A Little Change of Face

“True,” Pam conceded, referring to my wardrobe, not the little dog. Having pulled herself up onto a big black inner tube, she was lazing around the pool, using her hands to gently provide the motion. “But Scarlett’s clothes still have some shape to them. She needs to go in the other direction.” Then she looked at me, smiled. “I could help you out with that. I could take you shopping.”

“Well,” said Delta, leaning over to finger my raven mane, “the hair would have to go.” She fluffed her own Dolly Parton-wannabe tresses. “Can’t be trying to slum it with pretty hair.”

“Oh,” said T.B., getting into the spirit of things, although I could tell she didn’t believe I’d ever do it, “and you’d need to get some glasses.”

“I could do that,” I asserted. “I wear contacts. I’ll just switch.”

“No heels,” warned Delta. “Ever.”

“Great,” I enthused. I’d reached an age where I was tired of the pain of occasionally wearing heels, even if those heels were sometimes the only things standing between me and regular teasing by my gal pals at my lack of significant height.

“And no makeup,” T.B. laughed. “Not that you ever wear any to speak of, anyway,” which was true. A little lipstick in the winter, just enough so that the chapping wouldn’t make me look like Linda Blair in The Exorcist, and I was pretty much well ready to face the world.

“Hey,” Delta laughed, “and if you really want to make it challenging for a man to fall in love with you, you could borrow my kids for a while!”

“Um, no, thank you,” I said. It wasn’t that I was put off by the idea of kids in general so much as I was put off by the idea of Delta’s kids in particular.

“Oh, come on,” Delta encouraged. “Believe me, it’ll make it nearly impossible to find Prince Charming, if you’ve got a couple of kids at home.”

“Who ever said I was searching for Prince Charming?” I asked.

“Heh,” T.B. laughed softly. “Ain’t we all?”

“Well, no,” said Delta, going all literal on us. “I don’t think lesbians are looking for Prince Charming at all.”

“Prince Charming, Princess Charming,” said T.B., “it’s the same thing.”

All the while, Pam had been floating around in the pool, a smile playing on her lips as she tilted her face to the sun, eyes closed. She had the look of someone who was content to let others do her dirty work for her.

“Okay,” I said, feeling that I needed to object to something, but reluctant to address the particularly objectionable things that they were saying, “let’s say I do all this. What do I do about where I live, where I work?”

“Huh?” asked Pam, nearly falling off her float as she sat up too quickly.

“Think about it,” I said. “I can’t just show up at work one day looking radically different—people will think I’m nuts. I can’t stay living in the same place after going from swan to anti-swan. Did I mention that people will think I’ve gone nuts? All my neighbors will think I’ve gone nuts. People would ask questions. I’d have to give explanations.”

Pam shrugged, settled back, smiled. “So you’ll get a new job. So you’ll move.”

“Just like that?” I asked.

“Sure.” Pam shrugged again. “Why not?”

I thought about it. Would it really be that hard to do? I wasn’t that attached to my job. I certainly wasn’t that attached to where I lived. Except for the pool. But it would be Labor Day again before I knew it, which meant no more swimming for nine months, anyway. And leaving the library would get me away from Mr. Weinerman….

“You know,” Pam said in a devilishly seductive tone, “you could also bind your breasts.”

“I’m not going to bind my breasts!” I half shouted. Sheesh. A girl had to draw the line somewhere.

“Just a suggestion.” Pam smiled.

“Well,” I said, thinking about it all, everything, all at once, “if I do all that, I might as well change my name, too. People still do that sometimes when they get married or if they go Hollywood, so why can’t I? I could even change it legally. No sense in creating a new life, a new persona, and then keeping the same name.”

“No sense at all,” said T.B., in a tone that clearly revealed that she’d gone back to thinking me nuts.

“Naw,” said Delta, “Scarlett’s the name of a femme fatale. It’s the kind of name men can’t resist. We can’t have that.”

“So,” asked Pam, “just what are you going to call yourself in your new life? Who is the new and de-improved Scarlett going to become?”

“Who the hell knows?” I answered.

“Are you really gonna do this thing?” T.B. asked a few minutes later, once Delta had joined Pam in the pool, the two others caught up in talking TV.

“Yes,” I said. “I don’t know.” I thought about it some more. “Maybe?”

“But,” T.B. said, “forgive me if this is a dumb-ass thing to ask—Why?”

I thought about how Pam had planted the seed when at the bar, had been planting the seed for years, that my luck with men was unearned. I thought about how having the chicken pox had harvested the seed that I might not be as lovable if I didn’t look as good. I thought about my realization, while watching Extreme Makeover, that my looks might have brought me attention, but they hadn’t brought me love.

“Because Pam’s got me curious,” I said. “Because for thirty-nine years I’ve done things one way, and it hasn’t gotten me anywhere, not really. Has being attractive got me that Prince Charming you were talking about? No. So maybe doing something drastically different will get me what I want. Do I even want him? Who knows? Some days, yes. Some days, no. Maybe I want to do it because I worry that Pam might be right, that my good looks have earned me a free ride. Maybe I want to do it because I want to prove something to myself, that I’m likable just for me after all. Or maybe I want to do it simply because,” I finally sighed, “who the hell knows why? What can I say? I’m a confused and conflicted and ambivalent woman. I have murky motives.”

“Ah,” T.B. said. “I getcha now.”