Rachel Glaser - Paulina & Fran

“Yeah, all you’ll need is a fleece and, like, a deli sandwich,” Gretchen said, reunited with her coat.

“What’s wrong with fleece?” Fran asked self-consciously.

“Nothing. It’s just the opposite of fashion. It’s a gateway drug to an unglamorous life of sitcoms and deli sandwiches and watching sports. .”

“But it’s cold in Ohio,” Fran said. “And I like deli sandwiches.” Gretchen laughed. With the potential end of their friendship finally so near, both girls felt a giddiness, and then a clinginess, but they could stay in touch, they reassured each other, if they wanted to, they thought.

Paulina sat in the desk chair in Harvey’s office, looking over the figures. “This is how much you’ll give me just for the ingredients?” The number made her tingle. She acted bored by it. The week before, she had demonstrated her products on Harvey’s sister-in-law in her Upper West Side apartment. Then, a few days ago, Paulina and Harvey had met with a hair scientist who confirmed its effect.

Recently, Paulina had been sleeping in the cramped apartment of a chubby drum teacher named Devon. She cooked dinner and cleaned for him while he gave lessons. At first this arrangement worked fine, but after Paulina failed to attend a band practice of Devon’s, he acted coldly toward her. His roommate started latching the deadbolt. Sometimes Devon wouldn’t answer his phone, and then Paulina either slept by his door or went out and found some other lonely soul. Sometimes it took hours.

“For the ingredients and the right to own and manufacture the products,” Harvey said. “That is, only if it’s approved by the FDA.” Over the last week, Paulina had gotten used to Harvey. She liked his suits and his mannerisms. His eyes were always flickering, doing the quick work of his mind. He repeatedly ran his hand over his bald head. Paulina liked his wife, Viv, and their Chelsea apartment, and the world of deals and design, private cars and business meetings.

“But what about me? You need me!” Paulina told him. She was wearing her best clothes. She wagged her finger at him.

“I like you, but I don’t need you. You know nothing about business. What are you, twenty-three? With a what degree? An arts degree?”

Paulina gritted her teeth. His original figure was more than enough. It would set her up for a few years. She could finally rent her own place. She so badly wanted a bathroom of her own. She wanted a refrigerator filled with food. A bed she didn’t have to share. But why should Harvey have all the fun? What if the labels were tacky?

“Who’s going to be the spokesman for this thing?” Paulina asked. “Some middle-aged man? No offense, Harvey, but only I can represent this company! Don’t you know anything about PR? Wouldn’t it be great press if a twenty-four-year-old genius started her own company? A woman-owned company for a women’s hair product?”

Harvey watched Paulina fiddle with the sculptures that decorated his desk. He pictured her face on the website, her signature on the bottle. “What would you call it?” he asked her.

“SUPERCURL,” she said with no hesitation.

That sounded okay to Harvey. Nothing mind-bending, but it sounded sharp. She was making all the right points. Still, he could do it without her. He could use his sister-in-law, Rebecca, as the spokeswoman. She had the same kind of hair. “This number is more than fair,” he said. “But I can throw on a few more thousand if you’ll feel better about it.”

Paulina scowled at him. “Listen. I’ve done my research. I’ve been to salons. I’ve seen the horror work they do to curly hair. You can’t comprehend the physical pain and mental suffering! SUPERCURL will be the world’s best product line for curly hair!”

She was smart, this one — he had to admit it. She’d kept him laughing all week, telling him and Viv all sorts of crazy stories at dinner. And her poor mother had gotten into a horrible boating accident. Harvey could see Paulina’s vision and see beyond it. They could make curly hair seem like a cult. Hell, it was a cult. Even Rebecca and Paulina, who had little in common, had quickly bonded over their curls.

“SUPERCURL,” he said to himself. The phone rang.

“That’s right,” Paulina said, spinning side to side in her desk chair.

Harvey turned and took the call.

Paulina listened to him talk to someone about something. When he laughed, she worried that it might be at her. She stood as if to leave, to get his eyes back on her, to show him he needed her, but he motioned for her to stay and she sat back down.

Marveling at the cows in the fields, the roadkill on the highway, the schizophrenic voice of the radio, Fran drove her rental car to a small town outside of Cleveland where she had already paid first, last, and security for her new apartment. She flirted with the high school boys who worked the supermarket registers. She befriended stray cats. She took long breaths that meant: My new life, I am ready, begin!

It isn’t half bad, she wrote in a letter Gretchen took weeks to answer. There’s a record shop and a crêpe place and a park where local bands play in a gazebo. Fran moved into a basement apartment in an all-studio building. There was always a tenant smoking dejectedly under the awning, even when it was raining, especially when it was raining.

On Fran’s first day, Meryl, the woman who interviewed her, led Fran through the Levrett-Mercer office, introducing her. Meryl’s tanned skin was loose on her bones. She wore long skirts that failed to conceal her white tennis shoes. Her plainness, her frumpishness, seemed to certify that she was good at math and work.

Meryl pointed to a girl with short red hair. “This is Jane. She’s been here for two years. An artist like you.” Jane smiled. She had sunken eyes and thin lips. Besides this, she wasn’t bad looking. She was even pretty, Fran thought. But Fran found herself focusing on the sunken eyes and thin lips, as if it were a competition to be the prettiest girl in the expansive corporate building.

“I went to MICA,” Jane said. Her gray dress pants fit well on her long legs, and Fran saw the outline of small breasts through her white button-down shirt.

“I went to art school too,” Fran said, feeling satisfaction from having gone to a better school. Jane smiled, then turned back to her work. Meryl nodded.

“You’ll be a floater, like Jane. So every day just come to me when you get here, and we’ll find you a spot.”

Floaters rotated around the abandoned cubicles. Sometimes one would be referred to as Fred’s old cubicle, or Roy’s, and Fran would wonder, What happened to Fred? And she would imagine a tragic end. The cubicles were nearly identical. Each had a faux wood desk, a boxy black monitor, an adjustable desk chair, a file cabinet, and a company calendar that shrunk the whole year to a few inches.

Fran slouched in an ergonomic chair. She was to write multiple-choice questions for a test to certify high school art teachers. Some of the questions referred to specific pieces of art. Fran could write, “In this painting by Paul Klee, the composition creates which of the following effects?” Then she would write the correct answer, along with three equally plausible answers. The answers had to be similar in sentence construction and length. The format had strict guidelines. Some words could never be used. Only certain artists were eligible. The rules didn’t bother Fran — they freed her. She felt glee whenever Meryl approved a new question she’d written. Everyone else used a computer, but Fran wrote on a yellow legal pad. She started wearing panty hose and heels. Her days filled with small problems and small solutions.

The trademark SUPERCURL was registered, and the company founded, in a single week. Paulina was named founder/spokeswoman and Harvey signed her to a generous contract based on projected profits. SUPERCURL filed for patents on Paulina’s homemade concoctions for conditioner, styling gel, and frizz guard. There were designers to hire and chemists to consult. After preliminary testing and approval by the FDA, SUPERCURL started outsourcing production. The SUPERCURL conditioner wasn’t as strong as Paulina’s original recipe. Dyes made it white instead of its usual brown. Fragrances disguised the potent smell.