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Laurent pulled his winter gloves and hat off as he walked into the store. He paused inside the doorway, using his fingers to smooth his hair back into an acceptable side part, and looked around the interior.
He was no stranger to bright lights and thick black countertops, but the resemblance to the lab ended there. Most of the room was occupied by rows of shelving that came up to Laurent’s chin. They had special slots for tubes and pans of makeup, and each was angled slightly upward, as if to invite visitors to swipe a sample onto the back of their hands. (That’s what Lucina had done, on the solitary occasion she had pulled him into this store. She’d commandeered the backs of his hands too; he found he didn’t mind.) The walls were lined with artsy advertisements for new cosmetics - photos of women with dripping gold lip gloss and glitter-encrusted cheeks, or else half-crushed cakes of shimmering roseate powders lined up on a bright white background. An area in the center of the floor was reserved for bar stools and empty counters before a large mirror ringed by bare lightbulbs, like some old hollywood dressing room.
It was a busy season, but there were few enough other customers at the moment that a couple of sales associates were unoccupied, milling around the huge mirrors with brushes ready. One of the perks of operating on a graduate student’s schedule without the typical day job his classes were scheduled to accommodate was that any errands Laurent needed to run could be accomplished on off-peak hours.
He evidently appeared lost enough that it attracted the attention of one of the employees, a young woman with waist-length red pigtails. She had huge eyelashes pasted on, like a Victorian doll. Behind them, lurid purple shadow fanned out around her eyes, the kind of color Laurent expected to see on a poisonous rainforest frog, not a human’s face. It alarmed him. Mistake; she could sense his fear.
“Hello and welcome, looking for anything in particular today?” she said, approaching him at the door. Something about her smile made Laurent vaguely uneasy, as though he were in the presence of an organism one step up from himself on the food chain. Still, harnessing her expertise would likely work in his favor; he had set a strict budget and was confident he would not be upsold.
“Hello to you as well - I’m looking for a present for my girlfriend,” he replied.
“Gift card, then?” she said, tossing one pigtail over her shoulder.
Internally, Laurent shuddered at the thought of what Lucina might pick out for herself. Out loud, he said, “No, something with more of a… personal touch?”
“Perfect! We've got boxed gift sets to choose from.”
A marginally more thoughtful option, and likely the most “fun” for the recipient; but Laurent still preferred more control over what he bought.
“I… was planning for something more memorable than seasonal ,” he admitted. “One item, well-thought-out enough to use, sturdy packaging, iconic enough to look at from time to time. Romantic, maybe lipstick. Something her father wouldn’t expect me to be able to afford.”
Laurent felt himself blushing slightly by the time he finished speaking. It was quite a laundry list of criteria, but he had his reasons for being fussy. While wrestling with more economic publications in order to make conversation with Lucina’s prep school friends, he had chanced across an essay in the paper about the minimalist elegance of a single tube of luxury lipstick, both worn and used as a display. The image had stuck with him even as he turned past its page to get to the stock market graphs.
“Oooh , okay Romeo,” the sales associate giggled. “Now this is starting to sound worth my time. I can find you something so thoughtful it’s unforgettable - if you can handle it.”
“It’s Laurent,” said Laurent, pushing his eyeglasses up the bridge of his nose, “and I believe I have allotted sufficient funds for a single, memorable gift.”
He said it to drive home that she would not be able to wheedle him into purchasing any trinkets or unforeseen extras, but Laurent did also take pride in his budgeting. His university stipend wasn’t much, and even with his girlfriend covering most of their rent he’d had to eat like an undergrad again to scrape together gift money, but Lucina deserved the best.
“Alright then Laurent , follow me,” said the attendant, still smirking. “My name is Severa,” she added, tossing the other pigtail over her shoulder so he could see the plastic nametag pinned to the top of her black apron. The gesture was, in his opinion, superfluous - the name was pronounced exactly as it was spelled.
“Now, give me an idea of what your girlfriend already owns - her sense of style ,” said Severa, leading him over to some shelves with tasteful, restrained black packaging.
“It’s very… agh,” Laurent said, balking once more at the thought of Lucina’s aesthetics. He’d never begrudge her her fun, but if her eclectic taste in clothing was anything to judge by, it really wasn’t “classic” material. Her mother, at the very least, would disapprove of him. “Um, I’d like to go for something a little less… loud than what Lucina would likely buy for herself.”
Severa was still facing the shelves, but Laurent could practically hear her rolling her eyes at him in the way she replied “suuure.” She’d probably heard this a million times before, a boyfriend being picky and judgmental about how wild his girl got with lip colors. Laurent hastened to backtrack.
“It’s really, I don’t- she’d pick out something like yellow or blue, but I want the option- to be there- for her to have something more, ah, subtle ?”
“Mmhmm. Like what,” Severa said, still patronizing.
“Just a normal lipstick color. Uhm. R… red?”
At that, Severa gave a derisive snort.
“What,” said Laurent.
“Nothing, nothing,” she replied. He got the sense he had played even further into the clueless boyfriend trope; she was struggling not to laugh at him now.
“Did I say something funny?”
“Oh, Laurent,” she wheezed, plucking cylinders of red cream from the upturned shelves, “only a boy like you could think red is subtle.”
Red and pink were the colors of lipstick in drawings and tv and cartoons. Laurent didn’t see what the problem was. But he also, he began to realize, didn’t see red.
Speaking literally, of course, he wasn’t colorblind, but the more tubes of product Severa picked out and uncapped to show him, the more evident it became that he had never really looked at red before. The longer he stared, the deeper it seemed to tap into some base human instinct, arresting his gaze. The color was an art form unto itself. Laurent was no slouch with vocabulary (how could he be, the way his mother spoke) but when Severa described shades of red, she seemed to access a hidden language. She was so confident about it, too, saying things like “oxblood,” “ruby,” “fire engine,” and “tomato” as if they were all anchored to different denotations, discrete from each other, instead of just being “red.” Laurent had never put much thought into how one red thing, like a stop sign, could have such a well-established difference in shade from something like a tomato that the unrelated objects functioned as a code allowing a speaker to split hairs between the colors. He hadn’t even considered that one would need that many separately named shades of the same color, but apparently they made a real impact setting off the hair and skin. There was so little he really knew.
Severa re-capped a sleek black tube with gold filigree, gazing at it with a fondness Laurent only ever saw when Gerome talked about his pet lizard. “So anyway,” she finished, “in my opinion the more vampy reds are actually more wearable, but since it sounds like your girl goes for high-impact color, but you wanna keep it normal, we should go for a classic bright shade.”
“Excellent,” said Laurent, unsure how much of his input was required for her to continue. What a torrent of words she expended to reach the default conclusion , he thought.
“Now, I’ve got some brands in mind that fit your price point and have killer packaging, but I think we can stand to narrow the shade range down further. Do you have an idea of what your girlfriend’s undertone is? That way we can pick between an orange-based red or a cool red, or, I guess, a true red.”
“I thought… red was a warm color,” he said.
Severa turned to gape at him. Ah, honesty would be his undoing.
“Are- are you daft? ” she said, incredulous. “Have you been listening to a single thing I’ve been saying? I’m talking about blue and yellow undertones .”
Laurent’s brain had struggled to keep pace with her rapidfire synecdoche when it was just about red; the last thing he needed was to be informed that blue and yellow were now also red, somehow.
“My apologies. I did grasp the difference between the dark and bright shades, but… from there on, all the bright reds look the same to me,” Laurent confessed.
Severa tsk ed loudly, throwing her hands in the air and rolling her eyes. It was, frankly, a more dramatic reaction than was warranted. Laurent was briefly concerned on Severa’s behalf - he could handle her attitude, but it was a wonder the girl managed to hold down a retail position if she lambasted every customer who walked in. Ultimately, though, what he found more distressing was his own inability to learn something the instant it was taught to him.
He didn’t want to be like every other clueless boyfriend who walked in to bother Severa. Laurent prided himself on his observation - so how could there be crucial information his eyes weren’t conveying to him? And worse yet - how could he give Lucina “the best” when he wasn’t confident he knew what that was?
Severa beckoned to Laurent and turned him to face one of the many brightly-lit mirrors throughout the store. Laurent squinted at how the glare from the naked lightbulbs flashed off his lenses.
"Okay, here," she said, "you see how both of us have red hair? But yours leans more orangey. That's what we call a warm red." Laurent nodded obediently and looked. "And my hair is what we mean when we say a blue-based red," she continued. Laurent shifted his gaze from his own reflection to that of her long pigtails. Severa's hair was darker than his, more like the color of ripe cherries.
"I think I understand," Laurent said. Severa smiled at him.
“Good, good. Now, you generally want to go for a shade with the same undertone as the wearer’s skin, so we’re gonna need you to conjure up a mental image of your lady love for this next part to work. If she has a warm undertone, her skin color leans yellow or olive; if it’s cool, you see more red. Can you handle that?”
“Um.”
Laurent closed his eyes and pictured Lucina. He wasn’t sure what her undertones were. Severa could probably take one look at her and match her to all these products he didn’t know the names of - not just lipstick, but the glittery ones and the ones to hide blemishes and the ones that did nothing but leave a sweet scent on the skin. Not for the first time this visit, he felt humbled in the face of her knowledge, and small in his own right - swallowed by the gulf of things that could be important to his girlfriend that he hadn’t even considered. He opened his eyes, feeling cold.
“Oh, and don’t try showing me a photo of her on your phone, they’re wildly unreliable even before you factor in filters and lighting,” Severa added, preempting what he assumed was another common and stupid response. “If you’re having trouble - are her undereye bags blue or purple? Do the veins on her arms look blue or green?”
Laurent was overcome by a moment of panic again. How could he not know? How many times had he been gifted a chance to see what color Lucina’s veins were and squandered it? Objectively, he knew, it was absurd to worry about this. If he didn’t know it already, he hadn’t needed to know it in the past, and there was no point beating himself up about not knowing something unnecessary. But it was more than his pride at stake. It seemed poignantly sad to not know this one simple thing about a person he purported to love. Laurent couldn’t well walk out of the store and peel Lucina away from her office to stare at her now, but when they were both home later that evening, he resolved to memorize everything about her face.
The trick of looking at the minute variations in tone between his own reflection and Severa’s wouldn’t work this time, either. He could tell there was a difference, but he didn’t know what it was or what it meant. He admitted defeat.
“I- I’m sorry,” he stammered. In a surprisingly soft move, Severa smiled and patted his elbow.
“Take your time, buddy.”
Laurent took a deep breath. “I… apologize for how much of your time this is taking,” he told her.
“Meh,” she replied. Dropping to a conspiratorial whisper, Severa added, “between you and me, this is more fun than restocking shelves anyway. It’s almost as good as a little retail therapy for myself. And trust me-” she straightened her back and returned to a regular speaking volume, “-I am an expert at shopping.”
Laurent smiled at her. “Atta boy,” said Severa, giving his elbow another light smack. “If skin is too hard for you, try to judge it by her eyes, clothes, or hair. We’ll save you yet.”
Well, that was easier. “Cool toned,” Laurent said without hesitation. Severa snorted in amusement and led him back to the shelves.
“Now, this brand’s synonymous with luxury, but if you want my opinion, you’d get more reliable product from this high-end non-luxury brand - I’m positive they use the same formulation, except the lower-priced one is actually less streaky and patchy. And I know you already said you’re allergic to fun colors or whatever, but I’d be neglecting your best interests if I didn’t show you this duochrome gloss. Don’t worry, very subtle. Classy stuff. Timeless.”
Apparently, it was time for round two of Severa rambling tenderly about cosmetics that appeared, to Laurent’s untrained eye, identical. She pushed two sample tubes of lipstick into his hands, one with a black lid and one with the seasonal-exclusive pink metal cap. ( Rose gold , she had said.)
“Hold on - are these two just different packages for the same thing?” he asked.
Severa turned around and looked at him like he had three heads. "This one's glossy and sheer. The other one's matte. It’s a completely different finish ."
Ahhh, thought Laurent. Betrayed by his candor again.
Grumbling something like “unbelievable” under her breath, Severa grabbed his arm and pushed the sleeve of his peacoat halfway to his elbow, uncapping the metallic tube with one hand. Having test swatches on his arm, at least, was a part of the makeup shopping experience Laurent was familiar with, and so he submitted meekly, holding his own sleeve out of the way so she could make use of both hands. He felt a twinge at seeing the embossed luxury logo of the lipstick juxtaposed with his grubby sport watch. Someday.
Severa rubbed the matte stick into the smooth skin of Laurent’s inner arm, and the sheer one, and a red cream that came in a pot instead of a tube, and then a translucent gloss, just in case he needed to be taught what that was too. He poked the thick liquid with a finger and made a face.
“Eww, dude, don’t touch it like that,” said Severa, amusement edging back into her voice. She pulled a makeup wipe out of her apron pocket and handed it to him. “I swear, where would you be without me?”
“It’s so viscous, ” he said, wiping down the rest of his wrist for good measure.
“Hah, yeah. Can’t eat anything like this,” she said, rubbing her own lips together slightly. They sported a similarly reflective coating. Laurent must have looked scandalized; she giggled again.
“Hmm. Alright loverboy, I’ve got an idea of what you can give her. Low maintenance, not as timeless as a lipstick but definitely beats it for romantic. Arm,” she said. Laurent proffered his wrist once more. Severa unscrewed the decorated lid to a vial of thick plastic and pulled out a small wand. Liquid.
“This is... gloss?” he asked, attempting to prove he’d learned something.
“Just the opposite,” Severa said smugly, swiping it onto his inner arm. “Liquid lipstick dries down to a matte finish that will not budge. Try to rub it off once it's set, go on.”
Laurent complied, waiting for the paste to dry down to its nonreflective state. In the meantime he noted how opaque it was, thickly, completely covering his veins (which, he now observed, were the color between blue and green; undertones remained yet a mystery to him).
“Fascinating,” he murmured.
“Welcome to the marvels of modern chemistry, man.”
“My mother’s a chemist,” he said absently.
“Oh, yeah?”
“Plastics, mostly. Not things you put on human skin. Ah, it’s dry, I think.”
He tapped the red stripe once, unsure, then rubbed it with his thumb, hard. It didn’t so much as smear.
“Good stuff, huh?” she gloated. Laurent nodded wordlessly and stared in wide-eyed reverence at the tube.
“Here’s the fun part, it's totally kiss-proof, too. My girlfriend can attest,” Severa said, waggling her eyebrows. Laurent could feel his cheeks coloring again.
“Your…”
"G-Got a problem with it,” she bristled, demeanor snapping shut like a bear trap, closing off what pleasant rapport they'd built up in his short time in the store.
“Of course not,” said Laurent, still looking at his own arm. “Ahh, that explains so much. You know twice as much about makeup as I ever will.” She squinted at him, still half-guarded. “Both how to wear it and what’s a-attractive on someone else.” His voice cracked.
Severa’s laughter rang through the aisles. “Don’t say never so soon, pal. You should try on a red lip for your girl sometime. I bet she would love it.” Briefly, Laurent wondered what shade of red she would use to describe the heat spreading across his face, neck, and ears. Firetruck? Neon? Cerise?
“But it would have to be a... more yellow-based shade than this, correct?”
“He can be taught!”
“How sneaky of you, to try to tempt me into exceeding my budget one last time,” Laurent teased. “Alas, it will have to wait for a return visit.”
“Haha, you got it,” she said, thumping him on the elbow. Severa pressed an unopened box of the same liquid lipstick into his hands.
Laurent made a move to push his sleeve back into place when he remembered the test swatch on his arm. If Lucina saw this-
“Ah, wait, how do I-”
“-here, ya baby,” Severa said, handing him another wet wipe she’d pulled out in anticipation. “It also comes off with face soap and water.”
“Thank you,” Laurent said, visibly relieved. “For everything. Really.”
“Yeah, yeah, well. Register’s that way,” she said, avoiding his eyes. “The girl with the blue bob can ring you up. Bye.”
With a small wave, he left for the queue. It occurred to Laurent that he didn’t even know the name of the product Severa picked out for him. He hoped seeing the shade name would bring him one step closer to unpacking the abstruse cryptography of the color red. He couldn’t stand knowing a whole subset of language existed that he wasn’t an expert in. Eagerly, he turned over the gold cardboard box in his hands.
“...Unbelievable.”
A round sticker on the bottom of the box proclaimed it to have the unhelpful, utterly redundant moniker rouge à lèvres.