Our Many Faces

Think about it. You wake up barefaced, fuzzy-headed, not much caring how you look. If you live alone, that might be it for the day. Brush your teeth, run a comb through your hair and you’re done.

But let’s say you have a spouse. You put on your “Good morning” face. If you have kids, they get a slightly different version, depending on how much noise they’re making.

A work day requires smiling at the right people. If you work alone, maybe you grab a coffee, beeline to your cubbyhole, close the door, and relax.

If you’re in sales, ahhh, that’s a different color horse you’ll be riding, and each stop you make or each person who walks in the door requires a slightly different face. New customers get the big smiley, faithful customers get a more genuine grin that says without asking, “Howdy, how are you?”

Lunch with the boss requires: serious but not gloomy, alert but not nervous, content but not complacent, while hoping your acid reflux doesn’t act up. A night out with friends means wearing big smiley again, but once the “Howdies” are over, it’s okay to unbend a little, just don’t look bored.

Living alone and in the country, I sometimes have to practice in the mirror so my face will know how to act when I take it out in public. Then before making that long drive to the city, I plan my day with back-to-back encounters. This trip, for example, I’ll be having coffee with my editor, striving to look like the hardworking author I am, visiting a bookstore to drop off an Advance Reader Copy of Emissary and looking like the bestselling author I hope to be, then to a grocery store, car wash, and dinner with good friends I haven’t seen in a while.

My face will get a quite workout.

What face are you wearing today?

Emissary, a cross-genre thriller – Pre-Order NOW at charthousepress.com/books/emissary