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THE PROPOSAL
Despite the occasional ambiguously nasty comment from the Princesses, the next few days went by rather quietly for Lorraine. Tommy had not come back to Lorraine’s apartment after the Mercedes event. At the time, full of the positive energy from her evening with Matt, Lorraine had been relieved to have the place and her thoughts to herself. Still, lurking somewhere behind all the pleasant ideas she was playing with, there was something troublesome about Tommy’s sudden disappearance. She was beginning to wonder if there wasn’t a connection between Tommy’s departure and the cryptic warning Lorraine had gotten from Mallory earlier.
The following morning she saw his picture in the paper, chummy with Mallory and two champagne flutes behind the wheel of a brand new Mercedes SUV, looking as if he’d been born there. Lorraine had looked long and hard at his face before her discomfort took a concrete form. Every pixel that made up his dark eyes, his now whiter-than-ever teeth, all came together into one whopping realization that hit her like front-page news: Tommy was not a nice person.
The more she stared at that picture, nestled between a photo of Paris Hilton and “friend” and a photo of a dog wearing a cat costume, the more she saw. He was transforming right before her eyes. She saw now he wouldn’t ever make sacrifices for others. And most important, he would never be able to love anyone else, because he was entirely too much in love with himself.
It wasn’t that he was deep and hurting, as she’d always thought, it was that he was shallow and too lazy to accomplish anything for himself. When he’d been tossed into this new world, with opportunity, success, and temptation all around him, his shallowness had become all too illuminated. And with each negative she attached to him, Tommy became that much less good looking. There was an unevenness to his nose. His smile lifted more on the left. But worst of all were his eyes. They reminded Lorraine of vacuums—not the cleaning kind, but the ones in space, the ones that could suck you in for good, pull you in and erase you for eternity. For once, that didn’t seem like a good thing to her.
Lorraine knew there was more than just the smug look on Tommy’s face as he sat behind the wheel of a $46,000 car that brought about the change—something magical that involved not one, but two boroughs, some delicious calamari, an English-comprehending, conspiratorial canine with a funny name, an eccentric old Italian millionairess, and coincidentally enough, another Mercedes. But whatever the reasons, she knew she was done being obsessed with Tommy. The spell was broken. And now the sight of him made her sick. So sick she went to the bathroom behind the color room and threw up eighteen times—once for every year she had been in love with him.
The next day, when Guido asked Lorraine to lunch, she ordered only a peppermint tea and two slices of rye toast. She wasn’t taking any chances. On top of her existing nausea and nervous stomach, a lunch invitation from Guido only proved additionally aggravating. Everyone at Guido’s knew such an invite meant only one thing: you were getting fired.
They sat in silence until their beverages arrived. Lorraine thought that a pretty crude firing tactic—let the poor sap squirm a bit first—but she held back on her defense. She wasn’t yet sure if she should be angry, or sweet and understanding. Looking around the room to gather her thoughts, Lorraine noticed a girl in the far corner wearing her very own highlights. She turned her head and saw another, on whom she’d used a softer version of the five-color technique. She turned to look behind her and there were one, two, three, four more women eating lunch there at Bendel’s with her highlights, glimmering five different ways in the lights. Some of the girls started to look at her.
She turned to Guido to see if he’d noticed.
From the expressionless glance he gave her before turning to the iced tea the waiter placed before him, Lorraine guessed he had. But if there was a possibility he’d missed it, the waiter, who knew Lorraine well after all this time—in fact she’s covered his gray with a beautiful chestnut just two weeks ago in exchange for to-go dinners on demand—made sure there wasn’t a person in the restaurant who didn’t miss the impact Lorraine had on the clientele of Bendel’s.
“You like?” he asked with his lyrical voice. This waiter’s name was Wayne, and Lorraine thought it a good fit, though she couldn’t tell exactly why. But it definitely suited his medium build, his lighthearted way, easy mannerisms—he was a guy whose entire presence seemed to say, “Everything’s all right,” and the name seemed to reflect that.
She looked to Guido, who was performing surgery on his iced tea—remove lemon and mint sprig, place both on napkin, extract straw, stir one teaspoon of sugar around with extra-long spoon—and then back up to Wayne. “What’s that, Wayne?” she asked.
“Oh, you mean you didn’t notice these wonderful new lights? Mr. Bendel installed them himself when we told him about all the Lorraine Highlights eating here. He thought enhancing how great the girls looked for a longer period of time would make them that much more eager to rebook, return, spend more money. You know how that all goes. In fact, he’s licensing the Bendel’s lighting out to restaurants, bars, and shops all over the city.” He looked around and smiled, obviously proud of her.
Lorraine thought again what a nice guy he was. His comments almost made her overlook how angry they had probably made Guido. With a cold sting in her rib cage, she thought maybe those lights were why she was being fired.
Wayne put an easy hand on Guido’s shoulder and spoke again. “Hope I didn’t ruin the surprise Guido was about to spring on you. He penned the whole deal with Mr. Bendel.” Wayne smiled big before leaving, oblivious to the anger bubbling up inside both of them.
Oh, okay, so she didn’t get anything out of Guido Nails, but this was way too much. Everyone was making money off her talent except for her. Now she was just angry. The idea of waiting for Guido to talk first flew out the window as the new fired-up Guidette plan took effect. “What the hell, Guido?” She waited long enough for him to open his mouth, but not so long for sound to come out before she continued. She was going to give him a piece of her mind In fact, she was going to give him all the pieces she’d been saving up for a whole bunch of friggin’ people. Bad timing, Guido, she thought before the Bay-style anger started firing off. “First, you hold me back for no damn reason. Then you steal my nails and give me no credit for them, not to mention no money, which I could totally sue you for, if I wanted to. Then you make me think I’ve been promoted only to take it away. Until, of course, it’s convenient for you to leave a class. And then I save your ass again when one of your stylists has a meltdown. Then you hate me for being talented—hate me for something you hired me for in the first place. That is totally not my fault, and you make me pay for it, never once congratulate me, nothing! God, Guido, I mean, I know everyone’s got an ego, but you are the most successful stylist in the city, can’t you make a little room for someone else? Jeez!” The force of all that anger backed Lorraine up against her chair.
She was going to ignore the fact that she was starting to feel bad about what she said—that underneath all the anger, she knew it hurt him to have to give Lorraine top billing over himself. She kept reminding herself over and over that his hurt feelings didn’t give him the right to treat her so poorly, that she still had to stick up for herself. If she didn’t, Lorraine would have jumped up over to Guido and taken it all back. She was forcing herself not to be too nice. She dug her Guido—make that Lorraine—Nails into the pink linen tablecloth by way of forcing herself to stay put, and waited for him to speak.
Guido was a massive man. It was something to see his features get so hardened, to see the lines deepen and make sweeping gestures from his eyes to his hairline.
It scared the shit out of Lorraine. But, despite the steam from her tea warming her face, she forced herself to stay cool.
And then, slowly, like the descent of a sun on a summer evening, the lines softened, became shallower, until they nearly disappeared. She thought she saw the beginnings of a smile sprouting from his giant mouth. And when it blossomed, she saw the Guido she remembered from that first day, the one who recognized her ability, and took a chance on a girl who came from the same place he did—in whom he might have recognized his old self.
“Oh, Lorraine.” He shook his head and sighed a great big sigh. “What can I say? You’re right. When you’re right, you’re right. You can't pull one over on a Brooklyn girl, can you?” He let his perfect accent relax a little. Shades of the original Guido softened the edges of his words.
Lorraine was still on the defense...but she was certainly interested in seeing where he was going with all this. “No. You can’t.” Her words were punches. Her swiftly shaking head emphasized their impact.
“So you probably want to know why exactly I invited you to lunch, when everyone knows the only reason I invite any of the staff to lunch is to fire them.”
Lorraine’s stomach dipped and she instinctively grabbed on to her teacup, as if merely touching it could put her nausea at bay.
Smiling big, Wayne brought Guido’s cheeseburger and fries, and placed that adorable ketchup bottle alongside.
Guido picked up a golden fry, crunched it in one bite. “Oh, god, sometimes you just have to. So good.”
Lorraine wanted to smile, but forced herself not to. This was business.
“So let me get right down to it, because there is nothing worse in this world than cold French fries.”
That was seriously true, Lorraine thought. She made herself sit still, one hand on the teacup.
“Lorraine, you are the best colorist at Guido’s. Better than Guido. In fact, right now, I’d say you’re the best colorist in Manhattan. I’ve had a hard time dealing with that. And you’ve given me a lot of space and understanding in that department—I know that. If the tables were turned, I don’t know that I would have been as gracious, that’s for sure.” He lifted another fry to his mouth, held one out to Lorraine.
She was feeling surprisingly less nauseated. The fry seemed like a peace offering she shouldn’t refuse, so she took it. “Oh, so good.” She couldn’t help herself from softening a bit. It was that delicious. But she straightened up again quickly, drew her shoulders way down onto her back, the way Alex taught her in yoga.
“And the truth is, it’s decision time. I know the world is your oyster now. You can go anywhere you want, open your own salon. And the reality of the situation is, the entire clientele is going to follow you, Princess Lorraine—you’ve got the talent, the right image, everything. So what I’m offering you is a partnership of sorts. Sixty-forty for you, of course—and you can call it Princess of Park Avenue, a Guido Salon.” He pulled out a folder from somewhere inside his blazer, opened it to reveal some legal-sized documents with notes typed in the margins. “It’s all been drawn up, copyrighted in your name. If you say so, construction starts tomorrow and the place opens in a month. Your own salon, Lorraine. It’s everything you deserve.” He lowered his voice to a raspy whisper, brought his face close. “I wanted to make you an offer you can’t refuse.”
They both laughed a hearty laugh at a line every Brooklynite knew by heart. Then they shook on it, the soft glow of multi-tonal highlights all around them.
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Love Spell
1 set of fly’s wings
1 drop lavender
2 drops vanilla
3 crushed leaves
10 bits red paper
7 Pop Rocks kernels
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eBay auction block #18
Description: Love spell used by Lorraine Machuchi to gain the attentions of Tommy Lupa in the 7th grade.
Opening bid: $85
Winning bid: $274 by LorraineBKLYN@Bgirl.com
Comments: That’s just embarrassing. Where did you guys get this? Gino? You are in serious trouble, brother...