Chapter 15
It began last night with a Target trip to pick up all-new toiletries.
My bathroom cabinets are already overflowing with them but the importance of this dinner begs for new ones, shiny ones, better ones, like if the bottles are full, if the labels are intact, if the packaging is brand-new, then I will be too.
And now I am doing it. Making myself beautiful, or at least bringing my attractiveness up a point or two.
It might seem like a lot of labor for only a mild improvement, but it’s not about the improvement, it’s about the effort.
And what the effort communicates to me. That I’m worthy of this attention, this head-to-toe scrupulousness. Or at least he is.
I shampoo my scalp aggressively enough to wash away my sins, then smear a handful of goopy conditioner onto my hair, comb through it, and clip my hair in place with a claw to let the conditioner seep in.
I scoop a dollop of the sugar scrub onto my legs and scrape it into every pore. There can never be too much scraping, too much sloughing off, of a woman’s body. What is a woman, really, if not silky? If not smooth? If not supple, perky, and poreless?
I rinse out the conditioner and squirt the shaving cream onto my right leg and then my left. I drag the razor with surgical precision, as if it’s my duty, my life’s work. This shaved leg, my magnum opus.
After the shower, I smear on the lip “sleeping mask” and rub in mounds of body butter. I throw back my quad dose of gummy vitamins and smack a mask on my face before filing, buffing, shining, and painting all twenty nails.
I dab concealer on my inflamed spots, spread one pump of lightweight foundation across my face, pat a thin layer of cream blush onto my cheeks and lips, and comb two coats of jet-black mascara through my eyelashes.
I blow-dry my hair and use a round brush on the tips so they don’t poke out, then I sear it with a curling iron because as much as straight-haired people say they love natural curly hair, they don’t.
They love genetically modified, shiny, bouncy, artificial curly hair.
I throw on a fresh pair of black tights, boots, a Lulu-knockoff pleated tennis skirt, a halter top that makes my tits look good, and a zip-up acrylic sweater from Mango that I pluck the pills off of with my fingers.
I am as close to godly as I can be. I am pure. I am lovable. I am exhausted.