Chapter 15

Carmen was placing the letters she had just retrieved from the mailbox on the coffee table when she heard Shane’s tentative call for her. “Carmen…” She ran over and poked her head in. She saw Shane standing in front of her dressing table which was normally sparse except for the usual deodorant and the tube of Duwop Lip Venom: except it was now filled with a wide assortment of various make-up items. Shane was biting her lower lip and looking at an eye shadow palette of numerous colors. She turned around and saw Carmen staring at her face. “What?” She looked at herself self-consciously in the mirror. “Will is taking me to the Universal Music gala dinner or something….so I’m putting make-up on ….” This was the first time Carmen saw Shane with full foundation on and her skin looked lucent and dewy-soft.

“What do you want me for, Shane?” Carmen asked as Shane started rubbing at her eyes with a tissue. “You know…I tried putting eye shadow on myself and I either end up looking like a garish freak or like someone just punched me in both my eyes,” She raised both her hands in frustration. Then she looked at the tissue with a look of disgust and threw it in the bin.

“Why don’t you get a make-up artist?” She looked at Carmen with a look of exasperation.

“Because I don’t want a fucking stranger poking at my eye!" She studied her reflection and looked increasingly peeved.

“Okay Shane sit down….let me do it for you…” Shane sat down on the seat with a slightly mortified look.

“You’re not gonna make me look like some cabaret dancer right?”

“Well if you don’t keep quiet and close your eyes, maybe I’ll do just that,” That sentence certainly had the desired effect on Shane as she obediently closed her eyes.

Carmen stepped between her spread legs and leaned down with the eye shadow brush in her hand. She was so close she could see the length of her eyelashes resting on her lids. She applied an even coat of pearly beige from the crease of her eyelids to the space beneath her brow. It was disconcerting to be this near Shane, and Carmen could hear her own erratic heartbeat in her ears. She brushed the second coat of eye shadow, which was a sooty black, onto the crease of the eyelids. Using her little finger, she blended the two colors and smudged it lightly to give it a more subtle look.