Mirrored Perfection

 

She stood in front of the mirror fussing with hairspray hoping it would go just a little higher conscious not to look like a hooker. Suburbanites hate hookers.

Perfect hair signaled personal perfection reflected in daily dusting, hourly vacuuming, and unending cycles of laundry. Everything was a reflection of everything else, so nothing was supposed to be out of place. It was suffocating her. It suffocated me. 

It became more than either of us could handle. She'd cry downstairs in the unfinished basement behind the tiny bathroom hoping no one would find her. I rebelled with messy drawers that were easily closed and by hoarding discarded wrappers in school lockers and backpacks. It led to four or five years of silence.

Her hair is unkept as she looks in the mirror, so she throws on a hat. The dusting is sporadic; the vacuuming is only weekly; the washing machine is silent. She works downtown among the hookers and drag queens and dykes and druggies providing respite and care for those with HIV/AIDS. She breathes freely. 

So do I.