Me Pretty

Five or six weeks into our first semester of college, my roommates and I set off on our first (and most illustrious) road trip. Some family friends of one roommate came to Rexburg, loaded us up in the Suburban, and drove us to the ranch in Star Valley, Wyoming (my furthest trip east to date.) Mike had lived in Japan for a while (perhaps as a missionary?) and his wife, Junko, was from Ai’s hometown of Osaka. Many years after he lived in Japan he and Junko were married and she moved to Wyoming. (I still wonder how she managed the culture shock.)

Ai was my room-roommate. She initially came across as reserved and quiet, but she was the biggest goofball. And she was beautiful in a very non-traditional Japanese way. She was taller than me and her features were very striking. I never met her family so I’m not sure how she inherited her traits, but if you picture a Japanese woman in your mind right now, that’s not Ai. You just have to see her to know what I’m talking about. If she wasn’t such a truly wonderful person it would have been devastatingly intimidating to have such a gorgeous roommate.

All of my roommates were very pretty, most of them exotically so. Sharon had a red bob and a bubbly personality to match; she was down-to-earth midwestern all the way. Sylvia, our eternal optimist, had the most fantastic curls in her hair; she was so well-aclamated to both her home (Chicago) and her parent’s ancestry (Mexico) that she fit in well with everyone she met. Merced was from Guatemala and although she was Latina and looked it, she had an international exoticism that allowed her to pass as a variety of other races as well.

And there was I; plain-jane girl-next-door who brushed her hair and wore some make-up just because it was socially acceptable to do so. My mother had finally broken me of walking like a lumberjack. I am genetically gifted insomuch that all of my facial features are in the right spot and have the right proportion but I’m not really someone that stands out for my looks. It suits me just fine. If I cared more I’d spend more time in front of the mirror (and at the gym) but I’d rather spend that time improving myself in other ways.

As usually happens when a bunch of girls are together for a sleep-over-type setting, it got late and we got giddy and out came the make up. My lovely (and well-wishing) roommates insisted that if I just did a little of this or a little of that I would be so pretty. I was an obliging model (but reminded them I wouldn’t maintain anything that took too long on a daily basis) and offered myself as a blank canvas to their creativity. They each took care of their areas of expertise.

What could possibly go wrong?

There is no photographical evidence of the final product (I hope) but the face in the mirror is still seared in my mind. I believe they were all proud of themselves and regailed me with compliments. The face in the mirror was not mine. I didn’t recognize it, and I admit I didn’t think it pretty.

I know for a fact that those eyebrows were not mine, but I didn’t figure that out until I washed my face that night. What I thought was the pluck pluck of my stray hairs was the erosion of half of each eyebrow and the decimation of the “intact” side. They laughed, not at me, per se, but at my lack of eyebrows. Junko had been in charge of the tweezers and had tweezed and drawn my eyebrows to resemble hers. My roommates even asked me, “how could you let her do that? I’d never let anyone get rid of my eyebrows.” How could I? How could I?

But I loved my roommates and I forgave them. And the next year I let them cut my hair.

I’m a slow learner.