"GWENN, YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND. I'm going to have to spend summer break on the other side of the country."
Aura couldn't believe it. After months of scoring her best client to date, her family decided to drop the news that they needed to pack their bags and stay at her grandmother's house in New Jersey. She had fought so hard to land her client. It could've been her ticket to making it big. Being a makeup artist was hard, and sometimes a grueling experience, so finding a client with a following who was interested in her work was a major step in the right direction.
And now that was taken from her.
"Maybe this is for the best," Gwenn suggested through the phone. "You haven't seen your grandma in so long, and I'm sure she misses you. Family is important."
"Family should also understand my hopes and dreams and let me live them." She groaned and flopped onto the light pink duvet covering her bed. Her suitcases stood on the other side of her bedroom by her vanity, taunting her. She had less than a day to pack her essentials before her trip.
This was not the summer vacation she envisioned for herself months before.
"Come on, you might have fun," Gwenn coaxed. "Be grateful that you have family. We know people who wish they had."
"Yeah, yeah," she replied. She knew many people who wished to bring back the dead. Sometimes she wondered if they were the ones that were lucky. Her family only seemed to stop her from following her dreams.
The thought made her shudder.
Aura knew part of that was because they didn't respect her career choice. Makeup wasn't conventional, as her parents always said. It wasn't ideal to depend on clients when she could get a stable job with a steady salary every month. Her income depended on how many clients she could land.
She knew her parents meant well, despite how annoying she found their pestering. They wanted to know their only daughter was well-off in the harsh world. But it bummed her out that she could never prove to them that she was happy doing makeup. Although her income wasn't stable, she thrived through her artistry.
"Well, what if you land clients over there?" Gwenn said. "You can work and spend time with your family."
"But it's never going to be Lacey Redd," she complained.
Lacey Redd, up-and-coming female musician. She had taken the world by storm with her unique sound and dazzling personality. Even Aura listened to her music. She had hired Aura to do her makeup for a magazine photoshoot after scrolling through her past works up on social media.
It was the opportunity of a lifetime, and here she was being forced to turn it down for a stupid vacation. She even thought of flying in late after doing Lacey Redd's makeup, but her parents weren't too keen on the idea.
Apparently her grandmother was way too antsy to see her. She figured if she spent almost a decade without seeing her, surely she could extend it a few more days. However, deep down, she knew it wasn't her grandmother that was demanding their presence, it was her parents that decided it would be on that set day. And she knew all too well how they handled others ruining their plans.
"I'm sorry, Aura, I know how much you wanted that job," Gwenn spoke. "But look at it this way: maybe Lacey Redd wasn't going to help you with your career and you're better off going to New Jersey."
Aura groaned once again. "Who in their right mind would be better off in a state like New Jersey?"
Gwenn chuckled through the phone. "You never know what could happen. What if you meet another celebrity who wants you to do their makeup?"
YOU ARE READING
Forever Glamorous
General Fiction"I put on makeup to express myself. I could care less about my so-called insecurities." Aura Chandler was so sure she had her life figured out. After securing a photoshoot gig with up-and-coming musician Lacey Redd, she was convinced she would get d...
