Tools to Drown Out the Noise

A chilled can of Dr. Pepper.

A tube of ruby red lipstick.

A contact case.

A bottle of blue eyeliner.

The necessary tools were arranged in a straight line across the sink counter, their edges glinting in the light of the vanity. Libby assessed each object carefully, as a surgeon considers their first incision. She ought to start at the beginning of course, she thought, her hand reaching for the soda at the head of the line. It felt wrong, somehow, to start there. Something whispered to her, and she felt inexplicably drawn to the small green case in the middle of the counter.

She pulled back her hand from the sweating can and moved instead to the contact case, wrenching the lid open and leaving a slosh of cleansing liquid in her wake. This exact pair of contacts had been waiting on her for a week, floating gently in their case for her to take the plunge. They had seen use only once before, during the fitting in her optometrist’s office.

“Finally making the jump, eh Elizabeth?” Dr. Robbins had asked, a smarmy grin lifting the bottom of his oversized glasses further up his nose.

“Uh, yeah. Just figured it was time is all.” Libby had responded, willing him to hand over the case quickly that she might make her exit and fast.

“Well past time I would say! Most girls I see would rather be struck blind than wear a pair of glasses,” he chuckled, an unpleasant rattle floating from his throat, “but they end up preferring them on down the line. Makes ‘em feel sophisticated and such. But you are quite the opposite now aren’t ya?”

“I ’spose so.” Libby plastered a tight smile across her face, hoping this would be enough to sate his need for small talk.

The doctor lifted up the box of lenses to read the prescription details, squinting through his bifocals and wrinkling his nose up at the effort. Libby couldn’t help but wonder if this man really ought to be responsible for the sight of others when he could hardly see himself. The words nearly popped from her head out of her mouth and would have, had he not turned back around and dropped the contacts to the table before her.

“Well, you should be all set, young lady! You have your year supply…” the doctor droned on about cleaning procedures and possible eye diseases, but Libby hardly heard a single word. Her hand reached out to the case of lenses before her and closed around them in a tight embrace. Pulling it into her lap, she stroked the smooth curves and edges with her fingers, afraid somehow that if she broke its connection to her person for a moment, it may disappear altogether.

“…and that ought to do it for ya, little miss.” Luckily, Libby caught the last of the doctor’s words and leapt from her seat before he had the chance to start a new topic. She mumbled a quick thank you and a no thank you at his offer to assist and gathered up the bags of lenses and bottles in a hurried attempt at escape.

She was lifting the final bottle into the crinkling plastic bag when the doctor snapped his fingers and said “Ah, I nearly forgot to mention, your mother said she would be in this afternoon to pay her monthly.” Libby froze with her hand buried halfway inside the bag, still clutching the last bottle of cleaning solution. “She was always so excited to see you fitted in a new pair of glasses, what say you surprise her with the new look mmm?” He asked, wiggly his bushy eyebrows with intrigue.

The tinkling of the bell at the front door forced Libby back into motion. She wrenched the back up by its handles, muttered something about having to rush back to work, her lunch hour, traffic, anything to remove herself from that man and that office. She rushed fervently from the exam room and shoved her way out the back exit, leaving the wailing of a door alarm behind her.

  The contacts had been nestled in between her face cream and soap dish since that day, the calm green container waiting patiently for this day to come. She had reached for them over and over again, screaming at herself that there was nothing to be afraid of, no reason to be such a coward, and every time she had left them sitting there. She could not be certain, but she could have sworn she could hear a whisper, a wet, muffled voice, calling to her, saying that it was alright, they would wait until she was ready, that there was no rush. She could not decide if this made her feel better or much worse.

Libby reached into the case, scooping out the delicate lens from its watery bed and lifted it to the light of the vanity. Stretching her eyelids open as the doctor had showed her, she stared in the mirror and settled the lens in its place. Blinking back the moisture from her eyes, she repeated the action with her left eye.

Libby took a moment to assess her reflection. She had been wearing glasses since she had been caught squinting at the blackboard from the back row of her third-grade classroom. Every year her mother had dragged her to Dr. Robbin’s office and forced her to endure the endless barrage of questions and tests. “Which is clearer now, number 1 or number 2? Number 3 or Number 4?” Libby had often tried to memorize the lines of randomized letters on the wall before the doctor had removed her glasses, certain that it she read it perfectly each time, that she could fool them all. It had never worked out the way she had hoped. Her mother always caught her in the act and asked for a new poster to be placed for her. Then mother had walked her around the rows and rows of glasses, in search of exactly the right pair for her. Libby would reach for cat eye frames or ones rimmed in bright blue and her hand would receive a solid smack at the effort.

“Vain girl,” she would hiss, too low for anyone else to hear, “Frivolous and wasteful. These will do.” In her hands she would place the cheapest pair of plastic frames she could find, always black or brown, clashing hard against her blond hair and fair skin. Libby would wail at her own reflection in the small counter mirror, loudly at first, until a firm word and firm hand turned her wails into silent streams of tears on her cheeks. Libby’s annual request for her mother to consider contacts was met with barking laughter and more accusations of being flighty and foolish.

“I’ll not waste my money on your need to pretty yourself up. You are a girl who needs glasses, and you will wear glasses. And I’ll hear no more of it.” Her mother had said firmly, waving her hand with finality. Libby knew what would happen next if she pushed her mother in this mood. She had learned it long ago.

Her vision clear and face free from obstruction for the first time in sixteen years, Libby glanced at the mirror, a grin working at the corner of her mouth. Better, but nowhere near done. Assessing the options before her, Libby was certain she heard a low hum coming from the brilliant blue tube of eyeliner. The humming turned into a melody, its soft notes encouraging Libby as she pulled the tube closer. Unscrewing the lid, she lifted the thin bush, dragging the bold color with it. In one quick motion, Libby swiped the eyeliner across her eyelid, ignoring the shakiness in her hand and the uneven effect it left behind. She pulled the brush up swiftly at the end, trying to pull the line into the wing she had seen on so many others. The effect was nowhere near perfect and yet the grin on her face grew at the sight of her reflection.

The blue color she had chosen had no effect on her eyes, already a shade of weak and milky blue themselves. If anything, the blue seemed to wash them out further, and yet, Libby could hardly look away from her reflection. She had to special order this bottle, the brand she desired no longer carried them in stores, but it had to be this bottle, none other would have the same effect. It was the exact bottle. She remembered the exact shape of it, the smooth tapered lid leading into the rounded plastic body, she recalled perfectly the weight of it in her pocket as she sauntered out of the store, the manager oblivious to the two dollars and thirty-five cents walking out the door.

Libby had immediately buried it deep in her backpack, stuffed beneath books and pencil cases and scraps of crumpled paper, far from her mother’s sharp eye. Every day she would bound off the bus and run to the bathroom to swipe the blue liner across her lids, top and bottom, the bolder the better. And each afternoon she would race back and wipe it off before catching the bus home, her eyes rimmed in red at the hard scrubbing she gave them.

For exactly thirteen days she basked in the delicious secret, determined to try every color the store had until she found exactly the right one, certain she would never be found out. But day fourteen was her undoing. An unexpected phone call to her math teacher had carried her to the office, where her mother was waiting. The dentist had called to rearrange her appointment, and her mother had been forced to call of work to take her. Already in a foul mood, the sight of her daughter’s eyes caked in eyeliner sent her mother over the edge. She had waited until they were safely removed from the parking lot before she laid into Libby, she was no fool her mother. Once home her backpack had been emptied and her precious eyeliner removed, emptied, washed out, broken, and thrown out. The same was done to Libby.

But gracing her eyes now, it was as if no time had passed. Libby was in that small, tiled bathroom, grinning at her wicked reflection. She finished the effect on her left eye, this line even bumpier than the last. Libby winked at herself, the blue lines flashing like lightning bolts from her eyes. A kind of mania began a pounding beat in her chest. She needed more, more, what was next. Her hands groped blindly at the counter. She didn’t care what she picked up next, but she could not rip her eyes away from the vision taking shape in the mirror.

Her fingers closed around the slim, round body of the lipstick, her grin widening further at the realization. The closest Libby had ever come to lipstick had been the greasy chap stick her mother had exasperatedly slathered on her lips after they had begun to crack and bleed in the wintertime. After the eyeliner incident, Libby had not even dared to ask her mother for such a luxury. She took her eyes off her reflection to study the glassy tube, straining for the lilting sing-song voice that accompanied it.

“Come one Lib, it’s prom. I’ll take to you Macy’s; we can get make overs there and they won’t even charge you if you say you will think about buying something. You don’t actually have to buy anything.” Casey stood behind Libby, bobby pins sticking out from the side of her mouth as she practiced pinning Libby’s fine hair up.

Libby forced smile, “You know I’m not into make-up, I would rather look like me.” Don’t mention mother, don’t say you wish you could, don’t hesitate, Libby recited to herself. It was jut easier that way, another thing she had learned a long time ago.

“But this is a special occasion. We can use light pink lipstick and eyeshadow that just has sparkles, no color. Trust me, you will still look like you. I’ll even let you keep your glasses on since you can’t stand the feeling of contacts…there, all set!” Casey said, giving the hair do a soft pat. Libby turned her head from side to side, admiring the sweeping curls and delicate flowers pinned inside them.

“So, what do you say then? Hair this good deserves an entourage don’t’cha think?” Casey said, twirling a tube of lip-gloss between her fingers, and lifting one teasing eyebrow. Libby couldn’t say what it was that had made her give in. It may have been Casey’s cajoling, or the alluring pink shade of the lipstick swirling in its tube, or the sight of herself in the mirror, looking feminine and soft and something other than plain for once, but she could not say no.

Casey was gentle as she said she would be, using the lightest and barest of colors on her cheeks, eyes, and lips. When she turned Libby back around to the mirror, she couldn’t swallow the gasp that rose up her throat. Even with the thick black frames firmly planted on her nose, Libby felt a completely different person. Gone were the dark purple ring beneath her eyes, her watery blue eyes sparkled, bouncing off the glittering eyeshadow. Her sunken cheeks seemed fuller; the roses painted onto her cheeks making her seem more alive. Tears welled up in her eyes, but she refused to let them fall and ruin the magic wrought on her face.

“What have you done to yourself?”

“Wipe that crap off your face this moment or I’ll take care of it my way.”

“Who does that Casey think she is. She thinks she is better than you, than us. She thinks I can’t take care of my own child? I can’t give her what she needs, is that it then?”  

“Shut up! That is it, you hear me? I don’t want to see your face again tonight, makes me sick to think of it.”

“You can kiss that dance goodbye. And that Casey too, I’ll see that she won’t come near any child of mine.”

The words rang in Libby’s ears, one after another, each one louder than the last as she pulled the lipstick from its metallic case and dragged it across her lips, the point tip cracking and falling off at the violent gesture. The voices were suddenly dropped to a low murmur, as though the sticky film on her lips was defending from the hateful words.  Using her pinky finger she swiped at the edge of her lips, smudging the fire engine red out further at the effort. Remembering a tip she had once read in a magazine, Libby smiled wide, scanning her crooked teeth for any sign of lipstick. Libby was struck by how strange the action felt. Her lips were not used to being stretched wide, her cheeks felt tight and strained at their new duty. Even the sight of it in the mirror was unfamiliar to her.

               Only one item remained untouched on the counter. The can of Dr. Pepper lay on its side, having been knocked over by her grasping hands. The beating in her chest accelerated even faster as she righted the toppled can. This voice was the loudest of all, it screamed at her, drowning out any other thought or feeling that she could have hoped to pull up in defense against it.

               “Do you want to get fat, Elizabeth? Is that what you want? You want to look like her? You think anyone will want you with that stomach?”

               Libby reached for the tab and cracked it open, the sound of the sputtering fizz on the rim lost as the screaming somehow grew even louder.

               “Well look what you’ve done now. Selfish pig. You’ll have to run it off. You heard me I said run it off, now. Get on that treadmill and I’ll tell you when you’re done.”

               Libby lifted the can slowly, her stomach turning over, her throat contracting in disgust. Still, she brought it closer to her lips, so close she could sense the cold of the metal rim. The voice was a deafening roar.    

               “Do you ever stop eating? That’s it you are going on a diet. I won’t have my daughter looking like a cow. Put that down now, you hear me? NOW.”

               Libby tipped the soda can up violently, the bubbling liquid sloshing down the sides of her mouth and running to the back of her throat, leaving her sputtering for air. She wiped at her mouth, smearing a trail of red lipstick behind her. The soda left a cloyingly sweet taste on her tongue and after clearing her throat with a bout of coughing, Libby took another desperate drink. This time she reveled in the feeling of the bubbles on her throat and the remnants of cherry clinging to her tongue. Slamming down the can onto the countertop, the shrieking voice suddenly turned into a singular note, a loud and constant ring in her ears.

The transformation must be complete, she had no more tools to use. Libby lifted her eyes to the mirror to find a stranger staring back at her from the mirror’s glossy frame. Blue streaks cocooned wet eyes, red smudges covered mouth and chin and sticky streaks of liquid crawled down their neck. Libby lifted an uncertain hand up, having to be certain that the reflection in the mirror was her own.

There could be no mistake, the sight in the mirror was her. And it was hideous. Suddenly, the ringing in her ears snapped off, and she was surrounded by a sudden, deafening silence.

A slow smile spread across Libby’s face. She was ready.