Tale of Two Lovebirds

Chapter 28

The little girls happily went through the toys in the bag. Ria showed Sami her newest ones while holding her favorite one under her left arm; her purple elephant. That one she didn't let any other kid play with, it was hers and hers only. Sami had little interest in it anyway, to her it was just another stuffed animal and a worn-out looking one too since it went almost everywhere with Ria. Ellie was its name, short for elephant.

A few minutes later, Samira was no longer that much interested in the toys and she started to walk around the room. "Dadi keeps her makeup here." She said pointing to the dressing table.

The younger girl set her toys down and walked over to her cousin. "Mommy puts makeup on her face too."

Ria said, forever marveled with what her mom did when she dressed up.

"Look." Sami said showing her exactly where their Dadi kept everything. "This is for the cheeks, for the lips, for the eyelashes..." She pointed at things and Ria watched with curiosity. It didn't take long for the older girl to venture into reaching out and actually touching something. "I don't know what this is." She said holding a concealer stick.

"It's for the lips." Ria said and Sami opened it to check. "No!" Ria exclaimed with surprise. "Dadi be mad if we play with her things."

Sami put the concealer back in its place, having second thoughts. "My mom lets me put lip gloss on sometimes." She said looking around for a lip gloss she could wear among their Dadi's stuff.

Ria just watched her. "Mommy say makeup is for grown ups." Her mom had never let her wear makeup.

"I know." Sami said. "We are big. I am because my sister is smaller."

"We are kids, not big like my mommy and your mommy and Dadi." Ria explained. She considered herself a big girl but not an adult.

Samira didn't disagree. She knew kids are not supposed to wear makeup but she was still curious about what her Dadi kept there. She found a lip stick instead of lip gloss and carefully removed the cap to look at it. Ria knew she wasn't supposed to be doing that but still watched, equally curious. "It's red." Sami said showing the lip stick to Ria, who found it lovely. It reminded her of a color her mom loved to wear. "I'm going to put on some."

"But Dadi..." Ria tried to make her cousin reason but ended up just standing there, watching horrified and completely in awe as Sami expertly applied the red lip stick on.

"It's okay, we wash our faces later." Sami told Ria carefully recapping it and putting it back in it's place. She pouted and then smiled, admiring her reflection in the mirror. "You wear this one." She said handing Ria the concealer stick.

Ria shook her head, she was not convinced. But she looked at Sami and she loved how the lip stick looked on her. Ria looked at the "lip stick" in her hand. She didn't really like the color, she liked the red one better. Her little hand reached towards it and Sami stopped her.

"No. You can't wear the same." She said and Ria frowned.

"Why?"

"Because I'm already wearing it." The older girl said. Ria could be very bossy but she usually followed and listened to Sami as she was older than her.

Ria didn't really like the color but now she wanted to wear lip stick too. She removed the cap and twisted the bottom to expose the flesh-colored concealer stick, just like she saw Sami do with hers. She didn't know it wasn't a lip stick and neither did the other girl. Their knowledge about makeup was still pretty limited. It looked lot like a lip stick to both of them so she proceeded to apply it to her lower lip first and then the upper one. She was as careful as she could be, looking at herself in the dressing table's mirror, trying to stay inside the "lines" as she did when she colored.