Bernice fired an irritated look at Jackie. “My face is gray?”
Jackie smiled with all her teeth. “We’re getting ahead of ourselves, people.”
“Did you apply cream or powder blush on Margi’s cheeks?” asked Grace. “It looks so natural.”
“It’s a cream mousse that’s formulated especially for Mona Michelle. I chose Baby’s Breath for Margi because of the blue tones in her skin, but it’s available in eight delicious shades for every color palette.”
“Why does Bernice have two black eyes?” questioned Tilly. “Is it from the eyeshadow you used or did you hit her?”
“MY EYES ARE BLACK?” Bernice’s fingers flew to her cheeks. “I want a mirror.”
Jackie flicked her hands away. “Don’t touch. So”—she addressed the whole gang—“the object of this exercise was to demonstrate that makeup, when properly applied, can have a life-altering effect on a woman’s life from cradle”—she gestured toward Margi—“to grave.” She gestured toward Bernice.
“Why did I get stuck being the ‘grave’ part of your stupid demonstration?” griped Bernice. “Margi would make a better dead person than me. I used to be a magazine model!”
“I know,” said Jackie. “I understand why the camera loved you. Your bone structure makes your face a canvas that just screams out to be painted. No offense to Margi, but you have the more perfect skeletal structure to illustrate the magic a makeup artist can wield with a corpse.”
Bernice sidled a smug look at Margi. “Hear that? I’m going to look better than you when I’m dead.”
“That’s what you think,” Margi shot back. “I might just decide to have a closed casket. So there.”
“I don’t wanna be sportin’ two black eyes when I’m laid out to rest,” said Nana as she studied Bernice. “It don’t look healthy.”
“Dead people aren’t supposed to look healthy,” hooted Dick Stolee. “They’re supposed to look dead.”
“There’s some folks what’s died what don’t look dead at all,” argued Nana.
“More than likely due to the efforts of a great makeup artist,” gushed Jackie.
“Marion’s quite right,” Tilly agreed. “Some corpses appear so robust, they look as if they could rise from their coffins.”
“They’re called VAAMpires,” Dick Teig wisecracked in a Count Dracula vibrato.
“There’s no such thing as vampires,” scolded Lucille. Then more skeptically, “Are there?”
“Okay, Mrs. S.,” said Jackie, “the charcoal eyeshadow and liner might not work for you, but I wanted to use it on Bernice to create a mood. I wanted her to look hopelessly sullen and bereft—you know, like she wasn’t really happy about spending the rest of her life dead.”
Nana gave a little suck on her teeth. “You done a good job of that.”
“Would you write down the exact products and color combinations you used on Margi?” asked Grace. “I’d like to be waked with my face looking exactly like hers.”
Margi swiveled her torso around to make a face at Bernice.
“I could do that,” explained Jackie, “but for your sake, I’d prefer not to.”
“Why not?”