A woman who looked like a poodle.
The woman behind the cosmetics bar wore a white smock and thick layers of makeup. She greeted us with open arms.
“Just let me get things together. This is going to be so much fun.”
While she was arranging her samples, Nelda nudged me. “Wait until she finishes with us. We’re going to be knockouts.”
I bet.
The clerk returned and started on me. I wasn’t comfortable with someone messing with my face, but I forced myself to relax. She smeared on foundation, and then she started on my eyes. “Don’t blink.”
I sat frozen in place, terrified to move a muscle while she worked. She tilted the mirror to where I could see. A complete stranger stared back at me. The woman in the mirror had smooth, perfect skin, cheeks touched with blush. The eyebrows were more defined, the eyes shaded with dark blue in the creases, lighter shade on the lids. The eyelashes were long and sweeping. Deep rose lips curved in a smile.
“Well?”
I blinked. “So who is it?”
Nelda laughed. “Girl, you are going to knock Sam Littleton’s socks right off.”
I gave her a dirty look.
The total bill was staggering — a month’s rent plus — but I paid without a whimper. Where had that woman in the mirror been all my life?
Nelda was next, and the results were just as dramatic. We walked out of the department store clutching our purchases, feeling like a pair of Cinderellas. Nelda swayed her hips. “You see the way people are staring at us?”
“Do we look good, or what?”
“This calls for a celebration. How about a double-decker rocky road ice cream cone?”
“How about a salad with no-fat dressing?”
She sighed. “Party pooper.”
We stopped at the food court and ordered salads. Nelda speared a piece of lettuce. “You know what? I can’t wait for Sam to get back and see what he thinks of the new you.”
“He should be back by now. But he won’t bother to come to the library again.” Regret hit me hard. Why had I gotten my hopes up? I was old enough to know a dalliance when I met one.
“Don’t you believe it, girlfriend. He’ll hit the door as soon as he gets home, and that man is in for a shock.”
I hoped she was right. Not about the shock, but about the door. And him hitting it. Regardless, I hadn’t made the changes for him. I hadn’t.
I had not.
Later I sat in front of my mirror, face washed clean of the makeup and looking more like Johanna. Little packets and containers littered the top of my dressing table. Beauty in a bottle. A new Johanna was unfolding. Maybe she’d been there all along, hidden beneath responsibilities and inhibitions. Was this the real me? Somehow I didn’t think so, although now that everyone had gotten used to the way I looked, they were quick to praise the new and improved me.
But what did God think? Did he care how I looked? Did he approve this new emphasis on appearance? I didn’t know the answer, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to.
All I knew was that the new me seemed sort of phony.
Thanksgiving Day I ate dinner at The Gardens and played spinner dominoes all afternoon. Sam was not back — or at least he hadn’t called. The following Thursday morning I glanced up from the return desk and froze when he breezed through the doorway and headed in my direction. He looked good. Thinner, tanned, a little tired, but confident. Had he grown in his faith even more in the time he’d been gone?
He stopped in front of the counter, peering past my shoulder to my office. “Is Miss Holland in?”
“Sam?”
He scanned the area, turned to look away, then looked back. He frowned. “Johanna?”
I nodded.
He clutched his heart, staggered, pretending to study the new me. I never dreamed the man could be so theatric.
SEVEN
Doctor Sam Littleton stared at me as if I’d grown antlers. He flashed an even white grin, his face tanned as brown as a berry. “Sorry, you took me by surprise.”
“I had my hair styled.” I touched the spiral mound enhanced with molding putty. Did he like it, or was he (like me) searching for a plausible comment? The style looked great on a twenty-year-old, but on me? I still had my doubts.
He sobered, courteous as always. “It … looks … well, I think change is always good.”
Generic compliment — never good. “Did you have a nice trip?” Nice? What’s with the nice? Johanna, get off it. I managed a more savoir faire comment. “I trust your trip was successful?” I tilted my head, blinking back at him through the thick Revlon eyelashes I’d added to my morning makeup routine.
“It was good, Johanna. I wanted to be back for Thanksgiving, but we had plane delays for a couple of days.” He broke into a smile. “We had three people accept Christ and baptized nine in the Rio Frio. I want to tell you all about it. Are you free for dinner tonight?”
My savoir faire remained intact. “Tonight?” I pretended to review my social calendar. When it came up empty (as I suspected it would, seeing as I had no social life), I replied, “I think I could join you tonight.” I noticed he was focused on my eyelashes and hope surged. He liked the new look — the hair, the makeup, the contacts.
I’d even managed to shed a couple of pounds the last two weeks. With Mom and Pop gone, I didn’t want to cook.
“What’s a good time for you?”
I blinked, still unaccustomed to looking through six inches of thick black mascaraed femininity. Johanna, you are flirting with this man.
Johanna, I don’t care.
“Six thirty.” That would allow me time to go home and change into one of my new dresses and matching shoes (a Nelda thing). I gave him my address and he left, promising to meet me later.
Nelda materialized at my elbow with the subtlety of an elephant at a Tupperware party. “See? I told you he’d be back. What did he say about the new you?”
“He was speechless.”
She smacked her hand on the counter. “I knew it. So dazzled he couldn’t find the words to express his appreciation.”
I preened on the inside. Smugness is a terrible thing in the hands of the wrong person. A squiggle of discomfort that was becoming all too familiar hit me. Was this trim and toned woman with corkscrew curls and sophisticated makeup me? Did I recognize myself anymore?
Would the real Johanna Holland stand up?
Nelda shrugged. “He’ll like it even more when he gets used to it. Takes a man awhile to adjust. Most of them don’t like change.”
Well, now she tells me. Why had I undergone this transformation if not to impress this man? I could kid myself all day long and say the mole needed to come off, the glasses were annoying, and my hair needed change, but deep down I knew why I had gone to all the trouble, not to mention the expense, of a makeover. I could sum it up in two words.
Sam Littleton.
I turned to look at Nelda — friend, confidant, fashion coordinator. Her jaw plunged.
“What?” She was focused on my right eye. I blinked, giving her the full effect of the lashes. “What?”
Her eyes motioned to my false lash as she gathered an armload of books and disappeared.
I blinked. Good grief, the thing was half off! I managed to get it restuck without raising too many brows.
Sighing, I returned to work. Nelda could waste more time yakking than a bunch of utility men digging a hole.
I left work fifteen minutes early and drove straight home. Itty met me at the door. He’d gotten used to the way I looked by now, but I kept any sudden moves to a minimum. The so-called new me had traumatized the poor thing.
I filled his food dish and put out fresh water. “Guess what, pup? I’m dining out with a handsome man. What do you think about that?”
He sat down and cocked his head. His eyes were so bright and alert I expected him to talk someday. He was smarter than most people. I’d been taking him to The Gardens to see Mom and Pop, and half the residents adored him. The
other half hadn’t seen him yet. He missed my parents. His days now were long and uneventful. I had yet to look for an apartment. I knew I couldn’t delay much longer, but too much change too fast was hard on both of us.
I hurried to dress, wanting to be ready when Sam arrived. I showered and then pulled my new gray and white pinstripe suit out of the closet. I spent thirty minutes on my makeup, determined to be subtle but perfect. Or at least strive for eyelash stability. I remembered the halcyon days when I didn’t worry about my looks, just slapped on a little foundation and took off. Now I agonized over every stroke of the lip brush, every feathery touch of shadow. Blend, stroke, layer, line, curl, pat, powder.
I needed to get a life.
The doorbell rang before I had time to wonder if Sam would show up. Great to look at and prompt too. Be still, my heart. I opened the door and turned speechless at the sheer wonder of him. Tall, broad-shouldered, dark silver-streaked hair combed back from his forehead, smiling lips curved beneath a silky mustache. He had a dimple in one cheek. How had I missed that? The man was gorgeous in his gray dress pants, charcoal herringbone jacket, and a black turtleneck. How had he managed to stay single all these years after Belinda’s death?
He had reservations at the Seafood Center, a favorite haunt. I ate there because Mom and Pop didn’t care for seafood and I didn’t mind going by myself. Our hostess showed us to a table by the window. I stared at the well-appointed table and wondered how I, Johanna Holland, had been so blessed. I was having dinner with one of the nicest men in town. My cup was running over.
We ordered seafood platters, with an excellent variety of delectable shellfish. Sam held my hand while he said the blessing. I listened as he asked God to take care of me, and I was overcome by his humble sincerity. Over dessert he talked about his recent trip, and every word was like a hammer blow to my heart.
This man was in love with his work — with the people of Mexico. And Papua New Guinea. People everywhere. Especially those outside the US.
“Have you ever been to Mexico?”
“No.” I’d been out of the state only on rare occasions.
“We’ll go together sometime — ”
“Oh, I don’t fly — ”
“Then we’ll drive. Just past the last intersection in Brownsville on the US side there’s an intersection called Boca Chica. Then there’s a tollbooth. Then we cross a bridge over the Rio Grande and get to the border, complete with guards, razor-sharp barbed wire fencing, and security dogs. The guards may pull us over or they may not. They’re looking for the obvious — drugs and weapons — but more than that, they’re looking for anything we might bring into the country to sell.”
“To sell?”
“Anything that threatens their economy. There are speed bumps every few yards and a muffler shop on the other side.” He flashed a grin. “Convenient, huh? Now we’re in the large city: Matamoros: Wal-Mart, HEB Markets, Pex-Mex gas stations, and Super D’s — similar to our convenience stores. The smell of the open sewers is terrible. They call them black lagoons. There are taco vendors, and schoolchildren dressed in blue and white uniforms wave as we go by. Soon the landscape will begin to change, to look like what you would imagine in Mexico. As we travel deeper and deeper into the countryside, we begin to leave the flatland and sagebrush, and after hours, there it is, a deep fertile land lying between mountains. Pure Mexican culture, our town. The Rio Frio snakes through the valley. It’s beautiful, Johanna. The sugarcane fields, the tropical river. I want to show you my Mexico; I want you to experience the beauty and the fulfillment of working with its people. Then I want you to know Papua New Guinea and its people, the beauty of the land and their culture.”
Oh, if only I wanted the same.
My heart ached as I listened. Sam was so excited, so dedicated. But this was a part of his life I couldn’t share. At that moment it became crystal clear: if I continued to see this man, I was inviting disaster. He would fulfill his calling, and I would be left behind. It reminded me of an old B-grade Western where the cowboy was in love with his horse and the heroine was left in the dust. Except my cowboy was in love with God.
How could a mortal woman compete with the Almighty?
Despite my realization, I didn’t pull away. In fact, that dinner shifted our relationship. I continued to see Sam almost every night, in addition to the hours he spent in the library. In January his work would take him to Papua New Guinea for a month; he had read every book we had about that area of the world. Now he was rereading our entire collection in case he’d overlooked anything. He’d also added missionaries’ biographies to his list.
By now I’d started apartment hunting, and Sam came along to cheer me on. I couldn’t find a thing I liked. He teased me and said my heart wasn’t in the project. Of course he was right.
One afternoon on the way back to the car, I asked why he’d retired so young from his medical practice. His age had never come up in conversation, but he was too young for Social Security — way too young.
“When Belinda died I lost heart for life for a while. Then the Lord began to work on me, and since I was alone, I knew I could do more for mankind than live my life in a sterile operating room.”
So like Sam. The Lord had indeed begun a good work in this man and would see it to completion.
If only I knew what God was working within me.
Trees had shed their foliage and shrubs had taken on their bare, wintry look. Almost every morning frost coated the hard ground.
I stamped the last book in Sam’s pile and added it to the stack. Instead of gathering them up and leaving, he bent toward me. “How about dinner and a movie?”
I smiled. “I haven’t gone to a movie in years.” Mom, Pop, and I rented movies to watch in the comfort of our home. Since they’d moved out, I had overdosed on tear-jerking, star-crossed romance flicks until I’d gotten tired of my self-imposed pity party.
“All the more reason to try something new.”
Sam kept trying to get me to break out of my shell, as if a new look demanded a new lifestyle.
“What movie did you have in mind?”
He mentioned one I’d heard patrons discussing, and I agreed to go. Nelda assured me I’d like it, and I knew our taste was similar.
I couldn’t say why I continued to feed the relationship with Sam. I knew it was hopeless. Come January Sam would be off to Papua New Guinea, and who knew when he’d be back? I didn’t want a long-distance relationship; I continued to tell myself I didn’t want a relationship at all. But I knew I was fooling no one, not even myself.
With each passing day I was falling more deeply “involved” with Sam.
I dressed with care that evening. The movie was a documentary, a general audience rating. It wasn’t a romantic evening on the town, but for some reason I decided to be a little more daring than usual. Instead of more conservative attire, I wore something that was more Nelda than Johanna, a leopard-print skirt and matching shawl with a black scoop-necked top and gold hoop earrings so big you could throw a basketball through them. I gelled my hair, scrunched it into spirals the way Chantel had taught me, and applied makeup and false lashes. One touch remained. I climbed onto my three-inch spiked-heel shoes Nelda and the sales clerk had insisted were so me. I was sure the footwear added a whole new perspective to how people saw me. The shoes were so high I feared they might give me a nosebleed.
Or a panic attack. I was afraid of heights.
I hobbled out to the living room to await my prince. Itty took one look at me — and ran.
The theater was crowded. While Sam purchased our tickets I stood in the lobby enjoying the Christmas decorations: twinkling lights and a big sleigh holding Santa and toys, pulled by a blinking-nosed Rudolph. I followed him (balanced on the three-inch spikes) to the refreshment counter.
“Want something to drink? Popcorn? Candy?”
I nodded. “Diet soda, thank you.”
We made our way through the crowd and found seats halfway down. The theater
was filling up. We had time to take a few bites of popcorn before the lights dimmed and the screen came to life.
I settled back and tried to relax. The date was going well. I looked good. Life was good.
Later Sam held my hand as we worked our way through the crowd. We stepped outside, which left me a bit disoriented, like moving from one world to another. Rain came down, not a downpour, but a decent shower. Sam paused beneath the canvas awning. “You wait here while I get the car.”
I started to protest and then stopped, knowing I could never run across the parking lot in these shoes. I couldn’t walk — forget run. Puddles filled low places. There was a sullen grumble of thunder and a flash of lightning. The rain fell in earnest.
When Sam’s BMW braked in front of the theater, I hurried toward the car. Rain pelted me, increasing in velocity. My left foot slipped off my new platform shoe, twisting my ankle and throwing me off balance. My arms pivoted like a windmill in a hurricane, trying to find something to hold to. My ankle gave and I sat down on the rain-soaked curb, water soaking through my new leopard-print skirt. Pain ripped my ankle.
Sam bolted from the car and hurried around the hood to help me to my feet. I leaned against him, feeling the blood drain from my face. His voice came from a distance. “Johanna? Are you hurt?”
Yes! I was crippled for life. “My ankle,” I gasped. “I can’t put any weight on it.” Plus I was going to black out any second. A gust of wind-driven rain lashed my face, startling me back to consciousness. God telling me to get a grip?
Sam knelt and gently manipulated the foot and ankle. When I yelped he shook his head. “I think it’s just a nasty sprain, but we’ll need X-rays to make certain nothing’s broken.” His eyes focused on the inappropriate footwear, but he refrained from sharing his thoughts. Thank heaven. He helped me into the car and drove to the emergency room.
I hopped into the hospital, leaning on his arm, still wearing my killer shoes. It was either that or go barefoot. I hadn’t gone barefoot in public since my teen years. The reception desk was a couple of miles from the door, or so it seemed when one is trying to reach it by hopping on one foot and dragging the other.
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