Lone Star Legend Read online

  “No biggie,” said George. “Just save your receipt and Angelica will reimburse us.”

  “It’s not that.” Sandy removed her camera from her work bag and surveyed the scene. As far as the eye could see, there were cars. Bright, glittery, bouncy cars, flanked by the men who loved them. And by adoring fans with cameras and fried foods in paper bags. And by women in bikinis and high heels. “Why are we even here? And on a Sunday?” She’d hurried back from Dallas early that morning, skipping breakfast with her friend Veronica, to drive her hungover self back to this.

  “I know why I’m here.” George made a beeline for the nearest bikini model. “Come on,” he called over his shoulder. “I’m interviewing her first!”

  * * *

  BACK AT THE office on Monday, Angelica reviewed their footage with a critical eye. Sandy watched, too. It was her first time seeing herself on video. She wondered if she looked as nervous as she’d felt while interviewing her subjects. It was hard to tell because George had done so many close-ups on the models and the cars that there wasn’t much of Sandy in the frames.

  She knew, at any rate, that she’d done a better job than George. Not only was her camera work better, but she’d come up with better questions for their subjects. All George had done, basically, was hit on the models. He’d even offered to make a couple of them famous.

  “Good job, you two,” said Angelica, causing George to preen. “Next time, though, I’ll send Francisco along with you to run the camera. Also, next time, George, try getting a little more information from your subjects. Instead of just asking if the girls are single, ask if they slept with anyone to get the job. And don’t promise them anything on camera, got it?”

  George nodded dutifully and Angelica dismissed him. Then she turned to Sandy. “Have a moment? In my office?”

  Sandy swallowed hard and followed her boss.

  The office most certainly was Angelica’s now. She’d removed every trace of evidence that Oscar had ever worked there. The walls had been painted pale taupe and matted watercolor abstracts took the place of Oscar’s old maps and prints. The old plywood desk had disappeared and been replaced by a wide ebony wood table that now cradled Angelica’s pearly white notebook computer and python bag.

  Instead of going around the table to the sueded swivel chair, Angelica took one of the plum-colored visitor’s seats and indicated that Sandy should take the other.

  Sandy waited for Angelica to speak. She couldn’t imagine what was on her boss’s mind, but was certain she wasn’t about to get fired. Pretty certain, at any rate.

  “Sandy, you did a really good job with the interviews. You were poised, you improvised good questions, and your subjects trusted you. I especially liked the bit where the young man told you about getting his degree in jail. Really good work.”

  “Thank you.” Sandy flashed a polite smile but felt nervous. She felt a “but” coming up.

  “How did you feel about it?” Angelica asked. “Did you enjoy it? Were you comfortable?”

  “Um… Yeah. I guess so.” Sandy gave the question some thought. “At first I was nervous, but then I kind of got into it.”

  “That’s the way it often happens.” Angelica smiled. “Now, I’m about to give you my one critique, but I want you to understand that it’s meant professionally, to help you be more successful, and not as a personal criticism.”

  Sandy felt even more nervous now, but also very curious. “Okay.”

  “I noticed that you looked most uncomfortable when you were on camera with the models in bikinis. And I can’t blame you for that. However, your understandable discomfort, combined with your outfit, your hairstyle, and your general image made those segments read a little bitter. Do you know what I mean?”

  Sandy’s hand went up to her ponytail—the same type of ponytail she’d been wearing in the video. She willed herself to pull her hand down again, and to refrain from looking down at herself to see what Angelica was seeing at that moment. She forced herself to look the older woman in the eye with as much dignity as she could fake. “I’m not sure I do know what you mean, no.”

  Angelica smiled again. “You’re an attractive young woman, Sandy. Anyone can see that, even with you in those clothes, wearing those glasses, and without any makeup.”

  Sandy’s hand flew up to her rimless, glare-blocking, nearsighted-correction lenses.

  Angelica went on. “When you appear in public like this, you’re sending a message. That message is, ‘Judge me by my brains, not by my looks.’ And that’s completely valid, but when you interview women who get paid to be judged on looks, it can give the impression that you’re standing in opposition to them, so to speak. To some of our less enlightened audience members, it could read as ‘angry feminist’ or ‘bitter, jealous frump,’ or some other ridiculous thing. Even though you and I know that nothing is further from the truth. I don’t think it’s fair that you and I, as women, have to worry about our image in this way, but the reality is—”

  Sandy got the message. She decided to cut to the chase and save Angelica more explanation. “What you’re saying is, you want me to be prettier. Like Lori.”

  “Not at all.” Angelica shook her head. “How pretty you are makes no difference to me. What I want you to be”—here she leaned forward conspiratorially, and Sandy couldn’t help but lean forward too—“is more polished, and more confident. I want you to look like a woman who can hold her own with anyone. You already are that woman, and I want to make that fact more obvious to our audience.”

  Sandy frowned. She wasn’t sure she was that woman, actually, but she figured it’d be unwise to contradict her new boss on that point. What she did argue was “I just don’t see how makeup or a new hairstyle can convey that kind of message.”

  Angelica sat up straighter and smiled in a way that Sandy couldn’t help thinking was triumphant. “I’ll show you. Do you have a couple of free hours this afternoon?”

  IN THE SAME amount of time that it’d taken Cinderella to ride her pumpkin to the castle, probably, Sandy found herself at her optometrist’s office, picking up a copy of her prescription, and then at Angelica’s optometrist’s office, picking out new frames.

  “These,” said Angelica, holding up the same dark-rimmed pair that the blond in one of the display posters was wearing.

  Sandy modeled them in front of the mirror but was unable to gauge the effect without her own glasses on. She took them off and read the price tag. “There’s no way I could afford these.”

  “Don’t worry,” said Angelica, brandishing a silvery credit card. “Corporate expense.”

  Next stop was a salon all the way down in Brody Oaks, where the receptionist knew Angelica by name and a stylist in a white lab coat immediately ran over to kiss her on the cheek. “What have we here?” he said, eyeing Sandy like a golden cat standing over a dazed mouse.

  Angelica touched Sandy’s shoulder and said, “Makeover.”

  The stylist spun Sandy like a dancer, pulling the elastic band from her head and running his fingers through her hair all in one graceful move.

  “Mm,” was all he said. Then, “What are we thinking?”

  Angelica leaned forward and spoke quietly, but not quietly enough to keep Sandy from hearing. “I’m thinking sexy librarian, but not too sexy librarian.”

  “Tina Fey, but sleeker? Eva Peron, but alive?”

  “Exactly. I knew you’d understand, Rod.”

  Rod took Sandy’s hand and started to lead her to the back of the salon. But Sandy dug in her heels. She pulled her hand away and protectively touched her glasses, her hair, her glasses again.

  Something in the pit of her stomach was telling her this was wrong. Whatever they wanted her to be, she wasn’t sure she could pull it off. She was already stretching her limits by writing things she’d never learned to write in J school. But now Angelica was asking her to be someone else.

  Sandy knew she could write anything, learn anything, understand anything that anyone put before her. But
she wasn’t at all sure that she could be what Angelica was asking, or even fake it. Sandy was afraid she couldn’t deliver. She was afraid she would fail.

  “Sandy,” Angelica said, putting her hand on the younger woman’s shoulder again. “Trust me. I promise you’re going to like it. And, if you don’t, I promise that you can go right back to the way you were.”

  “It’s not that I don’t think it’ll look good,” Sandy said. “It’s just that… I’m not sure I can change.”

  What would Daniel say? she suddenly wondered. He’d say he’d told her so, that this job wasn’t about her writing or her intellect, but something crass and shallow.

  She imagined him reacting to a more polished—no, a sexier Sandy. Would he think she looked shallow? Or would he be more upset that she no longer looked like one of his adoring students?

  Again Sandy felt the impulse to rebel against Daniel’s ideas of what she should be.

  What would her mother say? Sandy grimaced. Probably that Angelica wasn’t going far enough. If her mom were there, she’d consider this a dream come true. A free makeover, by the editor of Mujer? Her mom would be crying out for tacky blond highlights and rhinestoned, two-tone nails.

  Thinking of it that way, Sandy felt her impulse reverse. There was nothing wrong with the way she was now. Why should she change?

  “I’m not asking you to change,” Angelica murmured into her ear, as if she could read Sandy’s mind. “I just want to bring out what’s already there. Show everyone who Sandy Saavedra really is.”

  With that the balance was finally tipped. Sandy let them lead her to the inner room of the salon, to find her new, real self.

  17

  Reader comments on My Modern TragiComedy, Tuesday, March 28

  I found your blog by searching for information on divorced parents. What you said, I totally agree with. I feel the same way about my mom and dad sometimes. Thank you for writing it. It’s good to know I’m not alone.

  Comment left by: Anonymous

  OMG, you go girl! I’ve been thinking for a while now that HTG Boy doesn’t appreciate you enough! He’d better watch his step or else he won’t have you around to take for granted anymore!

  Comment left by: Pilot Girl

  Hi, TragiComic Girl. Keep your chin up. Hopefully HTGB will come around soon.:)

  Comment left by: Sunny B

  18

  The latest blog comments were very touching. Plus Sandy had apparently gained a new reader. But, for a split second, she regretted saying what she had about Daniel. She’d been angry at the time and had been overcome by the desire to vent.

  Now that she had vented, now that she sat on her sofa, re-reading her words from the other night, they sounded pretty harsh. Daniel was annoying sometimes, but he wasn’t that bad. Was he?

  Sandy wondered if she should delete that blog entry now that it no longer expressed her current feelings.

  But then, she realized, she’d have leftover comments from readers relating to that entry. So she’d have to delete those, too. And, somehow, it seemed wrong to delete readers’ comments once they’d been posted. It seemed unethical. She was sure, in fact, that there was an applicable rule somewhere in one of her old journalism textbooks.

  The thing to do, she decided, was to print a retraction. She would post another entry, explaining that she’d been angry and had overreacted, and that HeartThrob Geek-Boy was actually a pretty good guy. She’d write that for her very next entry.

  But not right now. First she needed to finish some work for QBS Systems and e-mail it to her supervisor there. Then she needed to go to QBS physically and renew her contract. Then she needed to hurry back downtown for a noon meeting at Nacho Papi.

  But before she did any of that, she needed to e-mail Veronica and Jane a picture of her new hair. And, after scrolling through all the pictures she’d uploaded the night before and picking the best one, she did just that.

  Jane was at work at the Capitol already, which meant she was already goofing off online. She replied immediately: OMG, is that you? You look fabulous!

  Sandy was pleased, to say the least. They volleyed a few e-mails back and forth, catching up, and then Sandy got back to work in earnest.

  “JESUS MOTHER MARY, Sandy, is that you? You look beautiful!”

  Whereas Jane’s comment had looked moderately enthusiastic on the screen, Sandy’s mother sounded, in the driveway, like she was about to burst into tears. She ran up to her daughter as if they’d just won the lottery and gave her a big, disproportionately emotional hug. “Oh my gosh, oh my Jesus! Baby, I’m so happy for you! I’m so glad!”

  “Mom! Quit. You’re freaking me out.”

  Her mother made a visible effort to get hold of herself. “When did you do it? Last night? Where’d you go? Oh my gosh, you got new glasses, too! Sandy, what happened? Did you get a raise? Wait—did Danny break up with you?” Within this one paragraph, her mother’s voice had gotten loud again.

  “What? No. Why would we have broken up? Why would he have broken up with me?”

  “You know. I just meant, how sometimes, when women break up with someone, they suddenly start caring about how they look again. Or for the first time. Or—you know. Whatever. So what happened?”

  Sandy decided to overlook her mother’s verbal blunders. “Nothing. Angelica, my new boss, is having me do some interviews on camera for the site, and we wanted to change my look a little. That’s all.”

  “Oh, Sandy. You mean you got a Mujer makeover? For free?”

  “For free, yes. Related to the magazine Angelica used to edit, no.” Sandy would have laughed at her mother responding exactly as she’d predicted if that reaction weren’t so exasperating.

  “Let me see.” Mrs. Saavedra gently touched the new shoulder-length inverted bob, which Sandy hadn’t even had to blow out that morning, thanks to her naturally stick-straight locks. “You always had your daddy’s hair. Indio hair,” her mother said, shaking her head. “But it looks good like this. Let me see your eyes.”

  Sandy dutifully closed her eyes so that her mother could see that slightest dusting of taupe powder and the thinnest line of black liner on her eyelids.

  “Pretty!” her mother breathed. Next she examined Sandy’s silk blouse, pencil skirt, and high-heeled mary janes. Angelica’s two-hour makeover had led to a full evening of shopping. Sandy had let her boss pay for a few items of clothing, pretending it was a sort of required uniform, but then ended up picking out many more things to buy for herself. It was strange, she’d never really enjoyed shopping with her mother or even with her friend Jane. But with Angelica it was different. Her boss knew boutiques Sandy had never visited, and her shopping technique involved getting in, grabbing the good stuff, and getting back out in one streamlined process. It had been a whole new experience for Sandy—one she hoped wouldn’t become an expensive habit.

  “Why didn’t you get a new bag, too, though?” Mrs. Saavedra touched the olive green corduroy work bag that hung on Sandy’s shoulder from its black canvas strap.

  “Because I like this one. I’m used to it. It has the perfect number of pockets and the strap is the perfect length.” Sandy had carried that bag for so long it felt like part of her body, sometimes.

  Her mother blinked but said nothing. She herself preferred snakeskin. Kind of like the purses Angelica carried, but in patent vinyl instead of real leather. Apparently realizing there was no accounting for taste in the end, she went on. “I’m so proud of you, m’ija. You look so beautiful. Like a real lady.”

  Sandy was a little disconcerted. This was the first time in a long while that her mother had expressed pride in her. The last time must have been at Sandy’s college graduation. But even then her mother hadn’t sounded this sincere.

  Here she was, proud of Sandy because she was wearing makeup and nice clothes. It was more than a little unsettling—it was downright annoying. But Sandy shrugged it off, not wanting to ruin the moment. Instead, she returned her mother’s hug. Then she disentangl
ed herself and drove away to work.

  “WHOA! WHO ARE you and what did you do with Sandy?” George practically bellowed as she walked into the office, ensuring that all their co-workers would turn and stare. “I mean, I know it’s almost April Fool’s Day, but this is some joke.” He laughed at his own wit but no one joined him.

  “You look good, Sandy,” Lori said, throwing George a scornful look.

  “Yeah,” Francisco chimed in, sounding somewhat in awe. “You look great.”

  “Thank you.” Sandy used her most gracious tone and majestically took her place at the staff table, where she got to work unpacking her laptop.

  “Hey, that’s what I meant, too. I was just kidding. You know that, right?” George asked, more to the room at large than to Sandy herself.

  Everyone fell silent when Angelica emerged from her office to start their meeting. Sandy braced herself, in case their editor was about to make an announcement about her makeover or otherwise call more attention to Sandy’s new look. Instead, however, Angelica smiled and greeted everyone as normal. Right before launching into her agenda, however, she gave Sandy an almost undetectable wink.

  Sandy smiled and looked down at her laptop screen. This makeover, she decided, had turned out to be a good thing.

  19

  Time: Wednesday, April 5, 8:12 AM

  To: Nacho Papi Team

  From: Angelica Villanueva O’Sullivan

  Subject: MEMORANDUM

  Per our last meeting and one-on-ones, here are items that require follow-up:

  1. New banner ads: Francisco, please run our new Limonveza banners on test site to make sure they work. Sandy, please revise your lime-flavored product post to reference Limonveza in a more positive way, now that they are a sponsor.

  2. New “in-line” sponsor: George and Lori: As we discussed, you are each to mention Thuggin’ jeans once within the next week. Keep it natural-sounding.