Read the Face by Eric Standop

Author:Eric Standop
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: St. Martin's Publishing Group

The Acid Test

When a friend and I were in London, we had a hankering for pizza, and someone steered us to a good place. It was tiny, run by Sicilian parents and their daughter, who looked to be in her early twenties. She would have looked more her age had she not had a Mountain face. Pear-shaped, with a forehead narrower than the jaws, which slopes back from the nose, a Mountain face is unusual in a women and rare in a woman so young.

As she took our order, we could hear her parents fighting in the kitchen. Since they were speaking Italian, we couldn’t understand the words, but their wrath was clear. Her face bore no reaction—she didn’t look apologetic or roll her eyes or even smile to acknowledge the commotion. When she delivered the order slip, we heard them yell at her, but when she brought our food, her face was impassive.

Luckily, the fight died down enough for us to eat in relative peace. When we left, we saw her perched outside on a little bench, smoking a cigarette. “Where are you from?” she asked.

As she and my friend began chatting, I had the chance to study her closely. Her eyes were almost obscured by a heavy black eyeliner, like kohl. But I could see swollen bags beneath them, as if she’d been crying all night or partying. When such bags persist, they show that the kidneys and bladder are doing a poor job of preventing fluid buildup. There were also pouchy little swellings to the left and right of her lower lip, suggesting weakness of the gallbladder. The corners of her mouth turned downward, confirming what we already had reason to suspect: that she was very unhappy.

“Why do you work here?” I asked her. “It seems difficult.”

“My parents need my support,” she said.

“Need it or just expect it? The place seems small enough for them to manage.”

She acknowledged this was true. “I’m ambitious,” she told me. “I’m saving up to go to college. It’s hard to make much money in such a little restaurant, but I figure I can stick it out.”

That was a typical Mountain face statement. The Mountain face always takes the “long path,” as Chinese face readers put it. Their eyes are on the future, not the present, so they put things off and become late bloomers. I explained face reading and the qualities of the Mountain face to her.

“You have the endurance and patience to stick it out,” I said, “but it’s taking a physical toll. Normally, especially at your age, detox organs like your kidneys and gallbladder sweep acidity from the body, but you’re collecting it. I see that in your face.”

I pointed to two moles I spotted above her eyebrows. “These moles, one on the left, and one on the right, are your second eyes. You line your eyes with black to hide what they express and also to keep from acknowledging what you see. But having second eyes means that you’re intuitive and empathetic.

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