Garlic and Sapphires (5 page)

Now she turned her attention to me. “A manicure is imperative. Have them give you some modest fingernails, not too long. Molly, I am quite certain, does not have those stubby, and might I add, grubby, little paws of yours.” I quickly put my hands beneath me, but not before Claudia had noticed that they were ringless.

“Jewelry?” she inquired.

“Not much,” I replied.

“Miriam left you nothing when she had that unfortunate stroke last year? I mean, other than that frightful costume jewelry she draped around herself? The Mollys of the world wear wedding rings, and I seem to recall that your mother had a minor diamond from her first marriage.”

“She hated it,” I said, “and I do too. But I'll see if I can find it.”

“Do,” said Claudia, plunging onward. “I am convinced that Molly is the sort of woman who would feel naked without her ring. If Miriam's does not turn up, you will have to buy a fake one.”

This was going to be more work than I had anticipated. And Claudia was far from finished.

“Meanwhile,” she continued, “we will require the services of an excellent makeup artist. It must be someone who is not overly theatrical.” She shook her head. “It will not be easy, not easy at all. But a few people do come to mind. I shall look into it and we will meet again on your next trip to New York. Happily we are not pressed for time. This is going to demand a great deal of preparation. I do hope you are up to it . . .”

 

 

 

 

 

I
spent the summer shuttling between Los Angeles and New York, and on each trip east Claudia and I conferred. She refused to even think about my physical transformation until Molly's costume was complete. And that took a while: she was such a stickler for detail that she made me change the color of Molly's stockings three times before she was satisfied.

I would have lost patience with the process, but I was wrapping up one life and starting another, and the search for Molly Hollis was a welcome distraction. In the midst of the tedious details of moving—packing up the house, emptying out the office, searching for babysitters and transporting animals—this exercise in disguise seemed like great fun.

I bought a dowdy Armani suit that was three sizes too large; Claudia insisted that I wear a padded bra and two thick skirts beneath it to give me more girth. I found a proper little purse and Mom's old diamond ring. Bit by bit the clothing came together. It took almost two months before Claudia pronounced the costume complete, but at last she announced that the time had come for Molly's debut. “Make a reservation,” she commanded. “Where are you planning to introduce this new woman to the world?”

“You're coming with me, aren't you?” I asked nervously. “I was thinking of starting with a four-star restaurant that has a brand-new chef. Everyone's expecting me to weigh in on him, and if any restaurant in New York is watching for the new critic from the
Times,
this would be at the top of the list. They know I'll be there sooner rather than later.”

“Le Cirque!” said Claudia, clapping her hands.

“Yes.”

“Perfection,” she said. “It's as much theater as restaurant, and it will be a perfect stage for Molly. I will be very pleased to join you.”

The reservation was for an early dinner in midsummer. When Claudia arrived at the hotel, makeup lady in tow, I was already dressed. They both burst out laughing when I came to the door, and I realized how ridiculous I must look with my wild hair and Molly's staid suit. Claudia turned to Denise. “We are counting on you,” she said, “to make the head match that body.”

“I can do that,” said Denise, extracting a plastic cape from her bag of tricks. She was a nondescript middle-aged woman who, like so many makeup artists, wore her well-scrubbed face disconcertingly free of lipstick, foundation, powder, or blush. She threw the cape over my suit and began to erase me. First she covered my skin with a thick coat of pancake makeup. Then she made my eyebrows disappear. As she worked, my skin acquired a yellow tone that it has never had, and wrinkles where none had been. She filled out my cheeks so they looked fuller, and the mouth that her pencil drew was smaller than my own. She hesitated over the lipstick, and then chose a rather creepy coral shade that was, she assured me, two years out of fashion.

“Close your eyes,” she said, beginning to work on the upper part of my face. Brushes swept across my lids, sponges swatted at the area below. My eyes were still closed when Denise asked me to put on the wig. It had been made to Claudia's exact specifications: straight, short, and ash brown. It was also so tight that I had to wrestle the thing over my bunched-up hair. This was an ordeal, and as I bent down, struggling with it, I had the sensation that two enormous rubber bands were being wrapped around my head.

“It's giving me a headache,” I complained, my voice muffled beneath the hair. “I hate it. It's going to be like eating dinner in a bathing cap.”

“Darling,” said Claudia, “do stop complaining and look up.”

I raised my head and opened my eyes. Looking into the mirror, I found a woman I did not recognize staring straight at me.

“Meet Molly,” said Claudia. I could not speak. I found myself moving my lips to see if hers would move too. They did. I wiggled my nose; Molly's nose wiggled. I raised my fingers; she raised hers. I waved. She waved back. Claudia tapped my arm and said gently, “I believe it is show-time.”

I watched her struggle to keep a smile from escaping, and saw that she was having a Henry Higgins moment. She was about to show her creation to the world; she could hardly wait.

 

 

 

 

 

S
low down, my darling,” said Claudia as we walked out the door. “Take smaller steps. Remember, you are now Molly. Stay in character.” She winced when I hailed a taxi. “And do not shout.”

That part, at least, was not difficult. It was too hot for speed or noise. My sensible shoes were sticking to the sidewalk, and beneath the yellow pancake makeup my cheeks were flushed. Claudia, shrouded, despite the heat, in one of the shapeless black dresses she wore everywhere, seemed oblivious.

“I wonder what Molly likes to eat,” I said as we settled into the cab. “I wonder what she talks about?”

“That,” said Claudia, “is what you are about to find out.”

 

 

 

 

 

L
e Cirque was cool but far from calm. The small, fussy room was crowded with women in shimmering dresses and men in elegant suits who perched on striped silk chairs that seemed too small for them. Huge bouquets of flowers nodded from the corners and little ceramic monkeys frolicked across the tables.

The maître d' was hunched over the reservation book, and when he finally deigned to notice our presence he subjected us to a cool inspection. I found myself patting the wig as he looked me over, hoping no stray dark hairs were escaping.

“Do you have a reservation?” His tone indicated that he considered this a dubious possibility.

“Hollis,” I said. He did not acknowledge this, so I said more loudly, “Molly Hollis?” I was surprised to find that my voice had gotten flatter and slower, as if it too had undergone a makeover. The man ran his finger across his book, searching ostentatiously through the names. “Ah yes,” he said at last. “Here it is.” He sounded disappointed. “A non-smoking table. I'm afraid there's nothing at the moment. You'll have to wait in the bar.” With his head he indicated where that might be found.

It was lonely at the bar, and after we had ordered only water, lonelier still. The wig grew tighter on my head, and I fidgeted in my layers of clothing. The lack of attention was an unmistakable message.

“Do you suppose,” asked Claudia, “that they are laboring under the misapprehension that we are going to tire of the wait and go away?”

“Yes,” I said.

“I would not dream of granting them that satisfaction,” she said.

“Nor I,” I said, sticking a finger beneath the wig to scratch my itchy scalp.

Our designated table turned out to be very small, in the back of the dining room, and wreathed in the murk of the surrounding smokers. “But I asked for non-smoking!” I protested in my flat, quiet voice. The man shrugged and pointed around the restaurant as if to say, “Can't you see they're all taken?”

He doled out the menus and beat a hasty retreat. “A wine list?” I asked his departing back, but he was already gone. This, we soon learned, was not going to be a problem; the few inches of banquette to my left were apparently considered storage space, and waiters flung used menus onto it as they dashed past. It was not long before a wine list came flying toward me.

It was a thick tome and as I settled in to read it, I heard my newfound voice say to Claudia, “It is quite a lovely list.”

“Good,” she said. “I could do with an excellent Burgundy. Do you see one?”

“Pages and pages of them,” I replied.

But I had only reached page three when the captain reappeared and held out his hand, saying “I need that wine list” in peremptory tones.

I wavered for a moment, struggling with myself. Then I surrendered the list. “Bravo!” said Claudia. “You stayed in character. Molly is a lady.”

“I don't think she's all that happy about it either,” I said, noting with fury that my list was now in the hands of a man three tables down the banquette. I was inclined to march over and snatch it out of his hands, but I was determined to stay in character. So poor Molly fluttered her fingers at every passing waiter, saying in a pathetic little voice, “Do you think I might please have a wine list?” Given these timid tactics, it was a full twenty minutes before we were able to order wine.

“I'm going to learn a lot, being someone else,” I murmured to Claudia.

“Indeed,” she said. “Now when do you suppose that supercilious captain is going to allow us to order?”

Were we invisible because we were women? Or did we look too much like tourists to be worthy of recognition? Maybe the staff was simply overworked. But when the captain finally came to ask what we would like for dinner, he neglected to mention the special seasonal menu he had so lovingly described to the man sitting next to us.

I felt torn between Ruth and Molly. The former was gleeful; this terrible treatment was going to make very good copy. But Molly was wondering why anyone would subject herself to this. Molly was wishing she had stayed home in Birmingham, where ordinary people weren't treated shabbily in restaurants. Molly was, in fact, furious.

And so she said, in her very nicest voice, “Did I hear you say something about a special menu to the gentleman over there?”

The captain said sullenly, “It's quite a large meal.”

“That will be fine,” she said softly. “We'll have that. And a bottle of the 1985 Chambolle-Musigny.”

Once the wine came, Claudia relaxed. She swirled the soft garnet liquid in her glass and smiled benevolently down at the sautéed foie gras, inhaling the fragrance of the white peach with which it was served.

“White peaches always remind me of Paris,” she said happily, and I had a sudden memory of my mother's voice saying, “Poor Claudia,” in that tone she reserved for single women. “She did marry once, but her husband was hit by a truck in a freak accident and she never got over his death.”

As Claudia cooed over her curried tuna tartare, translucent ruby nuggets surrounded by overlapping circles of sliced radish, I thought how stunned she would be to know that my mother considered her an object of pity. After her husband died Claudia reinvented herself, created a character she could inhabit, and spent the rest of her life showing others how to do it. She was the only working friend my mother had, and she had obviously supported herself in style; by the third glass of Burgundy she was expounding on her favorite hotel in Beaune.

I listened politely, Molly's best Junior League smile playing across my face. The food was good enough, but it was hard not to notice that everyone around us was receiving considerably more attention than we were.

Then things looked up. The captain came to announce that a table had just become available in the non-smoking section. Would we like to move? As we walked out of the smoke I saw that we were being led to a larger table, and I felt as if the unpleasant part of the meal had come to an end.

But there was no graciousness in the maneuver. The busboy sullenly ferried used water glasses and bread plates across the dining room, shoved our crumpled-up napkins into our hands, and took off. Watching him go, I found myself saying, “You'd think he'd at least refold the napkins!” in Molly's subdued voice.

“Really my darling, what does it matter?” asked Claudia. The waiter had just set a plate of black bass in Barolo sauce before her, and she was looking down at it with a dreamy expression. The fish was wrapped in translucent slices of potato that hugged it like a second skin. She reached out with the tines of her fork and watched, rapt, as the crisp potato coat shattered to reveal the soft, creamy flesh underneath.

“Claudia!” said Molly sharply, “you, of all people, should understand the importance of theater. The food may be good, but the service has been so bad that the evening is destroyed.”

“I beg your pardon,” said Claudia, setting the fish resolutely aside. “You are quite right.”

“I did not come here simply to eat,” Molly went on in her slow, serious voice, “I came here for glamour. I am willing to pay for the privilege of feeling rich and important for a few small hours. Is that too much to ask? I have come here looking for a dream, and it has turned into a nightmare. I feel frumpy and powerless. I may be nobody, but I don't like paying to be humiliated. It isn't right.”