The Shade Of Her Lipstick

“Her curls, her walk, apparently everything she does…”

If you mix sugar and vinegar, you get either a sweet trash or a calm soreness. It’s about the greater portion. This is me. I’m Aria Wilson. I’m a 27 year-old-movie director. Don’t want to sound arrogant but a well-known movie director and I really love what I do. I’m a lesbian and everyone knows it, I guess. So yes, I’m the calm soreness. I’m vinegar and sugar.

“ Aria I’m sorry but you have a very busy schedule today, can’t you skip the morning run?” said my manager, Jade Davis, she’s an original version of herself, she’s type A person, adores planning and more importantly sticking to plans she makes, yes, I always ruin them.

“Not really, if I skip it, will you carry the blame of every face I shoot at today?”, “Ill make a slight a change so you enjoy your morning run” she said with a smirk.

“Today you have a meeting with the producer at 10 am, and by 10:30 you’ll be meeting the lead actress of the movie -The art of not knowing- and by 1 pm…”, “the auditions I know” I said while wiping my face with a towel getting ready to head to my office. “So..”, she looked at me with her glasses firmly while I was driving and she was sitting nest to me , “what?”, “I asked you last week to get me a list of new books to read!”, “oh that! Actually I asked my cousin, she has your taste, she told me nothing amazed her recently so I didn’t want to waste your time in trash”, “ugh, I finished my last month’s books!”, “well, I’ll try again I promise”.

“What do you mean the budget exploded, Hudson? You knew before we started working together on this movie that I don’t care about money I care about the quality of my work!”, “I know, but…”, “no buts! I’m not giving up any scenes for the damn budget!”, Jade leaned and whispered into my ears, “calm down! He looks scared!”, “Jade!”, “okay I thought your morning run took the anger away!”, “you ruined my mood! Get me a freaking book to read!”, “well! Look, I can expand the budget for you” said Hudson with a trembling smile, I answered him with a node and we both stood up, shook hands then Jade helped him get to the door.

“Did we stick to the plan, Jade?”, “better than last week, thank God!”, I turned to her, “what do we have tomorrow?”, “actually, not much!”, “I want to take tomorrow off, possible?!”, “we have then to call the cast and cancel the scene!”, “why?! Mark and Rose will go!”, “you want them to work without you! I mean after all they’re just assistants!”, “it’s a single scene I’ll watch the tape the day after”, “fine, I’ll inform them”, “good!”, “why?”, “what?”, “you know, you barely take days off, usually for critical situations”, “I want to experience something new and I want to concentrate”, “oh! Then I’ll make sure not to bother you with phone calls!”.

The next day, I woke up, put on my training-suit, my Headphones and enjoyed the morning run of my day off.

Got home, took a shower and started a very new experience. I used to enjoy published books, the felt books, I loved how you can smell the thoughts through the pages, until readers club recommended me an application called “Wattpad” . I downloaded it. But then I found out I have to create an account, I didn’t want to be recognized so I faked an account. I started searching and searching and I felt so hungry for reading. One book caught my eyes. Like a sparkle that made every other book just ordinary. The shade of her lipstick by Annie Joseph.

I drowned in it the way I couldn’t feel time. The ringing of my phone was a wake up call from reality. Annoying. “What now, Jade?! You said you won’t bother me with calls!”, “sorry sorry sorry, I just… I couldn’t I want to know about your experience!”, “ugh! Tomorrow, Jade! What’s the time anyway?”, “it’s 2:15! Why?!”, “wow!”, “what?!!”, “never mind! See you tomorrow”, I hanged up and thought to myself how amazing that was! I didn’t even feel hungry! 4 hours! Just reading.

“How was yesterday?!” asked Jade with her usual smirk, “amazing actually”, “you know I’ll keep asking! I’m really curious!”, “Well! Remember that time I told you I was thinking about switching to online reading”, “yes?”, “I started reading from that application I heard about and oh my God really! I found that book, it stole my breath away”, “you have never been this excited about a book! You always want more but you never really mentioned any”, “yeah! I know! I mean I’m just afraid of finishing it! I’ll get depressed!”, “oh God! Help us please! That won’t be good news for Hudson and Rose, they get most of your bad moods on their faces as a tattoo” I laughed so she turned to me in surprise “did you actually laugh?!”, “Yes! Now let me park slowly this time I don’t want to crush into anyone’s car today”, she chuckled!

“Aria, about yesterday’s scene” said Mark, “yes”, “we had to postpone it to next week”, “why?! Is everything okay?” “yeah... Just the lead actress was a little bit…drunk” he closed his eyes waiting for me to crush his world into pieces but I just “okay! Good!”, “wait what?”, “where’s Jade?!”, “ I …don’t know, I guess she’s talking on the phone outside”, I nodded and headed to the office.

My phone became the package of cigarettes I was running from all day. I sat it on my disk and kept examining it with my eyes thinking about the lines. The words. The expressions. And kept repeating my favorite line “her curls, her walk, apparently everything she does…turns my world upside down. Everything she does makes me the slave of her own beauty…”.