Keeping Up Appearances

The promo for my newest novel Most Highly Favored Daughter says "Appearances can be deceiving . . . and deadly." 

The protagonist, Cara Cavanaugh Hawthorne Wells, appears to have it all--a sterling reputation; the love and respect of her family, friends, and the public; beauty; and wealth, but as you learn from reading the novel, appearances are often not what they seem.

While Cara learns that appearances can be deceiving and often deadly, I recently learned that maintaining appearances can also be disastrous.

Does She or Doesn't She? Maybe She Shouldn't!

I'm pretty fortunate that I don't have many gray hairs, especially when considering that many of my Irish relatives on my dad's side had white "Phil Donahue" hair by the time they were thirty. Nevertheless, as I'm always plotting ahead, I thought I'd be smart and find a hair dye that matched my naturally dark brown hair before I would actually need to start coloring it for real. 

Early this spring, I dyed my entire mane to cover the few grays, and when no one asked me if I was going Goth or joining a Heavy Metal band, I considered my plan a success. Some even told me that I had the shiniest hair they'd ever seen. The only drawback was that I found dying my hair to be a messy affair. There were splashes on the bathroom wall that could only be touched up with paint. So I resolved that if and when I dyed the hair again, I'd do it in my basement.

Don't Try This at Home

Well, we have a wedding coming up this fall and a few of the grays have started to announce their silvery presence, so I thought I'd give the dye a whirl again. So last Saturday, I donned my special hair-dying robe--a bulky, teal blue terry affair with big white polka dots and a few holes--and headed to the laundry area of the basement. Feeling like a very smart do-it-yourselfer, I put Vaseline around my eyebrows (my brows are going gray faster than my hair--what's that all about?) around my hairline just as I'd seen hair stylists do to clients in the hair salon. I pulled on the plastic gloves, mixed the brown hair dye concoction, and put it all over my head. Then I swiped some dye across my brows before checking the clock in the game room and taking a seat on the basement steps where I was to wait 20 minutes while the dye worked its magic.

I'm a Marxed Woman!

After a few minutes of marinating in dye, I noticed a spot on my wrist where it had splashed, and when I rubbed it with my special hair dyeing towel (a spotted, ratty old towel), it wouldn't come off. My wrist was stained a bluish black. I rubbed at it like Lady Macbeth and her damned spot. Still no luck.

Courtesy of Pinterest Robert Cuccioli

Then a thought hit me: If my wrist could be blue-black, what if my Vaseline hadn't covered all of my skin? I needed a mirror. I don't have one in the basement, so I dashed up the steps and opened the door where my 24-year-old son stood in the kitchen. By his expression, I knew something was wrong. When I looked in the powder room mirror, I had eyebrows like Grouch Marx and a hairline like Eddie Munster.

 

After only giving the hair dye 10 minutes to work, I dashed back down to the laundry room and stuck my head under the laundry tub faucet and began to frantically rinse my hair and rub my eyebrows. When the water ran clear, I sprinted upstairs to my bathroom, glanced in the mirror, and discovered that I still had a shadowy hairline and overly large black eyebrows. I quickly jumped into the shower and used every face product I owned from the Apricot scrub to the citrus facial cleaner to finally the pineapple enzyme peel-off-mask. I smelled like a fruit salad.

It Wasn't So Nice and Easy

We were headed for Saturday night Mass, and as I blew my hair dry, I could still see the faintest staining along my hair line. As I curled my hair, I admired my work. My hair did look really lustrous and dark so it wasn't a total disaster. But I learned there's a fine line between looking good and looking like Groucho!

The extent my characters go to in Most Highly Favored Daughter to maintain appearances and conceal their secrets goes much deeper and darker than Nice & Easy Natural Darkest Brown.

Pick up your copy now at Amazon, Barnes & Nobel or Smashwords. 

Feel free to tell your friends and family about this sweet deal because when we enjoy reading, we're all friends.

Finally, if you liked the novel, please review it on the site where you purchased it.

Thanks a bunch and if you see me anywhere don't look too deeply at my hairline!