Beatrice Kent had spent three quarters of a century staring into mirrors, fixing up her face.
A lesser woman would have given up by now, resigned herself. There were plenty of those women here, and not just among the residents but the staff as well. Queen Bea pitied and envied these women in equal measure.
What must it be like to walk, out in the open, in sight of God and men, and not give one jot for how your hair looked, or if your eyeliner was on straight, or that you were wearing eyeliner at all?
Terrible and wonderful, probably. That was as far and complexly as Beatrice could conceptualize it. She never went out without looking good.
She made an O with her lips and then lined them with an unsteady hand—more unsteady by the day, it seemed. She then used a tissue pinched under one of her fingernails to remove the smudges. Growing up poor meant growing up smart; the million little tricks that her mother had taught her, from mixing her own foundation to stretching a bottle of nail polish to its absolute maximum, were all tricks that Beatrice employed to this day, not because she couldn’t afford the finer things but because they had made her a better artist within her medium.
She looked down at her bottles and puffs, her brushes and palettes. Every day her hands got a little shakier, and the materials on her countertop got a little fuzzier. The day she couldn’t put them on would be the day she accidentally fell over the third-floor banister, her head bouncing against every railing on the way down. She’d decided that early on in her tenure at Mercy House.
But they weren’t there yet, not nearly.
Having her room on the third floor not only had its perks—a wider countertop to keep her makeup, for example—but Beatrice also considered living on the third floor her civic duty, to some extent. The poor souls on the third floor were nearer to heaven in more sense than one than those on the second floor. They needed her vivacity. It helped them. This was not pride, it was fact. They needed to see Beatrice walk out of her room under her own power, face painted and hair immaculate. Even those who didn’t spread gossip themselves needed to hear whispers of her bawdy conquests, of her gentlemen suitors, of the broken hearts she’d left speckling their little community.
Queen Bea, a nickname that she’d initially disliked but now secretly coveted, worked hard to inspire hope, to keep passion kindled where it could so easily wither and die. It was not strictly for her own entertainment but for all those who couldn’t: couldn’t get a date, couldn’t stay awake, couldn’t sneak out of their rooms, couldn’t get it up. Beatrice was doing it for the people.
Her appearance at the welcome dinners was part of it. Gail Donner asked Beatrice to attend because she was well spoken, but Beatrice didn’t think Donner was observant enough to realize the best reasons for having her there. Beatrice was the best proof the administration had that life didn’t end when you got to Mercy House, that if you wanted it badly enough, it could be a party on par with those of Roman emperors.
That Beatrice enjoyed herself while providing hope to the little people of Mercy House was completely beside the point. By giving hope to the dowdy dames like Marta Rosen or Candice Amato, the chatty Cathys who never worked up the nerve or energy to go where she went, Beatrice did enough public service to have earned her rewards, secrets she could keep to herself.
Yes, everyone knew about her and Harry Beaumont, but they were supposed to. It may have been scandalous years ago, an interracial coupling, but Beatrice Kent was nothing if not progressive. Harold was younger than most men at Mercy House, but not all the men.
Perhaps Queen Bea’s greatest conquest was the reason she was paying extra close attention to her eyebrows and the smoothness of her hairline.
She was dating a younger man.
She smiled to herself and ran a hand over her scalp, feeling for wispy stray hairs, finding a patch, and then running a safety razor over the hairs until her head was smooth. After that it was a foundation of rubbing alcohol, applied with a cotton swab, and then she arranged her strips of Supertape, bottles of scalp protector, and Ultra Hold.
He was young and strong, even if he was timid and inexperienced in bed. He vehemently denied it, but Beatrice knew that she was his first. If he’d had any friends, this would probably be a point of embarrassment for him, but as the situation was, he was Beatrice’s little secret.
She painted on her protector and adhesive, turned her hair dryer to its lowest setting, and blew onto her bald head until the glue was tacky.
“Beatrice,” Flores said outside the door, just as Beatrice turned off the hair dryer. “I’m going down to the dinner, should I wait for you?”
Beatrice tensed her arms, then quickly picked up the wig and dropped it on her head before she spoke.
“I’ll be right out,” she said, locking eyes with herself in the mirror, lips as sexy as she could make them. “I was just freshening up.”
It was going to be a great night.