Click here to listen to The Curse of Being Pretty by Damien Walters Grintalis as read by Robert Eccles
The Curse of Being Pretty
By Damien Walters Grintalis
One grey hair.
Karen leaned closer to the mirror, frowning. The hair, only two inches long, shimmered silver, bright against the dark strands. With a shaking hand, she reached into the medicine cabinet and pulled out the tweezers. It only took a few seconds. She dropped the hair into the trash can and put the tweezers away with a sigh. The second grey hair in two months. She bent her head forward and searched again, just in case, ignoring her swollen eyes and flushed cheeks.
She jumped when thunder crashed outside the window. The storm had come in like a slap to the face. One minute, the night air was still and heavy with the scent of spring blossoms. The next, wind rushed in, cold and stinging. It blew tree branches into a frenzy, carried flower petals away to some unseen place, and howled like a banshee on a misty moor. Clouds rolled across the sky and rain poured down in a torrent of grey.
The weather suited her mood perfectly.
"In love with someone else," she whispered, glaring at her reflection.
David had tossed the words in her face like confetti. He'd turned to leave, but she'd demanded to know. Her suspicions were correct. He'd fallen for his assistant, his twenty-four year-old assistant.
Thirteen years younger than me.
Her hands gripped the edges of the sink and she moved her face only inches from the mirror. She looked past the telltale signs of too many tears. The faint suggestion of lines around her eyes and mouth stared back at her. She raised her eyebrows as far as she could. Lines were visible there, too. Perhaps not to an outsider, but they were very clear to her, and her next appointment was still two weeks away. She'd call the doctor tomorrow. Maybe he could fit her in earlier; he'd done it before plenty of times.
David always told her she obsessed too much over her looks, but he didn't understand how important pretty was. It wasn't to a man. When men gained a few grey hairs and a few lines, they got 'distinguished'. On a woman's face, they simply turned her old. Her mother's voice raced in, sharp and biting. "When you're not pretty any more, you're no use to anyone. Stay pretty, no matter what. That's a woman's job, to stay pretty."
David hated her mother. He called her the 'frozen freak'. True, in the last five years, the efforts to retain her beauty became extreme, but she never deserved that name.
She's just trying to hold on.
Her mother had her first face-lift at forty. She followed it with a tummy tuck and implants and then Karen lost track of the number of surgeries and procedures, both large and small. Her mother's beauty was a ferocious thing, even before the doctor's skilled knives. Until a few years ago, Karen and her mother were mistaken for sisters many, many times. "Beauty is a gift. Never take it for granted. Not many are as lucky as you and I. Without your beauty, you're nothing." Her mother had said the words too many times to forget.
"Am I nothing now, Mom?" Karen whispered. "I have my beauty, but nothing else."
Only the wind answered.
At thirty-seven (and anyone older than 35 was old according to her mother, even if they didn't look it) Karen had been replaced by a younger version. David, at thirty-two, couldn't even blame it on a midlife crisis.
The lights flickered twice, but the power held.
How did everything go so wrong? Last night, she'd gone to sleep Mrs. David Sanders. This morning, she'd become the soon-to-be-ex Mrs. Sanders and the bastard had waited to tell her until after she'd made his morning coffee.
She smiled then twisted her face into a grimace. She could still smell his cologne in the house, a deep, masculine scent that stuck to the back of her throat.
The lights flickered again and went out.
"Shit."
The wind shrieked outside and pushed rain against the bathroom window. Lightning illuminated the bathroom and Karen recoiled. In the brief flash of light, her features appeared doll-like, as if molded from plastic, not flesh. She took a deep breath. An illusion, of course, but the image horrified her.
I've only had a little work done. Not much. Not enough for that.
She blinked away bitter tears. Damn David for leaving her in this way and making her feel so inadequate, especially so soon after losing both her job and the baby. She'd never have another chance to be a mother. Complications, they said. Failure, David's eyes said, every time he looked at her.
No, I don't want to think about babies. Not now. Not ever.
Another flare of lightning and Karen put her hands over her mouth to hold in a shout. Again, the light revealed a horror show in place of her face. White, smooth skin, unblinking eyes, and a painted rosebud mouth. Not real. Not human.
So much like my mother's face . . .
Karen shuddered. A lightning trick, nothing more. She leaned over the sink, her nose almost touching the mirror, and waited several long minutes. Finally, the lightning flared and she shrieked. Not a trick.
No wonder he left me.
Her face. A doll's face. Her mother's now face, not the pretty face of years past. The lightning faded. She backed away from the mirror, even though the darkness revealed nothing. Tears spilled from her eyes, tears she didn't think she had left. She sank down to the tiled floor as if boneless. Lightning flashed again and she covered her face with her hands.
I've turned into a monster.
When the tears slowed to a trickle, Karen pulled herself up, using the sink for leverage. Terrified, she raised her head, but only darkness met her eyes. The wind outside reached a fevered pitch, and she held her breath.
But I haven't had that much work. Not yet.
Had she?
This is madness. Step away from the mirror. Go to bed. Get drunk. Anything but this.
She waited. Soon enough, lightning turned the shadows bright and her face, her horrible, despicable, inanimate face peered back. She moaned, low in her throat. She could not just sleep and forget. The face would be there, waiting for her.
The bathroom fell dark, and the ragged sound of her breathing blended with the wind outside. Her fingers curled around the edges of the sink, tight enough to hurt. Instead of the lightning, the power came back on for an instant, only an instant, but it was enough. Karen wailed.
I've only had a few procedures. Nothing like my mother. I can't look like this.
She closed her eyes and counted to ten. Then to twenty. Then to fifty. The power flickered on and off again, but she kept her eyes shut.
I can call the doctor. He can make it better.
No, this was the doctor's fault in the first place. He should have told her she'd gone too far. The greedy bastard didn't care what he did to her; he just cared about his money. After all, look at what he'd done to her mother.
But I never wanted to look like a doll. I just wanted to stay pretty.
Without her beauty, she was nothing. Outside, the wind screamed and moaned and hidden under the sound, she heard voices.
"You've turned into her, you know," David said.
"Don't listen to him," her mother's voice chimed in. "He doesn't know anything about it. He's just a man."
"Right, I'm just a man. I always said you were pretty. She made you think you weren't pretty enough, and that damn doctor went along with it."
"I did no such thing. I love you, Karen, more than that cheating bastard ever could."
"Look at what you've turned yourself into. You don't even look real anymore."
"Stop it, stop it, stop it," Karen shouted, pressing her hands over her ears as she counted to ten. When she took her hands away, the wind howled like a lost child, but it was only wind. The voices were gone.
Maybe her face, her real face, was underneath the doll's. It didn't make sense, but maybe . . . Lightning again and she opened her eyes. Was it possible? She could almost see herself.
Maybe I can undo it all.
Her hands didn't shake when she opened the medicine cabinet. In the darkness, she fumbled on the shelves, dropping items into the sink, one after the other. Another bright flare of lightning revealed the small pile she'd made: tweezers, toothpaste, small scissors, alcohol, cotton balls, aspirin, gauze pads, and anti-itch cream. She tossed the aspirin, anti-itch cream, and toothpaste onto the floor. They wouldn't help her now.
Karen lifted the scissors as the lightning came once more. One quick cut and blood dripped down, bright scarlet against the white porcelain. A smell like old coins filled the air. A good, strong smell. The room fell dark, and she tapped the scissors against the edge of the sink, impatient, ignoring the stinging pain.
Lightning again, and her hand moved with grim purpose. Blood ran down in a narrow waterfall of red. She would undo everything and put herself back together. She would make herself real.
She would make herself pretty again.