Le Maquillage

I couldn't do it. Buy eye cream and hair dye at the same time, I mean. It would be too big of a blow to my ego, or something.
     I need to buy lipstick. At least the older women I work with sometimes tell me I should. They're my mother's age. Once I said to them, in tones they'd never use, "Oh, you'd look so nice if you'd just put on a little lipstick."
     "Then we'd pinch your cheeks," one of them said.
     "Thanks, Mom," I said, and they both smiled.

My grandmother who still wears makeup feels it's a sign of dignity. Like even when she was in the hospital for awhile and her hair grew out all gray and it was so beautiful, not all bouffanted up, etc., but she was ashamed—mortified, like she didn't even want us to see it—the opposite but the same as when she once dropped off their old, blind, male poodle mix at the groomer's for a shampoo and he came back all blow-dried with purple bows on his ears and went under the table and wouldn't come out for an hour. He was deaf, too, but he still knew we were laughing at him. But Grandma, she looked great.