face. I held my body immobile like a rabbit fixed in the gaze of a coyote. I watched with an odd detachment but never caught a random glimpse of my reflection.
Then, after three hours and twelve minutes, six different goop applications, pieces of foil and something that looked like it came off a spaceship, three shampoos, and four different products applied during the blow-drying process, Dmitry appeared satisfied.
My mother gawked at me with tears in her eyes.
I didn’t know if they were happy tears or horrified ones, because her face remained smoothly youthful and devoid of expression.
“Oh, my baby. She’s finally—”
“Supreme,” Dmitry declared. “Now close eyes and I spin you.” He made eye contact with me for the first time.
I squeezed them, bracing myself against the expectation that seemed to suck the oxygen out of the room. All activity ceased; even the musicians seemed to hold their notes.
As Dmitry turned the chair around he commanded, “Open your eyes.”
The first thing I saw in the mirror was Mother standing behind me, her hands clasped in prayer-like fervor.
Then I focused on the woman reflected back at me.
Woman? Me?
My naturally white-blond hair seemed to be spun of gold and sunlight and moonlight. A fairy pixie with huge eyes framed by long full lashes stared back at me. Brows of melted gold arched in question, and in statement, above them. My skin glowed as if polished and dusted with light. My hair was so short, it served as more of a cap of fringe around my face. Facets of diamonds seemed to float and caress the air around my head. Twin curls caressed my cheeks and cradled my ears. My lips were shiny and pink, as if I’d gorged on the freshest berries. Even my hated upturned nose seemed itself a cute addition to an otherwise orchestrated collection of perfected features.
“That’s me?” I asked, my voice breathy and unsure.
The salon broke into amazed applause, subdued and polite,but I saw the expressions on the faces of the stylists—not at my surprise beauty, but at Dmitry’s astonishing skill in finding it. As if they’d decided there was nothing that could be done for me when I’d first walked in.
My mother had never seemed so proud to claim me. She walked with her arm around me to Allehambra’s and treated the crowds to a deferent tolerance, as if she were the Queen of England.
From our corner table, Mother scanned the restaurant as if waiting for someone more important, or at least more interesting, than me. I saw the flash of panic when she realized she hadn’t spent this kind of time with me since I was a baby. Why had I let her reel me in this time?
Silence stretched until even the waiter filling our water glasses looked like he wanted to present a conversation topic to break the ice. I nibbled on a cracker. Turned out we weren’t eating tapas at a tapas restaurant.
How many Michelin stars does a salad rate?
“So, Jessica, have you thought about your college major? As a legacy, you have options.”
I think it was always assumed I’d go to college, but the closer I got, the more I felt as if my parents were sizing me up to see if I was worth the quarter-of-a-million-dollar investment that their private alma matter required.
Assuming I get in
.
I nodded. “Um, sure. I took the PSAT last week.”
“I thought you had to be a junior to take that?” Some people’s foreheads creased with questions, but not my mother’s.
“They have sophomores take it too—they say it helps the school with scheduling.” Basically, they used it to weed outthe vocational kids and the borderline mediocre ones from the smart and genius ones. My high school had close to two thousand students—most of us tracked classes based on how smart we appeared on tests. It was acceptable segregation.
“Oh, well, how did you do?” She sipped her water as if to make it last.
“It went okay.”
Say something else, tell her more, make up something if you have to
.
The waiter set