Age Before Beauty

by Virginia Smith

  “Because Betty hardly ever holds her or anything. She was here with us all weekend, and I think she only picked Joanie up twice. She never offered to change her. Whenever you or Joan or Tori are here, you can’t put her down.”

  “Allie, Betty isn’t like us. She’s quiet and probably very shy. Maybe you should make it a point to ask for her help instead of waiting for her to volunteer.”

  Allie tapped a finger against the phone. “Yeah, maybe you’re right.”

  “I’ve got to go, honey. Good luck. I’ll talk to you later.” The phone clicked in Allie’s ear. She replaced the receiver in the cradle on the edge of her desk and stared at it as she considered her options. Maybe she could call Joan . . . No. Joan wouldn’t be able to leave the furniture store she managed on a couple hours’ notice. And Tori had an important job as a marketing analyst in Lexington, so that was out of the question. Gram? Allie shook her head. Gram would probably love the opportunity, but she was in her mid-eighties and hadn’t fully recovered from breaking her hip a few weeks before Joanie was born. She still relied on a walker for longer journeys, like the one from her apartment down the hall to the center’s dining room.

  She shot a glance toward the baby monitor on the nightstand. Maybe she should take Joanie with her. The memory of Sally Jo’s expression during Thursday’s meeting when both Joanie and Darcy’s son started crying leaped into focus. Sally Jo had specifically said that babies shouldn’t come to today’s makeup demo. Still, if Allie had no choice . . .

  She did have a choice, albeit an unpleasant one. With a sigh, she heaved herself up from her chair.

  “Betty?” Allie stepped into the kitchen. The older woman sat at the table, flipping through the pages of a magazine. Betty looked up. That woman held the record for blank expressions. Her face didn’t give away a single hint at any thoughts that might have been rattling around in her brain.

  Allie slipped into an empty chair. “I’ve got to go to a meeting at three o’clock today. I thought my mom would be able to watch Joanie, but she had to work. I wondered if you’d mind.”

  A spark of interest flared into Betty’s brown eyes, though she maintained her stoic silence.

  Allie went on. “It’ll only be for a couple of hours, just until Eric gets home. She shouldn’t be any problem. I’m sure you can handle her.”

  “Of course I can handle her.” Betty closed the pages of the magazine. “A child that age just needs to be fed and kept dry. I noticed some bottles of milk in the freezer, and though it has been a long time since I’ve changed a diaper, I think I still remember how.”

  “So you’ll do it?”

  Betty inclined her forehead. “Of course.”

  Relief flooded Allie. “Thank you. I really appreciate it. I’ll have my cell phone on the whole time, so if you need to call me, you can.”

  Her lips formed that slight smile. “We’ll manage.”

  Allie got up from the table and pushed her chair in, while Betty watched in her cool, detached manner. “Okay. Well, I really appreciate it.”

  As she turned, Betty asked, “Will you be home in time for dinner? I’m making a low-fat pasta dish.”

  Another low-fat dish. Allie forced a smile. “I should be home by five thirty.”

  She left the room and headed to the nursery to check on the baby, not sure whether she should be relieved or irritated.

  “Okay, y’all, now we’ll apply the final layer—the powder.” Sally Jo picked up a cotton ball. “Watch me.”

  Allie dipped a cotton ball in the powdery pile on the thin foam tray in front of her. Colorful blobs of makeup and concealer filled the tray’s slots so it resembled one of those watercolor paint trays Allie used to have in grade school. She held the face-sized mirror in one hand and, matching Sally Jo’s technique, brushed the powder over her skin with an upward sweeping motion. Seated beside her at the table in Sally Jo’s spotless kitchen, Darcy stared into her own mirror and dabbed at her nose.

  “There. Now for the finishing touch.” Sally Jo picked up a clear plastic box and started at one end of the table. “Let’s see, Kirsten, I think this color suits you.” She set a small lip pencil in front of the brunette and moved to the next seat. “Nicole, you get Chocolate. Perfect for you. Laura, your skin tone cries out for Pearly Peach, and Dusty Gold for Darcy. And for Allie . . .” Allie held her chin high as Sally Jo studied her through narrowed eyes. “Definitely a bright pink. Let’s try Candy Coral.”

  Allie took the lip pencil from Sally Jo’s fingers and looked at it. Pretty bright. As a rule, she didn’t wear lipstick, just a shimmery gloss that Eric preferred because he said it made her lips kissable. But she couldn’t very well sell the stuff if she wouldn’t at least try it, could she?

  “Now, I want you to start at the top and draw a V.” Sally Jo demonstrated with a finger in front of her own mouth. “Then carefully outline your top lip, working from the center out. On the bottom you’re going to do the opposite and move from the edges in. When your whole mouth is outlined, fill it in.”

  Allie pulled the mirror close so she could get a better look at her lips. She followed the outline carefully, then surveyed the result. “I think my lips are lopsided.”

  Darcy laughed, but Sally Jo said, “Most people’s aren’t symmetrical.” She returned to stand beside Allie. “Let me see.”

  Allie lowered the mirror and swiveled sideways in the chair, then tilted her face upward for Sally Jo’s inspection.

  Her brows drew together. “Oh yes, I see what you mean. Here, let me work on you.”

  She held out a hand. Allie, feeling slightly offended that she had to be “worked on,” put the lip pencil in her palm. Sally Jo’s strokes were firmer than hers. Allie felt as though her lips were being pushed all over her face.

  “The good thing about lip pencils,” Sally Jo said as she worked, “is they can correct any mistakes Mother Nature made. They can make a big mouth small, or thin lips wide and sexy. They can even fix irregularly shaped lips. There.” She tossed the pencil on the table and straightened. “Take a look.”

  Allie picked up the mirror and tilted it to examine her mouth. Did she have thin lips, or lopsided ones? Judging by the amount of color Sally Jo had drawn outside her lip line, apparently both.

  “It’s really, uh, bright.” Those lips didn’t even look like hers.

  “Trust me,” Sally Jo said, “you’ve got the coloring to pull it off. That shade is perfect for you.”

  “How do you know that?” Laura looked up from her own mirror. “You picked different colors for each of us. How’d you know which ones to try?”

  “Practice.” Sally Jo put a hand on her hip and smiled. “And the color charts included in your skin care start-up kit help a lot. They have all kinds of pictures of women with different coloring. After a while, you just sort of know what will look good on someone.”

  Allie studied her reflection in the small mirror, moving it around so she could see all the parts. One eye looked pretty good, but the accent color on the outside lid of the other one looked a bit off-center. The concealer she’d layered on brightened a couple of dark smudges she had not realized were there until Sally Jo pointed them out. She held the mirror at arms’ length, trying to see her whole face at once.

  Sally Jo stepped to the sink and pulled a trashcan from the cabinet beneath. She returned to the table and picked up Kirsten’s tray. “Why don’t you girls run into the bathroom and take a look in better lighting.”

  Allie trooped down a hallway behind the others and into a bathroom. Laura flipped on the vanity lights, and the five women squeezed close together in front of the sink, examining their reflection.

  “Wow,” said Laura. “That’s a pretty dramatic change.”

  Kirsten nodded. “It sure is.”

  “She did a good job picking out eye shadow for each of us.” Nicole tilted her head sideways. “I’m not sure about the lip color, though. Do you think mine is too dark?”

  Allie stared at her reflection. A
stranger stared back. “That,” she said, “is a lot of makeup.”

  Laura nodded. “Way more than I usually wear. Maybe this is evening makeup. You know, they say you’re supposed to wear more at night because of the lighting.”

  “Sally Jo always wears a lot.” Kirsten shrugged. “It looks natural on her. If we were wearing professional clothes instead of jeans and sweats, it would probably look better. Maybe we just have to get used to it.”

  “I guess so.” Nicole’s tone was uncertain. “If we’re going to sell the stuff, I guess our faces are sort of like an advertisement.”

  “I really like that moisturizer.” Kirsten’s fingers brushed at her cheek. “My skin feels so soft under the makeup.”

  Allie leaned forward to get a better look at that right eyelid. Definitely not even with the other one. But it was kind of amazing how the placement of a darker shade gave her eyes a totally different look. And her lips! She puckered. She could get used to having wide, sexy lips.

  She glanced at Darcy, who was staring at the reflection with a look of growing horror.

  “What’s the matter, Darcy?” Allie asked. “Don’t you like the way you look?”

  “It’s not that. It’s just . . .” Darcy’s gaze swept down the line in the mirror from Nicole to Allie. “We look like clones. Sally Jo made us over in the Varie Cose image, like Gregory Peck in that movie The Boys from Brazil. We’re the Cose Clones!”

  On the drive home Allie kept leaning to the side so she could peek at her reflection. The more she saw it, the more she decided she liked the new look. She needed a different image if she was going to make a go as a Varie Cose consultant. The old Allie was okay for a social worker. Allie the successful businesswoman needed to project a totally different image. This makeover was definitely a step in the right direction.

  She had everything she needed to make a bundle selling Varie Cose’s most popular line of products. Her new makeup start-up kit—correction, skin care start-up kit— rested on the seat beside her. All three hundred dollars’ worth of it.

  Allie winced. The bank said her credit card should arrive within a week. She hoped it didn’t take too long. The check she’d just written had taken her account balance dangerously close to zero. Hopefully she’d sell a lot of stuff at Mom’s party tomorrow night and could get some money back in the bank before Eric noticed. Besides, she had to have a variety of colors to demonstrate. As Sally Jo said, how could she expect people to buy makeup without trying it first?

  A glance at her watch as she hurried from the car to her front porch gave her a shock of surprise. Time had gotten away from her. A flash of guilt shot through her. She had been away from Joanie for almost three hours, and she’d been so busy she hadn’t had a chance to worry. Her arm brushed her breast as she reached for the front door, and she winced. Her body was not her own these days. She hoped Joanie was hungry.

  “I’m home,” she called as she pushed the door open.

  The delicious odors of oregano and lemon struck her at the same moment the sound from the television assaulted her ears.

  Eric sat on the sofa, his eyes glued to the screen. “Hey, honey,” he said without looking up. “Did you have a good time?”

  A crowd roared, and Allie glanced at the box. Football, of course. It had claimed Eric’s attention all day yesterday too. She wondered if there was a support group for football widows somewhere in Danville.

  “Yes, I did.” She set the bag containing her skin care samples in a corner. “Where’s Joanie?”

  “Mother’s changing her. She did just fi—”

  His words trailed off as his jaw dropped. He stared at her, his eyes going round. “Did you get mugged by a band of renegade clowns on the way home?”

  Allie put a self-conscious hand to her cheek. “You don’t like it?”

  Eric hesitated before responding, staring at her face with as much intensity as he had the television screen a moment before. “Well, it’s different.”

  “Makeup is a top seller.” She tried to ignore the hurt that pricked her feelings at his hesitant tone. “My face is my best advertisement.”

  He continued to stare at her with a sort of horrified fascination. “Couldn’t you just rent a billboard instead?”

  Allie thrust her nose into the air. “Thanks for the support, Eric.”

  She stomped between him and the television, heading for the nursery, but he jumped up to step in front of her.

  “Aw, I’m just giving you a hard time. Don’t be so defensive.” He pulled her into a hug.

  She sniffled. “I guess I’m just a little self-conscious. I want to be successful, you know?”

  “You will be.” He dipped his head toward hers, then stopped, his brow furrowed. “I’d kiss you, but I’m not sure where to find your lips in all that stuff.”

  Allie planted a big Candy Coral kiss on his cheek. “There. Now we’re both wearing the same shade.”

  “Gee, thanks.” He fingered the lip marks.

  Allie gave him a playful whack on the shoulder. “Go back to your football while I go feed our daughter.”

  Eric returned to the sofa. “Mother just finished feeding her.”

  “Oh.” Allie halted her progress toward the nursery, a wave of dismay washing over her. She’d missed Joanie’s dinner.

  “She did fine.” Eric’s tone was distant, his attention already more on the television set than on her. “Ate like a little piggie, as usual.”

  My baby didn’t even miss me. “She took the bottle okay?”

  He didn’t answer or look away from his game.

  “Eric!”

  “Huh?” He glanced up at her, his expression blank. “Oh. Yeah, she took it great.” He picked up the remote and punched the volume up in a not-so-subtle hint.

  Her feelings smarting for the second time in as many minutes, Allie headed for the kitchen to get the breast pump.

  10

  “We all know accidents happen.” Allie stood in front of the fireplace facing her first set of potential customers, her hands clutching her next demo item behind her back. “When you’re all dressed up for a hot date and sitting across the table from a handsome man, the last thing you want to be thinking about is the stain on your skirt where you dropped that meatball. Varie Cose knows that, which is why we developed . . .” She let her smile sweep the room before whipping the item from behind. “. . . the laundry pen!”

  To her right, Joan let out an audible groan. Allie cast a glare in her sister’s direction, but Joan’s attention was suddenly absorbed in playing with her little namesake.

  Allie refixed her smile and picked up her demonstration cloth. “I know you’ve seen these in the grocery store, but the Varie Cose laundry pen contains a concentrated liquid portion of our patented laundry soap, so it really does work better than the commercial variety. Let me show you.”

  The eight women scattered in various seats around Mom’s living room watched as Allie picked up a bottle of mustard and smeared two stains on the white cloth. She held it aloft for the women to see, trying to remember to make eye contact with each one. Mrs. Peterson returned her smile and nodded absently, while Mrs. Faber avoided her gaze by sipping from her glass. Mrs. Vaughn’s brow creased with concern at the sight of the yellow stains.

  Allie set a foam blotter on the coffee table, in plain sight of them all, and spread the white cloth across the top. Rose Mattingly leaned forward on the sofa for a better look as Allie uncapped the laundry pen and brushed gently at one of the stains, as she’d been taught to do by Sally Jo. The yellow mark faded visibly upon contact, and as she brushed, vanished completely.

  Mrs. Vaughn drew a startled breath. “That’s amazing.” Allie turned a smug smile in her direction. “It really is. We have the special patented formula in another form as well.” She rummaged in her bag and pulled out a box, then held it aloft for them to see. “Individually packaged wipes for larger stains.”

  She extracted a small package, ripped it open, and dispatched the sec
ond stain as quickly as the first.

  “I could use some of those things.” Mrs. Peterson brushed a crumb away from her ample bosom. “I have a shelf here that catches everything. Lonnie always says he can tell what I ate by looking at my—” A blush stained her cheeks and she busied herself with a close examination of Allie’s now-clean white cloth.

  “These items work on all stains and most fabrics,” Allie said, “but be sure to try them out in an inconspicuous spot on delicates first.”

  In the recliner, Joan leaned forward and placed Joanie on her legs. “Do they work on spit-up?” she asked dryly, pointing at her shoulder.

  “Definitely.” Allie handed her the towelette she’d just used, and everyone watched as Joan dispatched a white splotch on her blouse.

  “What did you say that item number was?” asked Mrs. Vaughn.

  “Three seventy-two.” Allie tried not to smile as three women wrote the number on their order form. Cha-ching! She walked back to the fireplace, dropped the box of towelettes into her bag and turned a wide Sally Jo smile on her guests. “Those are all the products I have to demonstrate tonight, but I encourage you to look through the catalog.”

  “Can I take it home with me?” asked Mrs. Peterson.

  “Sure.” Allie kept her smile fixed in place. Those catalogs cost three dollars apiece, but of course she couldn’t say no. She just hoped they didn’t end up on the floor of someone’s car. “My number is on the back if you decide later you’d like to order something else. I’ve set out an assortment of makeup samples on the kitchen table. We don’t have time to do full makeovers tonight, but trust me when I say Varie Cose’s skin care products are the best you can buy. And their colors are terrific. Feel free to try them, and if anyone would like to host a makeover demonstration, just let me know. You can earn some very nice hostess gifts. Plus, I offer a 20 percent discount on everything a hostess purchases the night of her party.”

  Mom stood. “Let’s all go into the kitchen and have some refreshments while we fill out our order forms.”