putting on your face

She wanted to make him jealous, so she stepped into the changing room that morning.
She turned on the computer, chose full, ripe breasts, light brown hair, and skinny boys' hips, and lay down on the table.
After about thirty minutes of torture, she was ready.
She dragged herself out of the changing room and towards her bathroom.
She swallowed pills off the sink in the bathroom and could walk again five minutes later.
When she was done showering off the blood and tissue, she staggered out of the bathroom and onto her bed.
With a few moments of relaxation breathing, she could ignore the aches and tears (quickly healing), and so grabbed the remote.
She flipped on the TV and went into the kitchen.
Bravo! was showing clips of a fashion show. Every model looked alike.
She cut up a banana into a bowl of cereal and drank grapefruit juice (all from an organic foods co-op a few blocks from her).
She went to the closet and, glancing at the screen, picked out some clothes-- underwear, a blue dress her body (less sore now) almost fell out of, matching pumps, and earrings and a watch.
A look in the mirror and she left.
When she reached the street, she gasped.
Every woman on the street looked exactly like her.
This was the third time so far this year. She was pissed.
Every man she saw looked like him, too; blond hair, blue eyes, square chin, wiry yet muscular, and around six feet tall.
Some of the people had trouble balancing, but most of them-- men and women-- were used to their centers of gravity.
It felt like the world was teasing her.
She went back up to her apartment and started watching TV. Not everyone looked the same, but the people that looked like him and her looked the happiest.
That's where they got the idea, she realized.
I don't know what to do, she thought. If I change again, what will I change to? Will he be jealous if he sees me, or will he think I don't care about my appearance?
Isn't that a sign of low self-esteem?
She stayed there all day, unable to come to a useful conclusion. She decided to go back to the original look the next day, and she felt better about it.
When the skin grafts and bone lengthening healed, and she could walk without crying, she went out to the bar.
It was evening by then, and Deva was there.
"Hey June, what's up?"
"I'm all right, life sucks right now but I'm okay."
"Yeah, my job's really pissing me off and I think I'm going to quit."
"You can't quit, Deva, you make that place more than a store," June said.
"I know, it's such a nice place but it needs help, I need to make it better."
"I don't want to talk about my life, how's school?"
"School's great, I'm on drugs or drunk here when I'm not in class or at work, and I get all the lectures from a guy I'm paying to copy his recordings."
"That's great, you should write a book about it, I think someone would make a movie out of it."
"Yeah, it's great."
"Tristan dumped me," June said.
"Oh, sweetie, I'm so sorry."
"No, he was an asshole, and I'm glad he left me. I didn't need his shit."
"Yeah, you're right, what happened?"
"Tris was angry about something that happened, I don't know what."
"He didn't want to talk about it."
"No, he just got home from school a couple days ago, got on the Internet, stayed on until about ten, and went to sleep on the couch. The next morning I woke up and he was gone and he'd taken his change of clothes and toothbrush, and I didn't see him until work on Monday and he wouldn't talk to me."
"What the hell."
"Yeah, I know. My last boyfriend used to hit me, he'd get so mad about shit," June said.
"That must have sucked."
"It's not as bad as getting ignored."
"June, that's fucked up."
"I know it sounds fucked up, it is, but I'd rather get hit than ignored."
"I can't relate, I'm sorry but that's how I am. I'm meeting Jim in a couple minutes. Take care, sweetie."
Deva left then. June opened up the catalog on the bar. It was new. She looked through for new features, body types, and hair colors, selected them, and downloaded them to her changing room.
She still wanted to make him notice her.