Paint

In honor of those of us who are irresistibly swayed by cosmetics.

One sunny afternoon, Mama and I waited for the bus in front of Miller’s Department Store. I had just walked through a flotilla of bays lined with confection-colored products. Mama’s rule, look with your eyes, not with your hands, was firmly in my mind as I mentally traced the rounded, neon edges of the counters. Each item displayed was designed to entice female passerby with promises of beauty, and I was enchanted.

Tired after a day of downtown shopping and mindful of the bus schedule, Mama hurried us out onto Locust Street. Naturally, I wanted to stay and poke my finger into every beautiful pan of eyeshadow and then swipe a rainbow across my brows.

To keep me quiet, she dug into her purse for the tiny, bullet-shaped Avon lipstick sample she had been given with her most recent order. She handed it to me, and I popped off the white cap to reveal a frosted pink mound. The top was shaped into a sharp horizontal line, an aesthetically perfect choice but one terrible for application.

Instinctively, I knew this wasn’t Mama’s color. Her auburn hair and blue eyes would clash with the icy undertones of this shade. This lipstick, however, looked like one my Mammaw wore, and since people were always telling me that I looked like my Mammaw, I thought it might work nicely on me.

I thickly outlined my lips with the soft, slightly greasy pellet. Rubbing my lips together the way I had seen ladies do, I looked around for a reflective surface.

“Excuse me,” a woman said to my mother, “she has your lipstick.”

Mama looked at me in that way that mothers often look at daughters when they know they are about to be pressed into a decision that has far-reaching consequences.

“I know,” she said wearily, “I gave it to her.”

I closed the sample and handed it back to her to keep until we got home and I could put it on top of my dresser. Perhaps I would reapply while watching the Mandrell Sisters on TV later that evening.

Finally, the bus arrived and we climbed on board. Settling into the seat and as content as a cat in the sun, I looked out the window and thought about lipstick all the way home.

I was 3 years old. For some Southern women, the siren call of the (marginally) more respectable type of ‘painted lady’ beckons at a tender age. 

June 25, 2021