Girl Before a Mirror Read online

  “It’s a strip joint, Anna.”

  “I . . . what?”

  “Maybe you can make it rain for your fortieth,” he says.

  “I don’t even know what that means,” I say, as the cab pulls away from the curb.

  “You’re about to find out,” Ferdie yells after me.

  As I ride to The Naughty Kitty, I allow myself to get excited. I got the idea several months ago. I’d just finished pitching an ad campaign for this line of bras and panties—or “intimates,” as the client insisted on calling them. They’d been known as the relics your grammy bought you for Christmas. Now, thanks to me, they were going to be the line of bras and panties you—yes, you, working professional—are thinking about buying for their function as well as form. It’s a huge account and I nailed it. I’ve certainly come a long way from when I first started at Holloway/Greene as a file clerk fifteen years ago.

  It was yet another freezing day in New York. I was hailing a cab outside this tiny bakery I treat myself to when I did something I hadn’t done in years: I looked around. I was always so focused and set on keeping up with the pace of New York that I never stopped and looked up, looked around, took it all in. On this crisp wintry day I could see my breath puffing in front of me. Bright blue skies hung high above the buildings. The honking horns. The sirens. The beeping of some truck backing up. I looked back down and realized I was standing across the street from the monolith that was the Quincy Pharmaceuticals building in Midtown. It was exactly the sort of imposing high-rise that you imagine when you think of New York. I bit into my pain au chocolat, crumbs now all over my power suit, and thought, I should be pitching in that building to Quincy Pharmaceuticals: on the Forbes 500 list, with some 110 subsidiary companies, and sold in over 87 countries worldwide. The Quincy Pharmaceuticals with annual worldwide sales that are upward of $25 billion.

  I’d been in the trenches with that inane pop star’s new clothing line that looked like it was inspired by cotton candy, and all we needed was artwork on that terrible kombucha that my ad piece assured you “tastes great” even though it resembled pond scum. Pitching to the people who worked in a building like that would mean I could stop being relegated to the pink ghetto of ladies-only products.

  I went back to the office in D.C. and started digging. Researching anything and everything about Quincy Pharmaceuticals. I had to find a way in. It wasn’t until summer rolled around that I finally found it: Lumineux Shower Gel, a sad little pink sparkly soapy-goo that the company had all but forgotten. No ad agency attached. It was ripe for a rebranding. And I was the woman to do it. Of course, they didn’t know that yet.

  I’m walking through The Naughty Kitty’s dirty, vomit-soaked parking lot when I’m almost hit by a speeding car. It screeches into a parking space, and I’m getting ready to yell at the driver when I realize I know him.

  “You almost killed me,” I say, my stupid pink gift bag not helping my outrage.

  “Anna! You’re in a strip club parking lot! Just like me!” Chuck Holloway. Maybe twenty-five years old, looks twelve, acts eight.

  “What are you even doing here?” I ask. He shuts the driver’s-side door behind him and looks at himself in the side mirror. By the time he gets his blond bangs juuuuuuust right with the precision of a surgeon and tightens his tie, I’ve waited so long I’m positive I’ve caught chlamydia from this parking lot. “Chuck. What are you doing here?”

  “Pop called me. It’s got to be about the car account, right? He called you, too?” My stomach drops. No, “Pop,” or the man the rest of us mortals get to call Charlton Holloway IV, current senior partner and part of the Holloway advertising dynasty, didn’t call me, and no, it’s not about the car account. I’m here trying to finagle approval on a goofy little shower gel no one cares about, thank you very much. We approach the two extremely large bouncers who guard the red velvet curtains that hang over The Naughty Kitty’s entrance. My kingdom for a black light.

  “IDs,” one of the bouncers says.

  “Dude,” Chuck says, digging his wallet out of his jacket pocket. He produces his ID and hands it over. “Twenty-four. Read ’em and weep.” Twenty. Four. I can’t . . .

  I pull mine from my wallet and hand it to the bouncer. He takes it, looks at it, and then hands it back. I want to kiss him full on the mouth for not making some joke about my age or not even asking for my ID at all.

  “What’s in the bag?” the other bouncer asks.

  “A mug,” I say.

  “Why a mug?” the bouncer asks.

  “It’s . . . it’s just a mug,” I say, pulling it out of its pink depths.

  “Why are you bringing a mug into a strip club?” Chuck asks. The bouncers await an answer.

  “I’m not.” They wait. “It’s a gift,” I say, putting the mug back into the pink gift bag.

  “Who are you going to give a mug to?” the other bouncer asks.

  “No one. It’s my birthday. This is . . . I got the mug as a gift at a birthday dinner. I just came from there. I took a cab,” I say, trying to hide my annoyance.

  “So you had to bring it with you,” the bouncer finishes.

  “Yes,” I say.

  “So the mug is for you,” the other bouncer says. A line is now forming behind us.

  “Yes.”

  “Ohhh.” They all nod in unison, proud.

  “Go on in,” the bouncer says, finally pulling the red velvet curtain back.

  “Thank you,” I say.

  “Hey, happy birthday,” he says, his attention now on the businessmen queuing up just behind us.

  “Thanks.” I try not to touch the velvet curtains as I finally walk inside The Naughty Kitty.

  The music is loud but not deafening. It takes a second for my eyes to recalibrate to the darkness. I slow my pace, with Chuck right at my heels. Finally I can make out the bar all along the left wall. To my amazement, it looks like any other bar, with men and women sitting and leaning, drinking and flirting.

  “I always thought it was weird that women come to strip clubs, you know?” Chuck yells over the din.

  “I do know,” I say, continuing to scan the room for the Holloway/Greene group. I look to the right and that’s when I see the long, mirrored runway coming out from the large stage. There are smaller tables all around the runway, crowded with men in various stages of arousal or boredom or drunkenness or all of the above.

  “You’re here on business, though,” Chuck says.

  “I think a lot of people here are doing business,” I say, watching an ancient man, whom I recognize as a senator, receiving a lap dance. The woman on the runway finishes her dance with a flourish, and the crowd applauds.

  “Let’s give it up for Titty Titty Bang Bang!” the emcee says, as the woman spins her silver pistols around wearing nothing but a pair of cowboy boots, an American flag G-string, and a holster.

  “There. Over in the corner,” I say to Chuck. He nods and yells out a “Hey-O!” thrusting his arm high in the air. And like any other wildlife, his brethren respond in kind. Hey-Os ring through The Naughty Kitty like roars on the African plains.

  Holloway/Greene is in its own VIP section, and we have to go through another set of bouncers to finally make it to the drunken bacchanalia that is whatever is happening with the car account. I always thought my career promised land would have fewer pasties.

  “Anna!!” Audrey says, walking over. Audrey Holloway is the kind of woman who, if she deigned to do her own grocery shopping at all, would absolutely leave her cart in the middle of the aisle while she studied the different brands of quinoa with the focus of a diamond cutter. She rarely loses that air of calm that makes her look as though she’s in a constant state of smelling cinnamon rolls baking. And then she sees Chuck. Audrey’s cinnamon-roll air evaporates immediately. “Oh, Chuck. I . . . didn’t see you there.”

  “Hey, sis,” he says, scanning the room. A chill. A forced, polite chill. Audrey Holloway is the eldest child from Charlton Holloway’s proper first marriage,
with the china patterns and the good families. Chuck Holloway is the eldest male child, but he’s from Charlton Holloway’s second marriage to a buxom secretary named Stormy.

  “Chuck! Get over here, son!” Charlton Holloway IV yells from the corner of the VIP section. Chuck says his good-byes and scrambles over to his father and the stripper who’s giving him a lap dance. A Hallmark moment, to be sure.

  “Get us another round, huh?” A very drunk car executive grabs Audrey by the arm, pulling her to sit on his lap.

  “Easy, tiger,” I say, pulling Audrey off his lap and maneuvering a barmaid in front of him. I pass the barmaid a twenty-dollar bill in the process.

  “Get us another round, huh?” the man says to the barmaid as if he’s just repeating himself to the same woman.

  “Thanks. . . . Thank you,” Audrey says, straightening her skirt and gathering herself as the barmaid deftly takes the man’s order, unmolested.

  “Don’t worry about it,” I say.

  “I didn’t know Dad called him,” Audrey says. The black tailored suit. The silk blouse. The tasteful accessories. The shampoo-commercial shiny brown hair and the alabaster skin of someone who always, to quote Audrey herself, “wore a hat whenever the family went sailing,” which I imagine is much the same thing as trying not to get sunburned while playing in the sprinklers with my younger brother. Audrey Holloway looks like she was bred to christen large seagoing vessels and donate entire hospital wings. But tonight she’s spending her evening in The Naughty Kitty trying to draw her father’s attention away from a woman in a thong.

  “Me either. He pulled up when I did,” I say, eyeing Charlton Holloway IV over in the corner.

  “Thanks for the heads-up about tonight,” I say.

  “Oh, no worries. He’s plenty distracted, to be sure. Good luck,” she says. I nod and stride toward Charlton, practicing my speech. This is familiar territory. I use it to my advantage.

  The music kicks in as a woman named Ace Bondage takes the stage wearing way too much black leather for this humidity.

  “Mr. Holloway,” I say. His face is a tangle of confusion, annoyance, and a side of enraged paused arousal. “I wanted to confirm the status of the pop singer’s account and—”

  “You’re talking business? Here?” Charlton laughs and Chuck joins in, although I’m quite sure Chuck has no idea what he’s supposed to think is so funny. I wait. If Charlton weren’t creeping out over some stripper right now, you’d just as soon think he was trying to sell you life insurance during your nightly viewing of Jeopardy. Charlton Holloway IV looks like every sitcom dad from the nineties.

  “Yes, sir,” I say.

  “Which is why you weren’t invited, Diane,” Charlton says. I know he knows my name.

  “It’s Anna.”

  “Anna?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “It’s a shame you have to be leaving,” Charlton says. Chuck laughs.

  “I’ll make it quick then, sir. Lumineux Shower Gel is shopping around for a new agency. They’re taking pitches this week. I want to handle ours,” I say. This, of course, is only partially true. Okay. None of this is true. Charlton’s eyes move over the woman bending down in front of him.

  “Why couldn’t this have waited until tomorrow?” he asks.

  “Because she thought of it tonight?” Chuck asks.

  “Yes, I can see why one would think scrubbing myself clean would be at the forefront of my mind tonight,” I say to myself, sidestepping to avoid touching Chardonnay as she finishes her lap dance and lets Chuck tuck a hundred-dollar bill into her G-string before she saunters off. “I wanted to move forward as quickly as possible.”

  “Will saying yes to you make you stop talking?”

  “It will,” I say.

  “Then yes,” Charlton grunts. My heart soars. “And good-bye.” And then plummets to the ground. But it doesn’t matter. My plan worked. Ask when your boss is clearly not paying attention and he’ll just want to get rid of you. I’m sure Warren Buffett gave that advice somewhere in one of his books.

  “Thank you,” I say, turning to leave.

  “Wait.” Charlton stops. Sighhhh. I turn back around. “What’s in the bag?” Charlton asks, motioning to the bright pink gift bag.

  “What?” I ask.

  “The bag? What’s in the bag? You bring me something?” Charlton asks.

  “What? No,” I say.

  “Are you seriously not going to tell me what’s in the bag?” Charlton asks.

  “It’s a mug,” I say, pulling Allison’s handmade mug from the bag with a flourish.

  “Why’d you bring—” Charlton asks. Audrey walks over and stands next to him.

  “It’s my birthday. I was at my birthday dinner before coming here. It was a gift,” I say, tucking the mug carefully back within the folds of the pink tissue paper.

  “I knew it was a mug,” Chuck says.

  “You did,” I say.

  “Happy birthday,” Charlton says.

  “Thank you. So, the pitch is this week—” I say, not knowing why I feel the need to elaborate on a lie.

  “You’re talking about business again . . . ,” Charlton says, trailing off.

  “Anna,” I offer.

  “Anna,” he says. “Time for you to go.”

  “Yes, sir.” I turn to walk out again. Charlton continues, “This is forty for you, right?” I turn back around, not mentioning that for someone who acts like he doesn’t know my name it’s downright sloppy to admit that he remembers how old I am

  “I think she looks great for forty,” Audrey says. Ace Bondage finishes with a crack of her whip and the crowd applauds or whatever it is that strip joint audiences do when they’re—you know what? Let’s stick with applauds. A woman in a Catholic schoolgirl’s uniform strolls out on stage and I’m happy to learn that her name is The Lori Hole.

  “At least you’re younger than Audrey over there,” Charlton says. Audrey is thirty-eight years old. Just turned, actually. We had an office party. Charlton attended—gave a speech even, as he’s wont to do.

  I nod and stay quiet, not wanting to take Charlton’s bait or be privy to whatever it is that Ms. Hole there does to earn her that moniker. Audrey slinks away without a word.

  “You too. Off you go,” Charlton says.

  “Yes, sir,” I say, my eyes flipping from Charlton to Chuck and then to the countless other Holloway/Greene ad agents whose pockets are filled with ones and who sport crooked Ivy League colored neckties around pressed, sweat-stained Brooks Brothers shirts. And then I see Audrey. Old Maid Audrey—according to Charlton—over in the corner buying another round of drinks and lap dances for everyone.

  I continue walking.

  Little do they know . . .

  They’ve all been Marpled.

  2

  I plucked the shower gel I used this morning from the grocery store shelf for no discernible reason. Why that shower gel? Was it because it had shea butter in it—do I even know what shea butter is?—or was it because it promised to make me feel younger, more refreshed, or softer to the touch? Was it because the packaging was simple and clean or was it because I was rushing through the store and just needed some G.D. shower gel? As I take the Metro into the office the next morning, these questions haunt me. I have to convince Lumineux—then Quincy—that I am the person who can make it the brand women write down on their grocery lists—not just shower gel, but Lumineux Shower Gel. The one they reach for instead of the hundred other shower gels available to them. So how do I make it stand out? It’d help if the name weren’t such a messy mouthful. The first thing on my list, however, has to be getting the pitch meeting.

  I get into the office early, and with the go-ahead from Charlton Holloway himself dive into everything Lumineux.

  It was Quincy Pharmaceuticals’ first product back in 1917: Lumineux Medicated Arsenic Soap Wafers. It was how Quincy got its start, and the company hasn’t rebranded it once since 1917 from the looks of it. Nope. Wait. Scratch that. I find some a
rtwork that can only be described as a rainbow-suspender, side-ponytailed explosion when they announced the switch from soap to shower gel. I laugh and shake my head.

  “Lumineux is the soap your mom’s weird friend uses,” I say to myself. As I walk into the break room in search of another mug of tea, I allow that Lumineux isn’t actually bad. It smells really good. Old-timey. Like soap. It’s odd that that’s what’s revolutionary about it. I pull a tea bag out of the drawer and drop it into the mug Allison made me for my birthday. I pour in some hot water and let the quiet of the room settle in around me.

  I am waiting until 10:15 A.M. to put in my phone call to one Preeti Dayal, the unsuspecting vice president in charge of Lumineux marketing. She will have ingested enough caffeine, handled any emergencies from the weekend, and just started returning e-mails when—blammo—an intriguing phone call from whom? Why, she doesn’t have another meeting until eleven A.M. (I checked), sure she’ll take the call, and that’s when I’ll strike. And a year later I’ll be handling all of Quincy Pharmaceuticals’ ad campaigns and running through a sun-kissed wheat field in a white linen sundress laughing. (Or some version of that . . . )

  I walk back to my office just as Audrey hurries through the front door of the agency.

  “Surprised to see you here this early,” I say, stopping at the door to my office.

  “You really shouldn’t be,” she says. Her voice is sharp.

  “No, you’re right.” A smile. “Have a good one,” I say and walk into my office.

  “I apologize,” she says, appearing at my door.

  “For what?” I ask.

  “My father is a good man. He’s just doing what his father did before him and so on,” Audrey says.

  “You certainly don’t need to explain anything to me,” I say.

  “It’s Chuck,” she says.

  “Chuck seems harmless enough,” I say, finally able to take a sip of my tea.

  “To you maybe,” Audrey says, her voice sharp again. I can’t have this conversation right now. I’m nowhere near focused enough to navigate the shark-infested waters that are Audrey Holloway’s gripes with the politics of her family. Maybe I should give her the number of my therapist. But right now? I have a life-changing phone call to make and I need to get ready for it before the office begins to fill up.