There are two POV's, the girl and the guy's, but at the moment, they are running together so I just posted the girl's.
Tawny Rae
This morning I woke up and spat at the mirror, brushing back blonde hair behind too-large ears and pushing my glasses off the bridge of my nose. I started by obsessively brushing my teeth with a regular toothbrush for twenty minutes, flossing, then using the Sonicare three times, which equaled six minutes. So yeah, twenty six minutes brushing, add two for flossing and thirty seconds for Listerine, and that equals twenty-eight minutes, thirty seconds I spend working on my mouth today.
Won’t change anything.
After that, I plugged in my straightening iron, and pulled the Windex out from under the sink to spray the mirror where I spat at myself. It streaked, but I decided not to care. I went back into my bedroom and sat at the edge of the bed brushing my hair as the light from the window washed over me.
My walls are white. My carpet is gray. My bedspread is navy blue. There is a brown dresser in one shadowy corner and a laptop and desk right by the window, where the light gets in my eyes constantly. I say this so you can look at me, and know who I am, on my bed, in a navy bathrobe, white tank top and boxer shorts.
I brushed my hair until I heard the beep which meant my hair-straightener was hot enough, and I straightened it, and then I curled it a bit on the ends, and I ignored my cell phone as it went off over and over from the edge of the bed and eventually vibrated onto the floor. When my hair was perfect, I pulled off my glasses and put my contacts in. They irritated my eyes, I had to re-douse them in Saline solution about five times before they would go in.
I slid over to my bed and picked up my phone.
Tony, Jess, and Gisel all texted me.
Tony said, “We still on for eleven?”
Jess said, “Hey babe c u @ 2.”
Gisel said, “Can’t wait to see you tonight gorgeous! Luv ya!”
I texted them all back to confirm our appointments.
I got on my makeup and put on something hot for Tony, and I got on my laptop and I journaled this, because the therapist told me to. She said that it would help, to write it all down. So I could look back and see what I did and what I’m doing. So all right. All right.
It’s been a long time I saw my parents. Over a year this month, August. We don’t really talk, either, just send each other one-liner emails phrased as vaguely as possible, so as to continue to avoid the topic that’s always on our minds. Every two weeks or so my mother will suddenly feel maternal and give me a call on my cell, but I usually don’t answer. It’s not worth it to have the awkward conversation that always, without a doubt, ensues.
“Hello, Tawny Rae.”
“Hello, Mom.”
Awkward silence.
“So what are you up to lately, Tawny Rae.”
“Nothing of interest, Mom.”
And then there’s a space where everything we should have said should be said, but it never gets said, and then one of us makes up some excuse to get off the phone.
Becca, from my Life Sciences class, asked me to a party tonight. I’ve never been to an L.A. party, even though I’ve lived here for a year. I go to clubs and dance bars, but actual parties? With people I know? Yeah right, not gonna happen. The last thing I want is to stock up a reputation.
I have a feeling I have one already though, which is why I never
get invited, anyway. And that’s all right with me, because who needs them?
Just the same, I kind of want to go. I’m looking at my reflection in my computer monitor; it’s dark, and it’s just an outline. It shows all the fuzzy bits of hair that stick out at angles.
I shut the screen and sit on the bed. Run my fingers through my hair. Wait for Jess to get here.
Because I could go.
I mean, I could go.
Make some friends.
It’s not that far fetched, I mean, it could happen. Right?
Right?
* * *
When I was a little girl I wanted to be a princess.
Oh, you know, I knew that princesses weren’t really real, but I had it all planned out anyway. I would go to Disneyland and the people there would say, “Who is that beautiful girl?” and I would smile charmingly and BAM! There it is, I’m Alice in Wonderland, wandering through synthetic forests and talking to invisible cats, or I’m Sleeping Beauty, signing autographs for children, or I’m…who was that other blonde princess? Cinderella. I’m Cinderella, and I’m talking to the chitter-chitter mice.
I feel like I am Alice in Wonderland anyway. Gothic Alice in Gothic Wonderland, and instead of talking cats its irrevocably silent friends and instead of a caterpillar giving me advice I go to a therapist. And instead of a Mad Hatter’s tea party I go to S.A.A. meetings. What I mean, that is, the parallel between me and Alice, it’s the colors. The florescent, too-bright colors. The purples and neons and greens, the abysmally dark, opium induced settings, the coffee shops and the indie clubs. And the frocks. I could pull of a frock.
That’s sort of like walking into a nightclub and peering over your glass across the room, scoping out the hottest guy there and saying to yourself, over and over, “I could have sex with him, I could have him, I could seduce him. I could do it.” It doesn’t matter whether it’s true or not, it’s the way it makes you feel. It’s like getting buzzed, only, I’m underage by a couple of years yet.
Doesn’t matter though. People could buy me drinks if they wanted to. Sometimes men do. They walk up to me sitting on my own, watching other people dance, and they ask to buy me a drink and I say sure. So there you go. Buzzed Alice in Wonderland.
I stood in front of my mirror for a long time. It’s a full-length mirror so I can see just how short I am. I stand on my tippy-toes sometimes, to make my leg look longer, and this, thinner. Looks so much more elegant that way. I can’t stand to wear skirts without a heel, or I look pudgy. I’ll pull my hair out of my face and imagine myself a bit more perfect, with a softer chin instead of a sharp V, with a slightly smaller, more rounded nose, with smaller eyes. My eyes, big, blue like Alice, seem to dominate the entire upper half of my face. Widening my eyes makes me look distinctly like a goldfish.
I widened my eyes just to see it, and pursed my lips, made them into little fishy lips.
Yes. I am definitely part aquamarine. There is no doubt about it.
“I have a meeting to go to today.”
I said it out loud, as if there were anyone in the room to hear it. I need a dog or something, so I can justify talking to myself in this an empty L.A. apartment. I talk to myself often though, especially when I’m afraid. When it’s dark out, or when I imagine a hand in the darkness, or when I’m walking through a crowd and I’m scared, or walking alone down a dark street. I say, “Okay. Okay. Okay. Come on. Come on. You can do it. Come on. Oh God, come on, you have to come on. There, there it is. There you are. Got it.” I talk to myself in a patronizing way, as if I were an adult speaking to a small child, encouraging her on, convincing her of her worth, making her safe.
And when I’m nervous, or especially lonely, I talk to myself then too.
The biggest thing I remember about my parents is what they used to say about sex. It was constantly brought up in my home, even though God knows my parents never had sex (I hope). And they thought I never had sex too, which is why they kept on me about it. Not encouraging me to do it. But not to. Got old.
I knew some girls in my high school, and when they walked by, I would nervously be tucking my hair back or wiping off my mouth in case there was something on it, like, that stuff that gets on your mouth in the morning and it’s white. Wiping imaginary white stuff off it. And those girls, in their uber-sexified clothing and big, foofed hair and too-much make-up, these were the girls that were safe in their sexuality. MomandDad had driven it into their brains that they were so good, and so worth it, and they were of such high value, nothing and no one could touch them. So they could walk around and be sexy and hot and at the top of the food chain, and it was girls like me, with the loose ponytails and ill-fitting jeans, flannel shirts and tank tops, we were the girls that got all the sex. I mean, somebody had to get with the jocks. When the head girls didn’t do it, they downgraded.
Getting with me is downgrading. So much for Princess.
My parents were ridiculous. My uptight mother in her stupid floral dresses, my traveling salesmen father, God, if I could get them out of my head. Neither of my parents are, or were, particularly religious. At some point they were both Catholics, but we were long out of practice. That didn’t change their conservative views. My mother would say, over a casual breakfast, “Intercourse is something to be practiced only within the sanctity of marriage.”
The “sanctity of marriage” is why they’re still married, thirty years later, and they can’t stand each other.
I hope this helps you improve as a writer. Writergirl