My Black

"Well hello, Dramatic Spring in a Winter Consciousness."

It was the early nineties, and Mr. Munchweiler was calling the New Age health spa where I worked as a receptionist.

"Hello, Mr. Munchweiler," I said cordially.  I appreciated the fact that he remembered who I was, since few of the other patients did.  I would even have bet that he remembered my name, although he always addressed me as he just had on the telephone.  I didn't know exactly what he meant, and I enjoyed not asking him.

Munchweiler said he "did people's colors."  People paid him to tell them what colors to wear and what make-up to apply.  I didn't worry about make-up or the color of my clothes.  I just washed my face every morning with Ivory soap and put on something clean, baggy, and black.  Done.

Apparently, Munchweiler viewed me as a blight upon the fashion landscape.  I viewed him as a human petit-four.  He was very thin, with a sharp, homely face, but I had never seen anyone so meticulously groomed or dressed.  Looking at me upset him so much that one day, while sitting in the waiting room before his high colonic, he decided to do my colors for free.

He approached the desk.  He wore a $2,000 pair of designer wire-rimmed glasses, a robin's egg blue cashmere sweater over a cream dress shirt, perfectly tailored navy wool pants, and cordovan loafers.  He had no stray nose hairs, ear hairs, or blemishes of any kind.  His chin and cheeks were so smooth that he had probably shaved in the lobby men's room on the way up.  No comb-over for Munchweiler.  He must have powdered the top of his head to keep it from shining under the fluorescent lights.

The office soundtrack began playing Nat and Natalie Cole singing "Unforgettable" for the twentieth time that day.  My breathing got shallow.

"Darling," he said, "you are wasting your youth."

I could see where this was going.  I tried to head him off.

"Did you know," I said, "that Nat King Cole did not consent to sing this duet with his daughter?  He was already dead when she made it.  Don't you think that's creepy?"

Munchweiler was undeterred.

"What's creepy is a nice-looking twenty-five-year-old woman dressing like Lurch from the Addams Family.  No, listen to me."  He imperiously waved away any words that might escape my parting lips.  His fingernails were buffed and varnished with a healthy rose tint.

"Colors correspond to the seasons.  Everyone has her season.  Your season depends on your skin tone.  Winters wear black.  You are NOT a winter.  You are a Spring.  But you are not a Classic Spring."  He shook his head emphatically.

"You should NOT wear pastels.  They will drag you down.  You are a Dramatic Spring.  You should wear bright colors, but don't go into neons.  Those are for Summers.  Dark green should be the darkest color you ever wear.  Make it your black."

I looked at him.  He sighed, went back to his chair, and opened a People magazine with Heather Locklear on the cover.

"Everything I own is black," I said.

"So I surmised," he said, not looking up.

I said, "I don't have any money."

"Come on," he said.  "There are thrift stores."

Randi, the colonics girl, opened a door and said, "Ready for you, Mr. Munchweiler."

"And cut your hair," he murmured as he swept by, low enough so Randi couldn't hear.

The day before Munchweiler's next colonic was my day off. I got stoned and stood in front of my bathroom mirror with a pair of scissors.  While I cut my hair short, Billie Holiday sang beautifully, without any of her dead relatives.  I sang along on "And I find the very mention of you / Like the kicker in a julep or two."

The word "julep" gave me an idea.  I pulled on my combat boots and stuffed one ten- and one five-dollar bill in my jeans pocket.  My cat Tiny tried to follow me out, but since we lived on a busy street, I slammed the door in her face.  She yowled out the window.  Better pick up some kitty litter, also.

I walked two blocks to a thrift store.  It was still there in the window, a mint-green polyester dress, floor length, with a halter top.  The clerk was smoking a cigarette and reading the L.A. Times.  She did not look up when I came in.  She was wearing black, and I wondered if she was a Winter.

"How much is the dress in the window?"

"Seven bucks," she said.

"I would like to try it on."

She stalked over to the mannequin, pulled the dress over its head, and handed it to me.  Some ash from her cigarette fell on it.

Behind a fabric curtain, I pulled the dress over my head.  I looked in the mirror and saw that it was not baggy, to put it mildly.

"How do I look?" I asked the clerk.  "Be honest."

"Like Cher with anorexia and a bad haircut."  I noticed her tongue ring and smiled.

"Perfect."  I handed her my ten.

I stopped at the drug store and bought some cat litter.  In the dollar bin I also found some sparkly green eyeshadow, which I applied thickly the next morning after donning my combat boots and new dress.

That afternoon when Munchweiler came in, the Spring movement from Vivaldi's "The Four Seasons" was playing on its thirteenth rotation.  I hadn't planned it that way; I did not even know where the stereo was.

"Hello, Anne Frank," Munchweiler said, unsmiling, sporting a flawless camel's hair jacket.  "You're on the right track."  He sighed, sat down and opened his date book.

Katz was the owner of the health spa.  His parents bought it for him after he got an undergraduate arts degree at a university which has a banana slug as its mascot.  I saw him gliding toward me as I was walking toward Hoyt, my rusted 1971 Volvo.  Katz was tall and slender, with carefully tousled dark curls.  He was dressed in a dove grey silk tunic with dark blue silk pants.

"We're going to have to let you go," he said, looking deeply into my eyes with his usual faux-tender expression.

"Why is that?" I asked.

"It's just not working out," he said.

"Oh."  I wondered how I was going to pay my rent if I could not find another job in the next thirty days.

"I can see you're upset," Katz said, still gazing softly at me.  "Would you like a hug?"

"No," I said, "but you're supposed to have the last check ready when you fire someone."

"Oh," he said, shrugging.  "Well, come on into the office and I'll write you one."

I never saw Munchweiler again, but twenty years later, dark green is still my black.