Bulletproof Mascara: A Novel (13 page)

“What? No!” He was smiling, but she felt she had startled him.

“Oh, come on,” she said, laughing at his surprised expression and feeling in control of the conversation again. “You lie about your wife, your name, and I don’t think you really like rugby. Just what are you trying to sell Mr. Sarkassian?”

“What makes you think I’m trying to sell Sarkassian anything?”

“Well, if you’re not, you’re going to an awful lot of trouble for lunch. And you complimented his cufflinks.”

“I said they were interesting,” said Z’ev, shifting in his chair, but there was a smile lurking behind his rough tone.

“Yes, but when you say ‘interesting’ with a smile it nearly always sounds like a compliment.”

“Really? How interesting.” He gave a smile of perfect bland surprise.

“Really,” retorted Nikki with marked sarcasm. “And you still haven’t answered my question.”

“I’m sorry, I’ve forgotten the question.”

“What do you want from Sarkassian?” she asked with an exasperated sigh.

“I’ll tell you what,” he said, still smiling. “You tell me why
you
came along with us today and I’ll tell you why I’m here.”

Nikki hesitated, not really wanting to share her humiliation with a stranger.

“That’s the deal,” he said, “take it or leave it.”

“I graduated in linguistics,” she said, trying to explain, but starting in the wrong place as usual. “I’ve had five jobs in the last three years, and none of them has been close to my degree. And it’s not like I haven’t been looking. But I need experience to get a job, and I need a job to get experience.”

“Real life is hard to do,” he said with impassive calm. His tone should have given the impression of disinterest, but instead it was somehow reassuring. As if everyone had trouble with reality and it was nothing to get excited about.

“It’s not like I thought it would be easy to grow up and get a real life,” protested Nikki. “I just didn’t think it was going to be this hard. I feel like I’m just stumbling around blindfolded, looking for the piñata while everyone else in the crowd laughs and shouts totally useless directions.”

“Hit ’em with the stick,” he advised in the same stolid tone, but there was a slight twinkle in his eye.

Nikki laughed. “I’ll try that. Anyway, two weeks ago I saw an ad for someone with my background. I was pretty excited. I got
the interview, and my mom paid for the hotel.” Nikki decided to gloss over the part about Carrie Mae cosmetics. Some things were just too embarrassing. “And things were going really well until I actually got to the interview.”

“Why, what happened?” Z’ev picked at his salad, and Nikki frowned, uncertain that she really wanted to tell anyone. Then he caught her eye and smiled.

The world seemed entirely still when he smiled. It was possible that he had the most perfect mouth she had ever seen on a man.

“I accidentally went into the men’s bathroom,” said Nikki in a rush. She hadn’t been planning to mention the bathroom thing, but she had been distracted by his lips.

He tried to laugh and then coughed, choking on a carrot.

“I wasn’t expecting that. How’d you manage that?” he asked, reaching for his water.

“I somehow misread the signs and walked in on one of the interviewers.” Nikki paused, while Z’ev let out a booming chuckle. “Which would have been bad enough,” she said over his laughter, “except that later in the interview, they asked me about Ebonics. Which is when I knew I wasn’t going to get the job.”

“Ebonics?” Z’ev repeated quizzically.

“Do you really want to know?”

“Yeah,” he said, obviously enjoying her misery.

“I tried to explain that languages aren’t really permanent structures,” Nikki said with a sigh. “They can’t really be corrupted. It’s more of an evolutionary model. Among linguists, African American English Vernacular, or AAEV, has been an accepted English dialect for many years. It has its own grammatical structure, consistent word usage, everything that makes a dialect. AAEV or Ebonics or street slang or whatever you want to call it is just the ongoing process of language growth. You can’t really freeze a
language in place except on paper, and then, of course, it’s dead. What I failed to realize was that Mrs. Densley, the head interviewer, was an English freak.”

“The language of Shakespeare is hardly dead,” Mrs. Densley had said acidly, her small piggy eyes widening to their fullest.

“I already knew I wasn’t getting the job; I was just praying to get out of there with some last shred of dignity, when the guy from the bathroom, who up until then had been totally OCD’ing on the ceiling tiles and avoiding all eye contact, looked directly at me.”

Nikki looked at the smooth white tablecloth and her chipped nail polish. This had been the worst part.

“What’d he ask?” Z’ev tilted his head slightly to the right, catching Nikki’s downturned gaze. Nikki looked into his eyes and forgot what she was going to say. She forgot her embarrassment—forgot everything. His dark, coffee-colored eyes were full of sympathy, and suddenly it was easy to tell this last humiliating memory.

“I have one,” Bathroom Man had said, taking his eyes off the ceiling to look directly at Nikki. “How are you special?” Nikki had stared at him, dumbstruck.

“How are you special?” Z’ev repeated skeptically.

“I realize that it was embarrassing to be literally caught with his pants down, but the way he asked the question was vindictive. I’d just spent the last three hours justifying my entire existence to these people, and he wanted me to feel like . . .” She searched for the right words. “He wanted me to feel like nothing. I couldn’t think of anything to say to him. I couldn’t think of anything that I could do that they couldn’t hire five monkeys to do.” Z’ev’s lips twitched. He was trying not to smile, and Nikki appreciated the effort.

“I was just sitting there staring at him, probably gaping like a fish, and, really, I felt like giving them all the finger and walking out. Which I should have done, but I ended up just saying some nonsense and waiting for the interview to end.”

“What’d you say?” persisted Z’ev.

Nikki blushed, but held her head a little higher, remembering her last stubborn flare of pride in the interview.

“How much I really enjoy Ebonics.”

“Good for you,” he said, grinning.

“Now it’s your turn,” said Nikki. “Tell me what you want from Sarkassian.”

“Nuh-uh,” he said, and shook his head.

“I told my story. Now you have to tell me about Sarkassian. We had a deal, buster.”

“Not Buster. Z’evvvv.” He drew out the
v
sound, for emphasis, and Nikki rolled her eyes. “Come on, you can say it.”

“Z’evvvv,” mimicked Nikki, and threw a crouton at him, which he caught and ate. “I’m out of croutons, but I will throw silverware if I have to,” she threatened.

“No, please, not the spoon.” His calm expression rendered the statement into sarcasm, and Nikki couldn’t help but laugh.

“Come on, spill, Z’evvv. It’s your turn.”

“Nuh-uh. You’re not finished yet.”

“What do you mean? I told them to f’shizel my nizel, came back to the hotel, and drank like a fish. End of my story, start of yours.”

“No, that’s why you were in the bar,” Z’ev began, but then stopped. Whatever he had been about to say was cut short as Sarkassian returned to the table, closely followed by a waiter carrying their steaks.

“Sorry to be so long,” Sarkassian said, folding into his chair, his
long legs kicking out under the table, taking up space and forcing Nikki to tuck her feet under her own chair. “You wouldn’t think getting cargo to the correct destination would require so much effort. But for every new port there’s a new special interest to deal with: the longshoremen hate the boat crews, the crews hate the captains, I hate their unions. It just seems never ending.”

“That’s why you need me,” said Z’ev, bluntly.

“We’ll see,” said Sarkassian with a shrug, reaching for his drink. “Fortunately, you two seem to be able to entertain yourselves without me. I could hear you laughing out in the lobby, Jim.” He briskly sawed at his steak while he spoke and, at the last word, popped a piece into his mouth. If he saw Z’ev’s slight frown, he ignored it.

“Mmmm,” Sarkassian said around his mouthful. “I’m telling you, brilliant steak.”

“So you own those big container ships?” asked Nikki, cutting up her own steak. “You make sure the cargo all gets where it’s going?” Z’ev eyed her suspiciously, and Nikki smiled sweetly.

“That is the general idea of shipping,” Sarkassian said. “We’re just like FedEx with much, much bigger packages. I would have thought Jim would have explained that to you. You should try to educate her more, Jim.”

Nikki gritted her teeth and smiled.

“Oh, I hear all about international waters and injunctions and things like that,” she said, trying to remember some factoid from her one International Politics and Policies class. “But I don’t get to hear much about the people actually doing the work.”

Sarkassian smiled, pleased with her slight massaging of his ego.

“Shipping is a complicated business, I won’t go into it at the dinner table. But needless to say, it gets more complicated all the time. All the increased security and cargo searches—it just slows down business.”

“People want to feel secure,” protested Z’ev mildly. “You can’t really blame them after 9-11.”

Sarkassian’s eyes were narrowed, and he chewed his steak with quick, decisive movements of his jaw.

“They want to feel more secure, but trust me, they don’t want to pay for what it’s going to take to be secure. Besides, it’s not like they actually catch the professional smugglers. And aren’t you supposed to be on my side?”

“I’m a lawyer,” said Z’ev, calmly sectioning off a forkful of mashed potatoes. “I’m on the side of my client.”

“Meaning you’re on the side of whoever pays you. You don’t mind being married to a hired gun, do you?” asked Sarkassian, switching his focus back to Nikki.

Nikki smiled awkwardly. She felt like Sarkassian was poking at her with the same kind of sadistic pleasure that a small boy might get from burning ants with a magnifying glass.

“Well,” she said, trying to think of something clever and in character to say, “I think the basic assumption is that, having married him, he’s my hired gun.”

“Good point,” said Sarkassian, nodding. “How’s that steak, love?”

“Good. Really good,” Nikki said, swallowing hard and forcing a smile, and Sarkassian matched it, enjoying the way she squirmed when he used condescending pet names.

Nikki felt as if she were standing in a kitchen between a freezer and an oven. Sarkassian was warmly expansive about his latest project. To her left, Z’ev nodded and smiled a bit, all the while giving off an aura of deep freeze that made Nikki shiver. She wished she hadn’t given in to the impulse to go along with this ridiculous charade.

“Armenian!” said Nikki suddenly, and Sarkassian paused, pin
ning her with an unwavering cold stare. “You’re Armenian,” she said, feeling silly for having spoken out loud. “I couldn’t place your accent, but I finally realized that you’re Armenian and that must be interesting . . .” She fell into silence under his heavy stare.

“Interesting. Yes,” he said, smiling his shark smile again. “I suppose you could call it interesting. When I was born we were the whipping boy of the Soviet pigs, and then of course there was the earthquake that killed my parents, the Catholic orphanage, and then the war with Azerbaijan. Good times, really interesting. Thanks for bringing that up.”

Nikki smiled weakly and kept her mouth shut as the rest of lunch dragged by. She was beginning to find Jirair Sarkassian’s
loves
and
honeys
harder and harder to take. She knew he was doing it on purpose, and he knew she wasn’t going to say anything about it.

Nikki subtly checked her watch and felt a spasm of panic. It was 4:45. She glanced at Z’ev. The conversation had returned to sports, and both men appeared cheerful.

“Uh, gentlemen,” she said softly, not wishing to interrupt. “I don’t mean to rush either of you, but I do have . . .” She paused, trying to remember what she had told them as an excuse for her five o’clock deadline.

“Oh, yes, of course,” said Z’ev. “Those theater tickets. Mary Ann is meeting you back at the hotel?”

“Yes,” Nikki agreed, “and I think she might be bringing Mrs. Howell, so I don’t want to be late.” Z’ev choked back a laugh, but Sarkassian didn’t appear to notice.

“Well, we’d better get going, then,” said Sarkassian, waving at a waiter.

It still took fifteen minutes to settle the bill. Nikki tried to keep herself from looking at her watch or tapping her foot, but she
could feel the number of minutes she was late piling up on each other like vehicles in a traffic jam. Finally they were in their car and weaving with all appropriate speed back to the hotel.

“There you go, honey,” Sarkassian said as they pulled up in front of the hotel. “You don’t mind, do you, if I steal Jim for a couple more hours?”

“No, of course not,” said Nikki, smiling graciously and opening the door, suppressing her desire to withhold her permission just to see his reaction. She just wanted to get out of the car. She was going to be late for that ridiculous speech. Her mother would be furious as it was.

“Just give me a minute,” Z’ev said from the backseat as she was about to close the door. “I’ll walk her to the door.”

“Really, Jim,” Nikki started to say, “you don’t have to.” But he was already taking her arm and walking her up the wide cement steps to the gilded front door.

“You know,” Nikki said with some asperity, “if I’d known I was going to be ‘honeyed’ all afternoon I don’t think I’d have come along.”

“You invited yourself along,” he replied. “You can’t complain now.”

“Watch me,” she snapped.

Z’ev gave a small chuckle. “Look,” he said, tugging her to a stop at the top of the stairs, a few feet from the door. “Why did you come with us?”

“I told you about the interview,” Nikki answered in confusion.

“No, you weren’t going to go with us until you got to the lobby.”

“I do dumb things when I drink?” suggested Nikki. He shook his head, and Nikki sighed. She really didn’t want to discuss her mother.