Magical Thinking - Augusten Burroughs [81]
TOTAL TURNAROUND
Y
esterday I went to Saks and bought Clinique Total Turnaround lotion. The label claims that it “instantly, continuously helps skin feel and look its best by getting new cell turnover performing optimally.” I bought this for Dennis because he is in his mid-forties and uses a moisturizer on his face that was invented eighteen years ago. The technology has improved, was my thinking.
“But I like what I have,” he said when I handed him the sleek gray bag. I’d bought not one bottle but three.
I laughed. “I know you do.” I said this in the exact same tone I might use to speak to a baby or a retarded person. “But it’s old. There are newer and better things on the market.” I then explained, as simply as possible, about alpha-hydroxy compounds and how they are like dermabrasion you can do at home: a sort of chemical peel without the harsh chemicals.
He was not persuaded.
So I took his lotion of inferior, pore-clogging technology, and I hid it at the top of the closet, where he is too short to reach without the stepladder, which is in the front closet and very difficult to get out. Dennis is not a short man; he’s five-nine-and-a-half. But that “and-a-half” tells you something. Short(er) guys always add the “and a half.” Tall people never do this. So I hid his lotion and smiled at my mental image of him jumping up and reaching, jumping and reaching, with his old, prehistoric lotion just slightly out of reach.
When he went into the bathroom, he noticed his lotion was gone and in its place, my new improved lotion gift. “What’d you do with my stuff?” he shouted.
I was now sitting at the computer, which is on the dining room table, e-mailing my friend Suzanne in California. “I hid it,” I said.
“You better not have,” he said with surprising anger. Actually, it was so surprising that I assumed it to be mock.
“Yes I did. All gone. I threw it away.” There was glee in my voice. Glee mixed with triumph.
He scampered back into the bathroom, skidding on the highly polished wood floor like a cartoon dog. I heard him rummaging through the trash can. This made me smile because it’s just sort of cute.
He returned, indignant. “I mean it. Where is it?”
I sighed. “Okay, fine,” I said. I padded across the floor and went to the closet where I barely reached—certainly no stretching—to the top shelf and produced his favorite pale green bottle. I handed it to him and became serious. “But will you at least try the new one?”
“I’ll try it,” he said, but I knew he wouldn’t.
I explained the situation to him, doctor to patient. “Look. This will be better for your skin because it will remove more dead epithelial cells. I mean, I know it’s just lotion, but there have been advances.” I emphasized the word “advances,” knowing that Dennis is wary of advances.
“Fine,” he said. “I’ll try it.”
I was somewhat annoyed by his resistance to change, and I also felt like he was still angry with me for hiding his oily lotion, so when we crawled into bed that evening I said, “Are you pissed at me for hiding it?”
“Yes,” he said, like a child who was very mad at having his blocks taken away.
I smiled and nestled against him. He kissed my shoulder. I’d never felt closer to him because I did know that he was mad and yet it didn’t matter. He loved me enough to be mad at me and not then have to reconsider the entire relationship.
I took this as a sign that things were good between us.
But the next morning, he seemed off. He seemed distant. Dennis wakes up half an hour before I do, and when he’s finished showering, kisses me between my eyes to wake me up. But this morning, there was a preoccupied tone to his voice, and his kiss seemed hurried, almost professional, as though he were paid to kiss me and was contemplating another line of employment.
After I took my own shower I said, “Is everything okay?”
He told me he was worried about a meeting he had that morning. It was with his new client, and things had not been going smoothly.
I felt a rush of hatred toward the client and fantasized about cornering said client