“The question is, do you believe in them?” Mrs. Eisenberg presses me. “Stand up straight and own your answer when speaking, because if you don’t believe in you, no one else will either.”
“That’s what I’m always saying!” My mom is thrilled to have a partner in commentary concerning my posture.
I look over at the freebies I have put on the coffee table. The beauty industry is littered with companies with all sorts of claims: wrinkle erasers, skin neutralizers, remedies for rosacea or eczema. Some promise to not just moisturize, but to turn customers dewy. And my favorite, those that claim to be age defying, as if anyone can cheat time. But Brown Butter, Baby! does something different. It recognizes that the skin of Black and Brown people is just as valuable, just as beautiful, as White skin. And products should match people. Match the customer. Yes, my products are all-natural and moisturizing, but they don’t treat the customer as skin, they treat the customer as a person. And for that Brown Butter, Baby! is unique.
“Mrs. Eisenberg, do you think I should apply to be on the showInnovation Nation?” I ask timidly, not wanting her to think I am trying to get to her grandson through her.
“That won’t do, Antonia. What do you want to ask me?” Mrs. Eisenberg insists again, locking eyes with me so intently I can’t look away.
I clear my throat and ball my fists as my arms hang firmly down my sides. “Mrs. Eisenberg, you have built and sold a lucrative record company. You had vision not once but twice in the tech field. That’s more than just luck, that’s a sharp sense for business and investment. In your expert opinion, do you think I should try out forInnovation Nation? I’m not looking for a shortcut for Brown Butter, Baby!. I’m simply looking for the next step forward for my company.”
“I don’t know, I’ve never seen the show.” Mrs. Eisenberg shrugs cavalierly, as if I just asked her if she’d rather have tacos or lasagna for dinner, not if she could help me chart the right direction for my fledgling beauty empire. “You know I prefer movies to network television.”
“What?” I groan, realizing I summoned all that courage for nothing.
Mrs. Eisenberg cocks her head toward the kitchen when the door slams.
“Ask Ash. He just walked in the back door.”
“Ask me what, Bubbe?” Ash saunters into the living room carrying a hand towel. As he pulls the cloth down his face to take in the two of us, my mom minigasps at the sweaty hunk of man standing before us. I reflexively grasp her hand to shut her up, and to tamp my own physical reaction to being face-to-face with sporty Ash.
“Hey, Antonia. Nice to see you,” Ash draws out as he throws back his left leg to grab his ankle for a quad stretch. His upper thigh muscle spreads like a giant bar of irresistible chocolate, thick and smooth. I assumed Ash was the quintessential business dude, only trading his weekday suit for eighteen holes in saddle shoes, but here he is, back from a weekend warrior basketball game looking like he just walked off the cover ofMen’s Health. I focus my eyes on the white stitched Michael Jordan silhouette dunking on the left leg of Ash’s blue mesh shorts. If I don’t gaze somewhere neutral, I’ll be caught staring at the arms I admired all those years ago writing formulas on the whiteboard. In a tank top, his biceps are jacked and glistening from shooting hoops.
“Hi, I’m Ash Eisenberg,” the Air Jordan wannabe introduces himself to my mother, then looks at me, eyebrows raised, calling out my rudeness.
“Oh right, this is my—”
“Gloria. You can call me Gloria.” My mother drops my hand to shake Ash’s, doing her best to come across as a peer, not the woman who birthed me.
“—mother,” I finish my sentence, clarifying even the slightest chance of misreading the situation. My mother huffs her disapproval just loud enough for my ears.
“Pleasure to meet you, Gloria.” Ash tips his head in deference to his elder and plops down in the other wingback chair directly across from us. My mother’s palm covers her heart in a small swoon. A perfected move from her hours of rom-com watching. “What are you two doing over here this afternoon? Keeping my grandmother company?”
Before I can come up with a cover story, Mrs. Eisenberg spits out, “Antonia here wants to be on your show. Can you help her out?”
MONDAY, JUNE 24
The three of us are huddled over my phone screen. In the tense silence, I can hear Krish and Zwena breathing.
4:32 p.m. (Ash)
It’s all arranged. I worked with the producers to get you on the show. The rest is up to you.
I look up expectantly. When I meet eyes with Krish and then with Zwena, both are hesitant to be the first to react. I have been sitting on this text since Friday afternoon because Krish had a twenty-first birthday that night to emcee, and over the weekend he was headlining on the main stage of the Folsom Street Fair in San Francisco. Ash’s twenty-word text couldn’t compete with the dozen or so pictures Krish sent me and Zwena from the DJ booth. There were folks walking their partners in studded neck collars, naked women teetering on stilts, and delicious-looking penis popsicles that Krish reported sold out by noon. Merchants at the stall next to his turntables offered open-air body waxing. And not of legs and eyebrows, Krish was quick to report. Zwena, who is rarely fazed by words or images, explained away the popsicle popularity by responding that it was unseasonably warm forSan Francisco’s typical June gloom. I couldn’t take my eyes off the guy juggling XL-size dildos in various skin shades. Maybe Krish was right and my hued lotions could be used as lube.
Zwena was also unavailable over the weekend. She had to bail on working my table at the farmers market to pull three sixteen-hour shifts to cover for Peter the fry guy’s last-minute elopement to Vegas. I waited anxiously for their busy weekends to end in comparison to my slow one spent side by side with Simon purging garbage bags of baby paraphernalia from the garage, a task we were meant to accomplish before our now teens had become tweens. I spent six hours with Simon reminiscing over all the milk-stained bottles, worn blankets, miniature shin guards, and dog-eared school yearbooks, as if every moment of Lou’s and Coco’s lives he was present for and yearned to relive. Later, I called an emergency Monday-morning meeting at Krish’s apartment to occur immediately after I dropped Lou and Coco off at YMCA camp. Zwena must have recognized the urgency in my voice when I insisted the three of us had to get together first thing Monday. When I showed up, Zwena was already at Krish’s place ready to throw water on another one of my dumpster fires.
“For the record, I didn’t ask him to do this for me,” I offer as an explanation and a conversation starter. A flush of embarrassment rises from my chest to my cheeks. Even in front of these two, who know that I detest asking for help under any circumstance, I can’t quell the heat.
The afternoon at Mrs. Eisenberg’s house had gone from casual and effortless between three women to uneasy and frankly a little demeaning once Ash walked into the room. While Mrs. Eisenberg had coached me to own my worth by asking for a raise at the airport and Christmases off to be with my girls, I figured she was mentoring me to stand up and ask for what I want even if it went against my nature. It never occurred to me Mrs. Eisenberg would do the requesting for me.
Masked as a question, Mrs. Eisenberg all but insisted that Ash figure out how to get me a spot onInnovation Nationwithout going through the regular channels. Ash had just sat there adjusting himself inthe chair, either from social discomfort or from an irritating jock itch. Either way, Mrs. Eisenberg’s query hung in the air like dead mistletoe. No one stood to pucker up with a response.
It was my mother who cut the tension in the room, saving my dignity by bringing us back around to the other reason we were there, to give Mrs. Eisenberg a wash, color, and set. Not waiting for Ash’s answer, Gloria slung her bag of hair products and styling tools over her shoulder and suggested I help get Mrs. Eisenberg on her feet and into the bathroom so she could wash the desert queen’s crown. My mother, usually the last one to leave the presence of a striking man, was astute enough to know that I needed an out, pronto.
With the two of us flanking Mrs. Eisenberg, we shuffled out of the living room. Ash continued to sit in silence. My fear of his answer was met with something much, much worse. No answer at all. And I hadn’t heard a word from him since. Until his text Friday night.
“Girllllll!!” Zwena finally jumps to her feet, whooping and clapping, her hips swinging from side to side, slicing the contemplative air around Krish’s kitchen table. “You got on the show. You. Got. On. The. Show. Yougotontheshow! You’ve been telling me to watch these past few years, but you know I can’t stand watching those pinch-faced wabenzies throw their money around. But,” Zwena asserts with a finger pointed at my heart, “if they want to throw money your way, that I will watch.” Zwena rubs her palms together, indicating her zeal at the idea of my windfall.
