Is There Still Sex in the City?

“Well . . .”

“How much do you spend on handbags?”

“I don’t know.” I felt like someone was sticking needles in my eyes.

“What about shoes? What if I said I could give you a two-year supply of products for ten pairs of shoes.”

“No.”

“You spend more money on your feet than your face? How long you gonna live like that?”

“I don’t know.”

“How about eight pairs of shoes?”

“Please,” I cried out.

“Five?”

“I just can’t.”

“What can you pay then?” she demanded.

What could I say? Nothing? I can pay nothing? I looked around. Everyone in the store was staring at us.

“Maybe two and a half pairs?”

“That’s not enough. How about . . .” Krystal wrote yet another number on the pad. She turned it around and held it up to my face.

“Yes?” she asked.

I looked at the number and gave up.

“Yes,” I said. “Yes.”

Face Cream Aftershock

My wallet was four thousand dollars lighter and my schlepping bags twenty pounds heavier as I left the store in shock. I was loaded down with products in different colored boxes. Inside the boxes were masks, ampules, creams, toners, cleansers, and scrubs, all of which came with instructions that included fuzzy photos of the products and the order in which to use them.

“So they got you,” Queenie said when I returned to the Village that weekend.

“Yes, they did.”

“How much?”

“Eeeee.” I hedged. Could I tell her the truth? No. I couldn’t even tell myself the truth. I couldn’t digest it.

“Maybe two or three thousand?” I lied.

I couldn’t explain it to myself. Was it possible that Krystal had somehow hypnotized me into spending all that money? Or was it just that I was too afraid to hurt her feelings or make her angry.

There was another part I didn’t want to admit, and it was that I really wanted that face cream. But mostly, I really wanted that face cream to work.

I needed something to make sense. To not be a complete and utter waste of time.

Using the products wasn’t easy. My routine involved doing drippy masks and having to lie down with slimy pads over my eyes. It meant scheduling time to take care of my skin.

But damn if that face cream didn’t work and damn if it didn’t happen exactly the way Krystal said it would.