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Cosmo was just awake enough to notice someone–Wanda, of course–stroke his cheek. He sighed and burrowed into his pillow. She kissed his temple and he smiled, not wanting to get up this second. He listened to her set up her makeup on the vanity and turned his head to peek. He loved to watch as she put her makeup on. Every single time felt as riveting as the first, the morning after their wedding.
Their wedding night was also the first time he saw her with her hair loose. And as beautiful as she was with her hair up, she was stunning with it down. He convinced her that night not to set it again, so he could enjoy it a little longer. They didn’t go anywhere the next day. That’s what made it special: Cosmo was the only one who got to see it.
Not that Wanda had never worn her hair unstyled. She did just that from 1965 to 1980. But Wanda was a fairy who liked to change her style up from time to time. Cosmo would never tell Wanda how to wear her hair, but privately, he was glad it became his special privilege again.
Right now, her hair was covered in some kind of wrap to protect her freshly set curls. Wanda picked up a jar of cream something-or-other. She always opened jars with a slight flourish, holding her fingers just so, as though to show off her nails. She would let the cap spin a moment before removing it. He supposed it was lotion of some kind that she slathered on her face all the way down to the top of her chest. She fanned herself with her hands for it to dry, or settle into her skin, or something like that.
Wanda “didn’t like a lot of coverage,” whatever that meant. Cosmo supposed it meant she applied her foundation lightly. She squirted some onto her fingers and rubbed it on in little circles.
“That’s unsanitary,” her sister said to her on more than one occasion.
“I wash my hands, don’t I?” Wanda would always reply.
She dabbed on a tiny amount of a foundation a couple shades lighter under her eyes. Peri had offered to get her something called “concealer,” but she turned him down.
Blush she also applied with her fingers. She used a little compact of cream rouge that looked good enough to eat. There were several items on Wanda’s vanity that Cosmo wanted to eat but knew, from experience, did not taste good (or feel good on his teeth). It wasn’t his fault the lipstick smelled so nice.
“Since you’re up,” Wanda said, and Cosmo sat up with a start. “Would you make my coffee for me? Please?” She bridged her fingers below her chin and fluttered her eyelashes at him from her mirror.
“But I’ll miss something!” he protested.
“Nothing you haven’t seen,” she replied.
“I don’t like to miss anything in my favorite movies, either,” Cosmo said. Wanda waved him off playfully.
“Oh, all right!” she said. “I’ll wait for you.”
“Yay!” he cheered, and poofed to the kitchen.
Cosmo and Wanda had become enamored with pour over coffee a few years before, when they first moved to Dimmadelphia and visited one of the many indie cafes that sprung up from the ashes of Starbox. The barista ground the beans for their order and prepared it fully in their view, and they had watched, enraptured, as she poured hot water in careful circles.
Cosmo did the same, measuring enough for each of them to have one cup of decaf. The last time he’d had caffeine, he realized it just made him feel scared. He mixed in cream and sugar for himself (no fairy took their coffee black; not even Jorgen von Strangle), and dulce de leche for Wanda. She tried it on a visit to Argentina during their 10,000 year vacation and couldn’t get enough.
“Here you are, my love!” he sang as he handed it over.
“Thank you, sweets,” Wanda said and took a careful sip. Her lips were covered in foundation.
She set the mug aside and pulled out something unexpected: a compact that held a shimmery pressed powder inside.
“What’s that?” Cosmo asked. “I’ve never seen you wear it.”
“Oh, it’s a highlighter Peri got me, remember?” she replied as she applied it over the blush, high on her cheeks. “I figured I ought to wear it. I think it really hurt his feelings when I used it as a coaster.”
“Oh, yeah,” Cosmo said. “Actually, I should probably watch that Umbrellas of Cherbourg DVD he gave me that I also used as a coaster.”
“What do you think?” Wanda asked, turning her head this way and that. The combination of blush and highlight gave her a lovely glow.
“Radiant!” he exclaimed. “Can I try it?”
“Sure,” she handed the compact over to him. Cosmo ran his finger around the powder the way Wanda had, and marveled at the shimmer. He rubbed it on his eyebrows.
Next came Cosmo's favorite tool: the powderpuff. She tapped it in a jar of loose powder and patted lightly around her face. When she finished, she handed the puff to Cosmo.
“My turn!” he exclaimed, and smacked it around his face.
“Thank you, Cosmo, my little dust bunny,” Wanda said as he put the powderpuff away.
Next came her mascara. Wanda preferred a cake in a tin to liquid in a tube, even though it was more involved. She poofed a little dropper of water into her hand, dripped a tiny amount onto the cake, and scrubbed it with the spoolie brush. She made amusing faces during this stage, with her eyes wide and her mouth open in an “O” shape. Cosmo always liked how delicately she wielded the little brush, zig-zagging it over her lashes.
She used the same cake but a different brush for her eyeliner. There was a time in Wanda’s life when she lined both eyelids; sometimes she had even drawn on exaggerated lower lashes. She also wore eyeshadow back then. Powder blue, he remembered. It looked striking against her pink hair and magenta eyes. It made him think of Ancient Egypt. In turn, Ancient Egyptian eye makeup made him think of Wanda when they were in the Fairy Academy.
She drew on her eyebrows with careful flicks of a pencil that Cosmo had, on occasion, used accidentally as a regular pencil. In fact, he was pretty sure she also used it as a regular pencil from time to time. Unfortunately, it was much messier than graphite. But it worked in a pinch.
She opened up her lipstick and applied it to a little brush. She traced her lips with the thin edge of the brush, then filled them in with the flat side. This took Cosmo aback when he first saw her do it.
“My mother taught me to do it this way,” she told him. “It gives you more control.”
Sometimes, she applied it directly from the tube if she was in a rush. But she preferred the brush. Cosmo preferred the days when she used the tube.
“Cosmo, come here! I need to blot my lips,” she would say to him, and pull him into a kiss. The lipstick never looked as good on him as it did on her.
Finished with her makeup, Wanda removed the wrap covering her hair. She had washed it the night before, so it was now freshly set. Before pincurling, she let Cosmo comb it for her. This usually took longer than when Wanda combed her hair, as he would get distracted by the silky softness and start playing with it. She didn't mind, and often dozed off.
She pulled the curler from her roll and secured the hair in place with a couple bobby pins. On the back of her head, she pulled out the bobby pins forming her pincurls. She applied a little hairspray and ran a bristly brush over them lightly.
Peri had more or less the same hair care routine, only he always used more pins and more hairspray, by his own admission.
“Every time mom shows me how to do it, I go, ‘Oh, I understand perfectly now!’” he had told Cosmo once. “And then, it’s like I forget immediately.”
“I know just what you mean,” Cosmo said, nodding thoughtfully.
The last step in Wanda’s morning beauty routine was her perfume. She had a few different fragrances, but her favorite was floral and powdery, and came in a pink bottle. This was Cosmo’s favorite, too, because for a period of time when they were dating, she wrote him love letters sprayed with that very perfume. Every now and then, a new one would arrive in their mailbox, and Wanda would pretend not to know who it was from.
“Another letter from your secret admirer?” she would ask, unable to hide her smile. “I’m starting to get jealous!”
“Oh, I wonder who it could be from…” he would muse, holding the envelope close to his face. “It smells like a girl I like!”
Today, rather than her usual perfume, Wanda spritzed herself with Cosmo's cologne, a move that usually meant she had plans for him later.
Finished with her beauty routine and with her hands washed, Wanda poofed into a cheery yellow sundress.
“Ready!” she said.
“What’s the occasion?” Cosmo asked.
“Peri is taking us to brunch today, remember?” she asked.
“That’s today!?” Cosmo jumped up. “I need to get my nicer shirt!”
“You should wear your aloha shirt,” Wanda said as he tore through the closet. “The one with the classic cars on it.”
“Good idea!” he said, and poofed the shirt on.
“We look so good,” Wanda linked her arm with Cosmo’s.
“Yeah, we’re going to blow them all away,” he replied as they poofed to Fairy World for a beautiful morning with their son followed by another day of adventure with Hazel.