Sheer, page 13
“So you want to take ownership here,” said Ellen, her voice sharp. “A bold stance for someone your age.” She cocked her brow. “I suppose I should be impressed.”
I felt my face pale at Ellen’s reference to my “age.” Had she known all this time how young I was?
Ellen smiled like she could guess my thoughts. “I would never invest in a business without a background check. But I guess someone who dropped out of college might not be as devoted to doing their homework.”
I swallowed hard. “Ellen, I’m so—”
“Don’t.” Ellen shook her head sternly. “You did what you needed to do to get ahead. I can respect that kind of cutthroat determination, more than you’ll ever understand.”
My throat tightened with dread, which didn’t make sense since I should have been relieved. I swallowed hard again. “Right. Thanks, Ellen.”
Ellen placed her fork and knife gently on her plate and reached across the white tablecloth to pat my hand with her chilly, soft palm. “If you’re serious about taking ownership, you need to be a boss. This isn’t some school project. It’s a business. Who you hire will make or break you. What is the point of all the work you’ve put into Reveal if you can’t get those products onto as many women’s faces as possible?” Ellen retracted her hand. “What is the point of all the money I’ve invested if this brand doesn’t explode?”
“I get it, Ellen. You don’t need to worry about that.”
Before Reveal, power to me had been synonymous with artistic autonomy. Now I understood that to execute my vision I would have to depend on others, and those others were people I needed to manage. I couldn’t just be the creative visionary of Reveal. I had to be a boss, too. In the business and beauty worlds, anything less than conventional power, which is to say masculine dominance, was a display of weakness.
I hired those new employees, among them a marketing manager and an entry-level Jane-of-all-trades who functioned, in part, as my first assistant. I don’t remember her name. I was too controlling to give her any task that allowed her access to my private life. She kept my meetings schedule at the office, filed expenses for my corporate Amex, and answered my phones. That nameless assistant had no information on where I went or what I did outside work hours. So far as she and my other Reveal employees were concerned, I disappeared into a black hole the second I left the office.
* * *
—
A few weeks after our lunch, Ellen took me to a party at a friend’s apartment. Donald didn’t join. In all the years I lived with Ellen, I don’t think I ever saw her go on a date with Donald or sit down to dinner with him. He only socialized with her when there was a clear benefit to his image, preferably one that could be captured by a society photographer. When Ellen brought me to parties, I accomplished two goals for her: I acted as a platonic substitute for Donald, and I reminded her friends that she was now an angel investor, a professional pursuit that was superior to their less splashy knitwear-line and capsule-jewelry-collection endeavors.
This party was at the Park Avenue apartment of a woman named Francine. I don’t remember what the occasion was, someone had just returned from somewhere or was headed somewhere or had published a book somewhere. I was in a cluster with Ellen, Francine, and a couple of other ladies. I had attended enough gatherings with Ellen that her friends were familiar with me. We stood around and sipped our flutes of champagne.
“I look so tired.” Francine sighed as she glanced at herself in a nearby mirror.
“No you don’t,” said Ellen.
“Fred has been stressed at work. His tossing and turning is driving me nuts,” Francine continued.
“I have this fantastic concealer,” offered another woman. “I can give you a tube.”
Usually, I kept quiet at these parties. I rarely had anything to add to the conversation. My epiphany with Cheryl from a couple of months ago tugged at my lips.
“What if there was another way to appear rested besides concealer?” I asked.
Francine and the other women all looked at me, as though they had forgotten I stood there. Ellen eyed me curiously.
“What are you talking about, Maxine?”
Excitement tickled my tongue.
“Something that could make you radiant, like you are surrounded by candlelight. Everyone looks good in candlelight. That’s why all those fancy dinners you attend have candles as their centerpiece.” I paused. “And why people always light candles before big sex scenes in movies.”
“Go on,” said Francine.
“The reason candlelight—or moonlight—is so flattering is because it makes everyone glow. The light is soft; it buffs away any harsh lines or shadows.”
“How interesting,” said Ellen with a close-lipped smile. “And you could bottle that?”
“No, but you can re-create it with a highlighter that makes you look like you’re in a candlelit love scene. A liquid highlighter.”
The women’s eyes narrowed in contemplation. Then Francine smiled at me widely.
“It’s genius, Maxine,” she said.
“It is,” Ellen concurred, mirroring Francine’s expression.
I could tell from the crinkle near the bridge of her nose that Ellen was not on board with the postcoital implications. However, she wasn’t going to verbalize her prudishness after her friends’ enthusiasm. Back then, I believed that Ellen could differentiate between her personal values and best business practices. I believed, too, that if the product was unequivocally good, as Flush had been, it would convert Ellen’s bias, that capitalist achievement could change hearts and minds.
Ellen turned back to her friends. “Remember this moment. Reveal is going to be everywhere.”
* * *
—
Even with the establishment of Reveal’s offices, my breakfasts with Ellen continued. She liked the comfort—and power—of knowing she was my first so-called meeting every day. It was a time for us to check in, to discuss any meetings on my schedule, to review events on our respective calendars. Truthfully, I didn’t mind this ritual. There was a cozy domesticity to it that contrasted with the hardcore demands of entrepreneurship. Ellen was my investor, yes, via Donald, a fact I never forgot. She was also my support system, a high-society fairy godmother who had transformed me from a college dropout into a Vogue-approved beauty changemaker. I pitied her at times, still I trusted her to elevate me to greater heights.
It was a few months after my highlighter pitch. I had been living with Ellen for almost two years. My weeks had been occupied with a brief round of market research—brief because there were no other liquid highlighters to use as comps—and testing with the lab. We were up to formulas ten through fifteen. One was too chalky. Another too glittery. Yet another was so shiny, I referred to it as “Crisco.” I was showing Ellen the latest iteration when, between nibbles of toast, she presented me with a contract.
“What’s this?” I asked. The pages were dense with small-point font, a few sticker tabs indicating where I should sign.
Ellen glanced up from the highlighter test bottle in her hands.
“I thought we should formalize things beyond what we’ve already committed to together.” She smiled. “I am your investor, after all. I’ve taken a big risk in financing Reveal. It’s important that I feel protected as we expand.”
“Okay,” I said. “That requires all these pages?” I flipped through the contract. The teachings from my abandoned business major were useless in real life. The contract may as well have been written in a foreign language.
“Yes. We are doing big things together. You are the face of everything, the vision, and I am the money. I don’t want to get lost in the shuffle.”
“You won’t. I’m so grateful for everything you’ve done, you know that.”
“Yes. Well, you can show me your gratitude by signing this.”
Ellen’s face was eerily calm for someone who claimed concern about her stake in Reveal. There was a hollowness in my throat, but I ignored it.
“Do I need a lawyer or something?”
Ellen patted my hand with her chilly palm.
“This is about protecting me. You have all the power here. I’m the one who needs a lawyer.” She smiled. “But of course, if you would like to have a lawyer review it on your behalf, I’d be happy to recommend some people.”
This will likely sound unbelievable: I was so touched by Ellen offering to set me up with a lawyer that I took it as confirmation that a lawyer was unnecessary, because why would Ellen suggest this if she had something to hide. Plus, I didn’t want to appear ungrateful to Ellen by taking her up on her kindness. This was as much from ignorance of the business world as it was from blind trust of Ellen. I had no reason to doubt her motives. Dummy that I was, I didn’t even read over that stupid document. I wouldn’t have understood it anyway. I may have been a newly minted boss, but Ellen had all the power, financial or otherwise, in our relationship. She possessed an emotional control, too, something most men, including Donald, would never understand. Male power always seemed like a form of intimidation, the proximity of Donald’s sweat, for example, when he lectured me about image-making from his kitchen island. Ellen’s emotional control hit a deeper note. She didn’t overwhelm my space; she welcomed me into her home. I wanted to please Ellen. My desire for her continued approval was the biggest reason why I signed the contract that morning.
As for that bottle of highlighter in Ellen’s hand, it was too Studio 54 to make the cut. Many more iterations followed before I finally released Glow, a luminous champagne lotion, in 2000. Every time I dab it onto a woman’s cheeks or brow bone, I am transported back to that evening in bed, when Cheryl was my own personal lunar eclipse.
Day Five
Morning
I shut my laptop thinking of Ellen, who is now Reveal’s illustrious chairwoman of the Board. I can’t attend the Board meeting four days from now. That only happens in movies and television shows. On that fateful day I will await a call from my lawyer Sandrine to inform me of their verdict. It’s not a legal “verdict” as there is nothing judicial about the process. There is no opportunity to defend myself. I can elect for arbitration after the meeting, should things not go my way.
Sandrine insists on a visit to my apartment this morning. We have only ever communicated by phone or email. It wasn’t my idea to hire Sandrine. When you’re a founder, your interests are the same as your company’s interests. Until they aren’t. I met Sandrine in 2012 when Elizabeth recommended I hire some legal help for a minor issue. Elizabeth’s husband, Arthur, referred me to Sandrine. If only I’d known about Sandrine in 1999 when I signed that contract in Ellen’s bedroom.
Sandrine arrives at 6:45 a.m. Her chestnut hair is in a low ponytail. She wears a terra-cotta pantsuit whose rust tones accentuate the light tan of her skin. I am in a silk robe belted at the waist over those cashmere sweatpants and a matching knit T-shirt.
As she explains it to me, Sandrine likes to anticipate how her clients will react to the heated exchanges that could transpire in scenarios such as the hypothetical arbitration for which she is girding us. That way, she can intervene as needed, before someone says the wrong thing.
“This all assumes I’m terminated and that we go to arbitration. Isn’t there bad karma associated with prepping for a disaster that may not happen?”
“Tell that to hurricane victims in flood zones,” Sandrine cuts back.
“I’m the flood zone in this comparison? Or the victim?”
“Well, you’re not the mansion on the hill. This is the plan.”
“Got it.”
“And if we go to arbitration, it’s important that you maintain your composure.”
“You don’t need to worry about that. I am the most compartmentalized person you’ll ever meet.” I sip my fair trade, organic coffee from a porcelain cup. It tastes more bitter this morning. I must have brewed it too strong. A silver tray holds some assorted pastries I ordered from a local bakery I’d heard about. I still haven’t left the house. I keep thinking today will be the day, but some mixture of anger and exhaustion prevents me.
Sandrine sips her coffee, black with sugar, and eyes a particularly well-endowed croissant like it is a bomb about to detonate. “All due respect, but we wouldn’t be here if that was entirely the case.”
The woman makes a good point. I like Sandrine. She is forthright and though she is a bit butch for my taste, with her boxy clothes and designer wing-tip oxfords, under a different set of circumstances I would consider sleeping with her.
Sandrine is undeniably gorgeous, with feline eyes, sharp cheekbones, and a small cherry of a mouth. She could have been one of those ethnically ambiguous catalogue models that are all the rage now if her legal interests hadn’t panned out. Sandrine is young, I would guess mid-thirties, and she is probably one of those women who has never used eye cream or sunscreen and yet somehow looks perennially fertile.
So Sandrine and her lineless face talk at me for a billable hour, making this coffee and these uneaten pastries one of the most expensive breakfasts I’ve had. She runs down her strategy for arbitration; with each tidbit, its hypothetical status seems more inevitable.
“Amanda’s lawyer is going to make you look like a power-hungry monster,” she tells me bluntly.
“Don’t you mean if this happens, she will?” I reply. “I’d appreciate some conditional phrasing.”
Sandrine ignores my comment. “He’ll try to goad you into an angry outburst.”
“He.” I snicker. “Miss Feminism has a male lawyer?”
“That’s your takeaway from what I said? The gender of Amanda’s lawyer, not the fact that he’s going to paint you as a power-hungry monster?”
“I heard that part. We both know it’s ridiculous. Why should I worry he’ll say something so patently false about me? What moron would believe such an absurd statement, that I’m a monster?”
A deep sigh—an involuntary one, to go by her facial expression—escapes Sandrine’s throat.
“Max,” she says, softly and patiently, like she is talking to a first grader, “arbitration isn’t about what’s true or false. It’s about who tells a better, more convincing story.” Sandrine sips from her cup of coffee. “Knowing what kind of story the other side is going to spin is crucial to understanding how to make our story stronger.”
“You’re saying I should be scared? Defensive?” Anger burns my tongue. “Defensiveness is not my modus operandi.”
“I’m not asking you to be scared. I’m asking you to be smart. Don’t let your anger get the better of you even when, especially when, someone accuses you of being a monster. We’re going to focus on your vulnerability.”
“You mean on my weakness.”
Sandrine’s lineless face hardens.
“Softness isn’t weakness.”
“Sure it isn’t,” I spit out. “I have no doubt the Board or a judge will see it that way.”
“You need to consider the possibility that they will. Because the alternative, going in on the attack, emphasizing your strength and power, will not play well, not in this room or in this world.”
Tightness grips my throat.
“I don’t know this world,” I tell Sandrine.
“I know you don’t,” she says calmly. “But I do. That’s why you hired me. You need to trust me when I tell you the strategy we will follow. You need to behave as though the worst will happen, even if it doesn’t come naturally to you. Okay?”
“Yes.”
“Good.”
“This is ridiculous,” I can’t help adding. “I bet Hillary Clinton doesn’t get counseled to emphasize her vulnerability.”
Sandrine gives me a pitying look. “You’re not running for president,” she says. “You’re fighting to survive.” She pauses. “And you’re wrong. I bet people tell her to soften her image all the time.”
Sandrine swallows the dregs of her coffee and throws one more tentative look in the direction of the croissant. Then she tells me she’ll be in touch and excuses herself to make another meeting.
Absolute Devotion
As an entrepreneur you exist in a perpetual state of development. You are always only as good as your last product launch. In that sense, entrepreneurship is not so different from acting or fashion: you can have a hit movie or collection and still you must always think about what is next. Let me tell you, it is exhausting.
Flush made Reveal a name to watch; Glow established Reveal as a player. We continued the product-centric ad aesthetic we had begun with Flush in our Glow campaign. The ad showed a clear curved bottle of Glow nestled in an abalone shell, a trail of highlighter leaking to the edges of the image.
During the eighteen months I spent developing Glow, we added three more shades of Flush to create a proper category thanks to another round of cash from Donald. I fine-tuned a lighter peony color, a blood-orange iteration, and a mauve berry that wore like a faded sunburn. Some customer feedback had suggested that Flush’s staying power was limited, so we revised the formula to last longer. I tweaked the packaging, too, refined the original nail polish bottle shape into something closer to a perfume vial with lean curves, an Art Deco Lucite vessel whose silhouette a woman could showcase on her vanity. We released a more portable rollerball model that was the perfect size for a purse. All Reveal’s packaging would be transparent like its company’s ethos.
“Gird yourself,” Ellen cautioned me in one of our morning sessions. “When we release Glow, people will go nuts.”
Nothing could have prepared me for my success, not even Ellen’s sage warnings. Glow sold out of every department store in Chicago, Los Angeles, Boston, and New York within a day. Flush sold out, too, in all four shades. A shortage of raw materials created delays, which only whetted appetites further. Vogue did another story on me. So did Allure, ELLE, and Harper’s Bazaar. A writer from W Magazine asked me about the ingredients in Flush and Glow. I told her, “So long as women look good, they won’t care what they put on their faces.” It was 2000 and everyone declared Reveal the cult brand of Y2K. “Greet the new millennium with a face gleaming in Flush and Glow,” W Magazine instructed.
