You Look Marvelous

Eleven am and transit is humming along. She's timed it so she hits the pocket beween the morning crush and the late lunchtimers heading back to the office after a three martini mixer. The heat is rising and people are overdressed from the cool, crisp morning. By mid afternoon it's downright balmy, definitely not October weather. She peels off her jacket, unwinds her scarf but leaves her cap on, only because her hair is now completely soaked to her forehead. Hat hair is too much to pull off right now, given her circumstances. With her sunglasses she's rocking out the celebrity incognito vibe. The beauty of big cities, where no one looks twice. The aesthetician said two days tops then it'll settle down. She feels like Groucho Marx. The whole point of waiting for cooler weather is that it's easier to camouflage. Sweaters, hats, scarves, heavier makeup. The twenty degree heat only increses the swelling and flushed face. Plus the groupon expired at the end of the week. She had to use it all in one shot now, seeing as the recomended time between sessions would have pushed her beyond the end date. Go big or go home, that's how Jacquie rolls. She hadn't considered permanent makeup until she ran into Courtney in the gym one morning and noticed how alert and fresh faced she seemed for 6 am bootcamp. Her own brows had started to thin and those deepening laugh lines were decidedly unfunny. Everything seemed magnified, elongated, more pronounced. Surely some stripping and filling, some cosmetic inking would be a subtle way of addressing her age. It's not really "work" unless scalpels are involved. Injectables and lasers and diamond studded discs that grind away the layers of stress and unhappiness are maintainence, self care. It all gets reabsorbed somehow so really, it's not permanent. This is the bill of goods Jacquie's sold herself. The tattooed eyebrows will take some getting used to; apparently they'll look more natural once they scab over and peel off. She lifts her fingers to gently dab the sweat tracing a faint brown line down her brow and onto her chin. It's hard work making life look easy.