Miss Julia Meets Her Match (6 page)

Hazel Marie and I arrived early at the tea shoppe and took a table toward the back so we could talk without being overheard. Not that the place was crowded, but most of the diners were seated near the front.

As Hazel Marie and I looked over the menu, a delicious thrill surged through me as the thought of becoming Sam’s wife came to mind again. It was a possibility that I’d been turning over and examining in my quiet moments, trying to look at it in the cold light of reason, rather than in the hot flame of emotion. Which, in spite of what some people might think about aged people, was still a force to be reckoned with. Even though I’d had to expend so much time and thought dealing with Mr. Dooley, counseling with the pastor, and worrying about Emma Sue, I realized that the dream I’d only played with in my mind had apparently firmed itself into a decision.

My heart thumped so suddenly and so loudly that I thought surely Hazel Marie would hear it and ask if I needed a doctor.

I wanted so badly to tell her, but Sam deserved to hear it first. I didn’t know when his proposal had changed in my mind from a laughing matter to a matter of serious import, but I knew it had. Maybe it’d been when I’d gotten out of bed the other morning so light on my feet that I didn’t even moan when I straightened up. But for now, I intended to hold the secret close to my heart, and tell Sam when the time was right. Then I would announce it in the newspaper and tell everyone I knew and, if the preacher would let me, ring the church bells, too. I didn’t know that I’d ever been so filled with joy and excitement, so it was all I could do to decide what to order for lunch.

When Emma Sue came through the door and stood looking around for us, I simply did not recognize her. My first uncharitable thought was that somebody’d had an appointment at the Good Shepherd Funeral Home instead of at Velma’s.

I got a real jolt when I realized who it was. When I did, I whispered, “My word, Hazel Marie. Is that her?”

Emma Sue saw us and began weaving her way through the tables. Heads turned as she passed, most doing a double-take, unsure of what they were seeing.

I’ll admit I was stunned. Emma Sue’s hair was the honey-blonde color of Hazel Marie’s and it was teased up in a bouffant ’do like Norma Cantrell’s. Imitating Hazel Marie was one thing, but copying Norma was an entirely different matter. I couldn’t help but think that Emma Sue suspected her husband of having a thing for Norma, which in and of itself was enough to split the church wide open, and this was her way of showing him that she could backcomb with the best of them.

As she came toward us, I could see that her face was splotched with purplish eye-shadow, rose blush, and shiny fuschia lipstick. Her eyebrows had been darkened, and she had on the longest eyelashes I’d ever seen outside of a package in Eckerd’s Drugstore.

When she got to our table, she took off her coat to reveal a tight pink turtleneck sweater above a pleated gray skirt that hit her right above the knees. A sight that shocked me, since in all the years I’d known her, I’d never once caught sight of them. Below that, she wore knee-high patent leather boots with heels that she’d not yet quite mastered. Her youthful attire would’ve been considerably improved if Emma Sue’s figure had had any shape to it at all. The poor woman barely had a waist, very little bulk above it and too much below it.

She teetered to a stop in front of us and asked, “Well, what do you think?”

That was Emma Sue for you, blunt to a fault. I arranged my face from its shocked state and said, “Have a seat, Emma Sue, and give me time to get used to the change.”

“You look lovely,” Hazel Marie said, as kind and untruthful as only she could be.

Before anything else could be said, a waitress appeared beside our table. She couldn’t keep her eyes off Emma Sue, since by now everybody had recognized her and, in this small town, knew she was the Presbyterian preacher’s wife.

“I’ll have the fruit plate,” Emma Sue said. “I’m working out now and I have to watch my weight.”

“Good for you,” Hazel Marie said. “I’ll have the chef’s salad. What will you have, Miss Julia?”

“A decent lunch,” I returned. “Give me a cup of mushroom soup and a chicken salad sandwich on toasted white with lettuce and plenty of mayonnaise.”

With one last lingering look at Emma Sue, the waitress took our menus and left to place our orders.

Emma Sue leaned across the table and said, “Now, what do you really think? And I want your honest opinion.”

No, she didn’t. That was the last thing she wanted. So I tried to be tactful and helpful at the same time. “It takes a while to learn to use all the beauty products on the market nowadays. So if you really want my opinion, Emma Sue, I’d say a little more practice wouldn’t hurt.”

“I knew you wouldn’t approve, Julia,” she said through her teeth. “You’re as bad as Larry, always wanting things to stay as they are. Well, you’re just going to have to put up with it, because I like it. And I don’t care what anybody says.”

“Did I say I didn’t like it? No, I did not, because I do. I think you’re to be commended for trying to improve on your natural state. All I’m saying is that it takes a steady hand to use all those brushes and creams and colors.”

“Velma showed me how to apply my makeup,” she said, as if Velma were the last word in cosmetology, which, take it from me, she was not. Emma Sue leaned across the table at me, and almost hissed, “At least I’m trying, which is more than I can say for you.”

Well, I hadn’t invited her to lunch to be criticized, but before I could remind her of that fact, Hazel Marie, who couldn’t stand any kind of confrontation, said, “I’ll tell you what let’s do. As soon as we have lunch, let’s go to our house and have a makeup party. I have a bunch of cosmetics, and we can try different looks. Emma Sue, I do love your hair.”

Emma Sue turned a grateful face to her. “I told Velma I wanted your exact color. I hope you don’t mind.”

“Of course not. It is just gorgeous and quite becoming.”

Hazel Marie had the warmest heart. Emma Sue’s hair was neither gorgeous nor becoming, for she had a sallow complexion that did not lend itself to a honey blonde hair color. Still, I had to concede that it looked better than her previous mouse color that had sprouted sprigs of gray around her face.

When our plates were served, Emma Sue only picked at hers. She was more occupied with casting glances around the room, having become aware of the whispers and stares that were aimed at her. She put her hand along the side of her face to shield herself from view, and her shoulders began to slump in on themselves. Far from her head-high attitude when she first arrived, she was now sinking back into her usual self-consciousness. I saw tears gathering in her eyes, and wondered how much Kleenex I had in my purse.

“Larry hates it,” she whispered, dabbing at her eyes with a napkin. “He hates it all. He says I’ve destroyed my testimony, and he doesn’t know who I am anymore.”

“For goodness sake,” I said. “You are still Emma Sue Ledbetter, regardless of the outer covering.” Unfortunately, that was true. It was too bad that all those makeover articles in magazines got things backward. As far as I was concerned, a makeover should be from inside out, not from outside in. But since I’d not tried either way, I wasn’t all that firm in my opinion.

“Oh, phooey on him,” Hazel Marie said, laying her hand on Emma Sue’s arm. “What do men know anyway? I’ll show you how to blend in shadows and we’ll try some different colors to see what’s best for you. Velma doesn’t know but one way to do it, and you should’ve seen me when I let her do a makeover. Pink is all she knows. Just wait, Emma Sue, you’re going to be a knockout, and if the pastor doesn’t appreciate it, everybody else will.”

I shot a frowning glance at her. She was getting too close to the rumors floating around about Emma Sue.

“Well, of course, she’s only doing it for her husband in the first place,” I said, then suddenly realized that I might’ve put my foot in my mouth, too. If Emma Sue feared she was losing her husband to another woman, it was not up to me to remind her of it. One thing I know for certain, when you don’t know who knows what, anything you say can come back and smack you in the face.

Emma Sue sat up straight and looked me right in the eye as if my remark brought her purpose back to mind. “I’m not doing it for him at all,” she said. “I need a change for myself. I’m tired of looking in the mirror and cringing. I’m tired of having people gravitate to Larry and overlook me. I’m tired of being a nobody, and looking like one, too. I want somebody to notice me, for a change. I’m a person. I have something to offer. I’m not just the preacher’s wife who’s not worth a second look. I can have a life of my own.”

“You go, girl,” Hazel Marie murmured, smiling.

“Well, but, Emma Sue,” I cautioned, “you have to consider the fact that sudden changes take some getting used to.” It came to me that she might really be undergoing temptation as the gossips had it and the pastor suspected. But whether it was from Satan, the mayor, or some unknown suitor lurking in the shadows, I couldn’t say. What I could say was that, one way or another, Emma Sue was headed for trouble. And so was the pastor but, in my opinion, he pretty much deserved whatever he got.

When we got back to the house, Hazel Marie led us down the hall to her bedroom. There, she told Emma Sue to sit at the dressing table, which was covered with every beauty product known to woman. I took a seat to the side so Hazel Marie would have plenty of room for her ministrations, and I would have a clear view.

Lillian came in on the pretext of offering refreshments, which we refused, having just finished lunch. Lillian stood in the door for a minute or so, watching as Hazel Marie draped a towel around Emma Sue’s shoulders. After getting a good look at Emma Sue’s pitiful attempt to recreate Velma’s makeup application, Lillian cut her eyes over at me while her eyebrows went up to her hairline. Then she left us to it, since she knew that Emma Sue would not appreciate an audience. Lillian had a sensitive soul.

“First, we’ll take all this off,” Hazel Marie said, swabbing at Emma Sue’s face with a cold cream-laden tissue. “Then I’ll show you a few tricks of the trade.”

Emma Sue’s eyes filled and threatened to overflow as she watched the face she’d been born with begin to emerge as Hazel Marie mopped off the heavy covering and the false eyelashes. Hazel Marie pretended not to notice, just kept up a steady stream of reassuring patter. I was struck with her professionalism and the confident way she went about her work. I recalled that Hazel Marie had once intended to study hair dressing with a specialty in nails, and seeing her now in action, I thought it a shame that her education had been so rudely disrupted.

“Now,” Hazel Marie said, throwing away the last tissue, “we have a clean face to start with. A little moisturizer, then we’ll find the right foundation for you. I have several shades, because I get darker in the summer, but we can mix a couple if we have to.” She began testing a few along Emma Sue’s jawline until she was satisfied that she had a good match. As she began to smooth it on Emma Sue’s face, Hazel Marie said, “You have beautiful skin. You must take real good care of it.”

“I just keep it clean.” Then Emma Sue began to cloud up again. “There’s never been anything on my face but soap and water and a little lotion. Larry always said that a woman’s inner beauty shouldn’t be hidden with cosmetics.” She sniffed, then went on. “The Bible college I went to didn’t approve of makeup, either. So all these years I’ve thought it a sin to try to improve on what God made, but I don’t think he ever intended me to look like this. I look terrible.”

“No, you don’t,” Hazel Marie said soothingly. “Just you wait, the right color scheme is going to knock your socks off.” She stood back and surveyed her handiwork. “That’s good. Not too heavy, and it blends right in with your skin tones. Now,” she went on as she searched through the jars and bottles and compacts on the dressing table, “I think a little blush on the coral side, something very natural looking.”

As she applied the blush to Emma Sue’s cheeks, she said, “Oh, you have excellent bones, Emma Sue.”

“I do?”

“Just wait till I give you some shadows and do your eyes. You won’t believe yourself. Now I’m going to darken your eyebrows just a little with a light brown pencil. See, you just feather it in like this. Now, some taupe eye shadow with a little white blended in here and here to bring out your eyes. Then a little liner and some dark brown mascara. Your lashes are so long, you don’t need false ones. Just be sure you put mascara all the way out to the end. See, like this.”

Hazel Marie worked as she talked, calming Emma Sue down with her compliments and making me marvel at what she was accomplishing. I declare, if Hazel Marie and Little Lloyd hadn’t had more money than they knew what to do with, thanks to the child’s inheritance, I would’ve set her up in the beauty shop business. She would’ve run Velma out of town within a year.

“Open your mouth just a little,” Hazel Marie said and Emma Sue complied, opening up like a little bird. “I’m outlining your lips with a brown pencil, and we’ll stay in that color range for your lipstick. I’ll tell you right now, Emma Sue, pink tones are not for you. You are a true autumn, and you should stick to fall colors when you pick out your clothes. You know, like the golds and rusts and sage greens. What you want to do is wear a block of color, not break it up with one color on top and another on the bottom. A block of color will make you look tall and elegant.”

I looked down at my gray shirtwaist and wondered if that qualified as a block of color.

“And,” Hazel Marie went on, “if you don’t mind my saying so, Emma Sue, I’d like to see you tell Velma to put a light brown color on your hair next time. Then she can pull some strands through to give you blond streaks and highlights. It’ll go so much better with your coloring. I can wear my hair in this honey blond shade because I’m so fair, but you have a warm, healthy glow to your complexion, and you need something that will complement it.”