Make a wish.
Wait.
Wait.
Here.
Happy birthday.
Now pack.
Pack.
Pack for what?
You’re 21 now.
An adult.
Adults pay rent.
I give you half of what I make at the diner.
Half of nothing is still nothing.
Your stepmother and I talked.
We think it’s time.
Time for what, Dad?
Time for you to stand on your own two feet.
And you couldn’t wait one more day.
It’s pouring outside.
Mom, it’s raining.
Can’t she at least stay till upstairs now?
Is this about nursing school?
It’s about you quitting nursing school to stir chemicals in my garage.
They’re not chemicals.
It’s mom’s formula.
She was so close.
Diane, your mother has been gone 6 years.
This kitchen is not a shrine.
Nobody asked for a shrine.
I asked for a garage and some time.
Lily, your mother had a lot of dreams.
Most of them never paid a single bill in this house.
She paid every bill in this house until she got sick.
Dad, you know she did.
She wrote this for her own face, for her redness, for every woman who stood at a counter and never found her shade.
Your clothes are in the bag.
Everything else stays.
My laptop is in my room.
My school books.
Your father paid for that laptop.
Dad, look at me.
If you want me gone, say it yourself.
Richard, don’t drag this out.
We agreed.
You need to leave, Lily.
Take it.
Don’t tell my mom.
Brooke, you need this.
Not like you do.
I’m sorry.
I should have said more in there.
I just froze.
You did say something.
You were the only one who did.
Happy birthday, Lily.
I mean it.
$41, a garbage bag, and my mother’s notebook.
That was everything I owned.
Dad, it’s me.
The shelter on Fifth is full.
I just need one night on the couch.
One night.
Please call me back.
He never called back.
At the end of the street, there was one light still on.
A laundromat that never closed.
You can’t sleep here, miss.
I’m not sleeping.
I’m waiting for my laundry.
Which machine?
Number six.
Number six has been broken since March.
I’m sorry.
I’ll go.
It’s 2:00 in the morning and it’s pouring.
Come here and sit down.
[snorts] Who put you out in the rain?
My family.
It’s my birthday.
How old?
21.
21 and they gave you a garbage bag.
They gave me a cake first.
Oh, well that makes it much better.
And that my mom’s.
It’s a foundation she never got to finish.
Where is she now?
Your mother.
She died when I was 15.
She sold makeup at a mall counter for 18 years and never found one foundation that matched her own face.
Pigments sealed in tiny beads.
They break open as you blend.
Your mother wrote this.
You know what that means?
I know what a lot of things mean.
Here’s my rule.
There’s a cot in the back.
You fold.
You mop.
You’re out of sight by 6 when customers come.
No drugs, no boyfriends, no crying on my machines.
Why would you do that for me?
You don’t even know me.
I know you’re 21 and soaking wet.
That’s enough.
Because somebody did it for me once.
Who?
Another time.
You asleep on your feet.
Can I ask what foundation you wear?
None.
30 years I’ve had this redness.
Nothing matches.
Every shade at the counter is wrong.
That’s exactly what my mom used to say.
Then your mother had good taste and complaints.
Go to sleep, Lily.
I folded towels at night and worked the diner in the day.
And every minute in between, I worked on my mother’s notebook.
You’re heating it too fast.
How would you know?
Because it’s separating.
Look at the edge of the jar.
Gloria, who are you?
Before I came to this country, I was a cosmetic chemist in Seoul.
22 years.
And now you run a laundry mat.
My husband got sick.
We came here for his treatment.
After he passed, the laundry mat paid the bills.
Chemistry didn’t.
Then help me.
Please just look at it one more time.
Your mother had the right idea and the wrong equipment.
You can’t do this on a hot pole.
Then where can we make it?
Soul.
I have an old friend, Dr.
Han.
We haven’t spoken in 9 years.
Gloria Kim, I thought you retired.
I did.
Then a girl fell asleep in my laundry.
Send me her notes tonight.
Gloria, I can’t pay for a lab in Seoul.
I have $300 in tips.
Then we start small.
I have some savings from this place.
Not much.
I can’t take your savings.
You’re not taking them.
I’m investing.
There’s a difference.
And one day you’ll pay me back with interest.
Well, look who’s still in town.
Hi, Diane.
Hi, Brooke.
Still in the diner uniform.
I thought by now you’d have figured something out.
I’m figuring it out.
Careful with that one.
She might ask you for a room.
She’s been sleeping in a laundry mirror.
I work there and I’m building something with your mother’s little notebook.
Sweetheart, your mother stood behind a counter just like this one and she died with nothing.
She died with me.
And look how that turned out.
Mom, stop it.
Your father agrees with me.
You know, he says the house is easier with you gone.
Tell Dad I’m fine.
Are you?
I will be.
Goodbye, Diane.
Lily, wait.
He never said that.
She did.
He let her.
Brooke.
That’s the same thing.
Bad day.
I saw my stepmother at the mall.
She told everybody I sleep in a laundromat.
You do sleep in a laundry mat.
Gloria, I’m serious.
It’s not a crime.
You asked me once who did this for me.
When my husband died, the hospital bills took everything.
I had no family here and my English was bad.
I slept on that cot for 8 months.
On that cod in there?
The woman who owned this place before me was named Ruth.
She found me asleep in a plastic chair at 2:00 in the morning.
Sound familiar?
Machine number [music] six.
Machine number four.
It was broken, too.
When she retired, she sold me this place for almost nothing.
She said, “One day you’ll find somebody in a plastic chair.
Don’t you dare send her back into the rain.
I don’t know how to pay that back.
You don’t pay it back.
You pass it on.
It’s gray.
It’s supposed to turn into my shade and it’s gray.
First batches fail.
That’s what first batches are for.
I put my last $400 into this box.
Gloria.
Dad, it’s me.
Please don’t hang up.
I just need a little help.
Just this once and I’ll pay you back.
He’s asleep, Lily.
And don’t call this number again.
Maybe she’s right.
Maybe it was just a notebook.
Look at me.
Your mother didn’t fail.
She ran out of time.
You haven’t.
I don’t have any money left.
You have a cat, a job, and a chemist.
Most people start with less.
Did you hear what she said?
[music] Don’t call this number again.
Good.
Now you know exactly who you’re not doing this for.
Then who am I doing it for?
For your mother.
For every woman at her counter.
And a little bit for me.
Now write down what went wrong.
Dr.
Han will want every word.
Batch nine.
Dr.
Han says this is the one.
Who goes first?
I’ve tried every bottle in every drugstore in this city.
If this one is wrong, too, I’m going to tell you.
I want you to tell me.
[gasps] 30 years of redness.
I go first.
Where did the white go?
Into your shade.
I can’t see the redness on this side.
I can see it on that side.
30 years.
Lily, your mother was right.
Is it really okay?
Tell me the truth.
I’m going to wear it to the bank tomorrow and to church on Sunday.
That’s the truth.
Then she was right.
So what do we call it?
Mom already named it Lux.
L U X E.
Marlene Patrice.
My girl made something.
Be honest with her.
She can take it.
Honey, I’ve been lied to by every foundation in this state.
What’s this one going to do?
It goes on white, then it turns into your shade.
White on my face?
You want me to walk out of here looking like a ghost?
Try it on your hand first.
Give it 30 seconds.
Well, would you look at that?
Do mine.
Do mine right now.
It’s my color.
It’s actually my color.
Not orange, not gray, mine.
50 years I’ve been mixing two bottles together like a chemistry teacher.
Where do I get one of these?
You can’t yet.
It’s just us.
Just this table.
Gloria, I can’t.
Everyone’s going to see my face like this.
That’s the point.
Show them the face before.
Then show them the truth.
I’m 22.
A year ago, my family put me out in the rain with a garbage bag.
This is my mother’s formula.
It goes on white.
30 seconds into my shade.
Mom, you were right.
If you’ve ever stood at a counter and never found your shade, this is for you.
Post it.
What if nobody watches?
Then two old women in a laundromat already believe you.
Post it.
Lily, your phone won’t stop.
How many views?
I don’t know.
The number keeps changing.
And the comments.
Listen to this one.
My mother sold makeup her whole life, too.
Where can I buy this?
Gloria, we only have 40 tubes.
Then I suppose I’m calling soul again.
[sighs] Gloria, what if this is too big for us?
Then we get bigger.
One box at a time.
Number one bestseller in foundation makeup.
Out of my laundry mat.
I saw your video.
Everybody at my work saw your video.
Did your mom send you?
She doesn’t know I’m here.
She’d kill me.
How’s dad?
Quiet.
The store’s losing money.
Mom keeps saying it’s temporary.
He doesn’t really talk anymore.
I came to tell you something.
That night when you called from the bus stop, I heard Dad’s phone ring.
He looked at it.
He put it face down.
Why are you telling me this now?
Because I’ve watched him look at that phone every night since.
And because I should have opened the door wider.
Does he know about the video?
He watched it in the car twice.
Then he deleted it before mom could see.
You gave me $40, Brooke.
That’s more than anyone else in that house gave me.
It wasn’t enough.
It was enough to get me here.
Mrs.
Hart, you’re confirming the transfer into your personal account?
Yes, I’m confirming.
So, the millionaire, what now?
Now I keep a promise.
Lily, what did you do?
I bought the building.
It’s yours.
Nobody gets put out of this place again.
You gave me too much.
You gave me a cot when my own father wouldn’t give me a couch.
Ruth would have liked you.
Then let’s keep a cot in the back just in case somebody falls asleep in a plastic chair.
A millionaire at 23 with your dead wife’s notebook.
Diane, don’t.
Don’t what?
The bank wants the store.
Richard, she has more money than she can spend.
We fed her for 21 years.
We put her out on her birthday.
Oh, here we go again.
She called me that night, Diane.
I let it ring.
We gave her a push and look where she landed.
She should thank us.
Mom, she doesn’t owe you anything.
Her company is opening an office downtown on Friday.
We’re going.
All of us as a family, Lily, sweetheart, look at you.
Diane, Dad, Brooke, we saw the magazine.
A millionaire at 23.
We are so proud of you.
Proud.
Lily, it’s been a long time.
Two years, Dad.
You never called me back.
Water under the bridge.
We’re family, and family helps family.
Helps how?
Your father’s store is struggling, and the bank is being unreasonable.
We thought with all of this, you want money.
We want what’s fair.
We raised you.
Funny.
I thought I did.
And who [music] are you?
The woman with the laundry m.
The one who gave her a cat the night you gave her a garbage bag.
Lily, be reasonable.
A few hundred,000 is nothing to you now.
$40 was everything to me once.
Brooke is the only one who knew that.
And if we hadn’t pushed you out of the nest, that formula would still be sitting in a notebook.
You’d still be that girl with the garbage bag.
You didn’t push me out of a nest, Diane.
You put me in the rain with a garbage bag.
Sorry.
Do you remember [music] this?
Some old notebook.
You threw it in the trash.
Dad, read the cover.
Lux.
This was Anna’s.
She wrote the name on the cover the year before she got sick.
Diane read it out loud in the kitchen, then dropped it in the trash.
Everything in this building started in that trash can.
[music] You threw away Anna’s notebook, Richard.
It was coffee stained junk.
And I let you [music] I let you do all of it.
She called you, Dad, from a bus stop in the rain.
I watched you turn the phone over.
I know.
I know I did.
I told myself you’d be fine.
That you were tough like your mother.
It was easier than picking up that phone.
I was tough, Dad.
I was also 21 and sleeping in a plastic chair.
I’m sorry, Lily.
I’m so sorry.
I don’t expect that to fix anything.
It doesn’t, but I needed to hear you say it.
[music] I’m not paying your loan, Diane.
After everything we’ve done for you?
After everything you’ve done?
Yes.
You’re just going to let your father lose his store?
His store is his choice.
So was that night.
Brooke, you gave me $40 and a phone charger when nobody else gave me anything.
We’re hiring.
If you want a real job, it’s yours.
Neither of these is me.
This one’s gray and this one’s orange.
We could mix the two, ma’am.
Honey, I’ve been mixing two bottles for 20 years.
Excuse me.
Can I show you something?
You’re allowed to say no.
Are you selling something?
Honestly, yes.
I make it.
And if it doesn’t match you, I’ll tell you to buy one of those instead.
That’s my color.
That’s actually my color.
What is that?
It’s called Luxe.
It’s Korean formulated and it has over 10,000 reviews.
Where do I buy it?
Here.
It’s not in stores.
It’s the number one bestseller in foundation makeup on Amazon right now.
Just search Luxe Color Changanging Foundation.
