“Hey,” I said, as I stood in the doorway. Claudia had already tossed her coat onto the low black sofa that lined one wall and was scrutinizing herself in the mirror that lined the other. The way she was studying her tall, pencil-thin, black-clad figure said she wasn’t satisfied with what she saw, although she looked like her usual well-kept self. “How did spa-ing with the bigwigs go?” I asked. Claudia had just come back from an exclusive spa in Switzerland, where, while sipping flavored waters and sitting half-naked, she attended meetings to decide the fate of Roxanne Dubrow cosmetics. Though the company prided itself on being able to attract an older, wealthier client, sales had recently begun to wane. So Dianne Dubrow, CEO and daughter of the company’s founder, had decided that a week at a Swiss spa brainstorming with all her top execs would result in a brilliant new direction for the company—or at least a well-pampered upper management.
But Claudia apparently didn’t feel very well-pampered. Smoothing a newly manicured hand over her long, dark hair with dissatisfaction, she stepped behind her desk, glared hard for a moment at the sleek black surface before looking up.
Her eyes roamed over me, taking in my blouse, my flared pants, my pointy-toed pumps, as if assessing their worthiness. It was the kind of once-over I could never get used to, despite the fact that she did it fairly regularly. It was as if Claudia were measuring me to make sure I met the high fashion standards of the illustrious firm of Roxanne Dubrow. Or at least to see if I were someone worthy of taking on as a confidante, even a friend, as Claudia was wont to do, especially when things weren’t going her way.
“There should be a four-letter word for beauty,” she said finally.
“Tell me,” I said, sitting down in the chair across from her desk and preparing to hear about whatever brave new innovations the executives at Roxanne Dubrow had decided upon.
She sighed, gazing out her window and studying the generous glimpse of skyline it afforded. “They’ve chosen the new face for Roxanne Dubrow,” she said, turning to face me once more, “and she’s sixteen.”
“What?” I asked, completely confused. Roxanne Dubrow cosmetics were devoted to the mature woman. As in: edging toward forty. In fact, Priscilla, the model who was last year’s face, was a bit too young at age twenty-five. “I don’t get it. How are they going to pull off ‘Beauty beyond thirty’ with a sixteen-year-old?”
“That’s just it,” Claudia replied. “Roxanne Dubrow is creating a new image. A new, younger image.” She sniffed. “I suppose it’s only a matter of time before they replace us with sixteen-year-olds. After all, who better to tell a woman how she should look than someone with a Ph.D. in benzyl peroxide?”
“Hmmm…” Studying Claudia’s frown, I wondered if perhaps the younger image worried her on a more personal level. With her dark eyes and the shiny brunette hair she dared, at age forty-two, to wear longer than shoulder length, Claudia was a beautiful woman. But she was incredibly age-conscious.
“So tell me what that child was sniveling about out there,” Claudia continued, confirming my suspicions. Ever since I had hired Lori fresh out of college a year and a half ago, Claudia had taken an immediate dislike to her. A dislike that seemed to have nothing to do with her work and everything to do with the fact that Lori was younger than Claudia had probably ever been.
“Oh, boy trouble,” I said vaguely.
“Poor girl,” she replied sarcastically. “Did Dennis the Menace discover someone else while playing in the sandbox?”
Knowing Claudia was about to take her anger at the top brass at Roxanne Dubrow out on Lori, I decided to sacrifice someone a bit more thick-skinned. Myself. “I broke up with Ethan.”
This got an eyebrow raise. “Pourquoi, darling? Do tell.”
“I discovered what a self-absorbed jerk he was.”
This got a laugh. “Oh, Grace, don’t tell me it took you—how long have you been with him, six months?—to figure that out?”
“Yeah, well. I must be getting soft in my old age,” I replied.
She studied me for a moment, then a savage smile creased her well-lined lips. “Alas for Ethan. Another hapless victim of Grace’s axe.”
“Stop that,” I replied, worried that she might be right. I quickly did a mental checklist of my most recent dating history. Before Ethan there was Drew, who was as utterly eligible as Ethan had appeared to be, but just as emotionally unavailable, I had discovered. Like Ethan, Drew had only lasted six months. In fact, six months might be my record since Kevin, my college boyfriend, whom I’d kept around for a solid two years before giving him the boot. I had been pretty brutal back then, too, I thought, cringing at the memory of how I had dropped every T-shirt, cassette tape and pair of boxer shorts Kevin had ever left at my place in the hall outside his dorm room, just moments before graduation. The truth was, I had an intuition for when I thought a guy would break up with me, and I never, ever let a man get the better of me. The only time that had happened was with my high school boyfriend, who had thrown me over for a cheerleader in a vain effort to win more votes for homecoming king. Still, he hadn’t gotten away without enduring a few cutting barbs from me in front of the entire football team. Because even at the tender age of sixteen, I had a knack for laying a man low.
“It’s not like he didn’t deserve it,” I muttered now, then realized there was no way in hell I could reveal to Claudia the cause of my breakup with Ethan. Because even though, statistically speaking, there was only a minute chance that last night’s incident could have resulted in pregnancy, I didn’t want to give my boss any food for thought. Losing her assistant to baby fever was hard enough. Having her Senior Product Manager go on maternity leave during Roxanne Dubrow’s next major marketing campaign would be nothing less than betrayal in Claudia’s eyes.
Fortunately, she had her own beef against Ethan. “He used too many hair products. What was with that Brylcreem look he sported to dinner that night?” she said, referring to one of the few times I had put my sharp-tongued boss and my well-groomed boyfriend in the same room together.
“I think he was going for Antonio Banderas in The Mask of Zorro.”
“He looked more like Pee Wee Herman on his latest adventure.”
I laughed. I couldn’t help myself. “He had more facial moisturizers in his medicine cabinet than we carry in our winter product line.”
“There is nothing worse than a man with more beauty products than a woman.”
“Nothing,” I agreed, laughing harder, until Claudia’s office was echoing with the sound of our mutual glee.
Until I remembered that there was one thing worse than a man addicted to skin care. And that was no man.
“I’m never going to have sex again,” I said with a sigh.
“Please. As if a blond bombshell like you has ever had to worry about that,” she said.
She was right, I realized as I stood to leave her office a short while later. With a glance in the mirror on my way out the door, I felt my courage return. There I was, Grace Noonan, blond, busty and single for about the sixth time in as many years. Was it because a five-foot-nine-inch blonde with a 38-C chest and legs up to her eyebrows could afford to be choosy? Or was it because I couldn’t afford not to be?
I got my answer when I found myself in the foyer outside Claudia’s office once more, watching in horror as Lori struggled to swipe away the tears that were gushing from her eyes.
Alarmed, I rushed forward, crouching beside the chair where she sat, her thin arms folded against her narrow frame. “Lori, honey, what’s wrong?” I asked.
“I’m s-so s-sorry, Grace,” she sputtered. “I just thought, you know, that some people were meant to be together.” She burst into a fresh avalanche of tears that I found, frankly, bewildering. But not one to turn away a fellow female in distress, I took her hand in mine.
“Lori,