The Guardian

Short Story
MARCIA'S GREEN MASK
On the twenty-first day of her new life as Mrs. Robert T. Evans, Marcia made a resolution that even though she was now included in the vast category of busy housewives, she would not 'let herself go' as many of her married girl friends had done. She decided that she would keep herself looking just as attractive for her new husband as she had when he was her sweetheart.
To this end, Marcia had bought a dozen gay cotton frocks and several smart pinafores to wear about the house. She had read innumerable magazine articles anent wives who presided at the breakfast table attired in bedraggled negligees, with curlers in their hair, and their faces smeared with greasy creams. So Marcia never came to breakfast until she had donned a neat cotton housecoat, brushed and combed her hair, and she even applied a dash of gay red lipstick to add a note of glamor to her appearance.
Of course she didn't plan to give up the necessary beauty rituals; particularly since she had short, straight hair that refused to curl and dry complexion that required special cream treatments. Marcia had solved her coiffure problem with weekly croquignoles and she had also devised a way of giving her skin its customary care without her husband's knowledge.
Marcia was devoted to an olive-green mask cream that looked unattractive, to say the least, on her skin. Luckily, Bob was a sound sleeper and once he closed his eyes in slumber they never opened until morning.
Every night as soon as Marcia was sure Bob was asleep, she would get out of bed and generously spread the green mask cream over her face, wind a net about her head to protect her wave, and jump back into bed again. Then in the morning she would get up a few minutes before she awakened Bob, remove the cream from her face, and thus Bob never knew his little wife's radiant complexion was due not to Mother Nature, but to Mme. Renee's Masque Cream.
Sunday mornings the Evanses invariably slept late; still Marcia would always arise earlier to get the Sunday papers. However, this Sunday morning, perhaps due to the late Saturday night bridge game, Marcia overslept and it was Bob who heard the paper boy's knock and arose to answer it. As he returned to the bedroom, Bob playfully threw the comic section at Marcia and yelled, "Hey, wake up, lazybones, are you going to sleep all day?"
Marcia jumped up, startled, and said sleepily, "Oh, Bob, you're up already? What time is it?" And then she cried, horror-stricken, after rubbing her eyelids, "Oh-oh! My face! You've seen my face!"
"But definitely!" Bob answered laughingly. "And what a face! You've turned green with envy! I recommend a cake of soap and a bowlful of hot water as the only cure for you, Mrs. Evans."
"Why, you're taking it as a joke!" Marcia cried, amazed. "You mean you aren't—ah—disillusioned at seeing me like this?"
"Disillusioned? Why should I be?" Bob answered. "I know how beautiful you really are underneath all that goo. Besides, you don't get disillusioned when you see my face covered with shaving lather, do you?"
"Why, no!" Marcia giggled. "I think it makes you look cute." Then she added. "You mean you don't mind if I go to bed with this cream all over my face?"
"Of course not, honey. I don't care how much green goo you put on your face, just as long as you keep it off your left cheek. I want that free so I can kiss your dimple every morning—like this," Bob answered as he mockingly bestowed a gingerly peck on Marcia's green coated dimple.