If my name were a color instead of this dull word, it would be red, the red of my mother’s favorite lipstick, tucked into the flashy gold tube bought special at Mott’s Drugstore downtown; a remote and costly red; a seamless slick; the red of a smile sliding easy-on when needed, then easy-off. Water-repellent and long-lasting. This red might stain sheets and shirt collars, might whisper invitations across shadowy, steamy bars; this red’s good enough leftover in any mirror come morning.
If my name weren’t my name, I would be this red lipstick she loves, this lipstick I gaze into, I inhale, when I sneak through her dusky bedroom to her dressing table, the temperature of my skin cool, cooler, the way a fever finally breaks. This red, this scent of a bucket of Valentine’s Day carnations in the refrigerated case at Eicher’s Florist, of a blown-out birthday candle saved from a Saturday birthday.
There’s the hollow for my mother’s own two lips. My finger strokes that groove, glides the length, rests this lipstick gentle at my lips. And there’s the lipstick fitting me. My lips fit. There’s her footstep, quick like a colt. I know quick: I bite and crush. There’s oily shards, a slippery something that’s unreasonable to swallow, that I swallow anyway, that I push down, because here she comes, here she comes. She’s quick.
What I want is to see her seeing me at her dressing table. What I want is her to smile, which I want so bad, but this right now isn’t a smile for me. It’s a smile at me, a laugh, the ugliness of a guffaw. A laugh’s so different than a smile.
“Oh Krista,” she says. “Make-up won’t help your face.” ~~~~~
