Three Word Wednesday Revisited Glamour, Accentuate, Pitch

The pitch man was hawking youth and beauty.  Accentuate the positive he said.  Be your own boss, have your own company, buy our kit and you will have the holy grail of independence – beauty is only skin deep but profit goes all the way to the bank.  She signed the little contract and the day the package came, headed out to sell, sell, sell.  The first two doors were closed in her face but house number three was another story.  The crone that stuck her head out was hopeless but well, anything would be an improvement so she set up her case on the kitchen table and accepted the offered cup of tea.

“Let’s just hold these fabric samples up next to your face and see how they look with your complexion.” she began.  See how this one makes you look sallow and this one brings out the color of your eyes!” she smiled a professional and confident smile just like the booklet said to do.

“You are definitely a summer!”  she told the poor homely woman.  Truth was, she needed a bag on that head; there wasn’t enough make-up in the world.  The woman just kept nodding and grinning, never saying a word.

“Now we just have to choose colors from this palette for your skin tone.”  She started lining up little pots and tubes on the table.  She took a sip of her tea.  “That’s delicious!” she said.  She started filling in the ticket.  The woman pushed the teacup over toward her smiling.  She took another drink.  She was adding up the total and having a little trouble getting the numbers to stay still on the page.  “You will absolutely adore this tinted moisturizer!” she said. The woman just kept smiling and nodding her head.

She finally got the ticket filled out and started placing the purchases in the hot pink bag with the black logo.  She didn’t feel right.  As she started to place the last tube in the little bag it slipped from her hand it seemed to fall for days and when it finally hit the floor the sound seemed to come from a long way away.  She felt dizzy and the homely woman was helping her to sit on the couch.  That seemed so kind, she would just rest a bit and then she would go on with her route.

When she awoke, she was stiff and sore and tried to stretch.  Her hands were tied behind her and her ankles were tied together.  She tried to scream but there was tape on her mouth.  Her eyes were not covered though.  She could see across from her at the kitchen table, the woman had tubes open and had painted her face with everything in the sample box, in some grotesque parody of glamour. She smiled and pointed to her face, bobbing her head up and down, happy.

I heard a voice call from the back, “Mother, I ‘m home.”