Online Journal 7: Analysis of the Short Story ‘Eye Candy’

At first, Eye Candy was a story I didn’t think I would be able to relate to. It is about a middle-aged married banker, far from the 19-year-old student I am. However, as the story unfolds and more is revealed about the character, I found myself being able to connect to her.

In Tajonera’s short story, we follow Maya as she waits for her husband at a luxurious restaurant. Within the first few sentences, we get to know Maya as someone very conscious about appearances. In the second paragraph,

“Maya, for the life of her, never bothered to
learn such subtleties. But she knew that all these little gestures mattered.”

Here, we see how Maya isn’t really a wine enthusiast or at the very least, someone who drinks wine for the essence of drinking wine but because she knows people are watching, she still tries to present herself as such to show that she, too, is sophisticated like everyone else in the room. In addition to this, she comes off as a people-pleaser, being very conscious about the way she talks to other people in order not to disappoint. We see this trait of hers over the entirety of the short story: how she greeted the young waiter as he served her food,

“Looks great, thanks,” she told him automatically… She knew they
made people feel good and kept her from overthinking things.”

and how she acts in her office,

“Those words, together with all her little gestures in her fifteen years at the bank, the way she, with hands loosely clasped in front of her skirt, listened to her assistant’s marital woes, how she patted the little backs of underlings in the elevator just to say hi, the little keychains and fridge magnets she gave away to managers after her annual trips
abroad…all these gave her an edge, assuring her of a comfortable retirement.”

Her gestures are justified by the line

“People always remembered those little, meaningless things.”

Whether or not this belief is hers, I believe her character embodies this by being very observant and nitpicking on the people around her. We see this early on, as she watches Andrei and the old woman and judging their every move.

“A well-preserved witch, Maya saw, with hair the color of chestnut, skin like ivory, eyebrows carefully sculpted.”

“And the way the witch said it, Oh, Andrei, said it with so much breath as if she’d just climaxed or experienced some spiritual awakening right there and then.”

With that brief encounter, Maya was already able to label the woman and categorize her.

“The perfect column for the witch, with the Demi Moores and the Chers of the world, waiting for fresh meat to arrive while lazing in stilettos in their parlor.”

“Someone accustomed to ordering people around, Maya figured. At least VP level or an utterly pampered housewife.”

The same goes for Andrei:

“He wasn’t a call center agent — no, he didn’t have that unhealthy paleness on him — or worse, an insurance salesman. He looked more self-assured, with some thinking going on up there. An artist, perhaps? At best, an entrepreneur with a staff of two.”

Then, she turns even more bitter as she sees Andrei stroking the old woman’s cheek. Just because of the old woman’s age, she describes this act as almost something very obscene.

“She would hate it, for sure, if Richie would touch her like that in a
public place. Not even in front of the children! It was an unwritten rule. Sure,
when they were young and naïve, when on a whim,…”

She begins to compare herself to the old witch, comparing their appearances.

“Maya watched her smile at the waiter and saw a few crinkles appearing near the sides of her mouth. Maya instinctively touched her own lines, crow’s feet that suddenly showed up after she had her second child”

Here, I realize that her jealousy is starting to manifest. She desires to be as free as the old witch is. This is further confirmed by her recounting about the men who still looked at her in the office.

“There were still a few men who looked at her, she knew, reluctant predators but predators nonetheless, with leaner bodies and faster cars. They circled her workstation, inviting her for a Starbucks run, a working lunch, a cigarette break in-between meetings.”

At the end of the paragraph, she states that giving in to the temptation has indeed crossed her mind but she didn’t entertain it any further. Then, she shifts her attention to remembering how she met Richie, almost as if trying to cover up her desires.

We see a hint of the inner turmoil happening within her the moment she bumps into Andrei.

“Her face was flushed. It was the wine, she was certain.”

She tries to reason out why her face is flushed. Once again, trying to repress her desires. Considering the subtle juxtaposition in the descriptions of Andrei and Richie, respectively:

“…Andrei and his well-moisturized face and his hair all ruffled, glorious.”

compared to

“When he entered, he carried with him the weight of all his years. His hair, his flat tummy, the sparkle behind his eyes gone, all gone. Nobody noticed him, save for his wife.”

Andrei is described as “glorious”, while Richie is basically dull. It comes to mind how Maya still wants what the “old witch” has, something she no longer has and something she actively refuses.

My thoughts are confirmed as she greets her husband with a passionate kiss, defying everything she has been saying she believes in the earlier part of the story — that she is past the time of showing affection especially in public and that people are looking and thus you need to act accordingly.

Thus, the conflict of the story becomes clearer: all along, Maya was contemplating whether to stay content with the current way things are in her marriage or rekindle the sparks that they used to have and somehow be youthful again like the old witch.

It is hard for me to determine whether she developed as a character by her choosing to kiss her husband in public because it could also be something she did to show the old witch that she, too, has a great romantic relationship and that she isn’t jealous of her. On the other hand, we could say she tried to change her belief that one has to act a certain way in public because she kissed her husband in front of many people.

Nonetheless, Tajonera was able to deliver a story with so much detail through an otherwise mundane act as dining. It shows how a person can easily be affected and swayed by the people around her if she chooses to pay too much attention. There will always be things around us that would make you compare your life to others and things that reveal our constant yearning for something more. It is up to you if you choose to loo and entertain these.