Kayla was naturally beautiful. The family resemblance between her and Jesse was strong, only Kayla was - obviously - more feminine. Her blonde hair fell in waves and she had amazing cheek bones. Enhancing what she already had took no time at all. I’d had years of practice at applying natural-looking make-up, and when I showed Kayla my handiwork, she gasped.
“How did you do that? I look like me but… better.”
/> “You just need to know the tricks. I’ll show you one day when we have more time.”
Glancing over at the bed at the clothes Leah had picked out, I nodded thoughtfully before turning back to the box of makeup. After rummaging, I found black mascara, purple sparkly eye shadow, and clear lip gloss.
“Here.” I handed the products to Kayla. “Hide these in your purse. As soon as you get to your friend’s house, go into the bathroom, dust some eye shadow lightly over your eyelids, put on one coat of mascara, but only one because your lashes are already quite thick, and then apply a little lip gloss.”
“No lipstick?”
I shook my head. “No, you want to keep things subtle. The lip gloss will make your lips super kissable without being too over the top.”
Kayla threw her arms around me, still clinging onto her cosmetics. “Thank you, Bree!”
“You’re welcome, honey.” I hugged her back. I’d never had my own little sister, and the more time I spent at the Shaw’s, the more I fell in love with them, especially with Kayla. She was a mini-me.
Kayla turned to hug Leah too, impressed with her choice of skinny jeans and a deep purple vest top, with silver accessories.
“Oh my God,” Kayla said. “What about my hair?”
“Your hair is gorgeous,” Leah told her. “Maybe… do you have a cute purple hairclip?”
“I do.”
“There you go! That’s all you need.”
Satisfied we’d got Kayla prepared for her party, Leah and I headed back downstairs.
“She’s a sweet kid, isn’t she?” Leah said.
“Yeah. I love hanging out with her. ”
“You did well with her make-up. Have you ever thought about doing it professionally? You could get training.”
“Ha, I think your pregnancy hormones are screwing with your brain. I’m not the type of person who could do the job well enough to turn it into a career or anything. I do make-up for fun.”
“You’re damn good, Bree. Today is the first day I’ve seen you look truly happy since I’ve been back and it started when Kayla pulled out her make-up box.”
My mood took a small nosedive. Was she saying I was a complete ditz, only happy when painting people’s faces? Like a kid playing with her mother’s cosmetics?
“Not much of a talent, is it?”
Leah’s eyebrows pulled together. I didn’t blame her for being confused, I’d spent the last five days confusing myself.
“It is a talent. The people already doing the job are called make-up artists for a reason. Bree, we live in L.A, land of movies and music videos. You’d easily find work here.”
As we reached the bottom of the stairs I paused. I had thought about being a make-up artist a few times before, never seriously, though. It was more a daydream thing since I only learned how to apply make-up properly since I met Jude, and had all the time in the world to practice. While I made up my own face I often imagined how it would be to work on other people but I’d never put much real thought into doing anything about it. Never believed I’d be good enough.
“Do you seriously think I could do it?”
Leah smiled. “Of course. You’ve already got the skills, they just need to be refined. You’d be amazing.”
Chapte r 4 – The Day That Changed My Life
For the first time ever, I couldn’t wait to end the visit with Jesse so I could go home and do some research. Leah had lit a fire under me. Maybe this would be my “thing” to help me find out who I wanted to be, without being defined only as Jude Collinson’s wife.
Perhaps make-up artist sounded like the kind of air-headed profession a girl like me would get into. I didn’t care about that. I cared about finding a way to stop the boredom, and having something interesting to tell people beyond, ‘Today I made Jude spaghetti bolognese for dinner, and before that I bought some shoes’.