Anybody Out There?
Page 86

Mind you, breathing in the exhaust fumes of a million cars wasn’t pleasant; one of the windows had to be open because the three massive Candy Grrrl backdrops were too long to fit inside the car.
“We’ll have contracted lung cancer by the time we get there,” Teenie remarked. “Ya ever seen a smoker’s lungs?”
“No.”
“Oh, great!” With relish she launched into a gory description, until the driver—a large gentleman with the yellow fingers of a cigarette lover—said, “Can you please shut up. I’m not feeling too good.”
It was after nine by the time we got to the Harbor Inn. First we had to check Candace and George’s suite, to ensure that it was sufficiently fabulous and that champagne, a fruit basket, exotic flowers, and handmade chocolates were awaiting their arrival. We tweaked a few cushions, smoothed the comforter on the bed—leaving nothing to chance—then Teenie and I had a late dinner and retired to our single cots for a few hours’ sleep.
The following morning we were at the exhibition center by seven. The doors opened to the public at nine and we needed to have a mini–Candy Grrrl store assembled by then.
Shortly after seven-thirty Brooke arrived; she’d been in the neighborhood since Wednesday, staying with her parents in their mansion.
“Hey, you guys!” she said. “How can I help?”
Funnily enough, she meant it. Within seconds she was balanced on a stepladder, suspending the six-foot-by-ten-foot backdrops from the ceiling. Then she figured out how to click together the separate pieces of the black lacquer display table. Say what you like about rich people with a sense of entitlement, but Brooke was extraordinarily practical and obliging.
Meanwhile, Teenie and I were unpacking box after box of product. We were promoting Protection Racket, our new sun-cream range. It came in (fake) glass bottles, with (fake) cut-glass stoppers, like old-fashioned perfume bottles, and the creams were an array from the pink spectrum; the highest protection factor, thirty, was a deep burgundy color and the range went through several, progressively lighter pinks, down to the lowest factor—four—in baby pink. They were gorgeous.
We also had hundreds of Candy Grrrl T-shirts and beach bags to give away, countless goody bags of trial sizes, plus every item of cosmetics we carried, for Candace to do her makeovers.
Just as we’d got the last lip gloss slotted into place on the display table, Lauryn arrived.
“Hey,” she said, her poppy eyes moving in a restless quest to find something to criticize. Disappointed, she could find nothing wrong, so she turned her attention to the crowds, scanning like a hungry hunter.
“I’m just going to…”
“Yeah,” Teenie muttered, when she’d gone. “You just go find some famous butt to suck.”
This made Brooke squeal with laughter. “You guys are so funny!”
By ten o’clock, the place was thronged. There was a lot of interest in Protection Racket but the question everyone asked was “Will it make my skin look pink?”
“Oh no,” we said, again and again and again, “The color disappears on the skin.”
“The color disappears on the skin.”
“The color disappears on the skin.”
“The color disappears on the skin.”
Every now and then you’d hear a surprised posh voice say, “Oh, hello, Brooke! You’re working, how adorable! How’s your mother?”
Trade was brisk in the giveaway beach bags (not so brisk in the T-shirts, but never mind) and all three of us conducted dozens of miniconsultations: skin type, favorite colors, etc., before pressing a load of suitable trial sizes on the woman in question.
We were smiling, smiling, smiling, and I was getting a horrible crampy feeling in my mouth, at the hinge of my gums.
“Buildup of lactic acid,” Teenie said. “Happens when a muscle is overworked.”
I didn’t feel the time passing until Teenie said, “Shit! It’s nearly twelve. Where’s the line of women crazy to meet Candace?”
Candace was due at noon. We had advertised in the local press and it had been announced every fifteen minutes on the P.A. system, but so far no one had shown.
“We gotta start badgering people,” Teenie said. She loved the word badger. “If we don’t have a long line, our ass is grass.”
“Okay, let’s badger—” The words died in my mouth as over the chatter of the crowd came a sudden shriek. It sounded like it came from a small child.
The three of us looked at one another. What was that?
“I think Dr. De Groot has just arrived,” Teenie said.
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Lauryn reappeared.
“To pretend to Candace and George she’s been here all morning,” Teenie said quietly.
“So what’s happening?” Lauryn asked, roaming restlessly. She picked up a bottle of Protection Racket, then asked as if it was the first time she’d ever seen it, “But won’t it make people look pink?”
In unison, Brooke, Teenie, and I chanted, “The color disappears on the skin.”
“Jeez,” she said, affronted. “No need to yell at me. Omigod!” She’d just noticed the lack of queue. “Where are all the people?”
“We’re just rounding them up.”
“It’s okay. Here they come.”
I looked. Four women were approaching the stand. But instinctively I knew they hadn’t come for a Candy Grrrl makeover. They all had excellent cheekbones and jaw-length bobs, and were dressed in sun-bleached shades of stone and sand. They looked like they’d stepped straight out of a Ralph Lauren ad and turned out to be Brooke’s mother, Brooke’s two older sisters, and Brooke’s sister-in-law.
Then through the crowds I saw someone I knew, but for a moment I couldn’t remember who she was or where I knew her from. Then it clicked: it was Mackenzie! Wearing clean-faded blue jeans and a man’s white shirt, quite different from the glam rig-outs she’d worn to the spiritualist place every Sunday, but definitely her. I hadn’t seen her for three or four weeks now.
“Anna!” she said. “You look adorable! All that pink!”
It was strange, I barely knew her, but she felt like my long-lost sister. I flung myself into her arms and we hugged tightly.
Naturally, being posh, Mackenzie knew all the Edisons, so there was a flurry of kisses and inquiries after parents and uncles.