The Man Behind the Makeup
by Hannah K
“Daddy, I can’t see you like that. You’re too scary.”
Emma and Leo crowded around their mother, who held the phone so that their dad could see their wide-eyed expressions. Across the room, I gathered my sweater and purse as I prepared to leave. On the other end of the video call, I heard Robbie chuckle.
“Scary? It’s just a little makeup, darlings. Like mum does in the mornings.”
“But you have shapes on your eyes,” Leo declared loudly. “Triangles. You have black triangles.” I could tell from the way his eyebrows came together that the four year old hadn’t yet joined Emma, two years older, in her assessment that daddy’s face was scary. Leo was still processing. Why did daddy leave for work looking like he always did—windswept red hair and gray t-shirt and jeans—only to call from work three hours later in a ruffled jumpsuit with distorted black triangles around his eyes? Why did daddy’s workplace, when he showed them any pictures, resemble a nightmarish carnival?
As I opened the front door of the apartment, Grace, their mother, looked up from the couch with a grateful smile. “Thanks, Maria. Get home safely.”
“Will do. Bye kids, see you in the morning!”
Emma looked up to smile and wave, but Leo was too engrossed in the video call. As the door closed behind me, I heard Robbie continue the conversation. “Were you kids good for Maria today?”
In the elevator, I leaned back against the spotless mirrored panel and sighed. In eight years of full-time nanny work, I’d grown accustomed to the bone-weariness that accompanied a job both physically and emotionally demanding. I also felt a genuine gratitude for what could only be termed ‘a good gig’.
The good gig had its origins back in April, when I met Grace and Robbie for our first in-person interview at the nanny agency. I remembered the moment Robbie walked in, shaking my hand warmly. “It’s great to meet you—thanks for taking time out of your day for this.” As if I was the one with paparazzi lurking on the opposite street corner and journalists offering me a thousand dollars for a ten-minute interview. Grace came in next, in a ball cap and jeans, with a little boy clinging to her waist, and greeted me in her mild English accent, bending down to ask Leo to look me in the eye and shake my hand “like a proper child.”
Robbie Carden was a multi-award-winning theater and film actor who’d recently been cast in a popular musical, and his wife was a freelance journalist and blogger who wrote articles for Real Simple and Bon Appétit. Even so, I was hardly impressed. I had worked for the rich and famous before, and I knew that on a late night, when buckling a screaming toddler into a car seat in the back of a parent’s car, or reminding a parent that I needed to leave work early for a dentist appointment, there were kind hearts and there were cold hearts. So it wasn’t the Academy Awards, the elbow brushes with royalty, or the staggering net worth of the family that drew me to the Cardens.
It was that first interview, when Grace told me that Robbie called the kids every night during his fifteen-minute break between acts, to wish them goodnight. The casual comment caught me off guard. I had spent years working my way up the childcare ladder, from an informal neighborhood babysitter to a professional represented by New York’s most respected staffing agencies. I knew all types of families. I had never seen one like this one. When the job offer came a week later, saying yes was the simplest decision I ever made.
I had been with the Carden family for a month now. Robbie’s show was selling out every night, and he’d just been nominated for a Tony Award. Grace had completed two of the five articles she had contracts for that spring, and had located all the best fresh produce and organic markets in Manhattan. The kids and I had logged adventures to the library, the zoo, the aquarium, and the Museum of Natural History. We’d also taken lots of naps and read through the entire Beatrice Potter collection, twice. Every evening, just as I was heading home, Robbie called the children to wish them goodnight. Most of the time it was a regular phone call, but when he called on video chat, the children gazed in alarm and bewilderment at his painted face. They still hadn’t gotten used to it.
The next morning, Saturday, I arrived at eleven o’clock. Grace was in the bedroom getting Leo dressed, and Robbie was at the stove in his characteristic gray t-shirt and jeans, making scrambled eggs. Emma sat at the table with a face as sour as the plain yogurt dolloped in the bowl in front of her.
“Good morning, Emma, what’s wrong?”
She only scowled and picked up her spoon to drag it aimlessly through the yogurt.
Robbie looked over at me ruefully. “She thinks matinees were invented for the precise object of stealing her daddy away from her.”
Emma sighed loudly. On days when Robbie only worked an evening show, he had more time at home, but on two-show days, he had to leave right after lunch and often didn’t come home until the kids were asleep. According to Grace, before Emma was even old enough to pronounce the word, she hated matinees.
“Why don’t we go to the park today, Emma? Remember those ducklings we found last time? We can bring them some bread.”
Emma jabbed her spoon into the yogurt and it clinked against the bottom of the glass bowl. Then she looked up at Robbie. “I want to go to work with Daddy.”
“Hmm…” I looked up at Robbie helplessly. “I don’t think we can do that. But—”
“Why not?” Emma asked.
“Darling, the show isn’t exactly for children.” Robbie set down a plate of steaming eggs in front of her. “Sometime I’ll take you for a look around the theater, alright?”
Emma was not mollified. Grace came in with Leo, and I went to the fridge to get him some yogurt. Grace sat down beside Emma, who repeated her complaints while Robbie came up to the stove and scooped eggs onto Leo’s plate.
“This job was easier when I was young.” His voice was low. “When it was just me and my dreams, mum and dad cheering me on. Now…” He didn’t finish, because Leo came up reaching for his plate, but he sighed.
What was it in his eyes—self-doubt, regret? I felt something flare up inside me. He had no cause for shame, I wanted to tell him—he was a better father than a hundred doctors and lawyers and Wall Street stockbrokers. I should know. In the last eight years I had worked for quite a few of them. The father of my last family didn’t attend his son’s parent-teacher meetings, much less make him scrambled eggs for breakfast. Robbie Carden worked eight grueling shows a week—dancing, singing, who knew what else—but mornings still found him swinging his children up onto the bed for tickles and cuddles. Yes, he practiced bawdy theater songs in front of the bathroom mirror, and his wife hated how the kids repeated the lyrics. But I had seen him sprawled on the floor playing with matchbox cars when he could have been out drinking at the celebrity club.
How could I tell him that, standing at the stove in an apartment kitchen? I was a nanny, not a life coach, and I’d only known this man for a month. Emma was asking for ketchup, Leo was asking about the ducklings, and the moment, if there had even been one, was gone.
Soon after Robbie left for work, Grace headed out for an appointment. The kids played on the patio while I packed a picnic lunch for the park. They were excited by the prospect of reuniting with our duckling friends. We had packed everything up, locked the front door, and were waiting for the elevator, when my phone rang. It was Robbie.
“Hey Maria, I’ve got a massive favor to ask…”
I never got tired of the British accent and word choice. Robbie had forgotten an important document he was supposed to bring that day for his agent, and he didn’t think he’d have time to come home for it in between shows. Would I mind bringing it over to the theater?
“Sure, no problem.” I had already turned back to the apartment, key in hand. The children trailed behind me, asking if that was daddy calling.
“I know you have the kids, but I called Grace and she’s all the way in Brooklyn. Take a taxi so you don’t have to worry about the tube with the kids. I know Emma wants to see backstage, so I thought if you bring them at intermission, I’ll have a few minutes to show them around.”
“I’m sure they would love that.”
“Love what?” Leo was already vibrating with four-year-old excitement. “Is Daddy coming back?”
“Thanks, Maria,” Robbie continued. “I’ll text you the address and what time intermission should be. You can come to the stage door, it’s directly left of the main entrance on 52nd. I’ll give you Jacey’s number. She’s the backstage manager so she’ll unlock the door for you. Got to go—thanks again!”
As I searched Robbie’s desktop for his folder, the kids peppered me with questions. Hearing that they were going to see Daddy at work brought huge smiles to their faces. Emma climbed onto her parents’ king-size bed and bounced around like a pinball.
“We’re going to work, we’re going to work,” she chanted gleefully.
Leo tried to climb onto the bed, but it was too high for him, so he resorted to grabbing a pillow and smacking it against the silk duvet.
“Yes, yes, yes!”
“Alright, kids.” I was smiling even as I made a mental note that I’d need to rearrange the bed after corralling them out of the room. “We still have time for the park if we leave now.”
The park had lost its allure, but it was still an hour and a half till Robbie’s intermission, and the kids needed something to keep them from exploding with anticipation. It was I who looked for the ducklings. The kids could only think about one thing. They had visited the set of their dad’s last film, they told me, but all they had seen was the ‘buffet tent’, and the only fun part was eating Goldfish and trying on Daddy’s stethoscope. The mention of the stethoscope confused me until I remembered that Robbie’s last acting role had been that of a cardiologist who transformed into a ravenous werewolf and spent each full moon hunting down his former patients. I guessed there was a reason the children had only been allowed in the catering section of the film set.
Twenty minutes before the appointed time, the children and I left Central Park and I waved down a taxi. The theater was only a handful of blocks away, but I was grateful to avoid a long walk with kids into the dissolute jungle of Times Square and the Broadway district. The taxi driver seemed professional, but when he found 52nd Street partially blocked by construction cones, he unceremoniously ordered us out of the car, telling us that we had arrived. So we walked the last stretch, Leo gazing up at the advertisements on the giant screens and Emma tapping the tops of the construction cones with her water bottle.
I spotted Robbie’s face before the kids did—on an eight-foot-tall poster high above the theater’s main entrance. I had seen the poster in advertisements all around the city, but after my casual chat with Robbie that morning, the eeriness of the photo struck me differently. In it his character crouched in an unnerving position, the green glow of a neon club sign lighting up his leather shorts, sleeveless knit vest, elbow-length black gloves, and a droopy silk bow around his neck. His hair was slicked to the side, his face unnaturally pale, half highlighted with rouge and half in shadow, and a black bowler hat perched on the side of his head as if held there by an unknown force. All that coupled with the vaporous smirk on Robbie’s face left my stomach slightly nauseated, but I had to give it to him—he was a good actor. Thankfully, though he would be in costume when the kids saw him, he wouldn’t be in character.
The kids were busy looking at the Lion King banners at the theater across the street, and their tiny statures made the poster above us go unnoticed. We passed under the overhang in front of the main entrance, where smaller posters displayed Robbie and other characters in various colorful poses. Emma recognized her dad this time.
“Look, it’s Daddy.” She skipped her way up the sidewalk. “I’m so excited.”
A few paces down, we found the stage door, marked CAST AND CREW ONLY and locked on the outside. I called the stage manager to tell her we were there. The street was quiet, since the shows were currently in session, but as we waited, two women walked past, slowing their pace to look up at the giant poster.
“Creepy,” said one woman.
“I know.” The other woman arched her eyebrows. “I used to like that actor but his recent stuff is kind of disturbing.”
“Is that Robbie Carden? I hardly recognize him.”
Emma and Leo turned their heads.
“Yeah.” The second woman made a face. “Weird guy.”
The kids looked up at me. They couldn’t see the poster from where we were standing. The women walked on, passing us on the sidewalk without a glance.
“Do they know Daddy?” Leo’s voice was uncomfortably loud.
I pushed his blond hair back and shook my head. Emma’s face was crinkling with concern. “Why did she say he’s a weird guy?”
“They don’t know him,” I said weakly, wishing the stage manager would hurry and open the door. “Are you guys ready to see backstage?”
Leo nodded, but Emma turned to gaze at the two women further up the street.
“Is Daddy weird?”
“No, Emma, of course not. Some people say unkind things about people they don’t know.”
The stage door opened with a metallic clang, and I breathed a sigh of relief. Jacey was a short woman with curly hair and long dangling earrings.
“Hey, hey, you guys!” Her enthusiasm immediately lightened the mood. “You must be Emma and Leo! My gosh, your dad talks about you all the time.” Smiling broadly, she ushered us in.
It was an old, historic theater, and ‘backstage’ was mostly a maze of damp, brick-lined hallways, skeleton iron staircases, and tiny dressing rooms lit to excess by industrial fluorescent lights. I found it intriguing that such a mundane, almost scrubby building would be the workplace of celebrated actors and directors. Jacey led us down an empty hall to a half-opened door, marked “Robbie” and decorated with stickers of clowns, bowler hats, and Illuminati-style eyes. She motioned us in. “He’ll be offstage in a few minutes,” she said. “The show’s going great—he’s on a roll today! Great energy for a matinee…”
She went out, still talking cheerfully. “That’s Robbie…always bringing the energy with him…what a guy!”
The children were perky again, and they were so intrigued by everything in the dressing room that I had to admonish them not to touch anything. There was a clothing rod along one wall—Robbie’s blue jeans and t-shirt tossed over a hanger amidst outlandish costumes. There was a cluster of makeup items in front of a mirror, an array of knick-knacks, papers, and sticky notes, and photos taped up everywhere.
“Look!” Emma had already found a picture of herself. “That’s when we went to the Statue of Liberty.”
I was looking at their school photos, curious to see the children in their proper English school uniforms. On top of her head, Emma wore a giant red bow. It reminded me of the droopy black bow Robbie wore in the poster, and I turned to look at some of the photos showing scenes from the show. From the looks of it, Robbie was right about the show not being for children. The best word I could think of was risqué, and that was probably generous. The creators of the show had somehow managed to combine horror and bawdy comedy into what looked like a sickening spectacle.
I looked hard at a photo of a painted-faced villain before realizing that this too was Robbie. The costume was completely black—something between a deranged clown and an inky vulture. It was tight in some places and baggy in others, with a huge, tattered ruffle around the neck, and the chest lined with small bones in the shape of ribs. His hands were claws, a tight black mask covered his hair, leaving his face painted white except for two black shapes around his eyes. Triangles. In a moment it dawned on me that this was the costume that Robbie wore when he called the kids—at intermission.
I hadn’t prepared the children for this. I looked down at Leo, who had picked up a prop dagger during my moment of distraction. I carefully pried it from his hands and fumbled on the desk for the sheath.
“Kids, we’re going to see Daddy soon, and remember he’ll be in his costume…”
Somewhere behind us, an audience roared with applause. They sounded wildly drunk on some intangible ecstasy. They screamed, and kept on applauding.
“Daddy’s costume might surprise you at first…” I tapped the photo on the wall. “This is what it looks like, okay?”
They weren’t looking. They’d heard voices in the hall and were poking their heads out the doorway. I came up behind them to see actors in black feathers and garish leather vests and green fur coats and necklines so low I pulled Leo back into the room and beckoned Emma. “Let’s stay out of their way. Daddy will be here in a minute.”
Seconds later, we heard his voice.
“Did the kids make it?”
Before I could stop them, Emma and Leo popped back into the hall. I came out after them to see a tall black monster weaving his way through feathered performers. My heartbeat seemed to slow. Robbie Carden couldn’t have had a more convincing transformation from father to villain if he was Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. He pulled the clawed gloves off and tucked them under his arm. The mask came off to reveal his tousled red hair, but the black and white face paint seemed even more alarming by contrast.
I felt the children shrink back against me. Robbie came up smiling his easy grin; he dropped his gloves and mask along the wall and knelt in front of the kids. “Emma, Leo, come here darlings!”
The children stood stone still. Robbie’s smile weakened—he glanced up at me, and my heart seemed to skip a beat in time with his.
“I’m sorry about the makeup, loves.” He reached out his arms. “Does Daddy look a bit scary?”
I looked down and saw on Leo’s face the same puzzled, processing expression from the day before—and even in that moment, it faded. He smiled, bounced forward, tumbled into his daddy’s arms.
“It’s just like you when you say goodnight,” Leo said, hugging him. “Except it’s not bedtime.”
Emma took a cautious step forward and Robbie encircled her in the hug.
“It just surprised me,” she said, glancing back up at me. “I knew it was Daddy.”
I nodded, and she grinned.
Robbie gave the children a quick walkthrough of the backstage areas and let them peek out from the wings to see the stage and the audience milling about, buzzing with conversation. Emma declared that the theater was much better than having Goldfish in a stuffy old movie tent. Leo worked up the courage to try on his dad’s claw gloves, asking him whether it was fun pretending to be a scary bird.
When we got back to the dressing room, a voice was coming over the hallway speakers.
“Five minutes to curtain, five minutes to curtain.” Robbie hugged the children and promised to call them at bedtime.
“We won’t be scared anymore,” Emma declared suddenly. “Now we know it’s really you.”
Robbie smiled and kissed the top of her head, leaving a smudge of gray makeup.
As Jacey hustled us back to the stage door, Robbie hung back as if wanting to speak to me. Eyes on the children a few paces ahead, he spoke in a low voice.
“Have I quite traumatized them?”
I almost chuckled before I caught the sadness in his eyes. The distorted black triangles seemed to droop like heavy tears.
“They’re too young,” he said. “I frightened them.”
“I’m sure they’re fine.”
He gazed down the hall as the stage manager swung the door open and the children stepped outside, the afternoon sun gleaming on their red-gold heads.
“I never used to think about the roles I took,” he said rapidly, as if the words had been too long waiting their turn to come out. “I never thought about it, till I had kids.”
“Well, you’re thinking about it now.”
He smiled faintly and walked with me to the door, where he held out his hand politely to indicate that I could go first. “Thank you.”
With a nod, I took Emma and Leo’s hands in mine.
“Two minutes to curtain,” the stage manager said enthusiastically, thrusting the black mask into Robbie’s hands. “We’ve got a show going on and the people want more of ya.”
“Emma, Leo, I love you…I’ll call tonight.”
“Love you, Daddy!”
As the stage door swung shut, I glanced back one last time. Robbie Carden was squeezing a black mask in his hands, brows knit under black makeup, thinking.
Hannah K is halfway grown up and enjoys writing fiction, wrangling kids, and generally being alive.
Artwork: Josip Racic 1885-1908 Café on the boulevard
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