At 78, I thought I’d met a man who saw me without judging my facial hair. Arthur called my mustache beautiful and requested close-up photos without makeup. It seemed romantic. But dinner at his home left me terrified when his housekeeper whispered, “Ma’am, you need to leave… before he comes back.”
The first time Arthur asked for a photograph of my face without makeup, I thought it was romantic.
The fourth time, I began to wonder.
“Another picture?” I teased over the phone.
“Please, Holly. I love seeing you as you are.”
“Another picture?”
I laughed.
“Arthur, you’ve already seen me three times.”
“Not nearly enough.”
The hair had darkened into a noticeable mustache in my twenties.
“Not nearly enough.”
Strangers sometimes stared before remembering their manners.
I had spent more than 50 years learning ways to hide it.
It hurt knowing people noticed my mustache before they noticed me.
My late husband, Walter, never complained.
Strangers sometimes stared.
He kissed me good morning whether I’d shaved or not.
Once, when I refused to attend a wedding because my upper lip looked particularly dark, he brought me my coat.
“Holly, the bride invited you because she loves you. Nobody’s hiring you to model lipstick.”
He kissed me good morning.
I went, though I still checked the mirror six times.
Walter died nine years ago.
Afterward, I stopped thinking about romance.
I could manage loneliness.
I still checked the mirror.
What I couldn’t bear was the thought of another man studying my face and deciding whether I was acceptable.
Then my granddaughter signed me up for a dating app.
“Grandma, you deserve company.”
My granddaughter signed me up for a dating app.
She laughed and uploaded my photograph.
Three days later, Arthur appeared.
He was an 80-year-old widower whose first message asked whether I preferred crossword puzzles in pen or pencil.
She uploaded my photograph.
“Pen,” I replied. “I’m old enough to live dangerously.”
“Then we’d get along,” he replied.
We exchanged messages every evening.
He remembered that I grew roses and asked about my granddaughter’s new job.
“Then we’d get along.”
When I mentioned my mustache, I held my breath waiting for his response.
Instead, he wrote:
“Please don’t ever shave it. I think you’re beautiful exactly as you are.”
I read those words three times.
Then I cried.
I mentioned my mustache.
Not because Walter had failed to love me.
Because I’d spent so many years refusing to believe him.
Arthur brought my favorite lemon cookies to our first date.
When I caught him looking at my face, I touched my upper lip automatically.
I’d spent so many years refusing to believe him.
He noticed.
“You don’t have to do that around me, Holly darling.”
I lowered my hand.
On our second date, he photographed me beside a rosebush.
That evening, he asked for another picture without makeup.
I sent one.
He noticed.
On our third date, he asked whether I’d always lived in the same city.
“Not always,” I said. “My family moved around when I was young.”
He seemed interested.
Perhaps a little too interested.
He asked whether I’d always lived in the same city.
A few days later, Arthur invited me to dinner prepared by his housekeeper, Helen.
Before we hung up, he made another request.
“Would you send me one more picture?”
“Arthur, at this rate you’ll have enough photographs to open a museum!”
Arthur invited me to dinner.
“Just your face, darling. No makeup.”
I paused.
“Why are you so interested?”
“Because I love your natural beauty.”
I wanted that answer to be enough.
“Just your face, darling.”
So I sent the picture.
But that night, I noticed something odd.
Arthur had never asked for a photograph of my garden.
Or my house.
Only me.
I noticed something odd.
His house had old bookshelves and photographs of a woman I assumed was his late wife.
Arthur greeted me with pink roses.
“For the lady who grows better ones.”
“Flattery will get you everywhere.”
Arthur greeted me with pink roses.
He smiled, then studied my face long enough to make me touch my upper lip.
“Come in, Holly.”
He led me into the living room.
A woman carrying two crystal glasses entered from the hallway.
“This is Helen,” Arthur said.
He studied my face.
Helen looked at me. One glass slipped from her hand, then the other.
They shattered against the floor.
“Oh, goodness!” I exclaimed.
Helen remained still, staring at my face.
“Are you all right?” I asked.
Helen looked at me.
“Holly?” she gasped.
I blinked.
“Yes?”
Arthur stepped between us.
“Helen, please take care of the glasses.”
She looked at him.
“Arthur…”
Arthur stepped between us.
“Now, please.”
His voice was firmer than I’d heard before.
Helen bent to collect the pieces.
I crouched to help.
“No, ma’am,” she said quickly. “Please don’t.”
His voice was firmer.
Arthur guided me toward the dining room.
“She’s been having a difficult week.”
I glanced back.
Helen was still watching me.
And I had the uncomfortable feeling that she’d recognized someone she wasn’t supposed to see.
Helen was still watching me.
Over roast chicken and potatoes, Arthur began asking about my childhood.
Then my parents.
Then whether I’d ever had a sister.
“No,” I said. “Why?”
“Just curious.”
Arthur began asking about my childhood.
I set down my water glass.
“You’re asking a lot of family questions tonight.”
He smiled.
“Getting to know you, darling.”
I tried to relax.
“You’re asking a lot of family questions tonight.”
Then he asked something that made my fork stop halfway to my mouth.
“Did your mother live in Chicago in 1965?”
I stared at him.
“How do you know that?”
Arthur reached for his wine.
“Lucky guess.”
“How do you know that?”
“Arthur, that’s a very specific guess.”
He gave a small laugh.
“You mentioned moving around.”
“I never mentioned Chicago.”
His smile faded.
“That’s a very specific guess.”
For the first time, I wondered whether our meeting had been an accident.
Before I could ask another question, his phone rang.
He looked at the screen.
“Excuse me. I need to take this.”
His phone rang.
He left the dining room.
I sat alone with my half-finished dinner.
A door closed somewhere down the hallway.
Then came hurried footsteps.
He left the dining room.
Helen appeared.
She wasn’t carrying anything.
“Ma’am, you need to leave,” she whispered.
I stared at her.
“What?”
Helen appeared.
“Please. Before he comes back.”
“What’s going on?”
She glanced over her shoulder.
“There’s something you should know.”
“Please. Before he comes back.”
Helen took my hand and led me toward the hallway.
“Arthur has been looking for you for years,” she said.
“Why?”
Before she could answer, a voice came from behind us.
“Arthur has been looking for you for years.”
“Helen. What are you doing?”
Arthur stood at the end of the hallway.
Helen didn’t release my hand.
“I’m telling her,” she said.
“Helen. What are you doing?”
“Not like this.”
“Then how? You’ve had three dates and an entire dinner.”
I looked from one to the other.
“Someone had better explain what’s happening.”
Arthur approached slowly.
“Not like this.”
“Holly, please don’t be frightened.”
“That’s not a reassuring thing to say.”
He stopped.
Helen turned toward me.
“There’s something in his study you need to see.”
“Holly, please don’t be frightened.”
“Holly…” Arthur panicked.
“No,” I said. “Show me.”
***
His study smelled of old paper and furniture polish.
On the desk sat a small cardboard box.
“Show me.”
Arthur looked at it as though he’d hoped I’d never notice it.
Helen opened the lid.
Inside were yellowed envelopes, newspaper clippings, and photographs.
She lifted one photograph from a protective sleeve.
Helen opened the lid.
Then she handed it to me.
The photograph showed a teenage girl beneath a bright salon lamp, her hair pinned back and her hands clasped in her lap.
I knew her before I recognized the dress.
The photograph showed a teenage girl.
It was me at 17 in Chicago.
I sat down and ran my thumb along the photograph’s worn edge.
My mother had taken me to a beauty consultation at a department store.
It was me at 17.
A woman there promised they could make my face look “more feminine.”
I remembered the powder, the young employee beside the camera, and the adults discussing my upper lip as though I couldn’t hear them.
“That much hair will be difficult to conceal.”
A woman there promised they could make my face look “more feminine.”
“She’ll need regular treatment.”
“Girls are terribly sensitive at this age.”
I had stared at my hands until the appointment ended, then cried in the restroom.
I had tried not to remember that afternoon.
“She’ll need regular treatment.”
I looked up at Arthur.
“Where did you get this?”
Arthur sat opposite me.
“I worked for the company that produced those consultation photographs.”
I stared.
“Where did you get this?”
“You?”
“I was 19,” he said. “It was one of my first jobs.”
I looked at the photograph again.
The young employee.
The camera.
A boy who wouldn’t meet my eyes.
“It was one of my first jobs.”
“You were there.”
He nodded.
“Yes.”
“I remember asking you whether I looked terrible.”
Arthur closed his eyes.
“You were there.”
“And I didn’t answer.”
“No.”
I remembered his silence perfectly.
The consultant had laughed and said, “Well, that’s why we’re here.”
“And I didn’t answer.”
I had wanted someone to tell her to stop.
Nobody had.
“Why do you still have this photograph?” I asked.
Arthur rubbed his hands together.
Nobody had.
“Years later, a former colleague contacted me while clearing out an old storage room. He’d found a box of photographs and consultation cards that should have been destroyed long ago. Your name was written on the back of the photograph. I remembered the appointment when I read it, and I asked to keep it.”
“He’d found a box of photographs.”
I turned the photograph over.
My name was there in faded blue ink.
He had kept that afternoon for decades while I had spent those same years trying to forget it.
“I should have told you I had it, Holly. And I should have asked whether you wanted it back.”
My name was there in faded blue ink.
He pointed to a faded card bearing my mother’s name and our Chicago address.
“I recognized the appointment,” he added. “I remembered you.”
“You remembered me for sixty-one years?”
“Not every day. But I never forgot what happened.”
“I remembered you.”
I studied his face.
“Then how did you find me?”
“Your full name and your mother’s were on the consultation card. I’d looked for you now and then, but I never found anyone I could be certain was you.”
He glanced at the photograph.
“How did you find me?”
“After my wife died, I tried again. I found your name in an old community newsletter online. It mentioned your granddaughter and the roses you grew. Then, months later, I saw a dating profile with the same name and details. I thought it might be you. That’s why I kept asking about your childhood.”
“I tried again.”
I set the photograph down before my hands could bend it.
“So you didn’t match with me by chance.”
“No.”
I looked at the photographs in the box.
Then at Arthur.
“Why?”
“So you didn’t match with me by chance.”
“My wife struggled with her appearance,” he explained. “She told me how cruel beauty advertisements had been when she was young.”
Arthur smoothed one curled corner of the consultation card.
“After she died, I began thinking about the work I’d done. The things I’d said. The things I hadn’t said.”
“My wife struggled with her appearance.”
“And you decided to find me?”
“I wanted to apologize. At first, I thought I’d tell you immediately,” he said. “But I enjoyed talking to you. I was afraid you’d never speak to me again.”
“So you dated me instead?”
“I wanted to apologize.”
His face reddened.
“I didn’t mean to hurt you.”
“Arthur, you asked me for photographs of my face.”
“I thought you were becoming more comfortable with yourself.”
“Was that your decision to make?”
“I didn’t mean to hurt you.”
He looked down.
Helen stood quietly near the doorway.
“I saw him take that box out this afternoon,” she revealed. “He’d been rehearsing what to tell you. I warned him that surprising you with those photographs was cruel.”
Helen stood quietly near the doorway.
Arthur looked at her.
“I was going to explain.”
“You’d already had three dates to explain,” Helen replied.
I turned back to Arthur.
“Did you ask for those pictures to make sure I was the girl in this photograph?”
“I was going to explain.”
“At first, I wanted to be certain.”
“And afterward?”
He swallowed.
“I liked seeing you happy. I thought perhaps I could help undo some of what happened.”
I looked from the 17-year-old girl who had been told her face needed correcting to the man who had told me, 61 years later, that I should never change it.
“You could have told me the truth.”
“I know.”
I should never change it.
“You let me think you loved the way I looked without any history attached.”
“I do think you’re beautiful, Holly.”
I stood.
“Then you should have trusted me enough to tell me why you recognized my face.”
“I do think you’re beautiful, Holly.”
Arthur rose too.
“Please. I only wanted a chance to make things right.”
“You had a chance. You could have been honest on our first date.”
He reached toward the photograph.
I moved it away.
“You had a chance.”
“Don’t.”
His hand dropped.
Helen approached.
“Would you like me to call you a car, ma’am?”
“Yes, please.”
His hand dropped.
Arthur remained beside his desk with one hand resting on the cardboard box.
“Holly, I’m sorry.”
I didn’t answer.
Not because I wanted to punish him.
Because I couldn’t yet tell whether his apology was for what he’d done 61 years ago or what he’d done to me now.
I didn’t answer.
I placed the photograph on the desk.
Then I walked out with Helen.
Arthur’s letter arrived four days later.
He apologized for the salon, the photographs, and hiding our history.
I placed the photograph on the desk.
He didn’t ask for forgiveness.
Inside the envelope was the photograph I’d left on his desk, along with the consultation card bearing my mother’s name.
I stared at it for a long time.
He didn’t ask for forgiveness.
Then I noticed something I’d forgotten.
The girl beneath that lamp wasn’t ugly.
She was frightened.
And nobody had comforted her.
The girl beneath that lamp wasn’t ugly.
My granddaughter found me crying.
“Grandma?”
I handed her the photograph.
“That’s me at seventeen.”
My granddaughter found me crying.
She studied it. “You had beautiful eyes.”
I wiped my cheek with my sleeve.
“That’s what Walter always said.”
She squeezed my shoulder.
“You had beautiful eyes.”
For once, I didn’t turn the picture over.
A week later, I called Arthur.
“Did you ever wonder what happened to me after that appointment?”
“Not until years later,” he admitted.
I didn’t turn the picture over.
“I spent decades trying to fix something that wasn’t wrong.”
“I’m sorry, Holly.”
“I believe you. But I don’t know whether I can trust you again.”
“I understand.”
“I believe you.”
We agreed to leave things there for now.
That evening, I placed the salon photograph beside one my granddaughter had taken recently.
In the newer picture, I was laughing.
My mustache was plainly visible.
We agreed to leave things there for now.
I looked from one face to the other.
Sixty-one years apart.
I didn’t reach for my makeup.
Instead, I straightened both frames on the shelf.
Then I went into the kitchen to make tea.
I didn’t reach for my makeup.
