"Look up," he told me. He smoothed the stuff under my eye. "From the Dead Sea," he said. "Have you heard of it?"
I felt the serum tingle on my skin. "I’ve been there. A long time ago". I was eight and my family was visiting friends in Israel. We drove from Tel Aviv to the Dead Sea and I marveled at the white, salty sand and the way the concentration of salt in the water made you extra buoyant, water so thick with salt you could not possibly dive under it. I could tell he was impressed.
"I’m a cop," I said, unsure why I had said it. To validate the lines on my face?
"So you work the night shift," he said. "That’s why you are so tired."
"No, I work days, but I am tired anyway."
He applied a second layer around my eye, the consistency of a thick, milky cream. "You’re tired because you drink too much."
"Yes, I drink too much," I admitted to this stranger who was standing so close to me, touching me, reading inside me. I was not insulted. We looked at each other sadly. Yes, I drink too much. Told to me by a soothsayer, a potion-maker, a reader of faces.
He held up a mirror for me to see the effect. I was surprised to see there was an actual difference. The side he applied the cream and serum on was smoother, less lined. For one wild moment I thought I had found the answer to my lost youth. Then I came back down to reality. "How much?" I asked. He showed me his price list. $195 for the serum and $135 for the cream. I started to back away and shook my head.
He took my arm again. "This is a secret. A secret between you and me, because you are Jewish," he said in his thick accent. He repeated, "A secret, a secret, shh." He took out his calculator and started to punch in numbers. He showed me the calculations. "I give you both," he said. $59.99.
