Audrey stood in front of the mirror that night
 with the radio on staring at her body
 in just in her bra and panties
evaluating her body, comparing her body,
 her hair, her mouth, her behind
to Carly’s
putting tissue paper in her bra cups
 trying to get  them look like Carly’s breasts
  puffing out her behind
 
  pouting her lips  
trying on a shade of lipstick
  of lip gloss
that matched the kinds Carly wore.

She put on her shortest shirt
thinking to hem it to make it shorter
but not too short;
She didn’t want to look cheap;
  she would have to hide it in her backpack to get it out of the house.
 
She would have to change in the girl’s bathroom at school
 hoping no one would notice how her clothing had changed
that no one would notice and tell her parents,
or worse report her to the school principal.

She didn’t want people to start to talking about her
that would be mortifying
rumors would start
boys would start to think she was easy
some of the girls would say she was a tramp or “fast.”
 
Lots of girls at school wore short skirts

but if she Audrey
 wore one
people would notice,
her reputation would get ruined.

She looked at the skirt in the mirror
to see if her thighs,
now exposed,
looked fat or were too thick.

 She stared at them not being able to tell
after all
she was not used to seeing her thighs in a short skirt.

She went to her closet to retrieve a top,
 a white top,
because she felt that would not draw as much attention
  buttoning up the front, with tiny pearl buttons
 staring at herself in the mirror;
examining her tissue-paper breasts
inside the top,

noting to her embarrassment
that her breasts had lumps.

Lumpy breasts would be a problem.   

She pulled out a pair of socks from her closet
placing them carefully inside her bra.
They looked ok
but she would have to sew them in|

to be sure they didn’t fall out.

She dropped the socks on the dark carpet
 and  went to the closet to look again for something else.
She decided on cotton,
cotton
which  she tore from the shoulder pads of the suit her aunt had given her
for her visit to New York
her junior year.
She took the shoulder pads out and tried them on,
turning slowing in front of the mirror to see how they looked.
 
They were perfect;
  she breathed a gentle sigh of relief.

Now the eyes and the makeup;
She had some
and some she had borrowed
from her mother’s makeup kit
 and some she had  gotten from her girlfriend, Mary
 offering the excuse she had seen in a magazine some new things which could be done
with makeup.
Mary didn’t ask any questions.

Arrayed before her was eyeliner, blush, powder,
and tweezers for eyebrow plucking,
gloss, foundation, false eyebrows, eyelash thickener, sparkles,
and something Mary had given her which she had no clue as to what it could be used for
( It turned out something which could thicken newly plucked eyebrows.)

 She never wore makeup before, at least to school
and it suddenly dawn on her
that showing up with the makeup on was bound to be noticed
and commented upon the boys eyes would rove over her body
and the girls would whisper in corners.

 She turned  from the mirror, feeling dazed
 going  to sit on the side of her bed
realizing
that all this,
 her plan
was dishonest
   
  too phony

people would fain
to cast her as fallen.

If her love was steady and strong
she thought
I would see that in time
eventually
 or not.
But she would not pretend to be a person different than she was
because that would be obvious to everyone,
to me and to herself.

If love was to triumph here Audrey concluded
it could not be based upon makeup and tight clothing
trying to be an imitation Carly.

Decided what to do, she closed the make-up cases intinctively understanding it was an really important decision in her young life
more about she than I
about being who she really was.


The next day she told me what she had decided to do not omitting any detail
I listened
not reacting
surprised
  looking at her for a moment
stunned
as she told me all of the details
of the night before:

the makeup, the short skirt
the tight blouse, the thighs--
all of it.

To be continued