Hysterical Blondeness (3 page)

He jumped up and stalked toward the entryway, cutting them off at the pass before they assaulted his date, which he knew they would. “
What
are you
doing
here?” he demanded in a low voice.

“Our double feature was canceled. We saw
Breakfast at Tiffany’s
instead.” Pinky started crooning “Moon River” again. They appeared rather drunk.

“Patricia forgot her raincoat.”

“Wow, that’s so weird,” Paul said, “because I had a whole Audrey-Hepburn-and-her-soggy-cat moment when I saw Patricia’s coat in the closet.”

“I’m sorry, Paul. We ran out of money and places to go. Have we ruined your hot date?”
Patricia sort of yowled. Her shoulder-length brown hair was dripping water

“Shuten ze uppen and shuten ze door.” Paul used his German commando voice, which they knew must be obeyed. Pinky hung up her tan London Fog in the coat closet, then reached in and retrieved the small towel from Paul’s golf club bag. She threw it to Patricia.

“Ooh la la, she’s still here. Look, last season’s Chanel, the one with the black and white checkered piping.” Pinky held out the coat for Patricia to see.

“Oops, we sort of screwed up, didn’t we?” Patricia said. She dried her hair with the small towel, then handed the towel back to Paul, dripping wet.

“Yeah, you got that right,” Paul said. “Just be polite to Dani and then make yourselves scarce, okay? Down the stairs you go.” Paul threw the towel in the closet, then headed back to his date with the cookie bits in her teeth.

“That’ll get all mildewy in there if you leave it like that,” Pinky said quietly.

“Shudd
up
,” Paul answered.

Pinky and Patricia walked right behind him.

Patricia took it slow, but Pinky headed straight for the goods on the sofa. A very spandexy Dani Wylie from the accessories department was perched on their sofa of many colors, eating
their
Oreos.

“Oh, hello, we’re Paul’s pesky housemates. We’re so sorry to interrupt your evening. Our event was canceled. We were going to see a double feature,
The Thin Man
and
After the Thin Man
. That’s the first two films of the six. They were supposed to show two each weekend. But the film didn’t arrive in time, so they showed
Breakfast at Tiffany’s
for the hundredth time, but we didn’t mind. Don’t you just love that movie anyway? Sort of high camp and tragically odd at the same time.” Pinky went rolling along.

“Gosh I’ve never seen it.”

“What?”
Pinky’s arms went up in the air. Paul undoubtedly knew what was coming, so he hooked Pinky by the arm and said, “Excuse us for a minute.” He dragged her to the kitchen, which was rather open, so they could hear him hiss at her and send her to her room.

“But…who hasn’t see that?” Pinky protested. More hissing went on.

Patricia was left with Dani Wylie. “Hello.”
Patricia circled the sofa. “How was your dinner?”

“Just yummy. We went out for Italian and Paul knew how to pronounce everything.”

“Like, spa-ghett-
i
?” Patricia asked dryly.

Dani looked at her blankly, then laughed. “Oh, you are so funny, just like Paul said you were. Patricia, isn’t it?”

“It is.”

“You work in catalogue, right? You’re the department that’s always nabbing our stock before we get it on the floor.”

“Gotta fill those orders, you know.” Patricia sat across from her in the mission-style chair.

“Well, they should keep the numbers up when it’s in the catalogue. That’s the buyer’s fault.”

“Those damn buyers.”

“When I’m a buyer I’ll remember that,” Dani said.

“Are you going to be a buyer?” Patricia asked.

“Yes, I applied for the ladies’ shoe buyer position, and Paul is going to give me a good recommendation.”

Patricia noticed Dani had black stuff between her teeth.

“Another Oreo?” she asked.

“Why not?”

“I can’t eat them, myself. I have one of those sluggish metabolisms that turn Oreos into fat thighs. Might be my thyroid.”

“Oh, you poor thing.”

Paul reappeared, shooting daggers out of his eyeballs at Patricia and jerking his head to one side to indicate she should make like a tree and leave, as they liked to say.

“I’m off to my room, then, and it was so nice to meet you, Dani.” Patricia stood up and shook Dani’s hand.

“Likewise, I’m sure,” Dani said, with her Oreo teeth.

Patricia passed by Paul and gave him a kiss on the cheek. A sort of sexy, slow one. “Good night, Paulie, honey.”

She headed straight for the “junk” drawer and snatched the opened Oreo package. Then she stole the bottle of white wine Paul had opened, grabbed two jelly glasses from the cupboard, and ditched down the stairway.

Patricia burst into Pinky’s room. Poor Pinky was still ranting out loud.

“What kind of sociological Neanderthal doesn’t absorb the cinematic history of her
times? She could learn a whole lot from that movie. Rats and super rats.”

Patricia closed the bedroom door after Asta cat made his entrance. She set down her cookies and wine, put her finger across her lips, and shushed Pinky.

“Shhh. We need to develop a more understanding nature,” Patricia hushed her.

“Why?”

“She’s got Oreo teeth.”

“Good grief, let’s say a small prayer for her. No one deserves that fate. Shall we light a candle?” Pinky asked. She bounced onto her vintage white chenille bedspread and positioned her rear on one of the large turquoise flowers in the design.

“Nah, maybe later. Your wicks are getting low.” She nodded toward Pinky’s collection of Immaculate Heart of Mary candles displayed on the white painted dresser. Patricia poured them each a jelly glass full of white wine and handed one to Pinky. She climbed on the bed carefully, wine and cookies in tow, and took her own place over a large pink flower. Asta joined them, draped himself over Pinky’s lap, and purred.

“Pass me an Oreo.” Pinky held out her hand.

Patricia handed two cookies to Pinky and kept two for herself. “Pinky, my mouse, I think we are getting way too shallow. Working at Chez Nordquist has thrown us into the shallow end of the pool. We’re being unfairly judgmental.

“Just because someone is born blonde doesn’t mean she’s a ditzoid. It is not a genetically exclusive trait to be a bimbette because you are blonde. Look at Ingrid Bergman. She spoke five languages,” Patricia argued.

“I don’t think Ingrid was a true blonde. Her early photos show a tendency toward natural auburn.” Pinky lolled against the old painted metal headboard, sipping her wine.

“See? Your immediate response proves my point. Now, we are intelligent brunettes. We need to be accepting of our fellow women, no matter what color their hair is,” Patricia said.

“I read something that said only seventeen percent of women are actually blonde. The rest are drugstore blondes. They are brunettes in disguise.”

“Pretty nice disguise.” Patricia let that slip.

Pinky gasped and clutched her chest. “Are you professing blonde envy? You know brunettes are the superior species. We discuss current events.
You take artful, amazing photographs. We see foreign films and read obscure novels. We write
poetry
, for pity sakes.”

“Blondes write poetry. Sylvia Plath was a blonde.”

“Look where that got her. She stuck her head in an oven.”

“She wrote stunningly good poetry before that. You said you’d move her biography up to the top of your to-be-read pile.”

“I read it. Poor thing. But I’ve moved on from realistic fiction. I’m currently on an Isaac Asimov kick. I’m reading
Black Widower
.”

“Ooo, dark but compelling.”

“It’s my autumn think-a-thon. What are you reading?”

Patricia kicked at a chenille flower. “I’ve been reading Victor Hugo.”

“Well, no wonder. What are you now, this tragic heroine? The unrequited love of Brett Nordquist driving you to wander the streets in a state of love-induced insanity?”

“Hopefully not the tragic heroine.” Patricia sighed. “I suppose it is just too much of a hassle becoming artificially blonde. Imagine the whole
double-processing deal. What a nightmare. But…” Patricia toyed with the chenille bumps on the bedspread. “I have to confess to you, my best friend, whom I know will never, ever repeat this, that I have fantasized about being a slimmer, more attractive me, and in that fantasy I had just maybe the hint of blonde highlights.”

“Is this about your crush on Brett Nordquist? The poster boy for Scandinavian genetics? Silly Patty, don’t you know that those Norse god types prefer dark, mysterious women so the public contrast is more striking? You’re perfect the way you are already.”

“Then why is he chasing Lizbeth Summers?” Patricia thumped the bed with her fist. Her wine threatened to spill, so she chugged the rest of it down and set the glass on the bedside table. She pushed her glasses back up her nose.

“Because he doesn’t know you are alive. Do you really want to climb Mount Olympus for a shot with Brett? Is that your true heart’s desire?” Pinky reached over and clicked on the monkey-on-a-palm-tree bedside lamp.

Patricia flung herself backward on the bed and moaned. “Sadly, I think it
is
my heart’s desire.
I want to be set free of the Nordquist catalogue department forever. I want to bask in a lounge chair on the brick palazzo of the Nordquist family compound.

“I can picture myself with a batch of little towheaded Nordquists and their nanny playing badminton on the expansive lawn.” Patricia sighed dramatically. “I want my biggest decision to be which shoes to wear to the charity function. Is that wrong?”

“Yes, Patricia, that is wrong. You can’t become a rich socialite snob. You’ve been poor. You’ve eaten popcorn for dinner before Paul took us in and fed us properly. You have a conscience. Besides, where would that leave me?”

“You could be my personal assistant and dressmaker.”

“Jolly.”

“Okay, so I’d be the volunteer queen of the Belle vue Highlands. How’s that? Every noble charity would have me at their beck and call. Now can I have him? He makes my heart thump.” Patricia waved her hand in the air and let it fall back on her chest. “He has the bluest eyes. And his teeth are like…like sunshine.”

“Wow, I never knew what a bad poet you were. I take that whole poetry-writing thing back. If you feel like that, of course you should have him. It would do him good to have a girl like you instead of some blonde bubblehead like Lizbeth Summers. Why, I can make it my personal mission to make the planet a better place by maneuvering a socially responsible person like you into a position of wealth and power through an advantageous marriage to the stinkingly rich Brett Nordquist! I
like
it,” Pinky declared.

“Good, now where do we start?” Patricia asked from her prone position.

Pinky grabbed the Oreo bag. “Right here. You’re going to lose some of that padding. Rich girls are thin. They fit into tennis outfits.”

“Oh crap. I hate this already.” Patricia untwisted herself and sat up.

“South Beach, Slim·Fast, spandex, and
exercise
.”

Patricia grabbed a round pink pillow and screamed into it.

“Hey, no pain, no Brett. But I draw the line at dyeing your hair. He’s got to like the basic
package. And you have to dump him if he is too hideous. No amount of money can make up for him being a jerk-wad.”

“Give me my last Oreo,” Patricia demanded. “And refill that glass with my last wine. Even if I don’t get Brett, I’ll end up a better brunette. Here’s to love.” Patricia took her refilled glass from Pinky.

“Is that what this is?” Pinky looked at her with a hard look. “How about here’s to personal improvement and social advancement?”

“Whatever. How about here’s to the next Mrs. Brett Nordquist: me, me, me!” Patricia clinked her jelly glass against Pinky’s.

“Good grief, woman, snap out of yourself.” Pinky drank her wine in a very aggressive gulp.

Paul had taken a bathroom break and he paused briefly as he passed by the stairs on his way back to his guest. The voices of the girls carried up through the hallway and he heard them toasting. Brett Nordquist? This was Patricia’s goal in life? To marry Brett Nordquist?

Oh man, that was just stupid. Paul felt himself actually get angry. How could Pinky let her wallow in that fantasy? Brett was all wrong for
Patricia. Patricia was bright and quirky and full of very strange, creative ideas. Brett was a corporate drone whose rich daddy gave him a fat position in the company. Hardly her intellectual equal.

Paul stomped back down the hall to the living room, then on to the closet. He slid the door open, grabbed his jacket and Dani’s coat. “Dani, let me get you home. We’ve got a break in the rain. Now is our chance.”

Now he was pissed. Sometimes he just wanted to shake Patricia and get her to realize what a wonderful woman she was. She was a very special woman with deep insight and creative talent and she was damned pretty under those wire-rimmed glasses!

Oh brother, now he was all worked up. Wouldn’t you know that somehow those two devil housemates of his would squash his mood and ruin his date? Well, the Oreo teeth of Dani sort of added to it. He was going to have to rethink his appetizer choices next time.

And he was going to have to have a talk with Patricia. Maybe over breakfast. The sooner the better.

I have no other but a woman’s reason.

Shakespeare

Patricia folded up the newspaper
advertisement she’d torn out of the
Seattle Weekly
. Room 203, the Feltzengraad study. She looked at her watch, one-fifteen. She rubbed her hands together briefly and turned the doorknob.

A makeshift waiting room took up one corner of the room. Behind a counter sat a perky-looking girl of about twenty wearing a bright orange, cropped sweater. Midriff girls, Pinky called them.

Pinky would kill her if she knew what she was doing.

“Patricia Stillwell,” she blurted out. She pushed her glasses up.

“Oh yes, you’re right on time. Have a seat, Patricia. Dr. Bender will be with you in a moment.” Midriff girl snapped her gum.

Before she even had a chance to plant her rear end in a chair, Dr. Bender came out from behind a frosted glass room divider. His hair was Einstein-wild; his glasses were Buddy Holly fifties horn-rims. They made his eyes look very big, kind of like Pinky’s glasses did.

“Come on back, Miss Stillwell. We’ll get you all fixed up.”

Oh, the ominous tone of that phrase! Patricia rose and followed Dr. Bender like a foolish sheep led astray by the greener grass over the hill, closer to the wolf.

Her next hour was spent being charted, prodded, poked, and…weighed, damn them. Medical scales were never as kind as the one in her own bathroom that she’d adjusted back five pounds.

When it was all over, Patricia sat across the
desk from Dr. Bender and his Buddy Holly glasses and set her signature to a document that relieved New Frontier Pharmaceuticals from any legal liability regarding her consumption of their experimental weight-loss drug.

With each swirl of her signature
P
and
S
on each duplicate copy, Patricia kept reminding herself how much she hated dieting, hated exercise, and would do anything to sharpen up her look for the potential title of Mrs. Brett Nordquist. She was a woman with a purpose. And really, if she turned green or keeled over dead, Pinky would feed the cat.

Besides, after half a lifetime of grueling no-carb dieting, power walking till her toes hurt, and using a huge rubber band to stretch herself to the breaking point, Patricia knew perfectly well what the consequences would be as she attempted yet another go-around. She’d be on the yo-yo track again. Down ten pounds, up ten pounds, like some crazy ride at the county fair. Her fat-o-meter was obviously busted. Stuck. Unmovable. Incapable of doing anything but driving her to the edge of insanity.

Drastic was the only answer. It was part one of her two-part plan: one, get thinner; two, get
noticed. That was as far as she’d gotten in her plan to meet and marry Brett Nordquist.

“Here you go, Miss Stillwell.” Dr. Bender handed her a brown bottle of mystery capsules. Lord help her. “Remember to follow all the directions we gave you. Keep your charts filled out daily. We’re counting on you.”

“Thanks.” Patricia took her life in her hands and accepted the experimental diet drug bottle as she rose to leave.

Well, hell, they’d tried it on rats and none of them had died. Some were even thinner rats now.

Her footsteps had a tennis shoe squeaky sound as she tried to walk quietly out of the room. She felt like a big, obvious lab rat. She didn’t want anyone to know what she was up to. Hopefully she could just become a statistical success marker on New Frontier’s Feltzengraad data compilation without Pinky finding out. Pinky wasn’t keen on experimental drugs.

Good grief, she sure hoped she wasn’t in the placebo group getting a sugar pill instead of the world’s next miracle reducing drug. That would be a complete bummer.

A hot October wind rushed at her as she
opened the outside doors. She picked up her pace and jogged through the scattered leaves.

“Where did you get off to at lunch?” Pinky stared at her cut-too-short fingernails, then lifted her gaze directly to Patricia’s shifty hazel eyes. She noted a visible squirm on the part of her friend.

“I had some personal business. Hey, I’m working here, see? Don’t you have an inseam to measure or a hem to take up or something?”

“I’m on a break. And, gee, it looks to me like the buttons on your phone are pretty nonactive at the moment. No blinking, no buzz, and, hmm, is this your order stack?” Pinky rifled through a small pile of papers. “So, where
did
you go, because you look guilty. Watson’s Chocolates? Elsie’s for a piece of pie?”

“I did not do anything that will add a single pound to my body. No dessert items or bread-related items passed through these lips.”

“Darn, I was hoping you’d brought something back for me. So why do you look so guilty?”

“It must be my upbringing. The spurts of Catholicism my mother subjected us to overlaid with my agnostic father’s new age karmic insight.
Between the two of them I turned out pretty confused.” Patricia shuffled papers.

Pinky leaned back in the crappy chair that barely fit in Patricia’s cubicle of a workspace. She lolled her head backward. She threw her leg over one arm of the chair and let her sensible loafer slip off her heel and dangle in midair. She threw her arm over the back of the chair so her body draped like a boneless dummy.

Patricia was hiding something and she was going to wait it out. “Boy, this is a tiny office. I’d be claustrophobic in here. Stuffy, too. Can you turn on that fan?” She continued to imitate a rag doll.

“What do you want from my life?” Patricia stood up and flicked on the small white fan clipped to her catalogue shelf. It kicked up the order forms she’d just restacked.

“Pattycakes, there is no such thing as
personal business
between us. There is only total and complete sharing of every last ever-lovin’ detail. If you want me to help you become Mrs. B.N., you’re going to have to be completely honest with me.”

“Oh, shit, you are just such a nosy Nellie.” Patricia crossed her arms.

“I’m w-a-i-t-i-n-g,” she drawled. She heard
Patricia’s stomach growl. Wow, whatever it was, she skipped lunch for it. This could be good. Patti looked so brown today—brown sweater, brown hair, hazel brown eyes. They were the brown girls; that was for sure.

“I signed up for an experimental drug that is supposed to make you lose ten pounds in one week. I’ve already taken my first pill, which did not kill me. I also had to take a gallon of water with it because apparently it’s like swallowing a sponge and if you don’t get it all the way down your stomach it blows up like a blowfish in your esophageal area and renders you unable to scream, ‘Help.’ There, are you happy now?”

Pinky snapped herself upright. “You
what
?”

“Oh, we both know I will never be able to lose weight the regular way. You’ve seen me try. Well, I need some quicker results this time. Then I can do the long-term thing.”

“I have to say, that was brave of you. And the thing went down your gullet okay? Let me see them.”

Patricia opened her desk drawer and brought out a large brown bottle of pills. Pinky popped the lid and stared. “Wow, big suckers.”

“You’re not going to yell at me?”

Pinky shrugged. “You’re a big girl.”

“Yeah, that’s my problem. I’m a big girl.”

“I completely disapprove, of course. There is only one true way to lose weight, and that involves sweat and salmon.”

“You should talk, bird woman of Brooklyn. Your ancestors gave you a small butt.”

“My ancestors gave me a time-released butt. By the time I’m forty-five I’ll be hard-pressed to find a chair I can get in and out of gracefully. We McGee women have that whole Irish waif thing going until we hit midlife, then we turn into matronly pears in brown tweed dirndl skirts.”

“Well, my butt has a head start on your butt,” Patricia pointed out. “Now get out of here. I have to send twenty Pucci scarves down to shipping before five. Who’d figure this color would be back?” She held up a lime green paisley scarf with brown accents. “Lime is the new beige, you know.” She held the scarf up to her face like a model and made a puckered up face at Pinky.

“That actually looks fabulous on you. Get yourself one. Now, after you’ve magically dropped ten pounds and you’ve turned lime green from this crazy drug, what are we going to do to
make your Brett dreams come true? Trip him as he walks by? Run naked through the housewares department?”

Patricia fanned herself with the scarf, then let it drift down to her desk like an autumn leaf. “I had an idea. You know that Christmas party the Nordquists’ throw for all the buyers and managers?”

“The one we peons are never invited to?”

“That’s the one. I was thinking Paulie could take me as his date and then I could, oh, make my move on Brett. That gives me just under three months to become noticeable.”

“Not bad, but I’d approach this in stages. By the time you get to the party you already want him to know you’re alive. So I was thinking we’d come up with some great idea for you to pitch to him regarding catalogue sales. It’s the use-what-you’ve-got method. You’re a catalogue girl. He has to approve ideas. See?”

“A special promotion. An insert. Wow. I better make it fast. Maybe something we’re overstocked on. Not bad, Pinky, my friend. You are really smarter than I always knew you were.”

“That’s because I’m a year older than you and
almost married Bernie Mayo. I would have been Pinky McGee-Mayo. Pinky Mayo-McGee. Pinky Mayo.” Pinky rolled herself backward in a fake tragic flop, her hand on her forehead.

“Yuk. But Bernie was booted out, so you were saved.”

“He didn’t like my cooking.”

“What’s not to like? Six minutes in a microwave, and magic.” Patricia pulled the scarf through her fingers like a magician.

“Let’s go poke around the sales floor and see what’s overstocked. I’ll tell them to put me on beeper if any alteration emergencies come up.

“I have to finish these.”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake. Here, hand me a stack and I’ll staple scarf bags onto orders.”

“Fine, these are all scarf-only orders. Don’t staple through the plastic bag and snag the silk.”

“Duh, hand over the stapler and no one gets hurt.”

Patricia was always amazed at the efficiency and speed Pinky could manage when pressed. Her twenty orders were processed and ready to go to shipping in mere minutes. The alterations
department was alerted and Pinky turned on her beeper.

They dropped off the scarves in shipping, then took a walking tour of the sales floors, department by department. Pinky took notes and they chatted with the chatty sales girls.

“They all look like clones sometimes, don’t they? You don’t think that section of the basement we can’t ever get to is really a cloning lab, do you?” Pinky whispered.

“That’s the security office.”

“And so many blondes. You’d think they’d vary the mold once in a while.”

“We live in an area dominated by Scandinavians.”

“Oh, have some imagination.” Pinky made a face at her.

“Second floor north, men’s apparel, men’s shoes.” Pinky imitated an elevator attendant, who they’d done away with years ago. “They keep the men really far away from everything don’t they? No wonder we never meet any. What’s that all about?” They crossed a wide expanse of gray and black vinyl floor and climbed a few stairs to the carpeted men’s section.

“Pinky, you think too much. Look here, wow,
there are just piles of these things. NFL neckties. Why aren’t they all sold out? Football season has begun, yes?”

“It’s in full swing. They are rather off the beaten path. We may have something here. Timely, overstocked, macho, preholiday, the wives could order one in time for the holidays knowing there is nothing they can buy their husbands that they’ll like anyway. It fills a need.”

“I’ll take some samples. We’ll finish and see if we find anything better.” Patricia held up four ties to the floor manager and nodded. He waved at her and she and Pinky hit the escalator trail. No doubt they’d have to go to lingerie. Maybe Lizbeth would be at lunch.

“Better hit the ladies’ room. My gallon of water has topped the tank,” Patricia said.

“Do you think Mrs. B.N. can talk like that? The correct phrase would be,
I need to powder my nose
.”

“No one actually powders their nose anymore. That’s silly.”

“A society matron cannot sniff at convention. Let’s go powder our noses.” Pinky walked with the strangely accurate air of a “Sadie Married Lady,” as they called it.

“You’re good, you know? You should be on the stage.”

“All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players; they have their exits and their entrances, and one man in his time plays many parts.” Pinky held her hand aloft and delivered her Shakespearean speech.

“Come on Shakespeare, let’s pee.”

Morning came softly as a kitty’s tail swishing against her nose. Or rather Asta, the fat cat, tickling her with his long feathery tail. Patricia groaned and pushed him away. The clock radio clicked on. Asta always beat the clock. An upbeat pop song bounced out of the radio. Ugh, she was still so tired.

The week had droned on like a television devoid of anything interesting, left to blather in the corner of the room, unchecked.

But it was Saturday! And Paulie had promised to make eggplant Parmesan now that he was dateless again. He’d sworn it could be done in a more or less low-fat manner.

Okay, when you wake up thinking about food, you know the diet has kicked in, Patricia thought.
She stumbled up and ran to do all the appropriate things before she subjected herself to the daily humiliation of the scales. Scales must only be approached before any food or beverage is consumed, with an empty bladder, and completely naked. Scales will then be in a better mood.

She slid through the pocket door of the bathroom she and Pinky shared, shivering in the October morning chill despite her flannel pajamas. Paulie’s socks helped, at least. A quick toilet stop, then Patricia headed for the sink and her toothbrush just so she’d be fresh and minty before she got the bad news. Although a few pounds had slid their way off of her body, it was no doubt due to the mass amounts of water she’d had to swallow to get the strange pills down her throat.