Vanity

I woke up in daze after what's supposed to be a power nap. Piles and piles of schedule from the weeks before left me in sleep deprivation, consolidated with three days without my eyecream. That forced a beauty sleep to be slipped into a busy happy hour Friday. 

I got a dinner plan that night at 8, snoozed my alarm at 8, then automatically opened my inbox, a latent habit of mine which is not very great. Apparently most of the attendees would be late. Good. I changed clothes and dabbed some darkhorse shadows on my eyes. 

The dinner place where we wanted to go was always packed. But apparently, my friend, being a busy banker who should assess credit approval for the mid level companies in Indonesia, matching their performance with the green compliance, and who just got back from her 10-day business training in Hong Kong forgot to book the place and thinking we were one of the "it" clans in Jakarta who could just snatch any table in this city. No, we were not. 

Off we went to a secluded coffee place near the restaurant. It was so secluded in fact it was located in front of the basement parking lot. Uncanny. We were surrounded by Vespas with different colors, and some rich person (dude/dudette I didn't know), parked their antique cars inside a glass room in that parking lot. Maybe you could already guessed where I was at this point. And there the three of us, sipping on our coffee, deserted from the happening, see-and-to-be-seen venue. We chatted, enjoying the view from there, three guys who seemed like regulars in that place. One of them had a tattoo on his calf, nice. And he wore jeans shirt, double nice.

One friend was having a politically-depressed day, and we helped her swearing on this particular politician slash war criminal,  blowing her steam away. When we're too tired to pretend to care about politics, half an hour later, entered our last dinner participant.

She: "Holy shit, that's my ex' car," she said while pointing at a vintage blue, newly polished car. Parked  near to where we sat. in fact, on the 11 AM from where she sat. 

Us:   "Whaaa?"

She:  "Shit, he must be here. Maybe for dinner or for clubbing. Wait, if it is for clubbing, then he wouldn't be here at 9 PM, it's too early. And if it is dinner, he's too cheap (one of the reasons why we broke up) so he couldn't afford a six course dinner, so I'm guessing he's just having a drink or one course meal upstairs, which means he would be here taking his car home anytime soon."

The mind of a vindictive person, schemer, or anybody who were in a break up competition, I tell ya, is amazing.

Then we offered her to just go from that place to avoid any awkward meetup. But no, my friends, she didn't want to do it because revenge is best served cold.

What happened next was she took out her absorbing sheet and patted her face for any oil clots, worry not for powder, she jumped to her eyes. Dior beige massal was then put on her eyelids and with her talented hands, stroking bold black line on the tips of her lids. Next, Lancome lip color to the rescue, finished with orgasmic blush on for her cheeks. While she's doing this, an albino or a rather old dog peed on her ex' front tire. She saluted the dog. With her polished face, she re-arranged her ammunition into her bag, thanking Dior, Make Up Forever, and Lancome, and sipped her iced latte. Inhaling a deep breath.

One minute later just like being directed, entered the infamous ex, looking shocked and greeted us, and my friend was ever so ready to only replied his sentence with one-word answers: yes or no, beautiful make up, cold attitude, and  a winning face. 

#truestory

PS: Long time ago I watched the movie "Coco Chanel" and there was a scene when she said this well-known quote, “I don't understand how a woman can leave the house without fixing herself up a little - if only out of politeness. And then, you never know, maybe that's the day she has a date with destiny. And it's best to be as pretty as possible for destiny.” 

At that time my reaction was, yeah right. Never knew that would be so practical. Not only for your destiny, but better, for revenge.