The Girl Goes Out

Auckland Star, Volume LXX, Issue 88, 15 April 1939, Page 11 (Supplement)

The Girl Goes Out

QHE slipped on an elegant yet O workmanlike tailored dressing gown, tied a handkerchief over her head, and sat down before her three-mirrored dressing table. She surveyed herself critically. An ordinarily good-looking face, much like that of any other modern girl, but not striking. Pale and undistinguished—looked as though it had been slept on all night. Not the sort of face one would wear to lunch with Dennis. And her hair—eoftlv waved and

By--Elizabeth Upton

curled in a longisli bob. But sherd worn it like that for weeks now. Something would have to l>e done a Unit it. She selected one of the many jars crowding the table and began to smear her face liberally with cream.

A quarter of an hour passed. She applied some artificial eyelashes three inches long, substituted a .loan Crawford smear for her own indeterminate irotith, frizzed her hair out and shrugged at herself over one shoulder in the mirror. Definitely dramatic! But perhaps toodramatic for lunch with Dennis. Site twirled a new curl back from her brow and brushed her hair up boyishly, then went all little girl with a wavy bob and a demure bow on either side of a centre parting. With that she tried two new lipsticks and decided she didn't like either. She swept her hair lm-k with no parting from her forehead and sucked the corners of her mouth in to give that alluringly film star, hollow-cheeked appearance. Then she thought the merest touch of blue eyeshadow beneath her cheek hones, very delicately applied and subtly blended might do the trick. ("Josh! That looked as though she'd just been in a huddle with some carbon paper! Three-quarters of an hour pawed. She tried the elfect of a green eyeshadow with guld llecks in it, wine-red lips and nails, and hair falling sultrily (if there was such a word) over one eye. Then on an impulse she dug out the ghastly white jiowder Aunt Caroline had given her for Christmas, and wondered if it mightn't bo rather glamorous for evening with a midnight blue eyeshadow and hair drawn sleekly back in the Russian manner. Suntan powder, a bunch of curls on her forehead, and a gaily-col-oured scarf flung round her head —and she was the most exciting peasant ever to twirl a cocktail glass in her scarlettipped fingers! She swirled her hair in curls and piled it high on her head in the new Edwardian manner. Two dahlias from the vase on her writing table perched on top. and a chiffon scarf draped provocatively round her bare shoulders to give the effect. Oh boy! It suited her! She'd have it done that way for Magda's party next week. Maybe she could go even further back and slay 'cm with a TJomnin hair-do— escaping curls twined round with satin ribbons. But what about a modified version for to-day. since those wisps did look rather amateurish? Curls on top and a low hob at the back. It gave her face length, too, which it rather needed.

That reminded her of her chin. She had lots of grit, of course, but her chin didn't reflect as much of it as it might. Xot that she wanted it to shoot out to meet her nose exactly, hut she thought it could lx» a bit more assertive. Didn't a touch of rouge underneath give an illusion of strength and determination? Sho tried it and immediately looked a* though' she'd jabbed a knife into her throat. Did these beauty writers ever try their snappy tricks themselves! She wondered. Or did she just have an inartistic hand?

Floating out the front door an hour later and looking like—Veronica going out. to lunch -she heard her young sister calling her. "Veronica! Veronica!" She turned and saw Helen behind her. The child's face fell. "Oh!" she said, and added a purely rhetorical question. "Are you going out?" Since anyone with half an eye could see that Veronica wa«n't going to dig the garden or make an apple pie. "I thought p'raps you might play 'house' with me."

Veronica bent down and brushed her lips against thin air somewhere in the vicinity of Helen'* cheek.

"I'm 6orry. darling. But don't you think I'm really getting too old to play make-believe?"