Lipstick Jeanette O'Shea

Mandy crept as quietly as she could. She didn’t want to get caught again. Although it wasn’t lack of stealth that tripped her up last time. In her haste she had put the lid on too soon, and the lipstick had been squashed. Trying to mould it back into its old shape had only made it worse, and she could still feel the sting of Mum’s wooden spoon.

The pale melamine was cool and smooth, as close to marble as Mandy could imagine. As her plump hands cautiously stroked the surface, she stared at the freckled face trapped in the bevelled frame. She thought she looked grey in the dim light of the bedroom. It was time. She had to work this out. It had to work.

The magazine was well-thumbed and chosen for no other reason than that it was on top of the pile, and she had to get out of the shed as fast as she could. The others were all gone now, with all of Dad’s other stuff, and she didn’t think it had been missed. He hadn’t said anything, but was hardly likely to. She started flicking through the pages, listening carefully for the creak of a floorboard, footsteps, a slamming door. Ignoring the huge breasts and even the tufts of fluff which had made her stop and stare in disbelief when she first looked, Mandy propped the volume up on the dresser, like when she was copying a picture from a book for a school project, and reached for the makeup.

As her lips became beestung red, she thought about Dad coming home, and everything being forgotten. The storm blowing over. In this room, Mandy had overheard a lot of things. Her older sister being groped by her boyfriend, Mum repelling yet another salesman, until she finally put a stop to them with her home-made sign: “We shoot every third salesman, the second one just left.” And the last thing she had heard her Dad say. I’ll bow to popular opinion, then. What had Mum been saying to him? Like Mandy couldn’t remember word for word. I’m sick of it. We all are. The kids are sick of it. From the safety of her hiding place, Mandy had screamed I’m not sick of it! Whatever it is, I’m not sick of it! But the shriek of terrified indignation never left her head, so no one ran to comfort her.

Now Mandy stood before the mirror, approving of the scarlet lips, the darkened lashes, the crimson cheeks. She thought she had copied well, and now thought about teasing her hair up, as she tied a knot in her t-shirt to show off her midriff. She knew without a doubt that she had succeeded. She had tapped into what it was that he liked, and become it, and any day now the man in her life would be there. To admire and approve and stop her from being a person with something missing.

EJ BRADY