Health And Beauty

Mary kicked at the sidewalk curb, feeling an electric thrill at the pink and white lights that raced up and down the side of her shoe. These new shoes were magic, her mamma said. She could run fast in them, so fast.
Mary jumped up and down, little hops like she was jumping rope and the shoes flashed bright.
Her mama stood next to her, watching little Mary while she talked in a hushed tone to a man who lived in Idaho now, two states away.
"No, Shawn. No, that doesn't work for me. And Mary doesn't want to see you."
Mary began to hum a little tune, one that sounded like Baby Shark but was better, because it was hers. She added a little extra high pitched wooooo's in between each pretend verse.
Suddenly her mamma grabbed her hand, pulling her in the direction of the pharmacy that read 'algreens', the neon W burnt out forever ago. W: Mary knew that letter. Her mamma told her it was an upside down M, and Mary pictured her name being something different when she somersaulted or rolled down a hill, the letters tossing and turning around just like her body did, forming new and strange words she didn't know yet.
They hurried in to the store, like they hurried everywhere, Mary's small lightning bug feet skipping to keep up. Turning down her favorite aisle, Mary felt her heart float, and she pictured the red Valentine's day card she'd made in school the other day go 'ba-bum, ba-bum' inside her chest. Lights came from behind every beautiful, colorful package. Fancy pretty ladies stared back at her, teeth in white rows and lips red like a stop sign, red like an apple, red like her wagon.
Her momma's feet stopped in front of her, and Mary was face to face with a beautiful row of glittering eye shadows. These ones were in shades of blue, green, purple. She reached out to touch them, to get a better look at their starry surface but her momma yanked her hand back.
"No, Mary."
No, Mary, no Mary, noMary. Some days nomary felt like her actual name. She hummed the ABC's to herself.
Far above her, her momma picked out the lip gloss and mascara she wanted, cheap but not too cheap, bold but not too bold.
They hurried to the cashier and then hurried home. Hurried through dinner--chicken nuggets for Mary, white wine for momma. The doorbell rang, and there was Grammy! Grammy, whose hugs were the best and always told the most fun bedtime stories. She dug around in the pockets of her puffy green coat, the only one Mary ever saw her wear, and passed her a butterscotch candy. Mary nabbed it and ran away, squealing with delight,. From a distance she heard, "I told you not to give her that shit, mom. I don't want her turning into a fat kid like half her classmates."
Her grammy scoffed, and Mary could picture the rolled eyes. "I'm not the one who feeds her chicken nuggets every night, Laura. A butterscotch candy won't make a difference."
"It's all she eats, mom. I can't get her to eat anything else," her momma's tone sharpened, like it had when Mary had accidentally knocked the fancy flower pot over and it had shattered. "I'll be back in four hours."
The door slammed, and Mary looked down into her little hand at the beautiful gold butterscotch candy and felt her tummy fill with guilt. She didn't realize her momma would be mad that she'd taken the candy. Suddenly she didn't feel like eating at all.
The rest of the evening was spent in the living room, Grammy watching Oprah while Mary played with her Barbies. The Barbies in Mary's land solved crime, floating around the living room investigating missing puppies and stolen newspapers, their long legs and permanent smiles convincing imagined neighbors to tell them secrets.
At bedtime Grammy told a story of a princess, one who got locked up in a castle by a wicked witch who was jealous of the princess's hair. The princess won, in the end, she escaped from the scary witch and married a handsome prince.
Images of a beautiful princess running through a castle in her long, pink dress floated through Mary's mind as she drifted off to sleep.
A crashing noise woke her up, and her room was dark and so was the world outside her window. Mary was not used to this, and her heart sped up.
"Momma? Grammy?" the words came out in whispers. Mary shoved her head under her blankets and grabbed Miko, the stuffed racoon that slept with her every night.
The air under the blankets grew warm with her breath, and Mary listened to the quiet house. Then, footsteps, her door opening, someone sitting next to her; her heart beat out of her chest.
"Mary, honey." It was her momma. A cool feeling of safety fell over Mary and she peaked her head out. Her momma looked strange in the dim light; messy hair and streaked lines on her face. She smelled funny.
"Momma?"
"Mary, the date was a bust. He was a rude prick and was ten years older and thirty pounds heavier than his profile picture. And he was the one who accused me of false advertisement, the bastard. My pictures are only from a year ago."
Mary stayed quiet. Her momma was talking loud, the words coming out weird and wrong and slippery.
"Your dad and I met when we were so young, and I gave him all of my youth, all of my beauty. All of my healthy years before I had you. Now I'm just an old hag with a kid and nobody wants that."
Mary felt tears sting her cheek. These words sounded mean, and it seemed like whatever happened to her momma must have been her fault.
"I'm sorry, momma."
Her momma leaned over her and kissed her forehead, then left; the funny smell almost overpowering and then gone.
A wretched feeling grew inside Mary. What had she done? She pictured herself like Barbie, trying to solve a mystery. How could she be better?
She slipped from her bed and walked across the hall to the bathroom, stepping up onto her stool to look into the mirror. Without the light, the vague shape of a monster girl stared back at her. Mary pinched her cheeks, poked her tummy, barred her teeth, looking for the part of her that was wrong. It was somewhere, it had to be. She just needed to figure out where so she could fix it.
She would be better. Tomorrow she'd find that butterscotch candy and throw it away so she wouldn't be like those fat kids at school and she'd learn to smile like those pretty fancy ladies at the store her momma liked. She'd float around the world like Barbie. She would be good, and her momma would be happy, and things would be ok.