A/N: This is set to the song "Nobody Ever Told You" by Carrie Underwood, and it came to me on the bus home from Arbroath today, as I was listening to the song.
Sarah x
Take off all the make-up girl
Shine your light, show the world
Don't be shy, don't be scared
You don't have to hide under there
Let's throw away all the magazines
Turn off the static on the TV
Wish you could see yourself the way I do
They were arguing. Sandra and Gerry were arguing while Jack and Brian were out. All because they had been in a meeting with a rather powerful man at the top of a security firm, and Gerry hadn't pointed out that, as the hot, humid day had gone on, her eye shadow, mascara and foundation had melted and gone askew. And she was furious. So Gerry went into her bag and threw a mirror and face wipes at her. "Go on!" he shouted. "Take it off. You don't even need the bloody stuff."
The look of shock on her face was priceless, and she looked at her own features sceptically in the mirror. He could tell she really was struggling with the task of removing her make-up; whether it was through insecurity or habit, she didn't want to. "It's my guard, though," she objected in a whisper. Gerry knew she didn't wear much make-up, but was uncomfortable without it.
"You don't need it," he insisted. "You shouldn't use it to hide. Believe me, your personality does more for you than any make-up ever could. You're tough and brilliant," he admitted, in a rare moment of intimate honesty.
She was still doubtful, he observed. He realised, with four daughters and three ex-wives, that there was an insane pressure from the media for women to be perfect. "Those women you see on the telly and in magazines, Sandra, they have hours spent on them and computers to make them flawless," he reminded her. "Why can't you see that you're beautiful underneath it?" he demanded.
Nobody ever told you
Nobody ever told you
You shine like a diamond
Glitter like a gold
And you need to know
What nobody ever told you
She didn't answer him; she just looked at her reflection in the small mirror, with a look of distaste clear on her face. Her reaction made Gerry wonder if she knew just how great she was. He wondered if she had this lesson he was trying to teach her before now, taught by someone else. Her father died when she was only fourteen, so he was not there to tell her that she was beautiful and didn't need to hide her real beauty. And Grace was hardly the sort to intervene.
And because nobody seemed to have tried to teach her, she now didn't realise that her bright blue eyes would sparkle even without the coloured chemicals around them. She couldn't understand that her lips made the perfect round smile whatever colour they were, that they didn't need to be glossy and pink to be attractive to any single man in the room with her.
She needed to see that she really is beautiful. People the team crossed would call her "good-looking" or try hopelessly to flirt with her, but it just wasn't the same as sitting her down and forcing her to see what she was. She needed someone to tell her that she didn't need to wear expensive clothes and hide her skin with chemicals, and it was going to have to be him.
Mirror mirror on the wall
Acting like he knows it all
Tells you lies of vanity
He doesn't care what's underneath
All hung up on the negative
Doesn't have to be the way it is
Wish you could see yourself the way I do
"That mirror," he pointed at the offending object, "doesn't tell you that you're stunning inside and out. It doesn't know who you are or what you've been through. And yet you believe everything it tells you."
She was still reluctant, and she was struggling to explain to Gerry why. And he was waiting for her to tell him why, because he couldn't understand it. "But Gerry," she began slowly, almost like a child. "I'm fifty-one years old. My skin is so awful without it, and I hate my complexion ."
"You don not look fifty-one years old," he said forcefully. "Forget that for a second," he ordered her. "What about how smart you are, and your wicked sense of humour. I should know; I'm on the receiving end often enough," he added, and she gave a small smile. They both knew he was right.
It was getting harder for him to drum his point into her, but she was opening up about her insecurities. "You don't have to be like this about it. Why can't you understand you're pretty without it?" he sighed.
Nobody ever told you
Nobody ever told you
You shine like a diamond
Glitter like gold
And you need to know
What nobody ever told you
It's then that he knows that nobody had ever taken the time to do this for her. She was fixated on her age and was convinced she wasn't pretty because of it. She seemed to have forgotten her experiences, how she's changed on the inside with everything her parents and friends and enemies had put her through.
And during all those experiences, she never once had been told that she was brighter than the sun and worth more than any man who had crossed her path. Not even her father. She had gotten so far in her career, and she had worked hard to get there. Gerry thought she was everything the Metropolitan Police stood for: she was relentless, just, compassionate, strong...and beautiful, though she refused to accept that aspect of herself.
Gerry was still adamant that she needed to take the artificial face off and let the world see her real face, because – even if nobody told her – she was incredible.
Free as a bird
Up on a wire
Just like a flower growing wild
You're beautiful, you're beautiful
She gave him one last uncertain stare before she slowly wiped the wet cloth down the side of her face. "I can't believe you're making me do this," she said bitterly. "I look so awful without it. I might have got off with it five years ago, but not now."
"You're kidding, right?" Gerry asked disbelievingly. "Sandra, you'll always be able to wear no make-up and be beautiful. You're naturally pretty," he told her honestly. The way Gerry saw it was that, the second her skin was free, so was she. Once she was comfortable with her own skin, she would be even more beautiful than she was normally. The bottom line was that she was more beautiful than she every let herself, or anyone else, realise.
Nobody ever told you,
Nobody ever told you
You shine like a diamond
Glitter like gold
And you need to know
What nobody ever told you
The uncertainty on her face was telling him the story of how she had lived her adult life. The story of how she was so competitive that she felt she had to hide her true self to be attractive. How she had never had anybody to show her otherwise. How she believed the lie she told herself that she never looked good enough and that the answer was to hide herself in another way.
Gerry, though, he thought she was stunning. All he saw was a woman who could ensnare any man with her looks, and then terrify him with her fire and strength. He was the only woman he knew who had that ability. All three of his ex-wives were pretty, and all three were strong, but their emotional outbursts were nothing when compared to Sandra's passion.
He hoped that she was seeing it now. He really hoped she had seen a glimpse of the beauty she really was, minus what she covered herself up with every time she was in public. The amount of make-up she used was never excessive, but it just annoyed him because she quite simply was a woman who would never need it.
You shine like a diamond
Glitter like gold
And you need to know
What nobody ever told you
"There," he said gently once she was finished. "Now you're the most beautiful woman I've ever come across." She gave him a strange look before kissing his cheek as thanks for his efforts.
"Why did you do that?" she asked curiously.
He stared at her for a moment before he gave his answer: "Because you didn't know that you were something nobody bothered to tell you you were."
"And what would that be?"
"Unbelievably beautiful."
Hope it was OK!
Please leave a review and tell me what you thought of it!
Sarah x