Killer Pancake

An image of this poor, pained woman, a new girlfriend I wasn’t aware of, floated up in my mind. The Jerk had always been able to find fresh female companionship. When a current girlfriend didn’t work out, or ended up in a problematic place like the hospital, he would quickly find a replacement, I thought about Arch. Although he knew why I’d divorced his father, Arch had never witnessed the violence that had destroyed my marriage. If his classmates at Elk Park Prep heard about this incident from a tabloid-type article by Frances in the Mountain Journal, which I wouldn’t put past her …

I demanded, “Are you going to run a story about it in the paper?”

Frances took a deep drag. “Nah. The publisher’s wife is pregnant and John Richard is her doctor. The wife wants the publisher to hold off on running any story until she delivers.”

A headache nagged behind my eyes. “Look, Frances, John Richard’s not my problem anymore. What’s the deal with the department store? I have to go get something to eat, and then I need to go visit a friend in the hospital.”

She pretended to look puzzled. “Not the girlfriend—”

“Frances! What are you up to?”

She set her face in steely anger and tossed her butt in an arc across the roof. “I’m investigating the false claims of Mignon Cosmetics to make women look younger. Period.”

I was incredulous, partly at Frances’s own naiveté. “You’re kidding. That’s it?” She frowned and nodded. “Was Claire Satterfield helping you?” I asked.

“I didn’t even know who Claire Satterfield was before the accident,” Frances replied. Her tone indicated that she sure wished she had known Claire. Just think of all the information a Mignon sales associate could have provided….

“But why did you bother to find out she’d had other boyfriends? Why do you think she was deliberately run down?”

“Background, Goldy, background. The claims are what’s news.”

“But for heaven’s sake, those claims are not news. This so-called story has been in books, newspapers, magazines, on radio and television. Haven’t you read any Naomi Wolf? Get real.”

“What are you talking about?” she said bitterly. She blew smoke out her nostrils. “I beg to differ.”

“Look, Frances,” I said. “In their hearts, women know all this outrageously expensive goop doesn’t make them look younger. But the cosmetics people try to guilt-trip every female in the country into feeling they have to do something to take care of themselves. Otherwise, these companies want women to believe, they’ll grow old and ugly. They’ll never have money, a husband, a white picket fence, a lover, a fur coat, a station wagon, and somebody to drive away with when you get a flat tire. That’s the name of the cosmetics game.”

She glared at me and held the cigarette aloft. “Foucault-Reiser is the parent company of Mignon. F-R has been experimenting with cosmetics for thirty years. And experimenting in ways you would not believe,” she added darkly.

In my mind’s eye, I saw heaps of rabbit carcasses. Hard to take on an empty stomach. “Well, I guess I sort of would—”

Heedless, Frances went on: “Foucault-Reiser launched the hideously expensive Mignon line five years ago, with all kinds of wild claims, fancy packaging, and questionable products. Control the destiny of your face. Like hell. Large pink plastic jars of cream didn’t sell, so Mignon switched to dark green glass jars with gold lids, the kinds of containers you imagine once held royal jewels and medieval potions. The message was: This is magic stuff. Sales took off.”

I nodded and remembered eons ago, when Arch asked if he could have one of my empty perfume jars for a Dungeons and Dragons prop.

Frances reached into her bag and pulled out a bottle of makeup. “Nobody wants a jar of mud—otherwise known as foundation—with a little white plastic top.” She wrenched the shiny cover off the lid, revealing—sure enough—a white plastic top. “But they put a tall gold top over the white plastic so that consumers will think they’re getting something of infinite value. And then there’s perfume …”

I groaned, ready to admit she had a story. But she was on a roll.