Lipstick

She wouldn’t wear lipstick until she saw him again.  It was a vow she’d made to herself, to make him come back.  All the girls at the Rest Center wore lipstick; girls from every corner of the continent.  Pink smudges on every coffee cup.  The men were young and gangly, eyes full of the ocean, faces eager, hungry.  Fatigues, fresh-scrubbed and bleached dry by a pale Roman sun, hung from their shoulders like playtogs.  They roamed the Rest Center looking for cuddles, laughter.  The front was moving away from them, and they were resting.