Chapter 8: Lipstick, 1989

by Elizabeth McWillams

My father thought I was growing up too quickly – somehow too sexual for a fourteen year old. He didn’t tell me this exactly. But I could tell by the way he looked askance at my cut-off jean shorts, or turned away when I pouted up my lips every time I looked at my reflection – which, these days, was quite often.

While at home, my only two occupations were racing to the mirror at every pause the day afforded me, or picking up the phone to check that there was still a dial tone – that my younger brother hadn’t left it off the hook as was his toddler tendency. I couldn’t afford to miss a single call from either Tessa or Nathan and every cell in my body was poised to pounce at the first jangle of an incoming call. I lived those moments at home in a tortured state of shrill expectancy and the staggering fear of missed social opportunities. It was truly exhausting, both for me to experience and for my father to witness.

But that was the state of things and, at the time, I felt I was on top of the world. My hair was long and glossy, my waistline slim, my breasts soft and gently swollen. Every day offered up a thrill – smoking cigarettes with Tessa along the railroad tracks that ran along Otter Creek, sharing a set of headphones with my sister on the front porch while we listened on our one walkman to the mixed tape a friend had made, kissing Nathan in the summer shadows just before curfew. I was my own person now, full of strident independence and brazen self-righteousness. And I really needed lipstick, preferably zinc-pink. All the pretty girls were wearing it.

One evening I got an excited call from Tessa about plans she and some other friends had made to camp overnight at the Vermont Reggae Festival. This summer the festival was scheduled to be in St. Johnsbury, in the Northeast Kingdom, out in some farming fields surrounded by rolling hills, stone walls, silos and red, wooden barns. Far from home and curfews, insinuating questions, morning Beethoven and silent pauses. I immediately called Nathan and asked if he could go. Yes, of course he could. His mother always gave him a long leash, most likely because she was a single, hard working divorcee who really didn’t know how to contain him. I would often see her washing a cup at the kitchen sink, her shoulders slumped forward in quiet defeat, worry lines deepening between her brows. At first she would offer up pitiable protests to Nathan’s requests and demands but then, seeing his anger flush red in his cheeks, she would back off and cave in. She did not pose even the slightest challenge to our plans and schemes.

That just left my dad. But it was a good time to put forth a request. My social activity over the past few days had been nil to none, we had shared several meals and discussed my summer reading at various points. My conversational, literary contributions had improved and I had recently completed a summer writing workshop with accolades. I was somewhat in his good graces, despite the lace bra straps that I would carelessly let slip from my shoulder and the blue eye shadow that I had recently acquired from the cosmetic aisle at Ben Franklins. He just might say yes – and he did, once he confirmed with Tessa’s parents that she was, in fact, going – along with her university-aged brother as a chaperone.

This brother, Carl, would let us loose into the festival as soon as we’d found a parking spot, supplying us with a case of Corona (as was promised) and a loose plan to meet back at the car in 24 hours for the drive back home. It was truly the perfect set up, all I needed to do now was find some lipstick.

My bag packed, I looked around my bedroom, fingers drumming on top of the dresser, wondering if I had enough audacity to steal into my stepmother’s purse. She had recently bought a new lipstick from the Lancome kiosk at the Burlington Mall, and its warm raspberry hue, named Dare Me, glimmered with soft subtlety whenever she wore it. I would admire her from across the table when she took it from her handbag, removed the cap and twisted the lipstick up from its gold casing. That action alone, of taking up the sparkling lipstick case and applying it perfectly, without a mirror, seemed the height of sophistication and glamour. She surely wouldn’t miss it over the weekend (she had several lipstick tubes rolling around in the depths of her purse) and I surely would enjoy it.

So, I took it. My stepmother was in the kitchen making dinner with my dad and her purse was left open on the hall table by the front door. It was such a simple theft that its ease seemed to justify the action. And it wasn’t stealing, merely borrowing. I would return it as soon as I got back and no one would be the wiser. I was, in all senses of the word, truly delighted.

The Reggae Fest turned out to be everything that I imagined it would be. Carl waved us off in the parking lot, cautioning us only not to get “too drunk,” and I found Nathan easily. He was waiting for me by the food vendors along with a couple of his Burlington friends. We made the round of introductions and then started off toward the spot Tessa had designated as our campsite. As we were walking along, Nathan pulled me close to him and asked in a whisper if I was wearing lipstick.

“Yes,” I replied, feeling immediately self-conscious. “Do you like it?” I smiled up at him and batted my eyelashes, all in an effort to hide my embarrassment and appear coquettish.

“Well, you always look pretty. But I’ll never kiss you with all that plastic gunk on your lips.”

Stinging with humiliation, I walked over to a food vendor and, taking a paper napkin from a dispenser, furtively wiped my lips and threw away the tissue in a trash can overflowing with paper plates, ears of corn and cold French Fries.

When I retuned to the group, Nathan kissed me squarely on the mouth saying, “Now let’s get this party started!” And that’s exactly what we did.

The next afternoon I returned home in the early evening. It had been a hot, muggy day and I was tired from dancing directly in the sun in front of the stage as band after band took their turn at the microphone. My ears were ringing because we had been close to the speakers. I was dirty, sweaty and looking forward to a shower.

After greeting my father and stepmother, who were both a bit stand-offish, I threw my shoulder bag, unpacked, onto my bed and headed to the bathroom. The hot water was invigorating and I let it pound on my neck and shoulders and just stood beneath the stream, leaning against the shower wall.

When I returned to my bedroom, towel wrapped around me and hair dripping wet, my stepmother was sitting on my bed with my shoulder bag in her lap, holding the tube of Lancome lipstick and rolling it back and forth in her palms. I didn’t say anything at first, and neither did she. We just regarded each other quietly. The cicadas outside began to chirp, the chirping quickly escalating into a loud, prolonged shrill that sounded like an alarm. Finally, I whispered in a hoarse voice, “What are you doing?”

“Well, I see you found my lipstick. Want to tell me how you got it?”

“Oh, is that yours?” I countered, pathetically. “I thought it was Tessa’s. She said she had left her favorite lipstick here and I brought it to the festival to return it to her. But then she said it wasn’t hers. I was going to return it to you, but I…..”

My stepmother put her hand up to stop me and said, “Enough, Katherine. You knew perfectly well that this was mine. You were with me when I bought it. I don’t know what your mother lets you get away with, but in my house it is not ok to take whatever you want.”

When I didn’t say anything, she added “I had my suspicions so I decided to search through your bag while you were in the shower. That doesn’t feel very good, does it? To have someone go through your things.”

Feeling cornered, angry and ashamed, I walked over to the far side of the room and stood by the window, looking out at the lawn below. My father was standing above the lawnmower, wrenching at the starting pull. Just then I noticed that my knees were shaking and that my legs felt weak.

“Don’t you have anything to say?” my stepmother asked.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I really am. It was an honest mistake.”

“Really, Katherine? Finding ‘your friend’s’ lipstick in my purse was an honest mistake? Do you have any idea how ludicrous that sounds?” My cheeks were burning and a cold sweat broke out under my arms, but I didn’t dare look at my stepmother and just stood there, staring down at the floor. She waited a moment, and then finally sighed.

“ You know, Katherine. Sometimes in life it’s just easier to tell the truth.” Clutching her lipstick, she stood up abruptly, letting my bag fall to the floor, its contents spilling everywhere. “Dinner will be ready in an hour,” she said over her shoulder as she left the room, closing the door firmly behind her.

I looked back down at my father, a pain stinging in my throat. He had gotten the mower started and was pushing it along toward the driveway, leaving a silvery wake of clipped grass behind him. The shrilling call of the cicadas had been drowned out by the loud hum of the gas motor, so that even a passing car glided by silently. I felt a sudden and strong urge to go down to the lawn and join him, to work along behind him like I used to do, raking the cut grass into piles and tying them up in yard waste trash bags. But that possibility of sharing a simple, domestic chore with my father, where nothing stood between us, seemed as remote and unlikely as it would be to run to the immediate refuge of my mother, who was at least a four hour’s drive northeast from my father’s house. I knew my stepmother had told him about my theft. That he most likely considered it an issue between the two of us and would therefore not get involved. But I also knew that I had added one more sliver of disappointment to the lens through which he viewed me. His image of me was becoming bloated with thoughts of a careless, thoughtless girl. Defeated, I leaned my head against the glass windowpane and cried.