It was a quiet night, and for a moment Princess could watch the sky and not the earth, and believe that she was anywhere.
“Look, look. Diane. All of the weight is gone, you know? Every inch off the love handles, even the most stubborn final pounds, now- isn’t that the sort of results that-?”
It had been a quiet night. In the end, Princess couldn’t truly be anywhere except where her feet remained fixed firmly to earth.
She stood up, dusted off the off-gray of her worst pajama pants- faded, ratty- and traversed the stairs back into the trailer. Even generously she couldn’t have imagined a grand ballroom reception as her dirty socks vindictively stomped dust bunnies into the wood paneling of the stoop. Perhaps the reception foyer of a lonely Denny’s. If she was being particularly generous. ‘Three creaky steps and then a screen door’ would certainly have been an interesting way to begin to pen the tale of a heroine of antiquity.
PRINCESS enters downstage left
There was little to attribute to the Denny’s she called home. Lighting as abashedly dour, incandescent sallow yellow that clung to the skin. The kitchen was the dining room was the living room, and the bathroom was unceremoniously close to all. Mom did business from the same couch she slept on because her bedroom was where James kept the spare engine parts for his Harley. Mom, funnily enough, was the only one between the three of them who couldn’t stand the cloying scent of motor oil. Princess rushed past the cracked coffee pot and her Mom’s entrepreneurial stabbing at her phone screen while picking at the peeling floral wallpaper.
Her own bedroom began at the headboard of her bed and ended just after the bare metal feet. Her chair: the bed; her table: the bed; her bed: somewhere far away from the veil of closed eyes and slumber disturbed by her Mom’s love of late hour coffee that smelled burnt and tasted cold.
Her wardrobe, also the bed. She had a closet that could be considered walk-in if she put on her best contortionist act, but she’d been just anxious enough about tonight that she’d planned out her ensemble with the knowledge that no plan survives contact with the enemy. She considered her handiwork with a critical eye, being just biased enough to be thus blind.
To all the burning embers of adolescence, yet unswept under the rug what for the aesthetics of modern messiness in all senses of the world: Princesses’ humble preached address. There came a time in all lives wherein one assumed they knew what it was to look beauteous and to draw the eye. There was a different time in life, some time thereafter, wherein one promptly unlearned their assumptions as they were dashed upon the rocks like ships to the storm waters. For Princess she had learned quickly in all her youthful wisdom and experience. She had adapted, and overcome, as many her age failed to do in all their changing here-and-there and helter-skelter. The realm of true beauty was Olympus, difficult to scale, exclusive to few. Princess humbly assembled herself to be worthy of the metaphorical gods, much as she sat upon thrones to lord them over others.
She contemplated the midnight satin of her dress, just twice-washed enough that lint didn’t stick. Confidence hydrated her parched throat, put a proud smile to her lips. She’d made mountains from molehills with the pomp and ceremony of her prom ensemble. She’d have to give the whole thing back to the rental store eventually, but for one moment she’d had perfection off-the-rack.
Her phone came to life as Princess began to strip one life and put on another, Cinderella and her glass slipper: only Princess didn’t lose her facade quite as easily as the airhead bitches of old.
Kelly Nguyen -
https://a0ececabbd797faea105-6bec79f68c ... dcc2ad.jpg
hi friend! sorry this is so last-minute, but like, thoughts on my dress?
kinda worried it might be a bit too extra : /
Ah, the group she was going with. A fine assemblage of people with which to pass the time and maybe expect something more useful besides that. Princess smiled at the thought of time well spent. Through text, if not aloud.
Princess McQuillan -
Is it okay if I cry? I feel like I need to shed a tear of pride. :' )
How sycophantic of her! Ah, what the woman of the modern day needed to do to survive in this world.
Princess McQuillan -
I feel like I should have followed you last time you invited me out for shopping spree. Been way too long.
I'm really missing out on that aesthetic of yours!
So, has Mercy said anything else, or are we still all meeting in the same place?
You guys in Yearbook have a thing to tend to while there too, if I remember right.
She shucked what was left of her many-years too old pajamas and began to dress. Already calculating the plan for her applique, already dreading the foggy smears that had settled into their bathroom mirror like the rot of poverty onto her life.
The phone would ding, once, twice, like the lonely notes of an orchestra taking stabs at its practice and warm-up. She would only think of Kelly in that interim insofar as she wondered if her fellow fashionista would be impressed, if her somewhat lacking vision of a rather hackneyed set of decades in American history would be suitably rocked by revelations of something far more classic as could be wrestled off the shelves of the bargain stores of the world.
But eventually, everyone had to put their game face on, keep appearances up. Cynical as it sounded, Princess was merely a cog in society’s machine. Truly she was one of the heroines of old, of stories long past. Trapped by society, but an exemplar of it all the same!
Kelly Nguyen -
aww, that means so much to me! < 3
missing out on yours too, girl! srsly please come, jiji and i are so excited to go shopping with you again!
plans are still the same tho, i think - but yeah, there's some yearbook stuff
will probably have to really help run that considering who's in charge now ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
do not let anyone know i said that eep! he's super nice but just hmm
anyways, you excited?
Workplace drama. How trite. Who had ever been turned to an ideal of the human’s boundless spirit by DSLR photos? It was one thing to have a hobby, another thing entirely to let that hobby take real estate in the head.
Princess McQuillan -
All the gang, right? I feel like we'll all look back in twenty years and have to wonder what the hell it was we were all wearing back then.
They, at least, would.
Princess McQuillan -
Might as well say it now, right? Our future selves don't know what they're talking about, we are all fab.
Ooh.
Pssh. Well, Futscher's certainly got no shortage of quirks. That could be also called shortcomings.
But he seemed to be a fine leader for the club, at the very least. All the other hmm aside.
And I'm beyond excited.
Her fingers stalled at the keys of the three-something year old iPhone she’d only personally owned for the better part of a school semester. The itch of all the clothes she’d yet to have finished putting on taunted her. The finish on the seams had unraveled, meaning some particularly rough threads poked mercilessly at the skin. It was a fine metaphor for something or another, a dress that looked beautifully immaculate on the outside, that was readily falling apart on the inside.
She only needed a moment of all those distractions to return to clarity.
Princess McQuillan -
You know, where you become nervous about it.
Is it strange to be nervous when you're not even going with a date? I feel like you might need to knock some sense into me!
When she dragged herself through the parts of the trailer she considered yet more claustrophobic than her own breadbox of a room, she noticed nothing in particular, and then moved on promptly. She casually consulted the waxy plastic pouch that carried maybe half a month’s salary worth of putting her best face and best foot forward. Only after that careful contemplation, her idle gaze turned elsewhere:
Kelly Nguyen -
yeah, i'm kinda scared to think about me in 20 years, tbh
i'll either be an asian mom or a cat lady, i think : (
but at least we've got now!
and yeah, demetri does work really hard
so i'm pretty sure the yearbook will turn out okay
i think it's perfectly fine to be nervous, though!
almost everyone's gonna be there, dressed up to the nines, but just remeber you're just dressed as well!
Fat finger? Certainly wouldn’t be the first time.
Kelly Nguyen -
*remember
oops! but anyways, just believe in yourself and know that your outfit is just as fine
really cheesy but it's true ; )
Princess took extra careful consideration of how the tips of her fingers lit up the polished screen of her phone. Didn’t take too much extra energy or attention, or any at all for that matter.
Princess McQuillan -
You say that as if either of those things is a bad thing! I kind of love the idea of future you already.
20 years is a long time but I doubt you'll let yourself get any worn down.
At the bare minimum, you won't be me in twenty years and be stuck in community theater. That's one good assurance, right? Wrong? I tried. : p
But I think we're both at the very least right to be optimistic for tonight.
I never doubted I was dressed well! I think the nervousness is just... well, the impending sense, in a way.
There isn't much time left before we have to start thinking about those 20 years a little more.
But at the very least, I don't think either of us are going out without a fight!
So there.
You're not the only one being cheesy. : )
Rankled a bit, but Princess could accept kitschiness as the cost of social relevance.
She really liked to deconstruct herself in the mirror, in moments like this. Made her look all the more mortal, the way she had to really glare angrily at the slight impression of darkness that ringed the spots under her eyes. Nary a moment of pretension to be found when she was busily hating her imperfections. She had to be sure of a lot of things to properly live her life. Straight back. Careful awareness of her own hands. Proper position of her bangs, lest it be known that Princess McQuillan was prone to Digiorno's on the face.
Speaking of. Digiorno’s. Mom’s idea of fine dining. Damn her bloodline, burn the entire family tree down, cut it to kindling, something. A birthday dinner in Blue House was about as noble as the latrine pits of the royal castle. Especially, especially, when she was working there that same day and coming off her own damn shift to greet her Mom and the fifteen other cultists she called business associates to their five-o'clock happy hour discount martinis.
Kelly Nguyen -
HAHA but srsly, that's really sweet!
Color in the powder form, deftly spilled out so as to wash out the redder splotches.
Kelly Nguyen -
i think my many pets will rejuvenate me, after all
community theater does sound interesting, tho - maybe at least a try?
Her face split into dabs and swatches like it was a baby’s first paint palette, then swabbed.
Kelly Nguyen -
but yeah, the future?
it is pretty scary - like actually, kinda really scary
And the swabbing complete. Her skin an even tone, carefully hammered out until it might have been that she’d put on a mask.
Kelly Nguyen -
we might as well live in the moment and enjoy this night tho, right?
make memories that we'll never forget, something like that
or at least some great photos
The phone was in her spare hand now. The tickle of a brush to her face almost drew her worry lines into the shape of an impromptu sneeze, chalky pale clouds billowed up her nostrils, but she remained deft.
Princess McQuillan -
You started the movement yourself, after all. I know all the brands to avoid now because of you.
Your pets had better be grateful, honestly.
Animals made her uncomfortable, she couldn’t see how others liked them so. What benefit did one derive from pretending to baby talk at something so clingy and dependent? Toddlers, at least, grew up eventually. They improved.
Princess silently cursed, to herself and certainly not aloud, when chunky black splattered over the already stained sink basin, faded yellow in pillars worth of dripping rust.
Princess McQuillan -
Wait. No, okay. Not fair. You know if you dangle that in front of me I will immediately ambush you in the corridor with highlighted scripts for every role I think you were born to play.
This, at least, was an actually entertaining diversion. Princess furiously picked at her eyelashes, willing them to actually stand the test of time for once. Gravity, at least, they could fight for just one evening, rather than melting in a microcosm of her surrender to banal reality.
Princess McQuillan -
Ooh! You'd be adorable as Princess Buttercup in the Princess Bride. Wait, no.
Getting ahead of myself.
Princess was half out the bathroom door already, but also lingering with her body weight, trying to make sure the bathroom’s shoddy lighting was not lying to her for once. Damn flickering thing cost way more than its worth in the monthly electric bill Mom failed to ever actually pick up before Princess inevitably liberated it on her way to school.
Princess McQuillan -
And yes. You hit it on the nail exactly.
She looked fine- yes, yes, she was positive. She looked positively fine. She was a brilliant portrayal of all the subtlety of the somber aesthetic of a girl’s innocence blooming under the unwashed evening sky.
Princess McQuillan -
And I'm holding you and Mercy accountable for good photos.
“Princess? Honey.”
