Gloss. Jennifer Oko

suede boots weren’t helping the matter. I had taken them from an old roommate’s closet without asking, and hadn’t ever returned them.

      “Are you okay?” Purnell asked, his voice sounding more and more like my mother’s. I had to look at him to make sure she wasn’t actually there.

      “Boy trouble.” I was never very good at keeping my personal life out of my professional, and, as stated, I was a little drunk.

      “That’s ridiculous. How could a young lady as lovely as you have boy trouble? Ridiculous.” He reminded me at this moment of Tweedledee. Or perhaps Tweedledum.

      “Yeah, right,” I said. I just about started to tear up.

      “You know what? Let’s get out of here. I can show you some things that will take your mind off this jerk.”

      “It’s okay,” I said, trying to inconspicuously wipe away the tear I felt forming. “I should just go to the hotel. I could use a good night’s sleep anyway.”

      “Oh, this is pathetic,” Purnell said. “Come on. We’re in this together.” He had, at this point, placed his hand on top of mine, on top of the table. It felt soft and a bit sweaty. I gently removed my hand from under his. “You want to meet some of those models. Sure, why not. I can introduce you to a couple of them right now. Plus a few of my Fardish friends,” he said.

      “I thought you said they weren’t available.”

      “Most of them aren’t. But a couple might be.”

      It sounded interesting, but I must have looked hesitant (or just plan pitiable) because now Purnell was acting as if he was trying to prop me up.

      “I might even be able to scare up a few lip gloss samples for you to take back to New York,” he said.

      For a moment, in my inebriated state, that seemed to me like as good a reason to go as any. I did have better things to do than wait around for a disrespectful guy. I could meet the models tonight. I could find out more about the Fardish makeup. I could sample it. Usually, there was no need for us to investigate very deeply into our stories. They were simple and formulaic, and most of the reporting had already been done in the newspapers. But there I was, and my subject was willing to give me more time and more access. Maybe I would even think of another test to ask about. At the very least, I would get some free makeup. I could give it to Carl to pass on to whatever up-and-coming local correspondent he was dating, and he wouldn’t give me any grief about the expense of my coming down here. People in television loved freebies, no matter how big their salaries.

      But I really didn’t feel like going. I felt like crawling underneath the king-size bed in my nonsmoking hotel room and never coming out again.

      “Annie,” Purnell squawked, grabbing my shoulder with his inflated hand, pulling me back so I stopped slumping. “I don’t know much about dating, but I do know something about power, and it seems to me that you are giving too much of it over to this boy toy of yours.” I looked at him. I was about to take dating advice from a damp, bulbous, thoroughly unattractive, much older man. Because you know what? He might be right.

      And so, check paid, we made for the door and had the valet call our car around.

      

      “Where are we going?” I said, once I hazily realized that we had crossed the 14th Street Bridge and were headed into Virginia.

      “Don’t worry so much, Annie.” Purnell patted my bare knee with his chubby hand, making me start to regret this trip. I moved closer to the window and checked my phone again, just in case I had somehow missed Mark’s call. Nothing.

      We turned off at the Crystal City exit, passing Costco and the Fashion City Mall before turning into one of those bland, cookie cutter town house complexes built in the mid-1970s, probably around the same time as my office.

      We got out at the last unit, number 15. The front light wasn’t on and I tripped on the first step leading up to the door, giving Purnell the opportunity to grab my arm with his puffy hand to help steady me. He had a key and opened the door, and that’s how we went inside—arm in arm.

      It looked like Mecca. The bar, I mean, the one I had been at with Mark the night before. Lots of velvet cushions and hookah pipes. Except these ones didn’t have alcohol inside, these ones were real. Five men (each of a sun-weathered, indiscernible age) were sitting around, spilled out over the carpet, lounging on the pillows, puffing the pipes, filling the air with a thick smog and a strange cinnamonlike scent. There were no women in the room.

      Upon seeing us, the men cried out in unison, “Cow!”

      That’s what they said: Cow. There being no cows among us, I figured that was how they said hello. When Purnell said something like cow in response, they went back to smoking their pipes.

      “These are my Fardish friends,” he said, motioning for me to take a seat on a large, uninhabited purple cushion pushed up against a carpet-covered wall. “They are helping us with the project.”

      I sat down and out from nowhere a little girl rushed up, offering each of us a cup of tea. Purnell held his up as if to make another toast. “Here’s to New Day USA and Vanity Cosmetics!” he said, knocking his against the cup now in my hand.

      The girl curtsied and quietly scampered off, but I couldn’t fail to notice her absolutely radiant skin and full, movie star-like mouth.

      “She looks nice, doesn’t she?” Purnell said, having caught me staring at the child. “Fida’s a big fan of the products.”

      “Fida?”

      “The girl. She’s going to be one of the presenters next week. Others are coming in a few days.” Purnell, now seated next to me, took a puff from one of the pipes. “Fida and her sister are the prettiest, I think.” He looked to the door Fida had run behind. “Fida! Lida!” He said something in Fardish. At least I think it was Fardish. He was clearly fluent in whatever language it was.

      Fida came back into the room, accompanied by a smaller and fuller-lipped girl who couldn’t have been older than eight. Maybe ten for Fida. Maybe.