Director of Human Resources was the title with the money and the power. It was the job Helen wanted, but it always went to a man at her company. Helen settled for second best, the duller, safer title of benefits director. Her career was good, but not great. But she had her marriage. Then she found out her husband had betrayed her, and she’d picked up the crowbar that wrecked her life. In court, the judge, another man, decided her awful future.
Maybe we aren’t so different after all, Helen thought. But she could never say that to Juliana’s women. They seemed to know that Helen’s pantyhose had runs in the toes stopped with clear nail polish. They would look at her self-manicured nails and four-year-old Ungaro suit and see no resemblance.
Precisely at one, Bianca, Brittney, and Tiffany rose gracefully from the silk-satin loveseats. Each woman told Helen how sorry she was to learn of Christina’s death. Each bought something for a few hundred dollars—a purse or a scarf or a belt—as if she was making a memorial donation in Christina’s name. Then they were gone. Helen wondered if they would come back.
Helen knew she was not the right person to run Juliana’s. There was something wrong with her. She hated needless cosmetic surgery. Helen thought most people looked better with their original face, unless they were disfigured. To her, the marks of maturity were not disfiguring. They gave people character. So she told the regulars she didn’t know who did the best lip work and breast implants. They knew she was lying. These women did not want to hear Helen’s lectures on the dangers of silicone and collagen.
When Juliana’s regulars wanted biopolymer injections, Helen did not tell them about exotic South American doctors, like Christina did. Instead, Helen gave them the phone numbers of the reporters who investigated the horrific damages. No one took the numbers.
The next afternoon, Helen made her worst mistake. It was with Melissa, the little blonde with the large implants and the sexy, slightly popped gray eyes. Helen knew she’d mishandled the woman, but she felt she had to try to stop her.
“You’ve taken over for Christina?” Melissa asked her.
Helen said yes.
“Then you must have her list of plastic surgeons. I need my eyes done. I have terrible bags.”
Helen looked at Melissa’s smooth pale skin. It was flawless.
“How old are you, Melissa?” Helen asked.
“Twenty-seven,” she said.
“You don’t need an eye job,” she said. “Your skin is perfection.”
“It’s not,” Melissa said. She squeezed out one crystal tear. “My boyfriend left me for a younger woman. It’s my eyes. I know it. If my eyes were OK, I’d still have him.”
“Did you ever wonder if the problem was not your face?” Helen said.
“What do you mean?” Melissa said, suddenly alert and tear-free.
“I mean,” Helen said, “that you are beautiful, but you don’t believe it. You cannot see yourself as others do. Why let some quack cut on you? He could ruin your looks forever. A therapist would be less painful.”
“Are you calling me crazy?” Melissa’s eyes were not popped now, but hard and narrowed.
“I’m merely suggesting—” Helen began.
“I’m outta here,” she said. “And I’m not coming back. I don’t have to listen to some nowhere sales clerk tell me I’m crazy.”
Melissa stalked out, slamming the green door.
Another customer lost forever, Helen thought. Soon, the sharp-eyed owner would notice that sales were down. Helen would be out of a job. No one else could take Christina’s place. No one else had the right combination of sophistication and sleaze.
Juliana’s was slowly dying, and Helen could not prevent that death, either.
Chapter 22
It was two a.m. and too hot to sleep. Helen didn’t want to turn on the window air conditioner. Its rattling would only keep her awake. Besides, it was expensive to run. She had to save money.
Helen got up and slid open the patio door. Cool night air poured into her stuffy apartment. She stood in the doorway, letting the tropical night embrace her. Something sweet bloomed in the velvety dark and sent out a heavy perfume. She heard some small creature rustling in the foliage. Unknown insects sang a high-pitched chant.
Then Helen heard another, wilder sound. At first, she thought it was two cats. Then she realized the wild moans were from Daniel’s apartment. Some woman was having perfect sex with the perfect man. The stripper with the Day-Glo bra? Or had he moved on to someone else? Daniel had not promised to be faithful. Unlike Rob, her ex- husband.
The moans grew louder, sweeter, and more excited. She and Rob had sounded like that, long ago. Love with Rob had been good, right up until the day she discovered him with another woman. Only later did their love feel wrong. Rob had betrayed her with dozens of women, while Helen foolishly believed he’d loved only her. When Helen finally realized her husband had been unfaithful, she felt as if acid had been thrown on her soul.
In South Florida, she seemed to be healing. Her anger had faded to a deep, piercing sadness. Her recovery was slow, but it was happening. Around single men, Helen still felt awkward as a teenager, except she had zits
Helen also felt lost. After seventeen years of marriage, she didn’t know the rules of the dating game any more. She couldn’t even tell when a man was flirting with her. But she wanted to learn.
The extravagant cries from Daniel’s room reached a crescendo. Helen shut her patio door and returned to her empty bed.
It was even hotter at Juliana’s the next morning. When Helen opened the green door, she was hit with a blast of warm, muggy air.
Tara tripped in behind her on pink flowered mules, fanning herself. “Feels like Sumatra in here,” she said. “The air conditioner must be broken.”
“Another crisis,” Helen said.
“A big one,” Tara said. “You can’t survive in South Florida without air conditioning.”
“Lord, I hope it doesn’t need major repairs,” Helen said. “Mr. Roget will hit the roof.”
“Check the filter first, and maybe you won’t have to deal with Old Tightwad,” Tara said. “Our air conditioning acts this way sometimes when the filter needs changing.”
“Come to think of it, no one’s changed the filter since I started working here,” Helen said.
Helen opened the utility closet and stared at the air conditioner. It made its usual hum-chugging sound. The large olive green machine had pipes snaking all over. Some were wrapped with black foam padding and silver duct tape. All were thickly layered with dust. A big square vent trailed long wisps of gray dust, like an old man’s beard. A box of filters leaned against the air conditioner. But Helen could not see where to install the filters.
“Yuck-o,” Tara said, stepping back so she wouldn’t get dirt on her pink outfit. “Where does the filter go in that thing?”
“Beats me,” Helen said. “I’m wearing a black pants suit. I’ll try to change it. You watch the door. There’s a pile of manuals back in the stockroom for the cash register and stuff. Maybe I can find one for the air conditioner.”
The stockroom was even hotter, but Helen didn’t dare carry the appliance manuals into the store to sit on the forbidden loveseats.
Helen leaned against a stockroom table and started shuffling through the foot-high stack. She could feel sweat trickling down her neck. I’ll have to send this suit to the dry cleaner, she thought resentfully. Mr. Rich Guy Roget will never pick up the tab. He doesn’t have to worry about my dry-cleaning bills, but I’m supposed to save
