Fairest

I wrote this for my Creative Writing class final. Ashley said Alli would like it. Let me know what all ya'll think, please! Sorry it's kind of long.

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“I am a princess. All girls are. Even if they live in tiny old attics. Even if they dress in rags. Even if they aren’t pretty, or smart, or young, they’re still princesses. All of us.”

I try to repeat this to myself when I’m feeling particularly self-deprecating. I am a princess. All girls are. There’s no one in the world who can make me feel badly about myself except myself. People can only hurt me with my permission. I’m only inferior to those I allow to be superior to me. Those who tear down others are only compensating for their own low self-esteem.

If all girls are princesses, that means I’m a princess too. Is it possible to be the princess and the witch in my own fairytale?

Everyone thinks the pretty girls always have it easy. Pretty girls have confidence. They have great hair, and boys like them. Being pretty somehow makes their lives sunny and successful—like everything is possible if you're pretty.

I think it's the less fortunate looking girls who have it best. They're not ugly or self-loathing enough to let the pretty girls walk all over them. They gain confidence from the talents they have and actually develop. The kind of boys who like these girls are the ones most Pretty Girls would rather date anyway, though they'll never admit it. Being extraordinary can be terrifying and uncomfortable, especially when you're extraordinary trait is something you can't take any credit for yourself.

Once, in late November, Mother took me downtown to the most overpriced shop on the street. It was her favorite. She wore red leather gloves as she held my hand, leading me down the street at a light clip, and a perfect snowflake caught on the cuff of her black coat. It held there for a moment, long enough to demand the beginning of a smile from the corners of my mouth, before it disappeared and melted in a moment as it surrendered to the heat of wool. It stole my smile with it.

"Don't stare," Mother scolded, her tone a song and a hiss all at once. I forced my dark eyes forward, away from the displays of perfumes, and snakeskin purses, and dozen-carat diamonds. Each saleswoman seemed the mistress of her counter, milking each customer and convincing them to buy hundreds of dollars worth of merchandise they certainly did not need, would probably never use. They dressed and wore their hair the same. The only difference between them, to me, was the varying colors of their perfect complexions.

We stopped in front of a counter featuring my mother's favorite brand of particularly expensive make up. She tore off my coat in one fluid movement and I found myself plopped into a high chair, my knees even with the edge of the glass. I absently smoothed the skirt of my deep purple party dress and studied the shadow my kitten-heeled feet cast on the brightly lit products in front of me. I wondered how hard I would need to kick to break it and what my mother's reaction would be.

I didn't pay attention to the conversation exchanged between her and the cosmetologist. I simply sat still, playing with the tasseled end of my black velvet sash, and allowed the layers of color to be smeared and blended and buffed onto my face. It smelled lightly perfumed, like flowers, not like chemicals. "We pay for the natural minerals," Mother explained once. I never understood her reasoning. To me, make up always seemed anything but natural.

A mirror was held in front of my face to gauge my reaction when the woman had finished. I looked like me, but the face in the mirror wasn't me. Her eyes were more defined, set off by a light sweep of lilac shadow and violet liner. Her lips were perfectly red, and flawlessly highlighted cheekbones. Though it wasn't the reflection I was accustomed to seeing, it wasn't disappointing, and a half-smile slowly crept back from its hiding place. I looked to my mother, as ever, for approval and she spoke to me in a way I had never heard before or since. "There," she breathed into my ear as she peered into the mirror beside me, satisfied. "Who is the fairest one of all?"

I was eleven when she whispered that phrase into my ear. It became my mantra. Some people recite verses of scripture to buoy themselves up before they wage war on the day. Others Dr. Seuss or the words of an inspirational public figure. Who's the fairest one of all? I would ask myself, hesitating before I looked up to the mirror, uneasy at the thought of confronting the reflection. I would look, set my shoulders back, and take a deep breath. You are the fairest one of all.

The face in the mirror would answer every time with her perfectly rounded, crimson lips each time I asked her. She had grown since the first time I saw her at that make up counter, my mother's smiling face next to her. Her eyes are larger, dark and unsettled, though some might call it alluring. The hair that was once limp and mousy blonde is positively golden, teased to perfection in a cascade of curls down her shoulders. Our shoulders. My shoulders.

Years ago, Mother arranged for us a standing appointment with Rafael every six weeks. Nothing stood in the way of these appointments. She simply paid off the professor who thoughtlessly scheduled a conflicting final my sophomore year of college. We'd sit beside each other with matching silk smocks as his interns shampooed, trimmed, dried, and colored our hair in matching styles. He spoke with a heavy, unidentifiable European accent, though I overheard him on a personal call once with the thickest New Jersey accent I had ever heard. We were offered lovely drinks served in colorful glasses—mineral water for me until I was old enough for the wine spritzers Mother loved. Jacques, her gray toy poodle, always sat clutched under her right arm. Jacques tended to shake like he was perpetually chilly, his frazzled curly fur sticking straight out from his ears and his little beady stare nervously flitting from sight to sight. Mother bought Jacques a red sweater to stop his shaking, but I knew better. He wasn’t cold—he was scared, and powerless, and sensible enough to know he couldn’t do a thing about it.

You are the fairest one of all. It typically took a few repetitions to make myself sound convinced. The curious gaze was never swayed.

I didn’t try to be mean to the girls in my class growing up. They found me snobbish and rude because I tended to observe, rather than participate. I was raised on comparison. Who is wealthier, who is more capable, who is more beautiful? Despite my mother’s constant assurance I was the most beautiful, it was never enough. My face, my hair, my clothes were always molded, tailored to take me one step beyond myself. I didn’t associate with most of the girls my age because I was afraid of them. Their normalcy threatened me. It made me sad.

All girls are princesses, but Haley was a princess who wore glasses. Marie had frizzy hair, and Amber was overweight for her age. Though the special care my mother took to make me the Pretty Girl made me uneasy, it also armed me with a strange sense of arrogance. The other parents didn’t want their girls to be more than mediocre. My mother didn’t love me the way I was, she loved me more. She wanted me to be better than myself—she demanded it of me. Wasn’t that an indication of how much she cared?

But my true feelings were conflicting. I felt superior to these girls, more entitled to attention, affection. At the same time I acknowledged the insecurity and recognition that I couldn’t just be me, I had to be a heightened version of me. As a child, it made me do things I didn’t understand.

Cutting geometric shapes out of construction paper in math, I played with the oversized green plastic scissors in my hand. They were hardly sharp enough to cut this paper, the ugliest shade of orange imaginable. I opened and closed them a few times, listening carefully to the gentle swish as the blades passed by each other. I looked up to the back of Taylor’s head. She was hunched over her work at the desk in front of me, at her bright yellow sweater set off her stringy, dishwater-blonde hair that rested in clumps on her back. I hated her, suddenly. I hated her hair and I hated that her parents found her appearance acceptable. It made my skin crawl with revulsion and jealousy. Before I could internalize my actions, I reached forward and snipped off a four inch chunk of that disgusting hair.

It stuck to her back, static electricity keeping it in place for the remainder of the class period. When the bell rang I already had my supplies put away and my books packed up, so I threw my royal blue backpack over my shoulder and ran out of class before the offensive hair could be discovered. I’m not sure what Taylor’s reaction was, nor the teacher’s for that matter, but no one ever blamed me for wrongdoing.

She came to class the next morning with her hair cut into a charming bob, the ends of her hair dancing level with her chin. Taylor didn’t smile for a week, but I did, proud of myself for assisting with such a needed, successful change. Mother would have been proud, too.

My favorite subject in school was science. I went on to get a degree in Chemistry at Yale, to the surprise of my high school social circle that graduated by the skin of their teeth. Pretty Girls hang around other Pretty Girls, regardless of mental capacity or scholastic achievement. Mother didn't understand my academic ambition but figured it would include me—and therefore, her—in a new class of society, a new brand of wealth and glamour. "I'm starting to see what you find appealing in these intellectual types," she teased one evening at a gala held in honor of the university's donors. She laughed like the girl she fancied herself to be, not the woman she had become—melodic and childish. Incidentally, my mother's passion for education was as fleeting as her affair with the dean.

I felt more comfortable in the lab than I had ever felt before. It was quiet, and isolated. I smirked and wondered what Mother would think of my appearance—hair pulled back tight and my face hidden beneath a set of protective goggles, a shapeless white lab coat covering my gym-sculpted body. Gloves covered my manicured nails and I wore comfortable, worn in New Balance sneakers to compensate for hours on my feet. The image would frighten her.

For my senior project I researched and developed a basic antidote for a number of poisonous household cleaning products. My professors were pleased, and encouraged me to pursue higher levels of education. Time continued to pass the way it seemed to most of my life, in an odd sort of suspended reality, blurry and distorted. I only seemed to gain clarity mixing powders and chemicals, testing their reactions and working alongside some of the most brilliant educators in the field.

Ironically, my first job out of school was with the very brand of make up my mother supplied since I was little more than a child. I began as a lab assistant, securing promotion after promotion until I began one of the chief technicians. We develop new products, testing for quality, and we always use natural ingredients. It seems so trite. It seems like a waste of my education to be limited to an industry, a line of cosmetics that does not exactly promote the schooling it took to get me here. At least I’ve got my shapeless white lab coat.

I set up a miniature laboratory in my basement. I don’t know what it is I’m trying to find or trying to prove, but I mix and assess what I can get my hands on. A small part of me is afraid I’m going to start concocting something destructive merely because I can—because I have the capacity and learning to do so. I don’t think I ever will. The knowledge that I could is enough.

I met a man last year. His name is Jacob, and he is tall and slim but strong. When he holds me, I rest my chin on his chest and look up in his face, and I can’t help but smile because he’s smiling at me. His whole face smiles—not just his mouth, but his eyes, and the little scrunch in his nose, and creases in his forehead, and his dimples. He has dimples.

Jacob has very dark hair that is not quite black, partially because it’s graying here and there. It only makes him more handsome. His is the kind of hair that just begs to be played with, and he indulges me. I love to tuck my nose into the fold of his collar because he doesn’t smell pretentious and manly, like he’s compensating for something. He smells safe, and warm, and that’s how I feel when I’m with him.

He is the CEO and co-owner of the company I work for, but is not one of those business types who is obsessed with himself and his company. I love when he pops in to see me, no matter how late he’s running for a very important meeting. He will kiss the end of my nose and tell me, “You’re so beautiful,” with this little hint of awe like he can’t believe I’d have him.

Jacob is a widower of five years, and he tells me I have reminded him that it’s possible to love again. I was worried at first, afraid I wouldn’t be able to measure up to the woman he loved for so long, but the way he looks at me, with such overwhelming adoration and tenderness, sets my heart and mind at rest. Since him, I usually forget to look myself in the mirror and repeat my morning mantra. I don’t need it anymore.

. . . . .

It has been nearly seven years since I married Jacob. We live in a perfectly lovely home, large and beautiful but not more than we need, though we could afford much more. The initial dreamlike euphoria of our relationship has not exactly worn off, but it has changed. He is as good to me as ever. He leaves me flowers at work now and then, and cooks dinner most nights in spite of his own long days. He jokes that I am the queen of this company, given his position, and should anything happen, I stand to inherit his title and all the wealth he has acquired. I don’t like it when he reminds me of that, even in joking.

Perhaps what has changed is not his affection toward me, but the way I internalize it. He has only grown more dear, more loving and patient, but I find myself suspicious, almost as though he’s got motives I can’t detect or understand. No matter how often my sensibility reassures me, there remains a sinking feeling that he wants something from me—that I’m only a trophy wife to show off at parties. I never express my concern, however. It would hurt him too much.

What worries me most is my recent dependence on my girlish mantra. Who is the fairest one of all? I have not needed to ask myself that question in years. In my marriage, I not only gained a husband, but a step-daughter from Jacob's first wife. She has always been the darling of her father’s eye, a gorgeous, if not strange looking, child. Her hair is darker than night, and her skin light and perfect as a porcelain doll. On any other child, her features would be odd and spooky, but she is so sweet and peaceful, and carries herself with such an endearing innocence.

As she’s grown I’ve realized she is what my mother always wanted me to be, only she doesn’t need changing. She is more a princess than any other little girl I’ve ever met with natural grace and beauty. Her laugh is like music, and she sings like an angel. She is becoming, without any effort, the child I should have been. She adores me, though lately I give her no reason to, and calls me Mother because I am the only one she’s ever known. Each of her faultless traits, her flawless features, increasingly grates on my nerves with each birthday, giving me less and less reason to despise her but more and more inclination to do so. I try to love her for Jacob's sake.

I’m beginning to hate her.