Page 45 of Look on the Bright Side

“Oh, my God, you look amazing,” Paulie had said when she hobbled up the stairs to his apartment. “Joy, you’re beautiful!”

But now her breasts looked even more ridiculous, so six months later, she had a reduction, bringing her down to a 38C, as well as more liposuction on her thighs and ass since it was before the days of Sir Mix-a-Lot praising big butts. Her parents said nothing, if they even noticed. Her mother-in-law, a stern Irish woman, had correctly guessed Joy was using her son, and barely spoke to her.

Oh, well. Joy wasn’t done. Oh, no. Not by far. Early tech laser hair removal on her upper lip, cheeks, hands and forehead. It hurt like a son of a bitch and left her face red for days, but it was worth it. She took makeup lessons from one of Paulie’s friends, who was a drag performer. It was the age of “more is more” in plastic surgery, and boy, did Joy want more.

When she told Frankie, three years after their marriage, that she wanted cheek and chin implants, he put his foot down and said no, it was time for kids. If she didn’t agree, maybe they should get a divorce.

Divorce it was. She’d been flirting with a client at O’Dell’s—Carl, who owned a used car dealership, one of O’Dell’s biggest clients. She had a feeling he’d be happy to pay for plastic surgery for a sweet young thing such as herself. She was only twenty-two, after all. Carl’s wife didn’t put out, and his kids were spoiled and disrespectful, “like their mother,” he told her. He gave Joy a diamond ring (a carat, not bad), told her he was filing for divorce and rented her a nice apartment near the ferry, so she could pop across to Manhattan to see Paulie and his crowd whenever she wanted. And yes, he gave her a generous allowance, which Joy had no problem spending on more procedures.

When Carl inevitably dumped her to stay with his wife, Joy quickly found another man, an actual husband this time. George was twenty-seven years older than she was; they dated for two months before she became his fourth wife. He owned a construction company on Long Island. Immediately after the honeymoon, she got two more plastic surgeries (butt lift and another breast reduction with implants this time, to make them “perkier,” by which the plastic surgeon apparently meant “like two cannonballs lodged under your collarbone”). George was pleased, anyway.

Then came the night when he came home all coked up, told her she was a whore and punched her in the face. Unlike her mother, it was one and done. She called Paulie, who came over, beat the ever-living crap out of George and promised him a very short life span if he ever came near her again. Paulie took her to his apartment for a month. George put fifty grand in a Swiss bank account for her…something he and Paulie worked out. As a cop, her brother knew pressing charges would probably result in nothing substantial, not back then.

When Paulie was about forty, he retired from the NYPD and opened a salon, which had always been his dream. Joy was so proud of him. He put her to work as a makeup artist, which she enjoyed, and between what she got from her two divorces, she had plenty. She had a second tummy tuck, an eyelid lift and surgery to give her dimples. Her lips were plumped with the first fillers on the market.

Still, she saw that eight-year-old girl when she looked in the mirror. Fat. Frog. Ugly. Stupid.

But she had Paulie. His friends, his clients, a job in his salon, an automatic invitation to any party he was hosting or attending. She didn’t seem to be able to make female friends, though. Her own mother and both her grandmothers operated in some Italian cone of silence, and it had rubbed off. It was okay, she guessed. She only needed her brother, and with him, she was her best self—funny without trying, sometimes without even knowing; pretty, accepted, kind.

She changed her name legally—she’d changed it both times she was married, but now chose her own name—Joy Eloise Deveaux. It was very glamorous, she thought, and far, far away from that sad little girl she couldn’t seem to shake. Paulie approved.

Then one summer day, a limo was rear-ended by a cab in front of the salon. Paulie invited the driver and his passenger into the air-conditioned salon as they waited for limo number two. The passenger’s name was Abdul. Joy had been working that day, and it was just like the movies—the meeting of the eyes, a charge in the air, a sense of wonder and potential. That second limo took the driver away, but Abdul and Paulie went around the corner for dinner.

Abdul—Abe, he immediately asked to be called—was handsome, well educated, funny and surprisingly down to earth for a man whose wealth literally could not be measured. He was…oh, what was that word? When you can’t stop thinking about someone because they’re so great? Captivated. That was it. Yes, he’d been captivated by Paulie, the gay former cop turned salon owner and hairstylist with so many friends. He loved talking to Joy, asking questions about Paulie and her as if they were aliens from a very charming planet he’d only read about.

Paulie had always dated, but he’d never been in love. Not until now. The two men couldn’t keep their eyes off each other. Abe had an apartment in the super-luxe St. Urban, where his family occupied several floors when they were in town. Every time he was in New York—at least once a month—he took Paulie, and sometimes Joy, out for dinner, sometimes buying out the entire restaurant, sometimes picking up a few pizzas from around the corner, a novel experience for him.

“I can’t believe how much I love him,” Paulie said one night when the three of them were out for dinner at Jean-Georges, reputedly the most expensive restaurant in Manhattan. Abe had gone to take a phone call, and Paulie’s eyes got shiny as he spoke. “I have never, ever felt like this before. I didn’t even know I could. I mean, you’re basically the only other person I’ve ever loved, Joy.”

“Aw, honey,” she said, tearing up herself. “Well, you know, he’s lucky, too, because you’re amazing, Paulie.” She didn’t even feel jealous.

The problem was, Abe was deeply closeted, way more than Paulie had ever been. Paulie had simply not discussed his sexuality with their parents. Abe—Abdul Hamza Mohammed al-Fayez—was from Saudi Arabia, a culture where being gay could be punishable by death. The pressure for him to marry a woman was mounting from his conservative parents—Abdul was thirty-nine and had been ducking and dodging marriage for years. They were getting suspicious. His family business, whatever it was, did plenty of work in New York, and his mother had started tagging along on Abdul’s trips, not letting her son off the leash of family obligations…and cutting into his free time.

The three of them were sitting in Paulie’s apartment in the Village when Abe admitted this, wiping his eyes. “It’s getting harder to get away,” he said. “I hate to lead you on, Paulie. I just don’t know how much time I can realistically spend with you. Last night, my parents introduced me to a girl they want me to marry. She’s nineteen! It was horrifying.” Paulie put his arm around his lover, both their faces awash in misery.

“What if I married you?” Joy suggested, looking at her nail polish. The neon pink had been a mistake. Should’ve gone with red. She glanced up at the two men. “Would that work? I mean, I’m forty-four, so probably no kids, plus I can’t say I really want any. But would that get your parents off your back?”

Paulie and Abe looked at each other, eyes wide with hope.

Within a month, it was done. Abe set up a trust for her, bought a four-story town house right on Washington Square Park—“I am nothing if not rich”—and had the first-floor apartment completely redone for Joy. He and Paulie would live on the top two floors, with one for guests in between them, for privacy.

It was with glee that she and Paulie visited their parents with the news. Dad, who was unabashedly racist, was furious. “You think I’m gonna watch my daughter marry some—”

“You’re actually not invited to the wedding,” Joy said. “Neither are you, Ma. Just figured you should know my new last name is gonna be al-Fayez. Oh. And I’m really, really rich now.” She and Paulie laughed all the way home.

Their wedding was the only time Joy would meet her in-laws, who didn’t speak to her, only glared. The ceremony was at city hall, to cover the shame of their son marrying a white, twice-married, older woman. Joy smiled back. Let them fume. Abdul loved her brother, and if Joy was a prop, who cared?

It was the happiest time of her life. She had plenty of money to keep on chipping and melting and slicing away at herself, and both men thought she was wonderful no matter what. They avoided Staten Island as much as possible, opting not even to go to their father’s funeral when he died from a stroke, which infuriated their mother. Oh, well.

The years slid past in a luxurious, happy blur. Joy still did makeup a few times a month, usually for a bride or a C-list actor. Paulie and Abe included her in nearly everything. When Abe traveled, it was just her and Paulie, and that was great, too.

Sometimes, though…sometimes Joy wondered if there was more to life. She didn’t have a lot of ambition to do anything, really. She tried various things over the years…Abe bought her a luxury apartment so she could flirt with interior design, but once she’d bought sequined throw pillows and an orange range that cost $100,000, she lost interest. Besides, there were an awful lot of wealthy women in Manhattan who considered themselves interior decorators. Getting a client was harder than she’d thought. She tried a lifestyle blog in the days before Instagram, but didn’t get much traction, and she often forgot to post.

It was fine. She was very lucky in so many ways. She shouldn’t want more than what she had, even if she did feel like a costar in her own life.

But then, horribly, Abe sat them both down one night, more than a decade into their marriage, and announced that he was leaving them. He’d been traveling more and more the past two years, and the pressure to marry a Muslim woman and become a father finally broke him. The cost of secrecy was too high. He missed his parents and sisters, and yes, maybe he did want children after all. He was sorry, but he couldn’t do this anymore.

Paulie was broken. Furious. He screamed and threw things, their father’s temper finally showing itself, then fell to the floor, sobbing.

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