Bal de Glace

Each time is the same. It always leaves a bittersweet taste in her mouth that makes her want to spit.

First, she casts off her daytime skin of comfort -- off go the indigo skinny jeans, the graphic silkscreen tees, the sneakers weathered and caked with a history of rain and mud. In come the dresses (with their cascading fabrics and jewel-tone hues), the chandelier earrings, the heels that elevate her elegance and yet hurt like a bitch. On comes the glitter and powder and rouge, the nocturnal painted face that never sees the light of day.

Then, there is always the entrance. The moment when she glides through the door with all eyes on her. The silence that follows is brief, before her friends all begin to crowd around, doling out compliments like bread to the hungry. She never looks at her friends' dates, the ones that linger to the side. And there is almost always the one whom she doesn't want to face. It is then that the feeling first begins to trickle under her skin.

It isn't until they arrive there that the trickling emotions she has been feeling intensify and pool together, until she is sick and nauseous with the eternal war of hope and despair. The battles differ each time. Perhaps she is stricken with lazy eye, gaze wandering off for the one in the shadows. Half the time, he isn't there; the rest of the time, she will find him in the arms of another. Or perhaps she will be dancing with her friends. It can go two ways. Either she will be alone and with the darkness hiding the crimson shame of her face, she will retreat to the back of the room where the wallflowers bloom and wilt. Or, perhaps this time her friends are not coupled off like Noah's animals in matching colors. Like a fairy ring of mushrooms, they root into the dance floor in a circle of rhythmic magic. But when the heartbeat of the music begins to slow to a waltz, her lazy eye is paralyzed. Perhaps the one will approach her friend. Or perhaps the one will wander off the floor to satisfy a different sort of appetite with chocolate fondue and cheesecake. Her lazy eye doesn't know, not when it will look anywhere but there.

Hours later, she is staring at her reflection in the mirror, reluctant to wash away the painted mask. I'm not ugly, she tells herself. My face is symmetrical. My eyes are respectably almond-shaped, with a natural cat-eye quirk in the corners. My nose is straight and petite -- the kind that the fortunetellers say bodes well. My lips are full, glossed with a coat of glittering armor. But the words are empty, rattling in her body like forlorn pennies in a forgotten band-aid tin.

Before she goes to sleep, she looks at the pictures on her wall. There is Holly Golightly, reassuring her with a smile as bright as the tiara in her hair that sexy is ephemeral, elegance is eternal. Then there is the Idol, with his impeccably styled clothes and heart-wrenching glare, the one whose voice sings her to sleep, the one who reminds her that there is still a whole world she has yet to see. It is only then, with the weight lifted off her heart, that she is able to drift to sleep.

Moon River, wider than a mile,
I'm crossing you in style some day.