Ruby Red
When Rose was a girl, she spent an awful lot of hours on what her mother affectionately called 'mirror time'. She awoke early in the morning to hog the bathroom and make herself beautiful before school or church. Each night before bed, she sat before her vanity on its plump, cushioned stool and counted through one hundred strokes of her brush, watching the tiny bristles sift through her hair. On nights when her parents went on dates to a supper club, she sat before her mother's mirror, trying on pearls and spritzing herself with flowery perfume, powdering her face until she was white as a ghost. At women's college, Rose spent such hours gabbing with girlfriends, trading make-up tips and doing hair and dishing on the dreamiest boys.

As a vampire, her reflection was lost to her, but she still gravitated to ladies' rooms. She loved to hear the gossip whispered between stalls and listen as women gushed or groaned about their dates, who often waited, sweating, at tables outside. She ducked out of sight of the reflective surfaces, choosing instead to lean on a paper towel dispenser, or park herself on the low, leather benches that upscale joints placed in the anterior of restrooms. There, she sorted the contents of her purse, or attended to a broken fingernail with a metal file, and waited for an opportunity to be social.

One night, a little blitzed from a stunning selection of martinis, she perched on a lavatory bench, a bobby pin clasped between her lips. While Rose nimbly tucked a curl into her upsweep, a twenty-something named April emerged from a bathroom stall. She washed her hands in cold water and soap, and then applied a tube of Avon lipstick to her mouth. A few seconds ticked by as she studied herself, pocketbook open and wedged between the faucets.

"Excuse me," said the younger woman. She was pretty, a dishwater-blonde with freckles and hazel eyes, though not a ton of self-confidence, judging from the rounded set of her shoulders. "Hi, I'm sorry, I just wondered if you'd give me an opinion on something." The decision to ask the favor had been hard fought. April's face flushed. "Is my lipstick too much?"

Rose looked up and took the hairpin from her mouth. "Let me see... blot?" She smiled as the woman rubbed her lips together and faced her one-woman jury. "Well, that depends, doll. Just how dead do you want to knock him?" Finishing her hair, she assured, "It looks perfect," and seemed to go back to minding her business. Then, with tipped head, the brunette offered a question up as afterthought. "Hot date?"

Unleashing a nervous breath, April nodded. "Yeah, he's outside. He probably thinks I've fallen in," she joked weakly. "It's my first date since my divorce." There were butterflies in her stomach, which had set in at three o'clock and hadn't let up an ounce, even after appetizers and a main course. The need to relieve herself wasn't urgent, but she hadn't been able to resist the opportunity to escape the table and catch her breath. Now, the chance to vent a bit of her anxiety proved too tempting.

Rose settled back against the wall. "Married the wrong guy, huh?" she asked, feeling the hard tiles on her shoulderblades and not minding. "Me, too. My daddy liked him, though." She shook her head, telling the details with a soft giving way of her mouth into a smile. "They used to sit back and talk money for hours. Both of them were in finance," she said, allowing her head to loll towards the woman. "I'd get bored to tears. What about you?"

April touched the fingers on her left hand, lingering at the place where a ring had long rested. It was not so freckled as the rest. "Childhood sweethearts," she said. Before her, the sink faucet plunk-plunked, little droplets splattering in the basin. "It was a rough split. Me and Tony knew it was over, but our families got involved. We've known each other so long, his family's like mine, and vice versa. They all wanted us to stay in it, but--"

"But they're not the ones climbing between the sheets with him, night after night, are they?" Rose smiled in a confiding way. Just two girls sharing marital secrets. "And after a while, all the things that seemed funny or quirky just get your goat. Like cold feet on your legs, or the big splash when he leaves the toilet seat up."

The other woman laughed, a soft sound of amused relief. April was in short supply of female relatives; for some reason she couldn't identify, it was easier to talk about this with a strange woman in the bathroom than the girls with whom she shared lunch breaks. "We used to..." She wrapped her fingers around the faucet and twisted it tighter, conscious of the drip and her nerves. "We used to, you know... have sex after the sports report on the 11 o'clock news. We were done by David Letterman."

Rose laughed and then covered her mouth, groaning with sympathy, having the good grace to look apologetic for finding humor in the sad details of their lovemaking. "Oh, honey... that's the pits. Well, if that's the case, your lipstick's all wrong." She rooted through her beaded clutch, brandishing the ruby-red tube with a triumphant look. "Try this on for size." She tossed it April's way. "Trust me, from a gal that's getting her pipes cleaned right for a change? You don't wanna miss out."

The blonde caught it with unsure hands. It wasn't like her to use another woman's lipstick. Aside from being too intimate a gesture for comfort, there was hygiene to think about. But as she looked at the sharply-dressed brunette, she couldn't see the harm in it. She uncapped and twirled it, admiring the color. April's mother would've called it 'hooker red', but it took guts to wear it, and she thought that perhaps if she put it on, she'd feel gutsy. Ruby-red confident. It might impress Tom, who was ordering chocolate cake as she dawdled in the bathroom, because it was her favorite.

"Okay," she said, nodding as her confidence grew. "I'll get some tissue." April returned to her same stall, bending down to unroll a wad of paper, intending to use it to smudge away the safe mauve.

Outside at the bench, Rose got to her feet and smoothed her skirt into place. The footfalls on the bathroom floor weren't hurried, nothing to set off alarm bells within trusting April, who would've thought the brunette came to offer help. The fanged vampire reached up and grabbed the top of the door, swinging it into place behind them and turning the latch. In the tight confines of the stall, she wrapped a hand around April's mouth.

"Shh..."