Her Color

            by Hannah Faye Johnson

 

            Robert Harrison, 39 years old, lives with his wife and child; married his high school girlfriend, Susan ‘Susie’ Wellington, while enrolled in college in Arizona. After college, Susie wanted to pursue modeling and fashion design, so she convinced Robert to move to Los Angeles. Susie was well liked at her high school in Tucson; she was co-president of the student body and voted Most Desirable in her yearbook. She was 24 by the time they moved to Los Angeles. She was disappointed to discover that she was too short to be a traditional model, and was not well enough endowed to model lingerie or swimwear. Her parents always told her that if you try hard enough, you can be whatever you want to be. So she saved up money for a year and a half behind Robert’s back, to purchase the opportunity to be cut open and have balloons of silicone shoved into her chest. She was hired to model swimwear for J. Crew, but got pregnant a month later.

            Fifteen years after that, on Tuesday night when Robert gets home from work to his freeway-view mansion in the valley, his child is in bed. His wife is sitting on the couch watching a marathon of Whose Line Is It Anyway? with curlers in, chiming in on the laugh track in the background with her muttering waves of laughter. Robert is at his cherry oak kitchen table, which he paid for entirely himself, deciding between a merlot and a whiskey. He chooses whiskey. Examining the kitchen table amidst the life he created for himself, he sees that his precious Susie hung picture of the two of them together in high school. She’d put up glamour shots from both the proms they attended together. Her orangey blonde hair and ‘barely’ penciled in eyebrows stand out even from eight feet away. He assures himself that the feeling in his stomach is nostalgia.

            After a fair amount of commercial breaks and whiskey—to be sure, Robert dawdles into the television room. His wife is passed out in front of the TV. Her mouth is slightly open and her jaw cocked just barely to the side. She’s wearing an old Clash T-shirt of his and one of her curlers has come loose. He sits stiffly in a chair next to her, wondering why he won’t just wake her up. Instead, he begins to assess his wife’s unconscious appearance. Susie’s starkly black roots stare at him between the apricot blonde which she declared Her Color at age 15; her coveted cherry red lips had faded to a light mauve years ago. Her eyebrows, which she so carefully plucks and trims, have grown sparse, permanently branding her with a ghostly expression. He grabs a chip from the back of Doritos in front of her—Cooler Ranch, and they’re stale. He continues eating them though, eventually finding himself scraping his fingernails at the silver seam on the bottom of the bag. Feeling deliriously content with his guilt, he quietly licks each of his fingers off and picks up the remote to silence Drew Carey and the rest of the utterly uproarious cast of Whose Line.  

            Susie has never been much of a chef, but in an effort to make her husband bacon and eggs this morning, her efforts were particularly vile.
            “Robby, wake up!” she says in her singsong voice as she pitter-patters into her rosy haven of a bedroom. “I made you bacon and eggs, I hope you like them.” She sits on the edge of their bed, tapping his shoulders from above the thick maroon comforter, “Robby, baby?”
            “Susie, you shouldn’t have,” Robert lets out a prolonged sigh, raises his eyebrows and runs his hand through his hair and down the back of his neck. “Did you make me any coffee?”
            “Oh, sorry,” she looks down.
            “It’s okay,” he says coldly, his eyes dodging Susie’s face. He trudges downstairs after his wife into the kitchen. On the breakfast table are two placemats with eggs, bacon and juice set up neatly on their finest china. “This is nice, Susie.”
            “Thanks!” she pauses and takes a tiny bite of her eggs. “I was wondering,” she looks up to gauge his mood.

            “Yes?” he answers slowly.

            “Are we still going on vacation this summer?” she asks, like a little girl asking her mother for a new dress. Robert doesn’t answer, “All of Marilyn’s friends are going to Europe or the Caribbean, and you said—”

            “I know what I said. Where did you have in mind, Susie?”

            “Well—” she clearly had this planned out in her head, “since we’ve already been to Hawaii, I was thinking something a little different this time.” Robert’s face lit up, “Miami!” she declares. His face registers the proposal with alarm.

            “Miami?” he looks at her shining eyes in awe, “Like you were saying, how about something different? I’ve always wanted to go to Japan.”

            “Robert, it’s supposed to be summer vacation. Not summer museum tour.”

            “There’s good shopping,” he says, mimicking her singsong tone.

            “I’m serious Robert.”

            “Miami it is.”

            “Oh, I knew you’d come around! Thank you, thank you, thank you!” Robert nods convincingly and turns away as he swallows a bite of the undercooked bacon. “I can’t wait to tell the other moms at graduation.”

Robert nods enthusiastically again, before flooding the raw pig down with juice, “Susie, what is this shit?”
            “Grapefruit juice!” she says defensively, her shoulders slumping. Robert didn’t look convinced, “They hadn’t finished squeezing the oranges at the corner store yet.” Robert gets up and heats his espresso machine on their electric stovetop.

            Two weeks after the Tuesday with the Doritos and the whiskey, Robert heads upstairs to Susie and his extravagantly rose-decorated master bedroom while Susie is passed out on the couch in front of an infomercial for 'Magic Mama's Wrinkle-Reducing Cream!', and packs himself a small bag full of clothes. He also takes a prom photograph from off the refrigerator, and drives off in his freshly painted, cherry red 1969 El Camino. He takes with him enough courage to never return.
             Susie awakes to the cries of her thirteen year old daughter. "What is it, Marilyn? You need to get yourself cleaned up so your father can take you to school on time. Today is your eighth grade graduation rehearsal, quit your whining!"
             "I had a dream that Dad died," she finally lets out between her short gasps of desperation. "I know he's not dead. I don’t know."
             "Well, he didn't die." Susie states, annoyed, "Now, let's get you some Pop tarts, hmm? Frosted strawberry? Yeah? I'll go tell Maria to make you a couple."
            Susie calls downstairs to their cook for a few of the rainbow sprinkle ridden breakfast delicacies and walks into her daughter's bathroom. She is disgusted to see she didn't remove her eyeliner the night before, and forgot to coil her hair up into the pink foam cylinders she normally does. She splashes water onto her face and uses one of her daughter’s purple, embroidered towels in an attempt to remove the black waterproof smudges beneath her eyes. MSH, Marilyn Susan Harrison, she feels proud. Her daughter will be entering high school this fall, and she couldn't be more excited. She never stops longing for the drama and the heartache of high school, and this is as close as she can get.
             She leans in close to the mirror to study the ineffectiveness of the water/towel maneuver, and inspects the increasing diameter of the pores on her nose. She quickly looks away, and in the mirror she spots the reflection of strawberry flavored body spray on top of her daughter’s cabinet. She sprays it on her chest. Feeling delighted with herself, a feeling similar to the one she felt as a little girl trying on her mother's lip liner, she tentatively picks up her daughter's body glitter. She unscrews it, and scoops up a glob onto her right index finger. She takes a deep breath; the pink crystals of youth are staring at her from the tip of her finger. Slowly, she transfers half the glitter onto her other index finger, and sweeps both upon her eyelids. The cool feeling of the gel combined with the way her eyes sparkled back at her in the mirror was enough to forget about the raccoon eyes and the cavernous pores. She feels a rush, scoops out another glob and rubs it sensually upon her shoulders and her decollate. She delicately dabs it upon her cheekbones and studies herself in the mirror. Closing her eyes, she breaths in the saccharine aroma of the body spray then opens the door and tiptoes down the cold marble hallway, hoping Robert wouldn't stop her and ask why she smells like a junior high schooler. Pop tarts, she tells herself, I'll tell him it's the pop tarts. She dims the lamp so her sparkles wouldn't catch the light.  She's relieved to find her bedroom husband-free. Frantically, Susie rubs the body glitter onto a towel, then throws it into the trash to hide all evidence. Shit, she thinks, and reaches back into the trash to secure the offending towel, now with a tampon stuck to it. She throws it into the laundry bin, and slips out of her clothes into a lavender robe—a wedding gift from her sister-in-law, and heads downstairs for breakfast.
            Her daughter is picking at her Pop tarts at the breakfast table, when Maria passes her a note. She unfolds it, and ten thousand dollars in cash falls to the floor.
   I'm Sorry.
       Love,
        Robert
 She slowly looks up. Maria and Marilyn are both staring at her. "What?" she gives them a defensive look and walks calmly back upstairs.

            Meanwhile, Robert is passing through Tucson, Arizona. He decides to stop at the Wal-Mart in his old part of town. He loads his cart up with potato chips and boxers. As he heads towards the register, an idea comes to him and he stops in the hair care department. At first, he compellingly browses the hair mousse, but as soon as the middle aged bottle-brunette walks off with her grey hair disguising rinse, he searches the boxes for the color. He can see the box vividly in his mind, although he has no idea of the name of the brand or color, he recognizes the peachy blonde woman with the seductive green eyes immediately as he examines the wall of color that so many women hide behind. He heads to the cash register with his purchases. Embarrassed over his hair dye selection, he neglects to make eye contact with the woman ringing up his items. He stares at her chest as she hands him the receipt. Marilyn, her nametag shouts at him. Marilyn, he thinks to himself. Shit, Marilyn.
            Overwhelmed with guilt, he flees Tucson indefinitely. To his wife’s dismay, he left his cell phone on their kitchen counter. He knows he has to call soon, but keeps on putting it off until the next exit. Highway 10, heading east—exit 235, 36..300. He stops in El Paso for the night, having decided on Austin as his final destination. He stops at the Rosalyn Inn. One of the nicer hotels in the area, it offers a busboy service. Although his luggage isn’t quite a load worthy of such assistance, he’s exhausted, physically and emotionally; he indulges. Sprawled out on the maroon comforter, watching a poorly recorded car makeover show, he hears a knock on the door. It’s the busboy, with his bag. He opens and the man puts his bag on the luggage stand. He gives him a generous tip, and the man passes him a business card. “Hey, you look like you could use this,” said the man.
            He looks down at the card, Late Night Massage Services, it says. He scoffs and puts the card onto the bedside table. He pours himself a glass of water from the MiniBar, and continues watching a 1977 Nova get repainted a muted gold color, with brand new nineteen inch rims. It’s getting late, and without the variety of digital cable, he’s forced into watching infomercials for the Bowflex home gym system. His heart is pounding; he can’t get the guilt of leaving his family out of his mind. There’s no way he’s going to fall asleep, so he picks up the phone and begins to dial the ‘outside line’ phone code. But he pauses, and hangs up. He takes a deep breath, again, dials the code, but this time he finishes. The phone rings twice before a man with a deep voice answers, “Mickey’s Late Night Massage Service,” he says. Getting no reply, the man on the other end clears his throat.
            “Hello?” Robert asks, cautiously.

            Robert has always been a very reserved man, he’s never really had the chance to adventure or experience new things because he and Susie dove straight into marriage from high school. Susie was the only person he’s ever been with, and he’d vowed to keep it that way. The woman arrives at his door, clad in a long yet revealing chartreuse dress. She has shiny dark hair that strokes her lower back when she walks.

            “I’m Carrie,” she says, lowering her dark lashes suggestively. Robert breathes in deeply, but breathes out even deeper, letting go of the tension and regret he’d been feeling for the last fifteen years—the nagging feeling that he’d wasted his entire life; that he’d be stuck in it forever. He realizes with apprehension that this means his decision was final, he could never go back; he would disgrace himself as well as his family. But he finally allows himself to enjoy the purely physical aspect of the act he had come to take for granted so. Hours later, she leaves him by himself in his room. Peeking through his guilt, he feels his sense of self growing stronger. Never again would he succumb to a vacation proposal to a place like Miami, or be persuaded into moving to the Central Valley.

            As Robert makes his way off to Austin, Texas, he takes a couple hours to rest at a truck stop on the way. After getting out of his car, he heads straight for the only bathroom. The mirror has streaks of mud—or something of the sort, down the whole left side. He pulls a box from his backpack. He searches for the English portion of the instructions, as he spreads the paper out over the diaper changing station, and mixes the chemicals in the small flask. The ammonia burns his eyes and throat as he shakes the materials into homogeneity. He stares at himself in the mirror as he slips his fingers into the latex gloves provided for him. The burning only gets worse as he scrubs the cherry blonde hair color into his scalp. He sits and waits on the toilet, building up his guts for 25 minutes as instructed—it’s a miracle no one has knocked, he’s been in there for over 40. A built-in alarm beeps quietly from his wrist. He removes his watch and inverts his upper body to rinse his head in the sink. While rinsing, the ammonia pours into his eyes. When he looks up at his reflection, his hair is Her Color and his eyes are completely shot. But he’s finally worked up the nerve to call.