This was an unanswerable question and one I immediately suspected she asked of all the women who took a seat in this chair. She pulled a giant syringe out of a drawer and, expurging a thick beige cream, patted it around the upper and lower lids of my left eye.
The result was like one of those magic science tricks—tiny dinosaurs that grow 1,000 percent in water—but the opposite.
Gone were the puffs and the lines. The skin around my eyes was miraculously smooth.
My mood immediately lifted. If I could get rid of my puffs that easily, perhaps I could get rid of all of my lines. Younger face, fresh life. Maybe it wasn’t over after all. Maybe I could get on that big ride one more time.
The voice of Russian youth broke into my reverie: “Did you know we’re having a special? Four hundred dollars for the product and then you get a free facial,” said the modelly guy, who had strolled over to see the results.
“A facial, huh? You mean the whole face?”
I examined the skin around my eyes. If they had something that worked this well for the rest of my face, I was desperate to try it.
And so I bought the miracle depuffer cream for four hundred dollars and booked an appointment for the facial the next day at three. “You’re lucky,” said the older guy. “Krystal is here tomorrow. She will do your treatment.”
“Who’s Krystal?” I asked.
“She is the miracle worker of the skin.”
“She’s a goddess,” agreed the modelly guy.
“She is the Mother Teresa of youth.”
And on and on they went about this mysterious Russian woman named Krystal.
“All I can say is, whatever she tell you to do, you’d better do it!” exclaimed the older guy.
Fuck. What the hell had I gotten myself into?
* * *
Whatever it was, I woke up the next morning determined to get out of it. Apparently the Russians sensed I might do this, because at nine o’clock sharp, I got a call from the girl at the store.
She was confirming my appointment. She told me how lucky I was. Krystal was going to see me, and Krystal was going to change my life.
I didn’t have the nerve to cancel.
I expected the treatment was going to be something high tech and slightly medical. Instead, I was led over to yet another lighted makeup counter where I took a seat on a revolving stool. I must have looked skeptical because the crew kept coming by to extoll Krystal’s virtues. She was a skin genius. The older man informed me that I was very, very lucky that she happened to be in New York because she was almost never in New York.
“Where is she?”
“Traveling all over the world. She goes to California. Switzerland. Paris.”
“And Russia? Right?” I said.
He gave me a funny look.
When they finally left me alone, I took off my glasses so I could see my phone. Krystal immediately came strolling out of a short open hallway.
She was very, very attractive. She was wearing a crisp white shirt, a black pencil skirt, and black pumps. She had white-blonde hair and eyes with light-blue irises encircled by a darker blue band. The tops of her breasts were visible through the open-necked collar of her shirt. She was carrying an iPad and a notebook, the kind you buy at the drugstore. There was a sharp air about her. She exuded purposefulness, as if she were playing a role.
She also had a pimple on her chin. I saw it when she leaned in to take a closer look at my skin.
The pimple worried me. Did she not use her own products? Did any of these kids use the products? Like me, they probably couldn’t afford them. None of their skin was that great.
And neither was mine.
Krystal stepped back and looked at me sternly. “What kind of person are you?” she asked.