Facepaint

Facepaint

I tell myself it is art. I get to paint faces all day, that’s something. There’s not much you can do with an art school degree. Being a makeup artist isn’t the furthest possible stretch. The best part of the job is undoubtedly the colors. My favorite is Deep Night– a shade of eye shadow, so blue it is nearly black. You take a tiny brush and run a thin line under the eye, feathering at the end. It just makes your eyes stand out all big and wide. A happy client has become my new masterpiece.
I’ve been working at the Laura Mercier counter at Saks Fifth Avenue in downtown Boston for nearly three months now. All the counters in Saks have distinct personalities. I was hired for Laura Mercier because I have a neat brunette bob and aristocratic bones. I look like a New Yorker, chic yet restrained. Across the way from me is the Clinique counter. All the girls over there have blond ponytails and wide uncomplicated eyes. The Lancôme counter is always staffed by dark-haired girls with heavy eyeliner and red lipstick. I think they are supposed to look French. But the best counter in the whole store is the MAC counter. It isn’t even a counter; they’ve got a whole little set-up in the corner with several different stations and mirrors everywhere. Techno music sings out from tiny speakers and the whole section looks like a mini-nightclub, one of those clubs with a doorman who lets only the beautiful people in. I could never work at the MAC counter.
The MAC counter attracts all the walkby traffic. Most browsers don’t buy much but still, it breaks up the monotony. On a Tuesday afternoon it can get pretty dead here. We aren’t allowed to bring books or magazines so I am forced to stand around feigning alertness and taking covert sips from my latté. I read all the colors of the eye shadows and the lipsticks and try to imagine what sort of evening I would have if I were wearing Forbidden Red lip liner. Not that I get out much. My girlfriend is the stay-at-home type. I had heard rumors about the domesticity of lesbians but when I fell for Sandy I chose to ignore that fact. Now two years into this relationship I’m beginning to think there must have been an awful lot of couches on the isle of Lesbos.
The girls here think I just have a female roommate. I have learned the hard way that it is much easier to pass than to come out to casual acquaintances. Sandy hates that about me, she’s a tomboy butch and she wears her sexuality all on the outside. When we are together, it’s clear that we are a couple but when I’m by myself I look like any other straight girl making my way through the world.
Sandy’s been out since high school. Even went to her prom with another girl. I’ve seen the pictures of Sandy, dapper in her tux with her platinum buzz cut, her girlfriend dressed in strapless taffeta. I went to the prom with a steel-jawed jock who brought me a browning gardenia and tried to get me drunk on MeisterBrau. The fact that she’s my first girlfriend never ceases to come up whenever we fight. She’s sure I’m going to go back to men any second and no amount of convincing ever calms her. Even to my own ears, my protestations of fidelity seem false. There is no true proof I can offer her.
I haven’t painted since I started here. Sandy says that if I were serious about my art I would quit and survive on the remains of my grant money. But I am getting used to having a regular paycheck. I like finally being able to afford new clothes and bottles of wine with corks instead of screw tops. All that starving artist crap is lost on me, I want to be comfortable. Sandy’s more idealistic. She teaches women’s studies and is working on her doctorate in feminist history. I love the girl but sometimes all her political correctness just wears on me. If I have to go to one more NOW meeting where the women argue on small points of order I think I will lose my mind. I sit there and apply imaginary makeup to those plain faces. A makeover could do them a world of good but I’m sure they would give me a fierce lecture for even thinking about turning them into painted ladies.
I’m alone here. This counter, my little island. We’re discouraged from chatting counter to counter so I stay put. Because I’m still relatively new here, I try to abide by the rules. Other girls have their boyfriends stop by even though we are advised against that too. I wish Sandy would come in and visit, maybe at lunch hour or to pick me up at the end of the day. I know she never will. One time, she and I were walking through Lord and Taylor, I made her stop at the Clinique counter because I needed to pick up a refill of my toner. They were running one of those specials where you get the free gift. I’m always a sucker for those sample lipsticks, the miniature eye shadows and blushes. They were debuting a new moisturizer and I let the girl behind the counter rub a little into the back of my hand. “It’s great for men, too,” she said reaching for Sandy’s hand. That was the last time Sandy got within ten feet of a makeup counter.
Over at the MAC counter the two people on staff are dancing around to house music and putting false eyelashes on each other. I watch from my vantage point across the room and I pine. For the Laura Mercier counter I am required to wear a full face of makeup but it always has to be reserved and “daytime-appropriate.” At the MAC counter they can wear body glitter and long sweeps of brilliant copper eye shadow. The lead makeup artist is Shar, our resident glamazon. She is about six feet five in stilettos with racehorse legs encased in fishnets. She has long inky hair and big green eyes. I’ve always wanted to look like that, to be the sort of girl who never has to worry about a pair of pants making her butt look big. Not that she ever wears pants; she’s always in miniskirts, those muscular legs on full display.
All roads lead to Shar. The girls at the other counters always drift over there when they have a free moment. Most of the girls here work at the counters by chance and circumstance, they weren’t trained professionally. I certainly wasn’t. But Shar has done makeup for magazine photo shoots and local runway shows. She’s more New York than Boston. You’d think she would be snobby but she has this gawky yet graceful quality and a way of bending her head toward the shorter girls that is pure graciousness.
Sometimes I go over there too. But I haven’t bonded with the other girls here yet. They gossip about boyfriends and movies. At those moments I’m very conscious of my disenfranchised status as a lesbian. Shar doesn’t seem to say much during these conversations either. Maybe she wonders how she ended up here, at a makeup counter in Boston instead of somewhere infinitely more fabulous.
At four o’ clock, my friend Chloe strolls in. She has a standing appointment with me most afternoons. I met her when she was a model for a life drawing class. She has a flawless white body, engineered by a very skillful plastic surgeon. I always do Chloe’s makeup before she goes out on dates. Chloe works as an escort three nights a week. She’s got a couple of regular sugar daddy clients who take her out and pay for her penthouse on Comm. Ave.
Once Sandy and I had dinner at Chloe’s place. Steve, one of Chloe’s “boyfriends” bought one of my paintings for her. It was my first real sale so we all had dinner at Chloe’s place to celebrate. The painting, a huge Alex Katz style close-up of Chloe’s face hangs in a place of honor in Chloe’s white-on-white apartment. She ordered in sushi and we went through several bottles of Moet champagne. I had a wonderful time. Steve was older and rather dry but also sweet. His infatuation with Chloe was so complete that it almost seemed a disability. You never can warn men about a girl like Clo.
Sandy on the other hand, did not enjoy the evening. All the way home on the T (Sandy refused Steve’s offer of cab fare), I had to listen to a lecture on prostitution in Asian countries. I didn’t really understand what this had to do with our current situation but I pretended to listen. Personally, I think Sandy’s got a mild crush on Clo. She’s always had a weakness for the ultra-femme type. She can’t have her so she has to hate her. It’s laughably textbook.
Chloe sits down on the high stool next to the counter. I take a cotton ball and sweep her face clean of the makeup she is already wearing. Chloe puts on a full face just to get the newspaper in the morning: foundation, blush, powder, eyes and lips both expertly lined. Getting her makeup done is not a necessity for Chloe. She has the skills; I think she just likes the touch. She shuts her eyes and tilts her face toward me. Her skin is poreless and parchment-smooth. I am convinced that in another life she was a geisha. She has the calm, gracious yet flirtatious demeanor of a natural-born courtesan. Even doing something as purely functional as removing her makeup I feel the buzz of her sexuality, like the low thrum of electricity that issues from transformers.
As I apply her foundation, careful to blend it in along her alabaster jaw, I notice her gaze sliding over toward the MAC counter. Typical Clo, she’s like a magpie, any bright, shiny object will cause her attention to waver.
“Do you want to get your makeup done over there?” I keep my voice level but I’m a little peeved. My friendship with Chloe never feels secure. I like her but I’m jealous of a life that seems gilt-edged and glittery compared to my own save-all-the-pennies existence.
“Maybe. I’d like to try something different. Steve is flying in from London tonight. I want to look special.”
“Go over there if you want. I won’t be upset.”
“I’ll come back when I’m all done up. I need to talk to you about something.”
Chloe gets up and skitters over to the MAC counter in her Gucci stilettos. She speaks to Shar and positions herself in the chair. Shar attends to Chloe’s face with an arsenal of brushes. She moves with a surety that I never feel. What Shar does to Chloe is art, what I do is no more creative than painting a ceiling.
I have to squint to watch Shar work on Chloe. I’m near-sighted but I’m not allowed to wear my glasses to work because they might distract customers from being able to appreciate my expertly-applied eye makeup. Sandy says that after she gets her PhD and becomes a professor she’s going to buy me laser surgery. I’ll never have to wear glasses again. Unfortunately that doesn’t help me right now. I can see Chloe more clearly, talking animatedly while Shar applies something to her eyelids but I think that is because I have sketched Chloe so many times I know the curve of her face like the back of my hand.
After a quick scan of the room to make sure the floor manager isn’t around, I walk out from behind the counter and head toward Chloe and Shar. Shar is holding up a mirror so that Chloe can survey her own face. The slim handle of the mirror is dwarfed by Shar’s large hand. Chloe looks fabulous. Shar has highlighted her cheekbones with bronze glitter and done some sort of wizardry with her eyes so that she looks like a fairy princess or an Olympic figure skater. She does a little twirl in front of me.
“Don’t I look great? You should have her do your makeup sometime. She could make you look amazing.”
“She’s already amazing,” says Shar in her throaty contralto voice, “I wouldn’t change a thing.”
I don’t reply but I feel a warm glow of happiness spread about my insides. I’ve been noticed. I’m still trying to formulate a witty reply when a customer appears and Shar glides away. I’m reminded of that line in “Some Like it Hot” when Jack Lemmon says that Marilyn Monroe walking away looks like Jello on springs. Not that Shar’s rear view is anything like that. Her butt is more like two softballs wrapped in Saran Wrap. But the scene from that movie plays in my brain. Jack Lemmon sure made one ugly woman. It’s at this moment that it hits me. What if Shar is not really a woman? This doesn’t seem outside the realm of possibility; I’ve met several gorgeous drag queens in my travels .One of the benefits of an art school education is that it also provides lessons in fringe culture.
“Are you staring at her ass?” Chloe says in a tone of amazement next to my ear. “And here I thought you were a one-woman woman. This makes my question a little easier.”
“I wasn’t staring.” Chloe believes that the only two motivating factors in the universe are sex and money. I don’t think it would occur to her that I was just looking for the sheer aesthetic pleasure of it.
“So listen, I wanted to talk to you about something. Remember when Steve came over, you liked him, right? Well, he was wondering...”
“Let me guess, he wants to see you with another woman. Clo, I’m not going to keep having this conversation with you.”
“You wouldn’t really have to do much. We’d have dinner Saturday night and then go back my place and have a few drinks. You and I kiss a little, do some dirty talk and then I’ll take it from there. I’d buy you an outfit to wear and we could eat somewhere really posh. There’s a couple hundred dollars in it for you.”
“Not interested,” I say but my tone lacks authority. Part of me thrills to the idea of a new adventure, not to mention the outfit and the money. Just for one night I could be like Chloe, just an object of desire.
“Now don’t be hasty, I can give you the weekend to decide before I try to find someone else to do it. In the meanwhile, why don’t you have a drink with Shar and I?”
“She’s not going to sleep with Steve.”
“Hardly. Shar is not exactly Steve’s type if you know what I mean. She’s hot in that sparkle-sparkle, shine-shine sort of way, but Steve needs something a little classier. Come out with us, I’ve got an hour before I have to go meet him at the airport.”
I don’t really want to go have a drink with her. I’d like to get home to Sandy, wash the makeup off my face, slide into my sweatpants and curl up on the couch. But it is early and it would only be for an hour. I can pretend I am one of the beautiful people. I pull out my antique silver compact, the one Sandy bought me for our first anniversary, and touch up my face. Shar is reflected in my compact, she is behind me, scrutinizing her own face in one of the larger mirrors. She runs a finger along her jawline. Is she blending her foundation or is she checking for stubble? Now that I think she might be a man I can’t let this go. I’m not sure why this is so important to me.
Why does every restaurant have a mirror over the bar? Shar, Chloe and I are perched on stools in a swank bar on Newbury Street. I am in between the two of them, and forced to confront my own reflection. I look like a daisy between two orchids, a hearty weed that somehow got sandwiched in with the hothouse flowers. It occurs to me that I am jealous of a freak and a whore. Those are the nastiest words I can think of and I use them in my head to soothe me even though they make me feel guilty. Chloe and Shar are talking over me, all ecstatic about the new skirts down at the Betsy Johnson boutique. Their lacquered acrylic nails rap on the counter for emphasis. This is the closest I have ever been to Shar and I take advantage of the mirror to see two Shars, one up close and sharp, the other further away and slightly blurred. Chloe steers the conversation toward herself, telling of her latest exploits in the plastic surgeon’s office.
“So, it hurts like hell, they’ve got the needle jammed up in my lip. I was holding the nurse’s hand so tightly I thought I might break it. The doctor kept asking me if I wanted to stop. I just kept thinking about how great Angelina Jolie looked on the cover of Elle and so I wasn’t going to stop until my lips were at least as big as hers.”
Personally, I hate Chloe’s new lip job. She looks bee stung. I’m glad I painted her before she had her mouth re-done. Her lips were slimmer then but they had a great architectural quality that has been obliterated by collagen. Chloe doesn’t want to be architectural, she wants to be hot, to be sellable. There is something disingenuous about that. She is a package designed for public consumption.
A device in Chloe’s Louis Vuitton backpack emits a treble yelp. Chloe grabs the bag and pulls out three beepers and lays them on the bar waiting for the sound to reoccur. When it does she grabs the beeper that moves and presses buttons.
“That’s Steve, he took an earlier plane, he’s already at the hotel. I’m afraid I’ve got to cut this short girls.” Chloe begins to fish around in her backpack for her wallet. She finds it and lays a twenty on the counter. “That should cover my share. Shar, thank you for the fabu makeup job. And Carrie, we’ll talk later.” Chloe kisses me on the cheek. She slips on her Persol shades and is a chic silhouette in the late afternoon sun before she disappears out the door.
Silence. I drain the remains of my cosmopolitan. Shar and I look sheepishly at the counter. My eyes keep sliding to her large hands, those knobby fingers covered with gaudy costume rings.
Shar glances up at me, “Why are you staring at my hands? Is my polish chipped?”
“Is that a MAC color?” I say indicating her nails. I know damn well, the color is “I’m Not Really A Waitress” red from OPI. I’ve got the same color on my toes.
“Do you think my nails are too long?” She holds a hand out in front of herself and surveys it with a critical eye.
“No. I’d love to have long nails but I paint so it’s just not practical.”
“Maybe I should have them cut down. A girl’s got to be careful not to appear too…”
“Fake?” I fill in.
“Cheap.”
“Oh. I don’t think they look cheap.”
“Chloe said you were a sweet one.” She touches my arm for emphasis. Her arm has a weight and warmth that spread through my silk shirt and onto my skin beneath.
“What else did Chloe say about me?” I incline my head to the left and look at her from under my lashes.
“She said you are a really great artist.”
“I wouldn’t go that far, I paint a little but that’s about it.”
“Would you paint me?” Shar looks at me questioningly. The idea has its appeal. If I painted her I would be able to decipher her. It wouldn’t be like Chloe’s portrait at all. I’d want to do something brushier, a Lucien Freud type thing. With Chloe one needn’t go beyond the surface, but Shar has layers, a sense of bravery and pathos shining from her emerald eyes. And though Shar is beautiful from afar, up close I can see that her skin is waxy with foundation, her mouth so red and shiny it looks lacquered. How labor-intensive her lifestyle must be. The plucking and preening, the hormone pills with their bizarre side effects, not to mention the final surgery. It seems that Sandy who essentially lives like a man, has the much better end of the deal. I think of our bathroom at home, the bottles of moisturizer, toner and other skin treatments lined up on my side of the sink. On Sandy’s side there is a tub of Noxzema and a washcloth. I cannot even conceive of how cluttered Shar’s bathroom vanity must be, the tubes and vials necessary to obtain what I see before me.
“Carrie?”
I realize that I have been staring. I blush deeper than Crimson Panic lipstick. Even my toes are hot. “I could paint you,” I say quietly.
She doesn’t answer. The moment stretches out but it doesn’t feel awkward anymore. I’m conscious of the sweetness of the late-summer air blowing in from the street. Her hand is still on my arm. This feels scandalous and yet I am not sure if I am feeling that because I think she is a man or because I think she is passing as a woman. Part of me does not care. I’m thinking of the painting, of a quiet room and still air thick with dust motes, my hand holding a brush, my mind filled with images and ideas contesting for life.
We walk toward the subway together. The sky is a shade of azure that makes my heart ache to look at it. All along the street men and women turn to stare. I’m used to that. When Sandy and I walk together it is the same thing. But when I walk with Sandy I bow my head, I stay low. I worry for us, Sandy and I, two girls in a not always tolerant town. But imagining that Shar’s a guy underneath makes me feel safe. Like she’d kick the ass of any jerk who even breathed in our direction.
We reach the Copley Square T-stop. Shar’s going outbound, I’m going in. We part company.
“See you tomorrow, artist girl,” she says. She grips my shoulders and plants a kiss firmly on my cheek. Before I can reply she is down the street. How she moves so quickly in those colossal heels, I’ll never know.
I wear Shar’s lipstick print on me like a tattoo. Once I get on the subway headed for home, I take my compact out and look at the mark. It’s high on my cheekbone and crinkles when I smile at my own reflection. I wear it all the way home, not caring if anyone notices or not. Just before I turn the door handle to my apartment I take a tissue and wipe it off.