🛍 Such A Steal - Short Story 🛍

There it sat there. It practically said, “take me.”

Lauren looked at the makeup palette. It wasn’t hers, but she wished it was. She continued getting ready and paused again. She looked at it. She knew it was an expensive brand of makeup that she couldn’t afford. She looked at her drugstore makeup and then back at that eyeshadow palette. No one will ever miss it, she thought to herself. Lauren picked it up and put it in her bag.

The weekend went by fast. As her visit ended, she hugged her hostess Karen, and smiled as sincerely as she could. “See you next time!” Karen said with a warm smile.

Lauren watched Karen wave as she drove away.

One morning, Karen went into her bathroom to get ready for the day. She went to grab her eyeshadow palette, but it was gone. Now where did I put that eyeshadow, she thought. Karen loved that eyeshadow. It was a gift she received from her grandson on her 70th birthday that year. She started looking in the usual places but had no luck. She continued searching and searching; going through every drawer and cabinet. She started looking in unlikely places as well, but she couldn’t find that eyeshadow. So, she went without.

A few weeks later, Karen’s grandson came for a visit. They stayed up chatting and having coffee that night and planned to go shopping in town in the morning. The morning came, and her grandson walked by noticing she wasn’t wearing any eyeshadow.

“Did you run out of that eyeshadow?” He asked.

Karen looked at her grandson with a worried look. “I didn’t want to tell you because I know you spent a lot on that eyeshadow, but I can’t find it.”

Her grandson looked at her warmly and said “No worries. Do you want me to help you look for it?”

“I have looked everywhere…” she said, “but I suppose I could have missed it.”

The two of them spent the morning going through the house in search of that eyeshadow, but they never found it. Karen looked at her grandson. “I always put it in the same spot…I don’t know where it could have gone.”

“When was the last time you saw it?” He asked.

She pondered for a moment and thought of the houseguest she had stay with her a few weeks ago. Her heart sank. She hoped it wasn’t true. She didn’t want to believe that Lauren could have taken it. She hesitantly shared this theory with her grandson. The prospect of this annoyed him, for he couldn’t understand how anyone could ever steal something like that. He hoped with her that it wasn’t true either – losing faith in others isn’t a pleasant feeling. Neither is the feeling of having to have the house under “lock and key” when people we should trust, come to visit.

Lauren smiled for a small moment as she held the makeup palette that wasn’t hers. She opened it and picked up her makeup brush. She looked at the colors that had been used the most and thought of Karen. What Lauren didn’t know when she stole the makeup, was the rotten feeling of guilt that came with it. She tried her hardest to pretend that she didn’t care, but deep down, she felt terrible. She closed the makeup palette and set it down.

It was time for her to visit Karen again, and the first thing she packed in her luggage was that makeup palette. It wasn’t worth it - no matter how much that makeup was worth. While getting ready, she snuck the makeup into a drawer under a bunch of things for Karen to hopefully find. At the end of this visit, she felt better, but that rotten feeling still lingered slightly. She hugged Karen tightly and left.

One morning, as she got ready, Karen dug in the drawer looking for some nail polish, and there it was – the eyeshadow palette! She smiled and smiled. Her grandson was going to be pleased to hear that she found it! She paused for a moment, thinking how odd it was that it showed up in a place she thought she had searched well. But her happiness was so large that she let it go. Karen smiled in the mirror, applying her special eyeshadow once more.

---