For the woman who knows what she wants
She was told she was too young for it long after she wanted it for herself. "A sweet thing like you doesn't need to cover herself with paint," her mother said, over and over again. Peggy had to find her own help, when she wanted to try powder, when she sampled then scrubbed off perfume, when she wanted silks and nylons but taught herself to shave her legs.
She longed for it after a trip to the pictures, those starlets with their Cupid's bow lips anchoring bright faces. It took her years of sneaking and trading with other girls to find her color, hers: a darker matte, almost bloody, in a slick false gold tube, "Garnet Girl."
Peggy came as near as she ever did to panicking when the war came and the manufacturers changed all their product names. She searched for it again, on her own time, with her own money, with her head held high, but she passed through several that were too pink, too orange, too bright.
"Grenadier" it was called when she found it again. She found she couldn't disapprove. This was always going to be her color, from the time she couldn't convince her mum that she would never be sweet like that.