Naked makeovers and other stuff

Friday, 28 August

Josie came home with us after our dinner out with girls' club. She had not brought anything with her to stay over but we three realised she certainly wouldn't need anything she couldn't get from Jessy, that is if she would need anything to wear at all-- and she already has a toothbrush here.

We were on our own most of the day, just lolling round the house and sunning and swimming. Actually neither Jessy nor I have lost much sun colour at all-- our tans were all the rage with the girls in Norwich and we must have looked like starlets from St Tropez to them! Josie has not been inattentive to hers either and is now-- may I pronounce it with all proper fanfare-- without ANY bikini patches at all. She resembles Jessy a lot, in both complexion and figure and, though she is really more like a light brunette than a dark blonde, with so much sun her hair is very light and looks terrific. She has been letting it grow (like Jessy has) and it's now past her shoulders and getting a little wavy from being kept in a ponytail on top of her head. Jessy's hair is, of course, absolutely fabulous, long and curly, even kinky, and true blonde, now lightened to a brilliant gold by the summer sun, falling well past her shoulders to nearly the small of her back when she chooses to wear it down. Today it was all piled on top of her head, as though she were going to a formal. The three of us put on sneakers and strolled out along the path into the preserve, which is adjacent to the softball field, and along the way Josie persuaded her to take out the clips and let it fall loose. I swear she looked like a wild jungle princess. I honestly do envy her.

Josie tends to spend a lot of time looking at me, I guess because I am older and tend to be the one who sets an example. But really I only do what I believe is prudent and respectable, you know. Josie doesn't have any siblings and being a Gemini (ha!) she has always looked for some close friend or someone to latch onto so that she's one of a pair. Jessy (a Leo) is very independent and, as I have said before, probably more conservative than I am, so she is a pretty good one for someone like Josie to follow.

Our parents were to come home this afternoon, so this would put an end to at least most of our lolling round naked. Nevertheless we did spend a lovely afternoon round the pool, and when Lisa's happy, shrill voice rang out in the house we were all in the water. 'Josie's here!' she observed, standing at the end of the pool in her new sneakers and socks and her little pink shorts and tropical shirt over her lavender swimsuit, gazing down at the three of us. 'What have you guys been doing?'

'Hi, Daddy,' Jessy called, seeing him step out the French windows.

'I might have guessed,' he said wryly at us.

I leaned on my hands on top of the coping and smiled up at him. Jessy and Josie were cowering along the edge beside me. 'Hullo, Mr C,' Josie called up.

'Hullo yourself,' he said. 'Everything safe and sound? House is okay?'

'Of course,' I said. 'Roger's been looking in, you know.'

'Where did he take off to?'

I shrugged. 'Delaware,' I said, meaning our other house, or the hangar where the cars are. 'I think.'

He nodded. 'I'll call him. It's just been you three then, right? Please tell me it has been.'

'Of course, Daddy!' Jessy said, and then suddenly arced over backwards and dove upside-down into the water. Josie turned and laughed at her-- but she wasn't about to do such a showy manœuvre with our father standing there able to see it.

He went back in and Lisa squatted down in front of me and asked me more about what we've been doing. I told her about the walk over to the ball field. She started to get undressed to join us but then Mother came out and called her in. They had just got here and already she was starting dinner. 'Is Josie staying?' she called.

'If that's all right,' Josie smiled.

'It's always all right,' said Mother, and she went back in.

When Jessy reported that she heard the electric door going up in the garage we figured Daddy was far enough out of range for us to dash in to the house. Of course, you know, Jessy and I don't mind. This is mainly out of respect for Josie, whose situation here is much different from ours.

For dinner we all dressed in shorts and t-shirts, including Josie who borrowed from Jessy. Afterwards we played with J.J. and Lisa in the basement play room, getting out trucks and blocks and Barbies and having the kind of fun you always wish you could still have, so long as your peers in school don't hear about it-- even though they wish the same thing. Later we each showered, and the three of us ended up in Jessy's room, lying about the carpet, pouring over fashion magazines and debating this look or that one. It got dark, we put on a lamp or two, and in the low light all of us looked much tanner than we already are. Someone came up with the idea of playing with makeup and before long we were all doing makeovers on each other in my bathroom. This is the kind of thing only someone like Josie could thrive on, since she is less modest than Jessy and I are and a little more materialistic, or appearance-oriented. In other words she is a little more normal! Lisa was sent up for her bath-- which I usually start for her-- but dallied long enough amongst us that Josie finally beckoned her over to do something with her too. Lisa was, of course, thrilled-- but of course doing a makeover on a six-year-old is pointless.

'I want that dark stuff!' she said. 'I want blue under my eyes! I want the eyelash stuff!'

Josie stopped, poised with the eye shadow in front of her, and said profoundly, 'My God. With a face like this, who needs makeup?'

'But I want it!' she begged-- not to be annoying, but because she really had got her hopes up.

'You need nothing,' Josie told her. 'Look at this--' and she ran her finger along under Lisa's eye. 'This is perfect, this colour here, this pinkish... and of course your complexion is perfect-- people would kill to be as pretty as you are.'

'Besides,' I said, 'the whole point of makeup is to look better. And you're already gorgeous.'

Lisa's pretty bright-blue eyes went wide. 'I am?'

'In high school, you would be the prettiest one there,' Josie told her, crowding beside her so they could both see themselves in my little mirror. 'Maybe a little here, or here....'

'She has to have a bath,' I said.

'Well,' Josie said, 'we can practise then, just a little.'

Lisa fidgeted impatiently, but she did receive expert Josie's magic touch. Mother came up half an hour later and we were all in my bathroom, all of us naked-- but very well made-up, thank you! --and just shook her head and smiled. 'Mummy!' Lisa said, standing on the potty lid and batting her eyes. 'Josie says I'm the prettiest one!'

Mother laughed. 'But of course you are! And now for your bath.'

'Will this wash off?'

'Oh, sure,' Josie told her. 'But you can always put more on another time.'

'Tomorrow?' eager Lisa wondered.

We all shrugged. 'Maybe.'

So apparently we have made her a promise.

...