Facial
I leave the office at four-thirty, head up to Xclusive where I work out with free weights for an hour, then taxi across the park to Gio’s in the Pierre Hotel for a facial, a manicure and, if time permits, a pedicure. I’m lying on the elevated table in one of the private rooms waiting for Helga, the skin technician, to facialize me. My Brooks Brothers shirt and Garrick Anderson suit hang in the closet, my A. Testoni loafers sit on the floor, thirty-dollar socks from Barney’s balled up in them, sixty-dollar boxer shorts from Comme des Gar?ons are the only article of clothing I’m still wearing. The smock I’m supposed to have on is crumpled next to the shower stall since I want Helga to check my body out, notice my chest, see how f*cking buff my abdominals have gotten since the last time I was here, even though she’s much older than I am—maybe thirty or thirty-five—and there’s no way I’d ever f*ck her. I’m sipping a Diet Pepsi that Mario, the valet, brought me, with crushed ice in a glass on the side that I asked for but don’t want.
I pick up today’s Post that hangs from a Smithly Watson glass magazine rack and scan the gossip columns, then my eye catches a story about recent sightings of these creatures that seem to be part bird, part rodent—essentially pigeons with the heads and tails of rats—found deep in the center of Harlem and now making their way steadily toward midtown. A grainy photograph of one of these things accompanies the article, but experts, the Post assures us, are fairly certain this new breed is a hoax. As usual this fails to soothe my fear, and it fills me with a nameless dread that someone out there has wasted the energy and time to think this up: to fake a photograph (and do a half-assed job at that, the thing looks like a f*cking Big Mac) and send the photograph in to the Post, then for the Post to decide to run the story (meetings, debates, last-minute temptations to cancel the whole thing?), to print the photograph, to have someone write about the photo and interview the experts, finally to run this story in today’s edition and have it discussed over hundreds of thousands of lunches in the city this afternoon. I close the paper and lie back, exhausted.
The door to the private room opens and a girl I haven’t seen before walks in and through half-closed eyes I can see that she’s young, Italian, okay-looking. She smiles, sitting in a chair at my feet, and begins the pedicure. She switches off the ceiling light and except for strategically placed halogen bulbs shining down on my feet, hands and face, the room darkens, making it impossible to tell what kind of body she has, only that she’s wearing gray suede and black leather buttoned ankle boots by Maud Frizon. The Patty Winters Show this morning was about UFOs That Kill. Helga arrives.
“Ah, Mr. Bateman,” Helga says. “How are you?”
“Very good, Helga,” I say, flexing the muscles in my stomach and chest. My eyes are closed so it looks casual, as if the muscles are acting on their own accord and I can’t help it. But Helga drapes the smock gently across my heaving chest and buttons it up, pretending to ignore the undulations beneath the tan, clean skin.
“You’re back so soon,” she says.
“I was only here two days ago,” I say, confused.
“I know, but …” She stalls, washing her hands in the sink. “Never mind.”
“Helga?” I ask.
“Yes, Mr. Bateman?”
“Walking in here I spotted a pair of men’s gold-tasseled loafers from Bergdorf Goodman, waiting to be shined, outside the door of the next room. Who do they belong to?” I ask.
“That’s Mr. Erlanger,” she says.
“Mr. Erlanger from Lehman’s?”
“No. Mr. Erlanger from Salomon Brothers,” she says.
“Did I ever tell you that I want to wear a big yellow smiley-face mask and then put on the CD version of Bobby McFerrin’s ‘Don’t Worry, Be Happy’ and then take a girl and a dog—a collie, a chow, a sharpei, it doesn’t really matter—and then hook up this transfusion pump, this IV set, and switch their blood, you know, pump the dog’s blood into the hardbody and vice versa, did I ever tell you this?” While I’m speaking I can hear the girl working on my feet humming one of the songs from Les Misérables to herself, and then Helga runs a moistened cotton ball across my nose, leaning close to the face, inspecting the pores. I laugh maniacally, then take a deep breath and touch my chest—expecting a heart to be thumping quickly, impatiently, but there’s nothing there, not even a beat.
“Shhh, Mr. Bateman,” Helga says, running a warm loofah sponge over my face, which stings then cools the skin. “Relax.”
“Okay,” I say. “I’m relaxing.”
“Oh Mr. Bateman,” Helga croons, “you have such a nice complexion. How old are you? May I ask?”
“I’m twenty-six.”
“Ah, that’s why. It’s so clean. So smooth.” She sighs. “Just relax.”
I drift, my eyes rolling back into my head, the Muzak version of “Don’t Worry, Baby” drowning out all bad thoughts, and I start thinking only positive things—the reservations I have tonight with Marcus Halberstam’s girlfriend, Cecelia Wagner, the mashed turnips at Union Square Café, skiing down Buttermilk Mountain in Aspen last Christmas, the new Huey Lewis and the News compact disc, dress shirts by Ike Behar, by Joseph Abboud, by Ralph Lauren, beautiful oiled hardbodies eating each other’s pussies and a*sholes under harsh video lights, truckloads of arugula and cilantro, my tan line, the way the muscles in my back look when the lights in my bathroom fall on them at the right angle, Helga’s hands caressing the smooth skin on my face, lathering and spreading cream and lotions and tonics into it admiringly, whispering, “Oh Mr. Bateman, your face is so clean and smooth, so clean,” the fact that I don’t live in a trailer park or work in a bowling alley or attend hockey games or eat barbecued ribs, the look of the AT&T building at midnight, only at midnight. Jeannie comes in and starts the manicure, first clipping and filing the nails, then brushing them with a sandpaper disk to smooth out the remaining edges.
“Next time I’d prefer them a bit longer, Jeannie,” I warn her.
Silently she soaks them in warm lanolin cream, then dries both hands off and uses a cuticle moisturizer, then removes all the cuticles while cleaning under the nails with a cotton-on-wood stick. A heat vibrator massages the hand and forearm. The nails are buffed first with chamois and then with buffing lotion.