Hey, child, smelling flowers?”
She always found me. Every time I stepped outside, she found me.“Yeah, I am, Joy. I’m smelling flowers.” I turned to look at her . Yet her expression seemed lost. She looked at me like a stranger.“Joy, you okay? It’s me, Savannah.”
“Yeah, yeah, Savannah. Hey, baby.” Her eyes sparkled with the recollection of me.“I see you found my secret place.” She sat down on the bench. Her side squeaked under her weight.
“It’s beautiful. Can you believe I never noticed it?”
“You wouldn’t be the first. Most people around here haven’t noticed it. No one has time . Too much craziness going on.” She patted her fading floral. I watched her drift off in thought.“Emily Dickinson, though, once wrote a friend that ‘consider the lilies of the field’ is the only commandment she never broke.”
I chuckled. “I’d just have to add it to my list.”
“Mine too, baby.” She laughed.“Mine too.”
Finally, it was too much. It had to be asked. “Joy, why do you wear that dress every day?”
She looked at me, puzzled.“This?” she paused.“Oh,well, I don’t really know. I guess I just have a couple of the same kind. Just comfortable, you know. So, what’s your favorite one?”
She was back to flowers by choice. I would respect that. “Couldn’t pick if I tried.”
She stood up to leave.“Well, enjoy my secret garden.”
“Where are you going?”
“Oh, got a lot of work to do. A lot of people left to see this evening . You take care of my special place, now.”
“I will.” I assured her. She wandered away. Looking lost. And without commenting on food or facial defects. And no humming. Something was amiss. But she wasn’t ready. I would know when she was.
Paige was sitting on the steps of my house as I cleared the side of Clary’s. “Why in the world are you running in the evening? Are you still dealing with deeply rooted issues?”
I proceeded up the stairs past her, into the foyer.“I am a deeply rooted issue.”
“Well, how much have you packed?” She followed me up the stairs and into my room. “Oh, you’ve packed five entire books. Don’t really want to go, do you?”
I turned to look at her; then I looked into my bathroom and spotted some toothpaste splatters on my mirror. “My bathroom looks filthy.”
She grabbed my arm and jerked me back.“Oh, no you don’t, Miss Hygiene Freak . You will not avoid the question.”
“What question?”
“You know what question.”
I sat down on the bed and looked out of my window and stared up Abercorn Street. “It’s not about wanting to go; it’s about having to go.”
“Is this going to get real deep, because I might need some Doritos and a Diet Coke.”
She made me laugh. I couldn’t help it. Looking at her cute little button nose and perfectly messy bleached-blonde short tresses, she cracked me up. “No, not deep tonight. Come on, help me pack. Grab a book.” I tossed her one from the bookcase.“So, what are your parents doing tonight?”
“Oh, I think my dad went to hang out with your dad at the coffee shop and play some cards, while Mom is at a Mary Kay party with your mother.”
“Oh, that’s right. I forgot about that,” I said laughing.“I should have known Mother would have it no matter what. I bet that’s a sight—a group of women painting themselves up while one poor soul is in shackles.”
As soon as it came out of my mouth, we both stared at each other. And without a word we threw the books in the boxes and took off down the stairs and across the black marble floor of the foyer and slammed the door behind us . We didn’t stop running until we hit “Monument” Square.
“Do not let them see us,” I said, panting and squatting behind a tree. It was close to seven o’clock and the sun had a good thirty more minutes, but they didn’t care; there were enough television crew lights for the seven o’clock news that a 747 could have landed on the sidewalk.
“Lord, if they see us, we’ll be their guinea pigs.”
“They’d take us on as their goodwill project.”
We leaned against the tree, Paige on one side, me on the other, but each of us with a good enough view to enjoy the production.
And a production it was.
Each woman had donned a lovely white terry-cloth headband. Except Miss Amber Topaz; she had chosen a pale pink one.
The Mary Kay representative had them eating out of the palm of her hand.
“Now, ladies . This is the latest in skin care . This mask will continue to purge your skin of its deepest blackheads long after you’ve gone to sleep.”
“Now, that’s a visual,” Paige added.
And before we knew it, each of the nine women was covered in white cream, looking like a white version of the Blue Man Group. And there they sat, for the next ten minutes, while tiny blackheads screamed for refuge across all nine of their little faces.
“I want them to get to the makeup,” Paige said.
“Be patient. Good skin care is essential to your daily skin regimen.” She looked at me as if a poltergeist was about to come out of my body.“What do you know? You use Noxema.”
“Do you forget that is my mother up there?”
“Oh, right.”
The Mary Kay consultant continued.“Now, ladies, apply your foundation smoothly, and make sure it matches your skin tone.”
“I don’t wear foundation,” I offered.
“What’s to cover up?” Paige asked.
“My ever-increasing age, I hear.”
“Let me look.” Paige came rather close to my face.“Nah, you look great. Need some waxing done, there on your lip”—she rubbed the top of my lip, and I slapped her hand—“but besides that you don’t look a day over twenty.”
“You think?” I asked, patting my face.
“Absolutely. Oh, don’t do it!” she yellspered in terror toward the entertainment. But Amber wasn’t listening and with the speed of an expert had applied bright blue eye shadow to her lids.
“Looks like my grandmother,” I said.
“Not as bad as I thought. Kind of a retro-nouveau look. Everything comes back,you know.”She squinted to get a better look.
“Some things shouldn’t,” I assured her. But it did look good on Amber. Of course, that girl would look good in a floral print muumuu.
“Ooh, look at that lipstick,” Paige said, eying the pale pink color that Amber was applying to her lips.
“Ooh, that’s nice. I could wear that.”
“Oh, yeah, that would look great on you, with that pink toe nail polish you always wear.”
“Oh, and look at that blush.”
“Maybe we should have gone to this thing,” Paige said, then looked at me . We both busted out laughing.
As the women finished, applause rose from those pilgrims who had gathered around to watch. Amber struck a pose or two, and mother tugged on a chain. But she did look the best she had looked in weeks. If the poor soul could get her hair washed and that outfit changed, she’d look downright clean.
“Let’s go finish packing.”
Paige stood up to follow me as we headed back to the house.“I could sneak my mother’s Mary Kay book out of the house or get one from that Mary Kay lady and we could order some of that stuff.”
“I don’t think they have books . That’s Avon.”
“Oh, well, I like Avon too.”
“And they’re called consultants, not ‘Mary Kay ladies.’”
“Well, I still want some of her stuff, whatever I need to call her.”
“You just like to spend money.”
“Other people’s, preferably.”
“Me too!”
“Yeah, I know.”