You can make a person believe anything. She knows this is true. She’s seen it herself, done it herself. She does it at work every day, makes the women who come in believe she’s interested, that she’s checked in while she rubs lotion on their skin, dusts their faces with powder, tells them how good they look. And these women, most of them who’ve never felt beautiful for a single day in their lives, they take her words, tuck them away and hang on to them, come back when they need more kindness.
Like today, for instance, when Sammie can’t help watching the clock, when she’s anxious to finish up and jump in her car. Every minute that passes puts Weber that much further ahead, and if there’s one thing Sammie hates, it’s falling behind. She’s so absorbed in her impatience that she’s not listening to the woman in the chair in front of her, a client who comes in every week and buys anything Sammie puts into her hands, but she isn’t there for makeup, she’s there because she’s lonely, she wants to talk, to tell Sammie about her life, about her doctor’s appointments and her son’s eczema, about the way her brake pads keep squealing no matter what the mechanic does.
“You’re a good person,” the woman says, and this catches Sammie off guard, because she never talks about herself here, never interrupts the unending flow of words that come from some of the women.
“You don’t even know me.”
“I don’t need to know you. I can tell.”
Sammie pauses, caught in one of those moments when it seems like something is wrong, or missing, or that somehow this moment is important, and she feels like she should say something, although she doesn’t have a clue what that might be. And then someone in the store laughs, high-pitched and abrupt, breaking the magic of the moment, and Sammie brushes more color onto the woman’s cheeks, feeling vaguely confused, like she’d lost something, although she doesn’t know what it is or even what it’s called.
*
They let her go home early when she begs—fifteen minutes, and the manager acts as if she’s been granted a huge favor—and she literally runs out the door, out the back, where the employee parking lot is. She stops when she hears someone yell her name, even though there are tiny shards of ice whipping down from the sky and the temperature is dropping like a stone in water. It’s Ethan, the kid from the sandwich shop, hurrying out the door she’d come from, popping open an umbrella.
“Let me walk you to your car,” he calls, and then comes running up, stopping close beside her and stooping low, so the umbrella shields her from the snow and wind, and it’s suddenly dim under the cover, and they’re standing very close.
“What’re you doing out here?” she asks, yanking her scarf over her mouth. “It’s freezing, go back inside.”
“I’m waiting for Kelly. She should be off any minute,” Ethan says. “But if you don’t want me to walk with you, I’ll stay here and wait.”
“No, that’s not what I meant,” she says, looping her arm through his. The umbrella doesn’t help with the cold, but at least she’s out of the weather—instead, the ice is peppering against the nylon canopy above them, sounding like grains of sand. “I’m glad you saw me.”
He smiles, and it lights up his face, but she doesn’t see it—she’s too busy looking down, making sure she’s taking careful steps on the icy ground. If she’d seen this smile, Sammie would’ve pulled away, because it’s the look of a kid in love, and she doesn’t want to lead him on, doesn’t want him to think there’s a chance they’ll ever be together.
But she doesn’t see his face.
“I saw your article in the paper,” he says, raising his voice against the wind. “It was amazing. So well written.”
“Thank you.”
“Can I get your autograph before you get famous?” he says, and with a flourish pulls a copy of the Post out, and hands her a pen. She tries to scribble her signature across the front, but the paper is already wet from the snow, ruined. “Oh, don’t worry about it. I bought a few copies—I’ll get you to sign some other time.”
“Okay. You’ll have to excuse me, I have to get going—”
“This is so exciting,” Ethan says. He’s smiling, beaming at her, and she doesn’t think she’s ever seen him so pleased. “I know it’s your writing, but reading it makes me feel like I’m a part of the whole thing. It’s stupid, I guess.”
“No, it’s not,” she says, squeezing his arm and then quickly yanking her hand away, because Kelly is hurrying up behind them, her eyes narrowed against the wind, and she doesn’t look happy to see them together. “Listen, we’ll have to catch up later—”
“Yeah, sure. I’ve got to get going anyway.”
She runs the rest of the way to her car, turns on the engine, cranks the heat as high as it’ll go, and waves at Ethan as he turns to Kelly. Her lipsticked mouth is moving furiously, the words spilling out between her red-rimmed lips, and Ethan isn’t even looking at her but down at the ground, his face buried deep in his coat’s collar, hidden from the cold.