New Notebook

A new notebook, with paint sample tabs, fork-raked paint, and discount yarn. I'm using it for daily writing prompts, inspired by The Painted Pear's art-a-day and Deb's Daily Art Thang. Yesterday's topic, my first, was "makeover." This is a very rough piece, written quickly, with only minor revisions made as I typed it into this post.
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Sometimes the clients don't like the makeover--they believe that purple velour leggings makes their thighs look huge, that red lipstick is so Cruella DeVille. Carla would like to remind these women of what they looked like when they first walked into her shop--rooster bangs, pasty complexions, high waisted "mom" jeans--but she doesn't. If she were to be honest with herself, even after she works her Paul Mitchell magic, some ladies don't look much different. It's not the clothes, for they certainly are new, tailored to the correct contours of a body rutted with stretchmarks and cellulite. It's not the makeup, applied carefully with a sponge to conceal spider veins, adult acne, and fine lines. It's not even the hair, painted carefully with golden--never brassy--hightlights, then razored into a chic bob. It's what Carla can't makeover, a dish-pan hand spirit, the "lay still till it's over" sexuality, the despair that accompanies impending unemployment--the children are in high school--"we're gonna need to lay you off."

Carla believes in herself, as adept as she is with scissors, a blowdryer, and an oversized round brush. She believes that she could educate her clients, if only they would allow themselves to consider the idea of trading frosted lipstick for matte, or pitch the coupon caddy from the purse. She would say--go barefoot on a sticky sidewalk, swim in a man-made lake, try tampons instead of pads. What Carla does not believe in, however, are her clients, the ability of people to let go of something comfortable, no matter how unsatisfying it is. "Hack it all off," some of the women cry, and once she does, they immediately start calculating the months until it grows back. "I'll try some blush," the more daring ladies announce, but when she peers at them from the window of the shop after the appointment is over, most are sitting in their cars in the parking lot, rubbing at their cheeks with a Wet-Wipe from the glove box.

Carla closes the shop by flipping the sign, then lights a cigarette. She carefully counts the money in the cash register. Business is down; people just don't seem to want makeovers like they did in the '80s. Now, it's all about surgical enhancement. Only one fifty today; ten years ago, there would have been a dozen.

As she takes the last drag of her cigarette in her "smoke-free" shop, she thinks that it might be time to replace the wall paper. She wonders if she should go with stripes, and whether a Laura Ashley floral pattern would be too-old fashioned; maybe a solid color might make the shop look larger? She shrugs. What difference did it make? The clients would still be the same, the cash in the drawer at the end of the day would still be the same, and she would still be the same. The only thing different would be the view.