Genevieve~
I stared into the screen. The screen that was shielding my life. The screen of pine wood. The cravings made by the hands of craftsmen. The wood is dark tan but bleached by the sun on the side it blazes on the screen. Making the moving eyes of the hawk gaze look only at bleached driftwood. I stare out of the tiny holes from the upright chair I am sitting in out into the dry street. I am safe from the razors of the sun. I see the waiter coming back and I put my batman mask like sunglasses on as a precaution and keep my brown matte gloves on.
“Here’s your coffee.” Said the waiter causally as he slipped it to me.
I nod a gracious thank you. My face was stiff as a board. I can’t wrinkle the canvas of my face, not for this meeting. I picked up the white ceramic mug. My gloves squeal as they stretch to move my matte covered joints. I feel the grit of chipped clay sticking to the little saucer dish that is beneath. I placed my greedy digits on the white paper napkin, where it had been laid. Shoving it into the pocket of my jacket, I’ll read the circular red marks on it later. I was waiting for Judith. Typical for her to be late, she knows how much I don’t want to be here. What if Robert calls the cops on me, again. Just for talking to her.
Judith~
I walk into the front of the café and see the woman sitting outside on the patio by the wood screen. Hidden in the shadows of the shade. Her face glowed something masked in clay. She wore her tinted custom visor sunglasses, regal gloves and looked like a romantic annoying mystery in the full trench coat. Of course she did. Hiding behind her white and black striped flopping hat. She’s trying to distance herself far from her sworn enemy the sun. probably doesn’t even want to be here. The cold clayed scowl beautifully pierced me. I ditch into the bathroom before she even recognizes me which is indoors of the café. She didn’t recognize me. How could she, I feel the soaking burning start coming from my eyes. As I walk into the revolving solid door to the bathroom. After I finish, I wash my hands and look into the mirror. Freckles lots of freckles stare back. I love the sun. I love the way it feels, it warms me up. The way it messes with my skin. It burns sometimes but otherwise it feels refreshing and freeing. I feel beautifully relaxed when I am in it, in my own skin. But I’ve got to get this over with, I wiped my citrus stinging eyes before I got to it with painting the cold clay clump over my face. Hiding the window to my soul.
“Hello Count Genevieve” I said toothily into her pissed off glare of shadows.
“What is it you want darling more money? I’ve already given you and him the monthly payment. Does Robert know you are here? I am waiting for a student prospect.” She snapped anxiously, ever shadowing her glow from the press.
“No, I need you to help me with school.” I said dryly.
“What?! Ask Robert or Lily or Bonne Maman.” Panic and shock echoed through her voice, and what I wanted most, hope.
“It is for school; Dad will not do it, and he doesn’t need to know. Aunt Lily will not do it. Bonne Maman will not do it. So, I am asking you.” I said reluctantly, plus dad still thinks I’m a biomedical engineering major, not a pharmacosmetics fashion major. Like mother like daughter, wrong. I have been trained in engineering since grade school. I never picked it, it picked me. I never ask Genevieve for anything, the last time I did our family got ripped to shreds. High pressure parents, and one high in other levels too. Well at least one of them. I almost lost my face.
“It is a big deal for me and for my future career.” I gave her. She going to know.
“You’re an engineer dear, what on earth do you need my help with?” She said through her glowering glitter pale makeup. It never cracked or faded. It never melted off her face. It was made for her genes, for her skin. It was her drug. But I needed her clay and Click cosmetics and fashion brand. The high-tech and the top fashion and cosmetics brand that makes you look like a vampire and a skeleton. It is trendy and killing people. She is the leading world expert in making cosmetics. She is the head of the pharmacosmetics fashion science department at Bolton University and my only ticket to learn this profession in the top line up in four years.
“I am a pharmacosmetics fashion major. I am transferring to Bolton. I need a transcript that will get me in with at least 8 grades of experience in pharmacosmetics fashion or the sign off for the four-year intensive program with approval from the head of the department, and board. That is, you”. I said bluntly as if just saying I am the student.
“ah and did the advisors send you to me. Knowing our relation”. She said I see the crack.
“No not our relation. Solely professional”. I stammered this was it.
“Ok” the professional coolness was leaking from her cracked clay. “I will review your transcript and recommendation letters as well as what classes you have taken, your personal statement and your trial palette with the board. As well as your thesis on cosmetic theory and beauty standards. You will know by a letter in the mail in at least a week.” She said standing up grimly.
“Best of luck Ms. Gilmartin” she said ferociously.
I watched my mother leave. I follow in her shadowed path, but only after I wipe off the scaling clay hiding my freckles and hidden gashing shredded side of my face. My imperfection that was supposed to make me into perfect shapeable clay smooth. Got the formula wrong. But thanks to me not a line out of place. Not a freckle, not a dot. No breathing pores. Just clay. Smooth and perfect. It protects you from the sun.
The clay drips down the side of my round small face. It burns, flattens and rips my flesh to my bone. It was starting to shred to my bone. It melts my beauty mark, my big freckle. Taking the constellations from my face. The art and the imagination from me. My young mom is pulling the lab shower down on me. I stand in the drizzle of enough buckets to fill a fire pond. As the clay that melted my flesh gets cleansed from my face.
Freckles raise eyebrows but a scarred and contoured face makes people scared. If only they knew the truth. Behind the clay they wear. Why it is safe for them to hide behind. But it is their choice. Not mine.
Elizabeth~
I keep moving fast down the dusty street. The dust moved like sand gliding across on to the square as I moved. My tan skirts rustled as I journeyed over the path. As I am pushed furth by the crowd, like a wave pressing me towards the stake in the ground the rocks of wooden teeth. My abnormality is the freckles that are barnacles that scarred across my face. My life was being ended for my own abnormality that was passed to me from my grandmother to my daughter. The fear of the unknown and the superstition that gripped deep pores into my fellow neighbors and friends. I walked up to the stake and stood in the fire that blazed over me.
I had unusual signs, marks, unique to me. I also had floated in the water, my petticoats holding me up like a canopy over the pond water. I outweighed the goose. I practiced arts that healed and cured in unexplainable ways. I should have worn the clay this morning, but I did not have the time to place it on my face, to cover me. Maybe they wouldn’t have compared me to the other twenty-three in such ways if I just followed the lead of the clay. I am glad I taught my Genevieve my art.
Judith~
I just hawked my own mother. In her lecture.
“So your marketing cosmetics to peoples insecurities, would that not have an issue in society as a whole in changing beauty standards, and put your company in danger of a paradox change?” I said after she called on me. I can’t believe I had been accept to Bolton university and in my own mother’s department. There is something that doesn’t sit well with me on that. Corruption is everywhere. Works for me it will be easier to win this.
“Yes, but through social media and research you can figure out based on the changing trends what would evolve and utilize insecurities and based on old fashioned plastic surgery treatments shapes as well to make plastic surgery a thing of the past. But with Genetic pharmacy make up is more effective than permanently changing a clients and consumers face. And more effective to the goals of marketing.” She droned on and on feuding with my point until it was talked to death. She’d got all flustered I could see it through her clay when I argued with her. I wasn’t wearing her clay; she got a reminder of the insecurities she profits off. Other students were staring at me.
I felt like I was insane in the high raised level hall. With white walls and tan borders. The desks were large and connected in six crescent moons and the front of the amphitheater lecture hall, the wall sported a chalk board. It was ending now after 80 long minutes of listening to the cosmetics and insecurity target marketing. I felt like I was the only student that had a problem with it. I never realized how much she is into her profession. How much she is invested in reading into every little sentence and analyzing and photosynthesizing it. She never invested in me. Looking at the trends and society. I never realized how interestingly intelligent and devious my mother is.
I had a chem gen class to rush too next. Chemistry of the genetics of modifiable make-up. I thought it was funny, the clay makes your face contour and your pores change. It is genetically modified to help carve and change and groove the contour of your face, the texture and health of your skin. It isn’t permanent, you must be wearing it daily or for years and decades, but the effects only last a short time. A perfect marketing plan. A perfect formula. More formulas, different shapes and modifications. I was going to take it all over one way or another, with my scarred face.
