Girl Before a Mirror Read online

  “No, you’re right,” I say, hoping to speed her exit along. Audrey lingers at my door. And lingers. And now it’s getting weird. Fine. “Not to you?” Audrey swans into my office, closing the door behind her. Great. This better not take long.

  “He’s Elizabeth the First,” Audrey says, floating into one of the client chairs across from me.

  “I’m sorry?”

  “He’s Elizabeth the First and I’m Bloody Mary,” Audrey says.

  “I’m not following.”

  “I am the rightful heir to the throne and yet . . .” She trails off as if that’s all it will take to clarify this situation.

  “Bloody Mary ruled,” I say.

  “What?”

  “Mary the First ruled England for around five years,” I say.

  “No, I mean—”

  “Are you thinking of Mary, Queen of Scots?” I ask, as the clock ticks ever closer to 10:15 A.M.

  “The one Elizabeth had beheaded.”

  “Mary, Queen of Scots. She’s a cousin. It’s rumored Mary the First died of cancer.”

  “Cancer? Wait . . .”

  “If anything Chuck is Edward the Sixth.”

  “You’re confusing me,” she says. I put my hands up and give her my full focus.

  “You fear you will be skipped. That when Charlton retires, he will pass the corner office and all that comes with it to Chuck and not you, just as the throne was given to Edward the Sixth despite Mary being first—solely because he was the male heir,” I say, boiling down wildly complicated events in history to fit Audrey’s needs.

  “And who says community colleges don’t teach anything valuable,” she says. I am quiet. A beat. “But yes. I’m first.”

  “Yep.”

  “Chuck is Charlton Holloway the Fifth and he enjoys strippers and golf and I don’t. I went to Princeton, too, you know,” she says.

  “You’re doing the best you can,” I say, not wanting to bring up that while Audrey may have her eye on the throne, she hasn’t exactly been burning up the track to make her mark in the kingdom, if you will. She has yet to bring in one big account, whereas even Chuck, the village idiot, brought in some terrible energy drink that a couple of his frat brothers at Princeton invented. Maybe instead of eyeing the throne, Audrey should roll up her sleeves and get to work. Still, if Audrey were a man, we wouldn’t be having this conversation. Her father would be grooming her to take over Holloway/Greene, and that’d be that.

  A knock on my office door. Thank God. I tell whoever it is to come in.

  A young woman so extraordinarily beautiful I can think of nothing to say except “Casting is down the hall” walks through the door.

  “I’m sorry?” the woman asks.

  “You’re here for the car commercial, right?” I ask.

  “Um . . .” The woman tucks a luxurious black tress behind her ear; her flawless skin is downright dewy. She nervously runs a hand down the length of her perfect figure before letting it rest at her side.

  “Anna Wyatt, this is Sasha Merchant. Chuck hired her. We’re apparently supposed to find a place for her in our art department.” Audrey’s voice is cruel. Sasha shifts in the doorway.

  “Hi . . . um, hello,” Sasha says.

  “Nice to meet you,” I say, standing and extending my hand to her. She takes it, and instead of shaking it, she uses it to anchor a bizarrely childlike curtsy and becomes immediately mortified. I offer Sasha a seat. She sits. Audrey has yet to look at her.

  “Chuck said to put Sasha on whatever account you were going on about last night,” Audrey says, making her way out of my office.

  “Lumineux?” I ask.

  “I’m sure I don’t know,” Audrey says. I begin to speak, but Audrey cuts me off. “Something wrong?”

  “No. Nothing. Please thank him for being so thoughtful,” I say.

  “I will,” she says with a smile, and I’m left alone with Sasha. We are quiet. I take a sip of my tea. Sasha clears her throat.

  “I have to make a quick phone call. Is there any way I can come find you after I finish?” I ask.

  “Oh . . . oh, sure,” she says with a quick nod as she unfolds her nearly six-foot frame out of my client chair and turns for the door.

  “I’ll be there around ten forty-five?” I say.

  “Sure . . . sure,” she says, and just before she closes the door behind her she adds, “I can’t wait to get to work.”

  Aaaand I’ll deal with that whole thing in due time. Sasha seems like a nice enough kid, but Lumineux and I aren’t going to need any help, thank you very much.

  A deep breath. A look at the clock. And I dial. And then I’m lost in some maze of press one to speak English and if you know your party’s extension just . . . I press zero. And zero. And zero. And scream “Representative” into the phone and when that doesn’t work I say “Agent” and then more options and I have no idea how far down the yellow brick road I am, but now I’m being asked if I’m calling from a doctor’s office and if this is an emergency and another screamed “Operator!” and finally I get the click and then, “One moment, a Quincy representative will be right with you.”

  And then I hold. I sip my tea, scroll through e-mails, and dust my computer keyboard with the old napkin I got from the coffeehouse this morning.

  “Quincy Pharmaceuticals. How may I direct your call?”

  “Preeti Dayal, please,” I say.

  “One moment.”

  Ha! Marpled. A few clicks.

  “Preeti Dayal’s office,” she says in the silken voice of a woman who answers phones in the expensive high-rises in New York City.

  “This is Anna Wyatt for Preeti Dayal,” I say as confidently as I can.

  “And what is this regarding?”

  “Lumineux Shower Gel,” I say.

  “One moment, I’ll see if she’s available,” she says after a pause. I’m not breathing. Is she going to let me get through or come back and tell me that Ms. Dayal is “in a meeting” or “on a call”? I’ve been an assistant. I know the tricks. Still not breathing. Still not breathing.

  “This is Preeti Dayal,” the woman says. Huzzah!

  “Hello, Ms. Dayal, this is Anna Wyatt from Holloway/Greene,” I say.

  “I’m not familiar with Holloway/Greene, Ms. Wyatt.”

  “We are an advertising agency in Washington, D.C.”

  “Ah. I’m sorry, Ms. Wyatt, but—”

  “All I want is a meeting, Ms. Dayal. Lumineux Shower Gel is prime for rebranding. It’s retro without being dated. It’s traditional without being stuffy. It’s in a class by itself,” I say.

  “Ms. Wyatt—”

  “The soap is good, but people have forgotten about it. Whoever is doing your advertising is missing a golden opportunity. All I’m asking for is a meeting. Half an hour of your time,” I say.

  “I appreciate your enthusiasm, but Lumineux Shower Gel is not looking—”

  “Quincy Pharmaceuticals was built from Lumineux. It’s been relegated to the shadows for too long, wouldn’t you say?”

  A long beat.

  “It appears I’ve just had a cancellation.” Woot! “For tomorrow.” What? “If you’re serious, Ms. Wyatt.”

  “Oh, yes, I’m quite serious,” I say.

  “Then I will see you in my office tomorrow morning at eleven A.M.,” she says and hangs up without further fanfare.

  Shit. Shit. Shit.

  Before I can panic, I walk out of my office to look for Sasha. Looks like I’ll need that help after all. Sasha is sitting by herself in the bull pen as a pack of men study her from afar. She acts like she doesn’t notice as she doodles in her sketchpad. I wave her over. The panic, at this point, is dangerously near. It’s in my throat. My brain is still whirlpooling around the information, unable to understand or catch or process the task at hand. It’s just this spiral of: Yay! Ugh! Yay! Ugh! Yay! Ugh! Sasha walks into my office and closes the door behind her.

  “Good news, bad news,” I say.

  “Good news fir
st,” she says.

  “We got a pitch meeting with the vice president over at Lumineux Shower Gel,” I say.

  “That’s great!”

  “It’s for tomorrow,” I say.

  “What?”

  “It’s for tomorrow,” I say, leaving out the whole lying, scheming, don’t-really-have-an-account, trying-to-take-over-the-world plan of mine.

  “I don’t . . . wow,” she says.

  “So, you’ve never worked in an ad agency before, right?” I ask.

  “What?” A look from me. Sasha deflates. “No, but—”

  “Oh, I don’t care, Ms. Merchant; I just want to know where we stand,” I say, sifting through the file I’ve worked up on all things Lumineux. I look up from the file and across the desk at Sasha. I’ve upset her.

  “I just want a chance, Ms. Wyatt,” Sasha says.

  “That makes two of us,” I say. She smiles and I can see her shoulders relax. She takes out her art supplies and pulls her chair closer to my desk. I reach across for Sasha’s sketchpad. “May I?” Sasha is hesitant but finally hands it over. I flip through her sketches and, oh, thank God . . . they’re good. Great, actually. Her drawings are modern but nostalgic, if that makes any sense. One after the other after the other. “They’re beautiful. You’re really good.” I hand the sketchpad back to her and I swear she looks as though she’s on the verge of tears.

  “Thanks,” she says.

  “Now. Let’s get to work.”

  We spend the next several hours going down the wrong path. We get stuck on trying to advertise Lumineux as some nostalgic trip down memory lane. Use Lumineux, remember your grammy. Use Lumineux and remember when soap smelled like soap. Failed taglines and Sasha’s sketches now litter my office. None of it works and we’ve wasted precious hours. But I know this is the process. We order out for a late lunch and Sasha volunteers to pick it up, which will give me a nice break from realizing that Sasha is too young for every pop culture reference I try to make. This movie? Blank stare. That one TV show and this famous scene? Nothing. How about this oft-quoted line and accompanying swoon? To which she offered that she could “Google it,” and then I opened up a hard candy in the middle of a theater and told everyone it was too cold and where was my sweater.

  As I wait for Sasha to return, I can hear the bustle of the agency just outside my door. I turn around and face my window, which overlooks Wisconsin Avenue. The brick buildings give way to the lush green of Georgetown Waterfront Park as the bustling pedestrians battle yet another humid D.C. summer.

  Okay, Anna. Scrap the last several hours. Go back to this morning. What would have made me choose Lumineux . . . no, what would make both Sasha and me choose Lumineux? How do we market this product so both of us want the same thing, as different as we are? Think about our similarities and stop dwelling on our differences and I’ll find it. So what do Sasha and I have in common?

  A sigh. A long, weary sigh. #nothing.

  I find my mug and take a long sip of the now cold tea as I ask the question millions have asked before me: What do women want? And not just from a shower gel. What do I want? I close my eyes and concentrate. Want feels so gluttonous; need feels far more virtuous. Come on, Anna. What do I want?

  I tighten my fingers around my homemade mug and remember my birthday dinner. Allison. Michael. Ferdie. Hannah and Nathan. Pink gelato, training montages, and laughing with friends.

  What do I want?

  I want to be happy and not feel guilty about it. I want to be curious without being called indulgent. I want to be accepted regardless of what I look like, what I do for a living, my marital status, whether I have kids, or whether you think I’m nice enough, hospitable enough, or humble enough to measure up to your impossible standards. I want purpose. I want contentment. I want to be loved and give love unreservedly in return. I want to be seen. I want to matter. I want freedom.

  I take another sip of my cold tea. Great. So all I have to do is encapsulate that into a slogan that’ll sell some old-timey shower gel and I’ll be fine.

  I’m screwed.

  I turn away from the window and focus on a stack of Sasha’s things that she left on my desk. Every single item has a generic alternative, but Sasha has chosen the brand-name versions, proving, once again, that women are intensely loyal to brands. Sasha sought out these particular items, paying way more than she would for the same items without the brand tags or symbols that set them apart. As do I. The tea I buy, the shampoo I use, even the hotels in which I stay—it’s a relief when I find a brand that feels good to me. I feel understood. Comforted. The search is over, so to speak.

  I put down my mug and walk over to the stack of items. It’s a hodgepodge of art supplies and various other digital art things that are way beyond my understanding. She has a Moleskine journal, which I don’t dare open, sitting on top of several sketchbooks. At the bottom of the stack is a well-read, dog-eared book. I pick it up.

  Be the Heroine, Find Your Hero, by Helen Brubaker.

  The cover boasts the usual romance novel fare: a shirtless man and some damsel in distress. He’s sporting manly pecs and his flaxen hair blows amorously behind him while she tries to keep the top of her dress from sexily falling down her generous bosom. I flip the book over and read the back cover copy. Helen Brubaker has apparently, according to her publisher, anyway, cracked the code of dating by applying her abundant knowledge gleaned from thirty years of experience as a bestselling romance novelist.

  “Learn how to be your own heroine, so you too can find your own hero.”

  Right, because why would you want to spend time learning how to be your own heroine if not for the sole purpose of ensnaring a hero? I can feel my cheeks flushing. As I set the book down quickly, I feel as I did when I was a teenager. I’m sneaking a read of that one Judy Blume book—the one we all know has the racy bits in it—and I’m positive everyone knows . . . everyone knows what part I’m reading and all of a sudden I’m having to explain my curiosity about sex in some bizarre science fictiony courtroom that’s inexplicably peopled only with boys I like and my grandmother. And ever since then I have never been able to do it—I could never read one of those books without feeling that flush, unable to stop being utterly aware of how embarrassed I’d be if someone found out what I was reading. It’s never about the romance novels; it’s about me. And I’ve never questioned it. Who these people are that would judge me and what conclusions they’d draw. Nope. Instead, I’ve just stuck to the classics—where the racy bits were never mentioned, just inferred from knowing glances across crowded rooms, and everything hinged on witty banter during a quadrille.

  I sit back down behind my desk with the book in hand, deciding not to dismiss it so quickly. I’m not a teenager anymore. Although I do close my door and tell my assistant not to enter for the next half hour as I’ll be “on a call.” She is, of course, confused, as I’ve never done this in the years we’ve worked together and she knows perfectly well there is no call.

  Apparently Ms. Helen Brubaker knows what women want. And I need some answers. From anyone. I Google “Be the Heroine, Find Your Hero” and millions upon millions of entries pop up instantaneously. Helen Brubaker has been on every morning television show; she’s been written about in every top magazine, newspaper, website . . . you name it. And there she is meandering through the First Lady’s garden deep in conversation. How have I not heard of this book before? I pick up the phone and dial.

  “Art room,” a student answers.

  “Is Mrs. Alvarez there?” I ask. The student puts her hand over the phone.

  “This is Mrs. Alvarez,” Allison says.

  “Have you ever heard of a book called Be the Heroine, Find Your Hero?”

  “Yeah, why?”

  “What?”

  “It’s everywhere.”

  “How did I not know about this?”

  “Because you live under a rock, my dearie. Oof, my next class will be here in ten minutes. I’ve still got to get their stuff out of the kiln.
Talk later?”

  “Sure.”

  “Love you.”

  “Love you, too.” I set my phone down and continue researching online.

  To say the book is a phenomenon is an understatement. It’s bigger. Cult big. Religion big. It’s the book of the moment . . . it’s the everything of the moment. It’s way more successful than any other dating book. The hook? It’s a dating advice book that uses romance novels as a modern-day guide for women who are searching for their Mr. Right.

  Sasha comes back with our lunch to find me fully engrossed in her book.

  “I’m so sorry, I saw it there and—” I drop the book. I can feel the flush in my cheeks as the embarrassment settles in the pit of my stomach. This is my teenage nightmare.

  “Oh, I don’t care. I can’t believe you don’t have your own copy.” Sasha sets down the food and starts pulling out containers, condiment packets, and little utensils.

  “Thanks for picking up lunch,” I say, scanning the food.

  “Don’t worry about it. You’ll get dinner.” The stark reality that we will be stuck in this office overnight hits me. I’ll get dinner. Right, because we’ll still be right here at dinnertime and breakfast.

  “I’ve never even heard of it,” I say, bringing the conversation back to the book. I take my container of sushi, pull my chopsticks out of their wrapper, rub them together to protect myself from splinters, and dive in.

  “It’s all about how romance novels have it right. First you have to consider yourself the heroine and then you attract the hero. Make your man slay dragons and save the world before he gets to ravish you,” Sasha says, settling into the chair across from me with her sashimi.

  “Are we saying ravish now? Are we ravishing now?” I ask.

  “Fingers crossed.” Sasha smiles. It’s taken her all morning to loosen up, but even then it’s still only confined to my office. Whenever Sasha walks out to get coffee or make a copy of something, I can see her purposefully shove her shoulders back with a little shake of the head and a huffed breath. I watch her walk through the bull pen, not actually looking at anyone yet completely aware that they’re all looking at her. And then she closes the door to my office and she takes all those airs off like a heavy winter coat.