"Don't talk about it, be about it." - Busta Rhymes
As the steam dissipated, she pressed the corner of the picture back onto the glass with her thumb. "Dumb stupid," she thought, "Why would I tape it up before I took my shower?" She looked disapprovingly at her reflection slowly appearing in the mirror. All she could see was this brown blur and she reached for where her glasses should be and found
nothing.
"Right," she thought and smiled. She wasn't a four-eyed freak anymore. She opened the medicine cabinet and grabbed her contact lens case turning it over in her hands, marveling at it just a little bit. After a few nervous moments when she thought she wouldn't have the courage to poke her finger in her eye, she finally could see and looked up at herself.
Her smile quickly faded as she recognized herself. The contacts were an improvement but she was still just this 'nothing special' thing. Plain in every way. Practically invisible to everyone at school unless she was dancing or someone caught her under the breath comments and chuckled. But all that was about to change. She was fifteen now and despite her father's objections, old enough for makeup, old enough to buy her own clothes, have her own style. And today was the first day of school and she was going to show it off.
She looked at the magazine clipping taped to the mirror right next to where her face reflected. The beautiful young singer/actress posed in a giddy half laugh-half flirty fashion, glitter shining on her cheeks, blue eye shadow, cloudy blue lipgloss shimmering on her lips, butterfly barrettes all through her hair. And the boys. Almost like an afterthought in the picture, darkened in the shadows of the background but all pointing with facial expressions that say, "Wow, Look at her!" Most people might not notice that just glancing at the picture but she's noticed it. In fact, it was the first thing she saw in the picture.
She has everything necessary to transform herself into this vision of beauty. The lip-gloss, the glitter body rub, the barrettes. She made her mom take her to get her hair straightened. No more braids, no more extensions, no more pigtails. Straight and loose and free. Wispy almost. She had make-up and cute clothes and she was going to get seen today, damnit.
Knock. Knock. Knock. "Baby, you alright in there? Your breakfast is getting cold." Her Dad.
"Yeah, I'm fine. Dang, Dad
can't a girl get some privacy?"
"Oh, excuse me, didn't know I had to ask permission to walk around my house." he said.
"Dumb. Stupid." She began applying blue eye-liner under her eyes trying to remember how her mother did it. She didn't want to look like a tramp.
"Baby, Can we get some black people on your walls, please? How about that boy that sings about the thongs? Or that one mixed girl that sings those pop tunes you love. At least she's half-black. I feel like I walked into American Bandstand in here."
"Dumb Stupid. American Bandstand? What's that like TRL for old people? Did they do, whatchamacalit, the jitterbug on it?" She giggled to herself softly, careful not to mess her makeup.
"Leave the girl alone, Russell, she can have these white boys on her wall if she wants. Do you need help with your makeup, Winnie?" Thank God for her mom even though she had called her Winnie. She hated that name just as much as her full name. Who's named Winifred anyway? She was going to tell people to start calling her by her middle name, Tiffany. How cute was that? Before 'Tiffany' could reply to her mother, however, her father was at it again.
"I'm just saying baby, how can we be raising a strong black woman when the lone rapper she has on her walls is some white boy? She's confused damnit. And I'm still not happy about the makeup thing. Next she'll be wanting to drive."
"One more year, dad." She smirked as she applied the glitter to her cheeks rubbing in circular motions just like the magazine said
for even glow and sparkle.
"You shut up Russell and you, Miss Smart Mouth, quit teasing him. You know how sensitive boys are. Get a move on though, please, we need to be leaving sooner rather than later." She listened as her mother pushed her father out of her room and thought, "No, I don't know how boys are. But that's about to change."
She puckered up and rolled the lip-gloss onto her lips. She was so excited she was humming to herself, practically dancing in her bathroom. She started adding the barrettes to her hair thinking really hard about not thinking about where she was placing them. Just like the article said.
Be free with the barrettes. Have Fun! Your hair will fall into a cute arrangement and then you can just brush it back with your fingers.
And finally she was done. She stood back from the mirror and looked at herself
and almost started to cry. The cloudy blue lip-gloss on her dark lips was making her look ghostly rather than pretty. The glittery bath gel was drying a wonderfully flaky white on her caramel skin. The blue eye shadow under her eyes made her look like she had two black eyes. And her hair? It wasn't falling at all. Instead it hung every which way. Wispy? Maybe. Uncontrollable? Definitely.
She pushed her hands into her head and tried to pull the birds nest back, just like the magazine told her. Her fingers caught in her hair. Apparently straight didn't mean the end to nappy. She grabbed a brush and tried that which worked, after a few tugs, but the butterfly barrettes didn't appreciate the action against them and began popping off her head and flying into different corners of the bathroom.
Knock. Knock. " 5 minutes, Winnie. I mean it." God, she hated her mother. Why'd she always have to be so bossy?
She thought maybe she just had too much eye-liner on and began trying to rub off the edges until it was less creature feature and more Saturday Matinee. As she did so, she began focusing on her lips and how horrible they looked. The lady at the counter said that the color looked good on everybody, guess everybody didn't include black girls. Why didn't any of it work for and why didn't anybody know it wouldn-
"OW!" While she was obsessing about her lips, she poked herself in the eye. It was stinging to holy hell. She smashed the palms of her hands into her eyeball trying to get it out. She felt something slide out. "Oh No." she thought and pulled her hand away to find that half her vision was blurry. The contact had fallen out.
Knock. Knock. "2 Minutes, Miss America. I ate your bacon." Stupid Fathers. She was to tears and near a nervous breakdown.
She stopped and took a breath. Staring at her image in the mirror, collecting herself. She removed the other contact and put it in her lens case. She wiped all the crap from off her face including her salty tears. She grabbed two rubberbands and made two ponytails. She put her glasses on. She looked at herself one last time.
"Still invisible."
She ripped the picture off the glass and tossed it in the trash.
She opened the bathroom door and found her father sitting on her bed.
"My Baby Girl. More beautiful every day. Did you change your hair? I think you have too much make up on." He scrunched up his nose, surveying her.
"Dumb Stupid. Can we go now?"