My Best Face

MY BEST FACE
I press the tissue to my lips, leaving a perfect kiss – a red Cupid’s bow stains its pristine surface.
I check my face in the mirror one last time before leaving. My face, ever-changing, yet so familiar to me, needs to be on its best behaviour; no betraying me with an escaping tear or a wobbling lip.
I only have one client today and even though she won’t care what I look like, it wouldn’t do to turn up with lipstick on my teeth or smudged mascara to mar the picture. I really do need my best face today… and I really do need my mascara to live up to its promise of being waterproof.
Of course, I always like to look smart for my clients – it’s only respectful, but today is not like any other day and this client is not just any client. Today it’s personal. Today is special. Today is the day when I help my niece to put on her best face.
It’s not the first time I’ve given her a make-over. I’m a beautician – or to give it its more technical name, a cosmetologist and Jennifer has been fascinated by my bag of tricks ever since she was a little girl. From the age of about three, the first thing she’d ask after giving me a hug was,
“Have you got your big bag with you, Auntie Trudy?”
As I drive to the room where I’ll be meeting her for her final make-over, I recall how I made sure never to visit Jennifer without my big bag. I used to keep a special make-up case in there just for her. It contained gentle products I only used on her. I would laugh at her excitement as she clamoured to be transformed into a princess and join in her giggling as the pink sparkly case was removed from my capacious red work bag. I would make up her face and comb and style her long hair before adding the final princess touch – a shiny tiara. She would clap her hands with delight and run off to show her mother my handiwork.
“Look Mummy! Look at my best face,” she would call before coming back to have a go at making up my face.
“You spoil that girl,” my sister-in-law, Michelle, would say, shaking her head as I submitted to the indignity of being made to look like a pantomime dame.
Jennifer’s skills did improve as she got older so I didn’t always end up looking like a dame, or a clown, or the victim of a terrible accident. She finally lost interest in my big red bag when she entered her teens and had cosmetics of her own. Admittedly, she looked like something out of a Hammer horror film when she went through her Goth phase, but she was always a princess in my eyes.
Turning into the car park, I smile at the memories and a tear runs down my cheek.
“Now, we’ll none of that nonsense, Face!” I say, as I scrub the salty rivulet away and get out of the car. “You’ve got to be your best today. Now, don’t go letting me down!”
I won’t need to go through any of the usual procedures before I set to work. I won’t need to read a label on her toe to be sure my client is the one who matches the file. I won’t need to refer to family photos or tear-stained hand-written descriptions to make her look her best. I’ve known this client all her life and I know how to make her look like a princess.
Entering the room where Jennifer is waiting for me, I can see she’s already in her wedding dress. I guess Michelle must have had a hand in that. My sister-in-law has also washed and dried her daughter’s hair in readiness for me to work my magic. Michelle was widowed young when my brother died in a car accident when Jennifer was in her early teens and we’d pretty well brought Jennifer up between us after that. Seeing the awful make-up job on my brother’s face when we went to view him at the funeral parlour was what made me change from being an ordinary beautician to a mortuary beautician. I didn’t want anyone else to go through the outrage that we did when seeing our relative for the last time not looking anything like ‘his normal self but just asleep’. Even his hair had been styled wrong. It was then that I decided that everyone should be given the change to be remembered wearing their best face.
“Well, here we are, Jennifer,” I say, as I open my bag and take out the tools of my trade. “Let’s get you ready for your big day.” I lay the pink sparkly make-up case that’s always been hers on the table beside her.
I smooth the hair back from her pale face, kissing her forehead before I slip a wide towelling band around her head so I don’t get make-up in her hairline. I gently sponge on foundation and rub in a little blusher to bring some colour to her cheeks. I apply translucent pearly powder to her brow bones, blend three subtle shades of eye-shadow onto her closed eye-lids, feather-in eyebrow pencil and comb her brows upwards, ending with a light touch of eye liner and mascara. I stroke her cheek before finishing the look with slick of peachy lip gloss.
“Beautiful!” I say “Your face looks perfect… but we’re not finished yet.”
I give her another kiss before teasing her long, dark hair into a cascade of upswept curls, pinning each one into place with a diamante clip.
My face behaves itself and stays at its best until I reach the final stage of my ministrations – the fitting of the veil with its sparkling tiara. I step back to survey the effect.
“You look wonderful! Just like a princess.”
It’s at this point all the emotions I’ve been trying to hold back hit me like an avalanche. The waterproof mascara I’d so carefully applied proves to be no match for them.
“Oh, Aunty Trudy!” laughs Jennifer, handing me a tissue. “It’s a good thing we’ve got time to do your face again. You look worse than I used to when I was a Goth. Let’s get you patched up. You can’t walk me down the aisle looking like that.”

END
1080 words