Hadley is wearing lip gloss. She’s wearing lipgloss and at times it looks as though she’s kissed a frosted pink donut, and left that donut naked. No glaze. No sprinkles. Just a sorry piece of fried dough. As I’m pondering how to go about talking to Hadley about subtlety and the chastity of reapplication, I remembered a Wednesday afternoon in 4th grade when I found myself standing in the candy aisle of the Pharmacy on Oak Park Avenue. I had a dollar to spend, and that meant I could buy ten boxes of Ferrara Pan Candy. Back then, they were ten cents a box and that was math I could understand. I picked up my usual Mr. Melons, Boston Baked Beans, Lemonheads, and Jawbreakers, and was deciding whether I should double up on some of the boxes, buy some Lick ‘n’ Sticks, or Now ‘n’ Laters, when lo and behold, right next to the candy was the Wet ‘n’ Wild make-up display.
It was the electric blue mascara that caught my eye first. Electric blue. With one simple move I could turn my eyelashes the color of an Old Style bar sign. Then, it was the frosted pink tube of lipstick. It was the most beautiful pink I’d ever seen. It’s what the teenagers wore, and if I gave up the candy, I, too, could look like a teenager.
Wet ‘n’ Wild sold two pieces of make-up for one dollar, and I realized I had a decision to make. I held my Ferrara Pan Candy in one hand, and the soon to be 80s artifacts in another. It was a tough decision. Do I make myself look like a clown or do I rot my teeth? Either way, I’m going to be so happy, and that’s when I realized I could have both: I put back the Lemonheads because those were my least favorite, and decided on the lipstick and three boxes of candy. This would give me enough for tax, plus maybe I’d have some change. If so, I could buy a piece of Bazooka gum and a jelly bracelet at the counter. I’d have a new dollar next week, and could get the mascara and more candy then.
And so it went that I walked home smearing frosted pink lipstick on myself and popping Jawbreakers, delighted with this great, big world and all that it holds. The el rushed by, and I raced it home. I stopped at the antique store on the corner of East and South Boulevard, and looked for the porcelain, life size German Shepherd – the only kind of dog I wasn’t afraid of because it was fake – and whistled, “How Much is that Doggie, in the Window?” My mom sang it to us and she would be in the kitchen when I got home making something delicious. She’d dip a piece of bread in some sort of sauce and hand it to me, and I would eat it, and it would be better than any piece of candy or any kind of make-up there was. She’d tell me about taste and beauty without saying a word.
<3
beautifully written.