A Little Change of Face (24 page)

I
went back to being a fucked-up person just long enough to fuck up the life I wanted, the life I would have given all my books for.

 

When I got back from Steve's, I picked up the mail, among which was a postcard from the owner of the house.

I hope you haven't changed too much,
it read.

How bizarre!

Still, I didn't have time to spare a thought for that, since I was…

“What are you doing?” Best Girlfriend asked as I shot by her and up the stairs.

“Going out.”

 

It's a lot easier to dress as a dowdy version of a librarian than it is to vamp it up for a night on the town. For my pur
poses, purposes unspecified, I wanted something that would be eye-catching.

Going through my closet, my drawers, I rejected the usual tight jeans and sweaters. Then I glimpsed something in a heap at the bottom of my closet: the Morticia costume from Halloween. I held it up. It was a little rumpled, but I knew that if I hung it on a hanger next to the shower, the steam would pull most of the wrinkles out; not to mention that the tightness when I put it on would take care of all the rest. But the hem of the dress was way too long for anything but a costume party, so I got my little gold scissors from the bathroom, the same ones I'd used to cut off my own hair all those months ago. You'd think I would have learned by now, gone out to buy a more professional pair of shears just in case, but no. So I used the little gold scissors, imitating the hem that already existed, but taking it up about two feet, from ankle length to mid-thigh.

As the steam did its work, I went through my jewelry, finally settling on a dangling pair of marcasite-and-garnet earrings, but rejecting all necklaces. What, after all, was the point in distracting from the all-important cleavage? True, there was the theory that jewelry drew the viewer's attention to certain parts of the body, but I knew that with that dress, nobody would have to be drawn anywhere. Why gild a perfect lily?

I thought about asking Best Girlfriend if I could borrow some of her makeup, but then thought: Why bother? I'd never become deft with the stuff and there was always the danger of going overboard. I didn't want to look like a slut, did I? So I just did some softer-than-usual spikes with my hair, slapped on some dark lipstick, fished out my bondage heels from the back of my closet—wouldn't you like to
know—and then slid the dress over my head, shimmying it over my hips, looked in the mirror and called it a wrap.

 

“Where are you going?” Best Girlfriend asked as I came downstairs.

“Out,” I said, “to shoot pool.”

She must have seen something in my eyes. “Would you like company?” she asked.

“Thanks,” I said, “but not tonight. We'll have breakfast or lunch together tomorrow.”

 

Once in my car, driving, I did an unexpected thing; unexpected to me, at any rate. I fished my cell phone out of my purse, punched in the number for information, asked for Kelly Seaforth's number. Then I called Kelly to see if she was home, see if I could stop by for fifteen minutes.

She said sure, she wasn't doing anything, anyway.

As I pulled up to the address she'd given me, I saw that Kelly lived in a condo in Bethel, not much different than the one I'd lived in when I was still living in Danbury, except that hers had a deck but no pool.

Kelly At Home looked different from Kelly At Work, I could see immediately as she opened the door. She didn't have any makeup on, and without it, I could see uneven coloring and a few acne scars. She was also dressed a lot less formally, with loose jeans and a sauce-spattered shirt.

Weird: all of a sudden, I was back to being the best-looking woman in the room.

“I was making pasta.” She indicated the shirt apologetically. “Care to join me?”

“No,” I said, “but you go on and eat, if it's ready.”

She led me through to a small maple dining room set,
where she'd set a place for one and had already poured herself a glass of red.

“Would you like one?” she offered, stumbling a bit before: “Scarlett?”

I shook my head on the wine. I needed to stay sober, so I could drink a lot later.

“I have to say,” Kelly said as she brought over a plate of pasta and sauce for herself and I took a seat at the table, “it's going to take some doing, learning to call you something new. When Roland told us…”

“Yeah,” I said, “you don't need to say anything. I really am the strangest woman who's ever lived.”

“Well, I wouldn't say you're the
strangest…
”

“But close?” I suggested.

She smiled, an easy smile. “Well, maybe.”

I watched her eat for a minute. I wouldn't exactly say her manners were revolting, more like nonexistent. She didn't bother with a napkin in her lap, didn't notice when she spilled a little more sauce on herself, and she didn't bother twirling the pasta neatly around the fork; she just scooped up a bunch and shoveled it in, dangling ends sticking out of her mouth be damned.

It was odd seeing her like this: the sloppy clothes, the un-made face, the deficient manners. It was like being in Oz and finding the Wizard behind the curtain.

“So,” she said, washing down a mouthful of pasta with a mouthful of red, “what can I do for you?”

Well, now, that was the big question, wasn't it?

I'd made the snap decision to go talk to Kelly because it seemed like there was no one else to turn to. I certainly wasn't going to Pam; Delta had helped Pam set me up with that whole Mommy thing, so she was out; T.B. was un
doubtedly occupied with Ex-Al; and I really didn't want to talk anymore about it to Best Girlfriend, who seemed to be hurt by some of my self-revelations. Who did that leave—my mom?
Pat?
Definitely not Steve, since my feelings for him lay at the heart of my problems.

So, instead, I'd chosen to come to the Good-Looking Woman for advice. After all, people used to ask me for man advice, so I figured she could perform the same function for me. Surely, despite my vague recollection of what she'd said about being lonely that night we'd gone together to the massage parlor, looking the way she did—at least in daylight hours—she had a lot of experience with men.

But when I asked her point-blank, having told her about Steve, what I should do about fixing things, if that's what I ultimately decided to do, she practically spewed wine across the maple table.

“Oh, hell, Scarlett, I don't know!” she laughed.

“But surely you've had tons of dating experience,” I suggested.

“What in the world makes you say that?”

I thought about it. It wasn't like, when people gossiped at work, I'd ever heard anyone say anything about her having a boyfriend, or even about her going out on any dates.

“Don't you remember the things I told you,” she said, “when we went for the massages?”

“What things?”

“The things about me and men and how men always act all screwy where I'm concerned.”

I didn't want to confess that it's kind of hard keeping track of other people's social dilemmas when you're already obsessed with your own, so I just nodded, hoping there wasn't going to be a quiz later.

“Well, then, you must realize, with men always treating me like some kind of object, I haven't let myself get close to too many. And other women are even worse. That's why I thought we could be close. You seem so nonthreatening and nonthreatened.”

I thought that if she let herself wear that sauce-spattered shirt in public she probably wouldn't have to worry so much about being objectified, but I kept mum.

I looked at this woman who had actually thought of becoming my friend, as if I was a desirable thing, and it occurred to me that she wasn't who I had taken her for; she wasn't the Good-Looking Woman, she was merely a woman. I'd made assumptions about her, wrong assumptions, just like others had so often made them about me. But she was just like anyone else. She wasn't a red M&M at all. She was just like anyone else, trying to make sense out of a nonsensical world, sometimes failing miserably, but still trying all the same.

“Well,” I said, “if you can't tell me how to fix things with Steve, can you tell me why I'm screwed up about all of this ‘be yourself' stuff?”

“'Cause you're screwy?” she offered.

That was helpful.

I figured I'd try one more time. I told her about Pam, Pam's plan, and how I'd gone from Scarlett to Lettie and back again.

“Why?” I asked her. “Why do you think Pam put me through that? And why do you think I let her?”

Kelly squinched up her pretty nose. “Because women are screwy?” she repeated. “Because you're kind of screwy, too?”

It was good enough for me.

 

Chalk Is Cheap was already pretty crowded for what was considered to be still early on a Saturday night. All the usual suspects were there: the French Canadian contingent of working-class stiffs, holding the bar up and waiting for yuppies to come in, from whom they would later take money off at eight ball; the young guys just trying out their recent legitimate IDs to see how it felt to be both legal and drinking; the little clusters of girlfriends, wondering if they'd get lucky, never wondering if they'd still feel lucky in the morning.

Plus Pam and Delta and T.B.

They all looked at me as I sat down, no one commenting on my appearance.

“I was supposed to go out with Ex-Al tonight,” said T.B., “and Delta was supposed to go out with Dave, but Pam said it'd been too long since we'd done something just-us-girls. Ex-Al understood.”

“Dave actually seemed to like the idea,” said Delta, “said he'd appreciate it more, having to wait to see me until tomorrow.”

I didn't ask why no one had called me. Instead: “Has he met Mush and Teenie yet?” I asked.

“Yes.”

“And?”

“And he didn't hate them.”

“Hey!” I said, putting my hand up for a high five.

“I'm very happy,” she said shyly, slapping my hand.

“I'm glad,” I said, meaning it.

“You look great, Scarlett,” said Pam, addressing me for the first time.

I looked at my Default Best Friend closely, trying to figure out what it was I was hearing beneath her words. I
couldn't figure it out, but I did see that the transformation Pam had craved for herself was now complete: she'd lost all the weight she'd wanted to, her tasteful clothes fit nicely, she had good hair. Hell, she looked like the kind of woman that anyone would be happy to date, until she opened her mouth and the bitterness flew out.

“But you didn't discuss this with me,” she said angrily.

I shrugged. “I made a unilateral decision for once. So sue me.”

I excused myself from the table, bellied up to the bar, watched, waited, not knowing what exactly I was watching and waiting for, but knowing I'd recognize it when I saw it.

I was almost ready to give up, half my mind wondering if I could shoot pool in this dress, at least salvage some fun out of the evening, when Saul came in. As he stood at the bar next to me, I don't think he even knew who I was.

“Hey,” I said.

He looked down the height that still separated us, even with the bondage shoes.

“Hey!” he said, enthusiastic, source unspecified. “You look—”

“Come on,” I cut him off, making another unilateral decision, grabbed my bag off the bar, headed for the door, “let's go.”

“Where are we going?” he asked, but he followed.

“Your place,” I said. “You do have a place, don't you?”

I realized that I was very angry, source unspecified.

“Of course I have a place,” he said. “But what about your kids?”

“Those weren't my kids,” I said.

“You don't have to—”

“What? Do you think I'd disown my own kids, if they were my own kids, for social expedience?”

“Okay, Lettie,” he spoke steadily, softly, perhaps in an effort to calm down the crazy lady.

“Scarlett,” I said as he fired up the ignition, “not Lettie. My name is Scarlett.”

He looked at me in the dark of the car.

“Sure,” he said, “whatever you say.”

 

Saul's place was so different from Steve's that the only thing you could say that they shared in common was that both were occupied by men. Where Steve's place had been all an expression of self, Saul's place was a pantheon of want: the electronic toys, the magazine selections, the
right
furniture all serving as a means to impress rather than express.

I accepted a glass of wine, figuring I needed at least one more for nerve.

“What is it you look for in a woman?” I asked, spinning the stem of the wineglass back and forth between my fingers.

“Look for?” he asked, sitting close to me.

“Yes, look for, want. I'm curious,” I said. “I really would like to know.”

“Honestly?” he asked, and, thinking that he no longer impressed me as being particularly bright or witty, I nodded. He ticked them off on his fingers. “Intelligence, a sense of humor, good looks and—” here he blushed just a bit “—she has to like sex.”

“Let's go,” I said, getting up.

He was surprised, but he followed my lead.

“Where?” he asked.

I half wondered what he was thinking: that I'd had enough? That I was ready to leave now? That I wanted to go bowling?

“Your bedroom, of course,” I said. “You still have those condoms, don't you?”

 

I was good at getting Saul's clothes off. I'd already proved that, hadn't I, on Halloween? And he was good at getting mine off, too.

But when he tried to touch me, I wasn't having any.

“Uh-uh,” I said, flipping him over onto his back.

“Um…no foreplay?” he asked.