Becoming Mona Lisa Read Free Page A

the paper in the direction of his open garbage can. He missed. His face twisted with disgust, as he angrily bent forward, grabbed the paper, and made another attempt. This time the trash hit its mark, but what was that?
    I did NOT see that.
    While Thurman had been focused on getting the paper in, something had popped out.
    Oh, my God, I saw Thurman's junk!!
    The age-old question of boxers or briefs, at least when it came to Thurman Pippin, had been answered, and the answer was NEITHER! He went commando, but in his defense, he was still in his pajamas.
    I rose so quickly I knocked over a scarred kitchen stool the color of baby puke. I was tempted to claw my own eyes out, but I expected to live another fifty years, and couldn't face a lifetime of darkness.
    “Holy cats, I saw Pippin's pecker!” I said out loud. I laughed until I was breathless, something I hadn't done in years, then scanned the counter for my cell phone. I found it buried beneath a Fangerhouse catalog addressed to Ida, and dialed Tom. My call went to voice mail. I left a message.
    “Tom, it's Mona. No one died. Call me back.”
    I dropped the phone into the pocket of my robe, which had been Aunt Ida's. Time had faded the Pepto Bismol pink to a pleasant shade, and had the robe been absent of coffee stains and cauterized holes from Aunt Ida's Pall Mall cigarettes, it might have been nice.
    It wasn't.
    I wore it anyway.
    I headed for the bathroom, opting for a shower while I waited for Tom's call. I closed the door, and stood before the full length mirror on the wall.
    Good Lord!
    I looked at myself, seeing myself in a way I normally didn't. While I'd been poking fun at Tom for his taste in ties, he'd been looking at this?
    Some things improved over time. Obviously, I wasn't one of them. I was only thirty-four years old, much younger than the thing in the mirror.
    “Mona Lisa Harrison Siggs,” I said aloud, expecting some sense of recognition to come with the speaking of my name. “Who are you?” I whispered, and the thing's mouth moved.
    The thing in the mirror was not me, it was not the grown version of a little girl born to an art teacher and music teacher, ten years after they'd abandoned any hope of having a child.
    I was an unexpected gift, the most precious thing in the lives of two people I called Mom and Dad. Mom, with her affinity for art, which had evolved from the Louvre in her twenties, to paint-by-numbers in her seventies, and Dad, with his old Victrola, repaired by his own hands, complete with a collection of old records that filled his life with scratchy music written by some of the world's greatest composers.
    I was once nothing more than a dream in the minds of two aging teachers. I'd become Mona Lisa, beloved child. A girl who, if born a boy, might have been called Beethoven. I was their most precious gift. Now I was this?
    What in the sam hell?
    I was surprised when my eyes filled with tears, and I lifted the robe to wipe them away, feeling a crusty hole graze my left cheek. I was horrified by the image I saw in the water-speckled reflection.
    Did this person ruin my marriage?
    The thing in the mirror was not the woman Tom Siggs had married.
    Where was she?
    Where did she go?
    I held my own gaze for ten minutes and tried to psychoanalyze my failings, the task a failing in its own right. I wasn't a therapist. I was a WalMart cashier!
    Once, I thought I'd be a book editor, or a journalist, strolling the streets of New York City, carrying a briefcase and an overpriced coffee. Now I worked at WalMart.
    I didn't look down upon WalMart employees, in fact, it was in the “blue-aproned sector,” where I'd met some of the finest people I'd ever known. It wasn't the job that had let me down, it was me.
    I'd failed to meet my own modest expectations. Repulsed, I fled from the mirror, into the safety of my bedroom, but nostalgia wasn't willing to free me just yet. My eyes were drawn to an old Polaroid photo, taped to the bedroom mirror. I averted