Watching Carmen made Slade see Sweet Sadie’s for what it was. Not a smalltime shop that sold insignificant things, but a lifeline for those struggling to make a better life for themselves in a community the world often forgotabout.
The second week of their wager, Mandisa took Slade to a rehearsal at a local community center. Inside, he met a dance group made up of local kids. He thought they were cute, and talented as hell. They moved in ways he’d never be able to command his body to, with such ease and confidence. But he didn’t understand how being there would help him appreciate Mandisa’s work more, until he spoke to the director of the communitycenter.
Apparently, these kids were part of a program initiated to keep local children from ending up on the streets. The program offered afterschool care for kids whose parents wouldn’t be able to afford to send them to activities. The kids did homework, played, and worked on talents, skills, and hobbies that helped theirdevelopment.
This particular group of dancers was practicing to perform in the Labor Day Parade. The director told him their costumes and all fees associated with their entry into the parade had been covered by Mandisa’s company every year. She’d walked him over to a bulletin board where pictures of the previous year’s parade were pinned up. Their little faces were all bright and happy, covered in expertly applied makeup. Mandisa donated more than money—she donated her product and hertime.
Outside of that place, the streets were waiting for those children. Ready to swallow them whole and spit them back onto the cold, dangerous concrete. Mandisa’s patronage was the best thing in their arsenal to defend those kids against the harsh realities of their current existence. Suddenly, Slade’s job didn’t seem so important. How many lives had he touched directly sitting in his office? Certainly notenough.
The third week, Mandisa sent him to the Atlantic Avenue store to help with a seasonal promotional event. Of all the requests she’d made of him, this one grated on his nervesslightly.
The store was always busy. He’d barely had a moment to take a breath, let alone learn whatever lesson Mandisa intend to teach him. It was hard to see the intrinsic value of the place when all he could focus on was a different woman asking him for help finding a particular shade of lipstick or the new scent in the body lotion line every twominutes.
Slade was just about to take his assigned lunch break—even though he wasn’t on the store’s payroll, Mandisa insisted he follow all the employee handbook rules regardless of the fact he was technically a volunteer—when he glimpsed a woman standing in the lipsticksection.
She was short and curvy, with deep mahogany skin. He’d directed her to that section almost fifteen minutes ago. He couldn’t imagine that anyone could be staring at lipstick that long. It was like selecting a crayon color for your face—pick one you liked, and moveon.
Curious, he walked over to her, and asked politely, “Are you finding everything youneed?”
Her brown eyes fluttered slightly, and she dipped her head a bit before answering him. “It’s just so hard to wear red with my skin tone. I want to wear a really bright red, but I don’t think I can pull off any of thesecolors.”
Slade ran his fingers through the reds and stopped when he came across the shade labeled, “Damn.”
“My lady friend wears this one all the time. It’s one of my favorites onher.”
She smiled shyly. “No offense, but your girlfriend and I probably can’t wear the same shade oflipstick.”
“You’d be surprised. Mandisa’s skin tone is like yours. Rich and deep, I love this red onher.”
“Mandisa, the owner? She’s yourgirlfriend?”
Slade nodded. “Yes, ma’am. You knowher?”
The woman smiled as she gently took the tube of lipstick from Slade’s fingers. “Most girls learn to wear makeup as teenagers. I didn’t begin my studies until I was nearing thirty. All my life I’d been told I was too dark to wear anything but dim, drab colors. Only pretty girls with light skin could wear things like pinks, and golds, and reds. When I stepped inside of this store two years ago, fumbling through each aisle, Mandisa stopped and helped me. An hour later, she’d shown me how women like me, the ones who don’t quite fit the world’s standard of beauty, could be just as glamorous as the mainstream models on TV. Stepping into Sweet Sadie’s, I learned I was beautifultoo.”
She looked down at the lipstick in her hand and rolled it between her fingers, holding it as if it were something sacred, precious. “You wouldn’t happen to know which lip liner Mandisa wears with this, doyou?”
Slade chuckled. He only knew the name of that particular shade of lipstick because he’d been part of the naming process. Mandisa had worn the prototype for one of their dates. When he saw her, lips bold, bright, and luscious, the only word that had spilled out of his mouth was “Damn.” He’d laughed a month later when she’d handed him the tube and turned it upside for him toread.
“No, sugah.” His twang tinged the edges of the word. “I’m afraid the sum of my knowledge of lip color rests in yourhands.”
While sitting in the back of the store, eating takeout, he thought about the sadness in that woman’s eyes when she’d said the world told her women that looked like her weren’t beautiful. He wasn’t a woman of color, had no clue what it was like to be a woman of color attempting to buy beauty products. But he knew that every famous makeup model that worked with Venus’ products wasCaucasian.
He hadn’t thought much about that until this point. If Logan Industries was doing it, he was certain, his competitors were as well. If all you saw was blonde hair and blue eyes associated with things deemed beautiful, wouldn’t that become your definitiontoo?
Slade realized then all the things he was missing before. That cosmetics were about much more that people looking pretty. They were about making people feel pretty on the inside. Her work was much deeper than what went on top of someone’s skin. He realized why she couldn’t leave Brooklyn. Sweet Sadie’s was part of the community. It helped her little corner of the worldthrive.
What a fool he was. Up until that moment, he was so stuck on himself and his way of life, Slade hadn’t figured that Mandisa’s presence in her community, in her customers’ lives was as significant as his title of CEO of L.I. The sick feeling of regret floating at the bottom of his stomach told him how wrong hewas.
Slade made money for a living—lots of it. But Mandisa touched people’s lives. In that moment, Slade had to wonder when was the last time he’d impacted someone’s life the way Mandisahad.
Love moved Mandisa to sacrifice the things she wanted for the people who needed her. It was time for Slade to do thesame.
He blinked his eyes clear of the memories of their challenge and smiled at the results of those life-affirming lessons. He was standing here in this empty office building, waiting for the woman he loved more than his next breath, simply because he’d learned he wasn’t the most important thing in theworld.
A knock on the door pulled him away from the window and caused him to turn toward the entrance. A smile bloomed on his face when he saw Mandisa stepping into the largeoffice.
“Hey, cowboy. Any reason why you had me meet you in an empty officebuilding?”
