subway encounters

she was wearing black and white gingham pants. i think they were taffeta, or silk. something luxurious and expensive. like chef's pants, but that check was larger and fancier. bolder. her top was red, so red it was passing through the spectrum to orange. thin, with rolled, cap sleeves, and a seam running across the top through the middle of her chest, horizontal.

carrying a tall white shopping bag, small black, block letters spelled out M-A-R-N-I but was sized for a bottle of wine as easily as anything else. her own handbag was an overgrown coin purse, powdered... sage? with an old fashioned frame and to close it: a ball clasp.

a perfect bob, too long but fine and sweeping bangs, mousy and understated. parted far, far to the side, above her left ear. it was my right side. her face could only be painted with watercolors and there would be no sketching allowed first; everything about her face was so soft that any delineating line would be too harsh.

two thick black bands to strap in her wiry, narrow foot. another, thinner one to hook around the back of her heel with a buckle. the heel: clunky, chunky but slightly rounded, stacked and wooden? and her toenail polish is powdery as well, but bluer.

a bangle dangles from her slight wrist. smoky plastic, all rounded edges and the 1960's.

a dash of crimson lipstick, a swipe of blush in the hollows of her cheek and not a hint, not an ounce, and not a moment of mascara.

...

i lost my camera and if i had not, i can't say if i would have asked for the opportunity to photography her calculated, balanced outfit. but it had to be documented somewhere.