Mask of A Legend (7 page)

“I can’t look at it, what did she put down?” Legend asked, handing her photo to Jenny. Jenny read it and then handed it to Angelica. Legend tried to study Jenny’s reactions after her eyes perceived the picture, but she couldn’t decipher whether it was a good reaction or not. All Jenny did was smile, but to Legend, she tried to understand whether it was a sympathetic smile or a grin of positive shock.

“Well, it says ‘Approved’,” exhaled Jenny. Legend gave out a scream, hugging Angelica and Jenny at the same time, while Paula observed her moment of prosperity and smirked toward it. A wave of justifiable yet unusual happiness surfaced Legend’s aura, soul and body, brushing her hair like a calm memory, soothing her goose bumps like a delicate rose flushing against every one of them. Her eyes opened a little bit more, her posture stood a little bit straighter than before, and the scarf she wore was forgotten about more and more. Time was still and Legend, motionless and in awe, was shocked that she actually passed the part of this huge event without lying at all. It was as if she knew, just like with her whole life, that she would be turned down at once because of her face, and being used to this ritual, it was hard for her to get used to being on the other side of the line.

It is the line that separates dreamers from those who accept the reality they have, and Legend never received a chance, like she got now, to see the other side of it. Everything moved much faster the more she realized what happened, so quickly that the time she thought stopped or stood still was actually an error to her spirit. It was really racing, sprinting faster than she ever imagined. Happiness was quick and sadness was slow is what Legend learned while she still gazed at the ‘Approved’ stamp on her photo.

“Oh, Legend, here’s the information for the event, and also you can wait in the lobby. We’ll be giving a small presentation to those who were invited,” Paula said, handing Legend the brochures. Legend’s excitement caused happiness that raced faster than her thoughts, forced her to run away from Jenny and Angelica, and run up to the doorway of the ballroom. It was as if she was trying desperately to keep up with the speed of her thoughts, the newfound prosperity of acceptance. She then remembered that Jenny was missing by her side, so her happy body ran back up to Jenny and gave her another hug. Angelica just laughed.

“Hopefully I’ll see you again when the main event comes up next month,” Angelica said.

“I know you will, just make a wish,” Legend happily replied.

Angelica’s smile fell to a straight grin, saying, “My wishing days are over with, now go home and celebrate.”

“I’ll wish for you then.” Legend closed her eyes and made the wish.

“Why don’t you pray for me instead?” Angelica asked. Her voice stood motionless after her words, as if she dug some sort of deep meaning in her tone. She then walked up to Paula and turned away from Legend.

“I’ll do that, too: good luck.” Legend and Jenny walked away from Angelica, still shocked and happy. As soon as they reached the outside of the ballroom, they proceeded to go from walking to running with minds filled with happy thoughts and wonderment about what this new road would bring Legend.

“That Paula woman said to wait in the lobby until they give that small presentation for the girls who were chosen,” said Jenny. Legend just kept on smiling. “Don’t you want to see the presentation?”

“I can’t, I got to go home now, my mother doesn’t know I’m here and she’s going to be wondering where I’m at.” They exited the hotel and Legend abruptly stopped in her tracks, rain falling over them both, and asked, “My God, where is this search gonna be held at?”

Jenny whistled for a cab and immediately a cab came to the curb where they were standing. “Oh, it’s gonna be held on November twenty-second, and twenty-third at the O’Hare Marriott Hotel. It’s all in this brochure,” Jenny answered. They both jumped into the cab. Legend’s fear slowly dripped out of her mind and happy thoughts returned. But the fear returned when Jenny asked, “Why are you going to go to this thing anyway, Legend? Did you know that it costs three hundred dollars to attend it, and that doesn’t include the hotel room either?”

Legend turned to her, took the scarf off, and allowed Jenny to see her face. “This is why I’m doing it, Jenny.” Legend showed Jenny her dreadful face, or at least a face she felt in her own eyes was ugly. “I’m doing it to prove to Dina, as well as myself, that I could also be accepted as a beautiful girl. I told you that already!” Jenny felt Legend’s face, rubbing it like a mother would.

“But you are beautiful.” Legend pulled her hand away gently and looked out the window, seeing her reflection in the window’s dirty, rain-filled glass as a tear fell from her right eye. “Did you hear me? I said you are beautiful, Legend!”

“I know, I heard you, but I don’t believe you. I want the whole world to say it in order for me to believe it. But I know that won’t happen…. I just want to remember myself as at least giving it a shot with the beautiful girls, by going to this search. Please be happy for me.” Jenny saw the tears in her eyes while she looked at her reflection in the window and still couldn’t understand why Legend didn’t love herself, or at least didn’t accept the reality of what God gave to her. Legend turned around to face Jenny and whipped her tears away with the scarf.

“Where to?” the cab driver asked.

“I am happy for you … come here.” Jenny gave Legend a tight hug and rubbed her hair like a mother would to a child.

“I said where to, girls?” the cab driver asked again. The cab drove off into the Chicago evening and the cold rain that blew gazed at Legend through the window, watching her eyes staring at it, not knowing that she, once again, was peering at her reflection.

T
he days passed as Legend got prepared for the event she hoped would make her soul stronger in believing she really was beautiful. Such an innocent girl, with such a dream, a fantasy that she watched come true for others every time she saw a beautiful girl walk by her, or when she looked at a modeling magazine. She wasn’t jealous, or even envious of beautiful girls whom she saw. She was saddened by it, troubled because they have such a tremendous gift, but they don’t respect it. Every beautiful girl whom she saw would either be cruel to others, or else be conceited to them. But, Legend turned away from them as they showed their conceitedness, and concentrated on making her so-called wish real.

She would run, lift weights she couldn’t lift, and even put make-up on her face when she didn’t know how to use it, in order to make herself pretty for the event. But, every time she did these things, she would look in the mirror and still see the ugly mask that she wore. She would drink ten glasses of water a day, and even read health magazines to see how she could become beautiful, how she could take off this ugly mask she was born with.

Jenny was her so-called coach in this pursuit of finding beauty on the outside of Legend’s face. Jenny came by Legend’s house every day after school and prepared Legend for the model search by putting moisturizer, green masks, and even acne cream on her face and saying, “Don’t worry, your face will change for the better, people say that this cream works!” But, every time Legend would take off the green masks, or take off the acne cream, she would still see the same face that caused her pain in the past, and still in the present. She became overwhelmed with this so-called obsession with being beautiful and, overall, being perfect. She was addicted to the lie of what beauty should look like: the illusion.

Three days before the model search, Legend and Jenny were walking home from school, while the November rain misted them from the grey sky. Legend looked at her face in a small compact mirror while they walked, and then turned away immediately from it when she came across her dreadful face. “Nothing has changed, my face still looks the same as it did before,” Legend cried. “The search is in three days, how am I gonna go to it when I look like this still?”

“Legend, you knew that there was a huge chance that your acne wasn’t going to go away by now, to say the least. You still have those small lips and stringy, blonde hair. You can’t afford to go to a hairstylist, because you spent all your money on this search already,” Jenny replied. She felt sorry that Legend had to go through this pain of realizing she was destined to be ugly. She watched Legend’s tears fall to the cold, wet ground and wanted nothing more than to stop her tears. “Alright, Legend, listen to me, you can still back out of it. Dina and all the other bitches who are going to it don’t know that you’re going. It’s better that you back out now, instead of dealing with Dina making fun of you at the model search!”

“No, I can’t back out of it, I already paid the three hundred to go, and I also paid for the hotel room. Besides, even if I don’t have a good time there, you and I will still have the memory of going to it.” Jenny halted and looked at her with widened eyes. “What’s wrong?”

“Legend, I can’t go to this thing. The model search lasts for two days. The first day they teach you how to walk up on the runway, and the second day the agents will be there to see you walk and hopefully choose you as their client. This whole thing is a very special occasion: people can’t just walk in off the streets and attend it. If you read the brochure, you would have known that.”

They began walking again.

“But all I have to say is you’re a guest of mine. Jenny, you have to come with me, I need you to be there.” They approached Legend’s house and Jenny felt a burning question rising in her throat.

“Wait a second, did you take the three hundred dollars from your bank account?”

“Yeah, so what?”

“So what? Legend, that was the money you were going to use to buy that telescope, the telescope you’ve always wanted, the telescope that you would have loved to have.” She became upset at Legend because she knew she wasn’t going to get an agent, disappointed at Legend because she knew the three hundred dollars was supposed to go for something that she’s always wanted, to further her astronomy teachings. But now it was going for something that will prolong Legend’s pain when she doesn’t get chosen by any modeling agents.

They sat on Legend’s small, white porch and felt the wetness from the rain absorb into the back of their pants. They got up immediately as Jenny still kept silent, not knowing anymore what to say. It was as if she was hiding something from Legend. “Listen to me, I could always buy a telescope later on, but right now I needed the money for this event. Please don’t be upset with me,” begged Legend. They both entered her house and started walking up the stairs.

“I’m not mad at you, Legend, I just don’t want you to get hurt as all.”

“I’m not going to get hurt. Now, please say you’ll come with me,” Legend pleaded. They walked down her hallway while the aroma of liquor fermented in the air.

“Legend, like I said before, they won’t allow me to come with you. Besides, it costs fifty dollars to bring someone with you, and I don’t have that type of dough.”

They walked into Legend’s bedroom and sat on her bed before Legend pulled out a photo album and started pulling pictures out from it. Jenny stared at the star constellation poster up on the wall, when Legend tapped her on the shoulder.

“I’ll pay the fifty-dollar fee for you to come. I feel that it’s worth paying fifty dollars for a best friend to come with, instead of not having anyone there with me,” Legend explained. She pulled out four pictures from the album and put them on the bed.

“Are those the pictures you’re going to use for the model search?”

“Yeah, I can’t afford to go to a professional photographer, so I’m just going to use pictures that were taken of me before I got so-called ugly,” replied Legend. Jenny got up from the bed and walked over to the small window. “But anyway, I want you to come with me. Don’t worry, I’ll pay for you!”

“Legend, I already told you that I don’t want to come!” She bit her upper lip and realized she said the wrong thing.

“I thought you said you couldn’t go with me, right?” asked Legend. She noticed Jenny’s reflection in the window and how her eyes showed fear.

Jenny lingered her head over to face Legend. “That’s what I meant, I can’t go with!”

“No, but you said you didn’t want to. I think you’re hiding something. Come on, Jenny, we’re best friends, you can tell me anything!”

Jenny slowly turned back to the window and looked out at the grey sky; tears were beginning to develop in her eyes. She didn’t want to let down her mask in front of Legend, the mask that showed a tough girl who wasn’t afraid of anyone. Jenny stared through the window and came across her own reflection, the image of obesity and covered-up pain. Jenny tried to cover up her weak moment, but she noticed Legend staring at her reflection; she knew Legend saw her tears. Too late. Jenny turned from Legend’s reflection and came to her own again. “Listen, Legend, all the girls there are gonna be beautiful, and especially skinny. . . . I don’t think I would fit in there, and I mean both literally and socially. . . .” She saw Legend in the reflection of the window again, and noticed Legend staring at her. Jenny knew what was wrong. That’s when she immediately wiped her tears away with her school shirtsleeve, and then turned to face Legend.

“Are you crying?” asked Legend.

“Well, I am human, you know, I do get emotional sometimes.”

“I’m sorry, it’s just I’ve always thought of you as a tough girl. I mean, the way you always stand up for me, yourself, to Dina and her friends when they start talking about us. I guess that’s why.” The rain started falling harder outside, bouncing off the window in herds.

“Well, that’s the reason why I don’t want to go to this search. I am fat … and those girls are skinny…. Especially you, I mean, you think that you’re ugly, but you don’t realize how lucky you are to have a figure like that. You have a slim, perfect waist, perfect breasts, and overall a perfect posture. With me, my belly is beyond large, my breasts seem like they’re a part of my stomach, and my posture is like a fish hook, hunched and curved.” Legend immediately got up from her bed and gave her a hug. “I mean, that’s why I always stick up for you when Dina or the other bitches make fun of you. You’re special, you’re the only one who likes me for who I am . . . not the way I look. And, if I go to this search with you, all those girls are just going to be like Dina, nothing but bitches.” Jenny cried on Legend’s right shoulder and absorbed her tears with Legend’s shirt.

The bodyguard spoke. Silence and a brief echo of the rain hitting the window was all that was heard. The truth was spoken. Jenny, of all people, was actually crying. Legend was so fixated on herself that she completely forgot about Jenny’s feelings. But now she knew.

“Jenny, listen to me, I know that people pick on you because of your weight, and I know they pick on me because of my looks. But, overall, if we allow them to stop us from doing what we want, just because of evil words they say about us, then that makes us everything that they call us. It makes you nothing but a fat slob, and makes me nothing but ugly. . . . That’s mainly why I’m going to this model search. This is our last year in high school, and I really don’t want to remember this year as doing nothing but crying because of name-calling to me . . . I want to remember it as actually going to this model search, and being happy because I went.”

“I want to remember this year as myself walking on a catwalk with Dina and all the other beautiful models, and realizing that we’re all equal. The only moment when we aren’t equal is when we all walk off the catwalk and the agents begin to choose which girls they want. But for that one moment when I’m equal to Dina and the other beauties, that one moment is worth a thousand tears from my eyes. . . . It’s worth more than the three hundred dollars I paid to go to this search, it’s priceless, and I want to live that moment, Jenny.” She kept on hugging Jenny, both balling and trying to catch their breaths.

Jenny released her arms from Legend and walked up to the window again. “Alright, I’ll go, but I’ll only go on the second day to see you walk on the catwalk. The first day you really don’t need me, all they’re going to do is teach you how to walk on the cat . . . but the second day I’ll be there.” Legend ran up to her and gave her a tight hug.

“Oh thank you, thank you, thank you so much, Jenny, and you won’t be disappointed either. I promise you that day will be a day you’ll never forget!” Her bedroom door opened and her mother walked in. Legend saw her in the window’s reflection with a bottle of vodka in her grasp, and a cigarette in the other.

“Legend, I have to talk to you immediately,” her mother slurred. Legend became embarrassed, knowing her mother was obviously drunk; she didn’t want Jenny to see her that way.

She ran over to her mother and whispered, “Mom, could we please talk about this after Jenny goes home, and after you’re sobered up?”

Her mother grabbed Legend by the hand and replied, “No, we’re going to talk about this right now!”

Her mother guided her out of her room as Legend said, “Jenny, I’ll be right back!” She closed her bedroom door and her mother kept on pulling her hand toward her. They walked in a fast rhythm down to the kitchen. “Mom, could we please wait till you’re sobered up? I hate it when you’re drunk. . . .”

“Well, little miss prissy doesn’t like it when I’m drunk. Well, tough.” Her mother then took a swig from the vodka bottle. “I went over to the bank to get money from my account, when I decided to check how much interest your own account made. Lo and behold, I discover that you, my own daughter, my own blood, had withdrawn three hundred from it, when you already know that money is tight around here now. What, did you use it to buy drugs?”

“No, Mom, I don’t do drugs, and furthermore, you had no right to check my account,” Legend defended. “I have five thousand dollars in there, and it’s all my own!”

“No right? I have every right to check it. That money is your father’s money, and therefore it belongs to me.”

“No, you and Dad got a divorce, so therefore it doesn’t belong to you. I am his daughter, and that is my own private account.” She sat down in a chair and her mother again commenced drinking out of the bottle.

“Listen to me, I want to know what you did with it. I saw you in the mall the other day, in a cosmetic store, with that fat ass Jenny, and I know you don’t wear make-up. So what were you doing in there?” Her mother was like a madwoman in heat. Legend got up from her chair with anger in her movement, attempting to show her mother that she was in fact upset toward her.

“Don’t you ever fuckin call Jenny that again,” yelled Legend. Silence of death took over the room suddenly. In the slowest of motions, her mother opened her eyes and mouth wide.

“Don’t you ever say that word again, you know how I hate that fuckin word,” her mother screamed in a craziness. She walked up to Legend and tried slapping her, but missed.

“You just said that word. How could you hate it, if you just said it?”

“How dare you say I said the F-word, I haven’t ever said F- in my life.” Her voice grew louder, madness on the edge of catastrophe, and every time she took a swig from the vodka bottle it only heightened its strength.

“You just said it again, you’re just too drunk to realize it,” Legend returned in a scream. Her mother tried slapping her in the face again, and actually did it right. The slap caused five of her pimples to break and bleed.