BUS STORY # 317 (Portrait # 19: The Makeup Artist)

downloaded from the website World of Female: “Most shocking ingredients in makeup”. The photo is credited to CulturesDiary www.culturesdiary.com/UserFiles/2007/3/22/kabuki7.jpg

She’s sitting on one of the side-facing bench seats, holding a compact in one hand and applying lash thickener with the other.

A high schooler, probably on the way to Monzano, about ten minutes away.

A few minutes later, I realize she’s been working those lashes all this time, and she shows no sign of letting up.

Over and over and over and over and over...

And then she suddenly stops, takes a good long look in the compact mirror, moves the mirror around to catch different angles, then puts away the eyelash app and pulls a makeup pad out of the compact.

She starts applying powder.

A lot of powder. Over and over and over and over and over...

Several minutes later, she has managed to completely replace her skin with a flawless powder mask. “Kabuki” springs to mind. And that’s when I notice her hair.

It’s all poofed up and rolled back over the top of her head like some stylized, black lacquered tidal wave.

Her kimono is a black, lacy sweater thrown over the shoulders of a white, spangly tank top. She displays a bare, generously endowed midriff.

Now she’s got a pencil, and she’s working on the outside corner of the left eyelid. It looks like a smudge to me, but I know that’s because I don’t know any better. She knows exactly what it’s supposed to look like, and she erases with the tip of her little finger and edits the image.

The bus arrives at her stop before she can get to the other eye. She’s gonna have to go to class not fully prepared, an unfinished work in progress.

Unless asymmetrical eyelid accents are now the latest style...

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The photo at the top of this story was downloaded from World of Female: “Most shocking ingredients in makeup.” The photo is credited to CulturesDiary http://www.culturesdiary.com/UserFiles/2007/3/22/kabuki7.jpg