Saks Fifth Avenue, Ground Floor

He is the only male circling awkwardly  the well-lit perimeters of the cosmetics department. Into this estrogen canyon he meanders past slinky women heavily adorned under their own products, like it was opening night at the opera instead of 11 a.m. on Wednesday, and up to the Chanel counter. The woman working there blinks mauve-lidded eyes at him, signaling a combination curiosity  and bemusement, as if he is some lost child strayed from a distracted mother’s hand. In sotto voce he surrenders himself to her expert counsel: the exact lipstick, please,  she used to wear, in faint hope that talismanic possession of this Chanel tube might compel her lips back to his. A chasm of silence opens between them. The saleswoman bites her lower magenta lip in sympathy, but also recognizes a ship-wrecked castaway even absent his island,  asks him, Honey, wouldn’t you be better off buying a jar of our vanishing cream?