Free Face Value by Kathleen Baird-Murray

going to see my cellulite, do you?”
    “Ah . . . you mean, we keep the lights off.” He looked disturbingly optimistic. “I like that . . . mystery, secrets, the dis’onest seduction of the shadows. . . .”
    “No, I mean, nothing is going to happen between us,” said Kate, coolly.
    “Eh, I know that. . . . We are just friends!”
    “Not even,” she said under her breath, the alcohol wearing off now.
    In a strange way, though, he was her only friend. There was something oddly familiar about him, comforting even. He had been to England before, could make jokes about the weather there, had even watched EastEnders a few times and understood that it was infinitely better than Coronation Street. Not always having to explain herself, to qualify everything, meant that he was by far the easiest of her new “friends” to be around. She put this down to their common European roots, but there were drawbacks that came with that, too. She doubted an American would make such personal remarks about cellulite so soon into a friendship. Or would he? She didn’t know any American men. But at least, one thing she could say in Jean-Paul’s favor was that his calls afforded her some respite from the severe workload she had—to paraphrase Alexis’s love of Shakespeare—partially had thrust upon her, partially been born with. Here she was in the city of the insomniac’s choice, and her social life was nonexistent. Tonight was the first evening where she hadn’t felt compelled to read up on something beauty related, or sit logged on to the Internet on her office-loaned laptop at home, swotting up on whatever product launch or skin care lecture she would have to attend the following day.
    She had quickly realized she could create her own agenda so long as she kept on top of the subject matter, did her research, and put the hours in. It was a policy that was paying off, starting with her relationship with her assistant and her deputy. Everything Clarissa and Cynthia had written for the forthcoming issue was fine, but just a little boring and predictable. Kate knew she was no beauty expert, but as a woman (albeit one who still couldn’t walk properly in a pair of heels and who had only recently discovered waxing) and, more importantly, as a reader, she didn’t feel their words on lipstick and autumn trends and moisturizers and facial hair strip wax moved or inspired her. Now, that could be because this wasn’t her subject matter of choice, just as Clarissa and Cynthia might not like to read this month’s essay in Green Issues magazine by one of the original antinuclear power protestors at Greenham Common (she’d loved that bit when the women all joined up their bras to form a big rope to tie themselves to the wire fencing—brilliant!). But why was a lipstick good just because Catherine Zeta-Jones wore it once? To her, that was a bad lipstick, because if it was any good, she would have worn it again, surely. This seemed to baffle them. She had exhorted them to rethink, and with Cynthia, she had definitely seen improvements. They’d been out for lunch a couple of times, to a small Japanese restaurant where you had to check over your shoulder before having any work-related conversation because the place swarmed with Nouvelle Maison Editions employees. Cynthia had been so thrilled to be taken out to lunch by the beauty director, she would have done anything for her after that. And Kate had enjoyed it, not just because it was the first time she’d been able to slap down a company credit card and get lunch for two as a legitimate business expense, but because she was genuinely interested in Cynthia’s life. Hers was an alien world, but with striking similarities, coming as she did from a small town in Ohio, with parents who had wanted her to join the local law firm. Kate recognized in Cynthia the same hunger to carve out a career that she had—to escape. The only difference was that Cynthia was rather more knowledgeable about