoxifying. You want some?'

‘You know how many toxins are in your paint fumes?'

‘Three hundred, the prime one being arsenic.'

The next night we go to a movie he picks. Before he arrives, I drink a lot of coffee and Coke – a ‘Fuck you' and a fight to keep my mind focused on my lipstick project. It backfires. I am shaking when he arrives. I fall into his arms and let him
hold me. I rest there for a while. He does little chakra points on my back and I calm down.

‘Hey. That's amazing.'

‘Just Eastern good sense.'

I tell him I'm trying to think of the name of the lipstick that will change our company.

‘Wow, big task.'

‘You're making fun of me.'

‘No, I'm not. You wield great power. You could make a real mark with this.'

A real mark with lipstick that lasts two hours if you're lucky.

‘This is interesting.'

‘So you and Holly, did you ever…'

‘No. Not my type.'

‘Ivy will be relieved.'

‘And you?'

‘Holly needs to have a spiritual crisis.'

‘So what did you talk about? Why were you friends?'

‘I knew her mother.'

‘You
knew
her mother?'

‘Yes. She was a beautiful woman. All my lovers have been older. A lot older.'

All. Holly's mother. Wow.

‘Does Holly know?'

‘Of course.'

Of course she wouldn't be bothered. Of course it wouldn't affect her trying to seduce him.

‘It didn't last very long. Months, I think. But it ended with dignity. Like her. She was a beautiful woman. Holly, I have less in common with. But she's a good girl somewhere in there. I think.'

‘All my lovers have been older too.'

‘How old are you?'

‘Twenty-four.'

‘Wow. I mean I knew, but younger than me? That's a first.'

‘How old are you again?'

‘Twenty-eight.'

We drink in silence.

‘When was Holly's mother?'

‘After my split with Jolene.'

‘Jolene, like Dolly Parton?'

‘Don't talk Dolly to me, I'm from the south.'

‘You are? You don't look like …'

‘I'm from everywhere.'

I like to know people's ethnicity. Not knowing my friend's ethnic background is like when you call people on their cell phones and have no idea where they are when they answer. It makes me feel unanchored. Mariah Carey, what are you? Rosario Dawson, what are you? I am a Sephardic Swede, now your turn.

You don't have to name every color. If he's from everywhere and I can never name the color, well, then, he's the exception in my life. He buys me a strange guarana drink and tells me his friends called him Marley. Everywhere in the East Village kids high-five him, skateboarders wheel up to pay their respects. He seems embarrassed, but the blush barely tinges his dark skin. We sit in the darkness watching a documentary about homeless people who have built communities under the subway. He puts his hand in mine. Afterward we go to a latenight Polish café, where I order the raspberry cheese blintzes with a chocolate cupcake on the side. As is my wont, I take five bites of my blintzes and wish I had ordered something else. The cafe's lighting is making me nervous. I'm sure my blue mascara (which I wish I had not named Mars Attacks!) is coming off as tacky instead of eye-opening.

‘I don't want this. Do you want it?' I push the plate toward him.

‘What am I, a vacuum cleaner?'

‘Nah, sorry. That's just what I do with my father.'

‘No thank you. I don't eat sugar.'

‘You don't?'

‘Or dairy.'

‘You're lying!' I hear myself screech.

‘That would be a dull lie.'

‘You're right. My God, when did this happen?' I sound like I'm asking him when he had a vasectomy or when he lost a limb.

‘Oh, about a year ago.'

‘No sugar in a year?'

‘No dairy in five. Jolene was … is a health freak. Is a health freak. She exists without me.'

‘I know that feeling. How do they continue without you?'

‘It's a funny one, huh?'

We go back to my apartment. Sidney Katz eyes him with ill-concealed distaste. Marley sits on the edge of my bed because there is nowhere else to sit. I am overcome with nerves and rack my brain for something clever to say. Instead I say: ‘Don't you think it's weird that in “Do They Know It's Christmas” by Band Aid, Sting sings the word
sting:
“The only water flowing is the bitter sting of tears.” That haunted me as a child.'

‘Not the starving Ethiopians?'

‘I was distracted by Sting singing
sting
. And why was the American version called “We Are the world”? Such jingoism!'

‘I never thought of that. You're right.'

I look at the green electronic clock. ‘Two A.M. I'm pretty much always right.'

‘Good to know.'

He leans over and kisses me. I look up at the ceiling as his lips press against mine. And then nothing happens. He sleeps next to me and doesn't touch me. No, he does touch me: he holds my hand and we fall asleep for a few hours. At seven I creep out of bed, but he pops awake like a trick can of peanuts. Boo! No time to brush my teeth or put on clear mascara. Clear mascara, an eyelash curler, and an eyelash separator, the mandated tools, of the morning liar.

‘Listen, I have to write. I like to do an hour every morning before work.'

‘Why do I find that so sexy?' he asks, wrapping his arms around me.

‘I have no idea.'

He kisses me on the cheek, which after being kissed on the mouth is like being downgraded at the airport, gathers his coat and scarf, and leaves. I sulk for fifteen minutes. Then the doorbell rings. ‘Special delivery.' It is Marley, carrying a croissant and cup.

‘Oh, great, coffee.'

‘Uh, no, it's green tea.'

‘Oh, great.' Yuck. ‘Thank you.'

‘The computer is off,' he says, peering past my shoulder to the desk.

‘I write longhand first. After I've written it in my head. You know, meditated on it.'

His bright eyes brighten. Such dark eyes so bright. I resolve to ask him to spray-paint my computer. Stain of Isaac away, cleared away by Marley.

‘By the way, the mural is done. Just thought I'd tell you.'

I can barely make it through the bus ride, waiting to breathe in the three hundred toxins worth of toxicity he has painted onto the office wall. I imagine they depict me and him sitting
in the dark of the movie theater, the cherry heart behind his head blocking the view of the people behind us.

As soon as I get to work, I head straight to the conference room to look at Marley's mural. The girls are already there, standing in awkward silence, Holly's arm uncharacteristically around Ivy's shoulders. The room smells so strongly of paint that I have to squeeze my eyes shut and it takes me a few blinks to get them open again. The mural intermingles each of the Grrrl workforce, Holly, Ivy, Vicki, and I, with the celebrities from our wall of fame. I would say we're chatting, but we appear to be either boring or molesting the celebs, among them David Bowie, Courtney Love, Robert Smith, and Siouxsie Sioux, all beautifully and lovingly depicted. Holly is tuning Courtney Love's guitar. Vicki is holding Courtney's naked breasts in her hands. Ivy is giving Robert Smith a piggyback ride. I appear to be leering down Debbie Harry's cleavage. David Bowie has a book in his hand – on closer inspection it's a Yiddish to English dictionary – and looks like he would rather be elsewhere. Vicki runs, crying, out of the room.

‘Hey, what's the big deal?' I ask her.

‘He made me look like a …'

‘Like a what?' snaps Holly.

‘Like a lesbian!'

‘The problem being …?' says Holly coolly.

‘I'm not one!'

‘Not that there's anything wrong with that,' I add jokingly.

‘There
is
something wrong with it. In Missouri.'

‘Does it look like you're still in Missouri?' asks Ivy, standing closer to the mural, right up close, as though it will all come into focus and make sense.

Holly claps her hands and says, ‘Okay, everybody' – there's just us three in the room now – ‘back to work.'

‘Well,' says Ivy, ‘I think it's fucking awesome.'

‘Well, I don't.' Vicki sniffs from the door, a tissue stuffed in her nose.

‘That's because you want everything to be pretty and nice.' I sniff back.

‘I want it to be the truth.'

‘You work at a makeup company!' Holly laughs. ‘You think we deal in truth? What the hell do you think you're selling?'

‘What's wrong with pretty and nice?' Vicki simpers.

‘Honey, you may be working at the wrong company. In case you haven't noticed.' Holly points up at the ad campaigns on the wall, the gap-toothed girl in black lipstick.

‘This is
exactly
how I see Grrrl,' says Holly. ‘This is exactly how we should be represented. We're all freaks. Our audience is freaks. That's a good thing. And we should be so lucky that Marley, who could have charged fifty thousand dollars for this mural, has done it for free.'

‘I agree with Holly,' I say.

‘I don't,' whines Vicki. ‘We don't even look pretty.'

‘What's pretty?' Ivy sighs. ‘Who gives a fuck about pretty?'

‘I do' says Vicki, bawling, ‘the consumer does.'

‘The consumer knows shit,' I say. ‘Every time the British government holds a public referendum on whether or not to bring back hanging, the people vote overwhelmingly yes. And are ignored. Because a government's job is to be more civilized than its people.'

‘Okay, history girl,' spits Vicki.

‘I had a crush on my history teacher,' I say.

‘Who didn't?' Holly sighs.

‘You didn't know him. You were gone by then.'

‘No, but all history teachers are hot. Like all bass players are hot.'

‘And the best track on any album is always number seven.'

‘Let's just get back to work, okay? The truth is, we need a crossover commercial hit. We're running on borrowed fashion spreads. The mags love us. The models love us. Drew Barrymore loves us. But the people in Ohio … they got no love for us. The big boys in Paris will put up with that for so long. They may put up with it forever. But the fact remains …'

‘We need our Cherries in the Snow,' I say.

‘Exactly.'

‘Cheerios in the Snow.'

‘Good start.'

I sit in the conference room with the paint fumes.

Poison Apple lipstick?

Braceface lip gloss?

‘What about a line of slut makeup called One Night Stand?' I call down the hallway. ‘A bronzer called Dishonest? A miniature package of mascara remover called Walk of Shame?'

‘Done,' Holly calls back. ‘Done and done.'

And though I'm glad she likes them, none of those names are ‘it'. None of them are ‘the one.' I eat a lot of cheese that night before I go to bed. Brie, Camembert, and Stilton. I'm hoping to have some funky dreams and that the name will come to me in a vision.

In the morning I am woken by the phone. I am furious because I'm halfway through a dream. Elizabeth Taylor is writing with lipstick on a dressing-room mirror, just like she does in
Butterfield 8
before she storms out in her negligée and fur coat. But it's not Liz in the negligée and copious eyeliner: it's me, me in a big black wig. I crane to see what I'm scribbling. And then the phone rings.

Fuckety-fuck fuck fuck!

I assume it's my dad, who usually calls at 8 A.M. just as he is taking lunch in London. ‘Papa?' I say crossly, stepping into my bunny slippers. My once white pajamas had gone pink in the last laundry. No answer.

‘Dad?' I ask again, digging in my nose for bogies with my index finger.

‘Uh, no.'

On the other end of the line is my enigmatic crush.

‘But I'm very flattered to be confused with the man you love the most.'

I giggle stupidly, hoping the blush of sleep will pass my stupid off as sexy.

‘Would you like to have dinner with me tonight?' Marley sounds scared.

I usually play a game, fake flicking through a calendar,
asking if I could get back to them, leaving them hanging until five. But I couldn't. Not with him. ‘That would be lovely.'

Tea with scones and clotted cream would be lovely. Meeting Dame Judi Dench would be lovely. Having dinner with Marley would, I sense, be something else. Something familiar and other at the same time, like his complexion, which I spent the other night biting my tongue not to ask about. God, let my first question this evening not be ‘What
are
you?' Me, the Swedish Turk, interested enough in someone to be impressed by their ethnicity.

I think about it all day at work. Holly refuses to tell me. She is amused, which suits her about as well as green eye shadow suits me. Not at all.

‘Try a taste test,' she teases.

‘Disgusting girl.'

I swivel my back to her, reach into the bottom drawer of my desk, and look at my lipsticks, then riffle through the box of samples until I find the brown spectrum, which I wipe one by one on my lips and turn to her for approval.

‘Puerto Rican?'

She shrugs.

‘Cuban?'

‘Nuh-uh.'

‘Dominican?'

‘Pffft.'

‘Sephardic Jew?'

She rolls her eyes.

‘Indian?'

‘Maybe.'

‘Feather or dot?'

‘I'm not even dignifying that, Sadie.'

Holly leans over my shoulder. ‘Oh, you two together are going to be great.'