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At thirty-seven, she had long since learned how to assemble herself with careful precision. No hobbies, no interests other than men.

She kept her small room dim even during the day. Heavy curtains kept the light out, turning afternoon into a permanent kind of dusk, and the air smelled faintly of powder and something sweet. Vanilla, maybe, or cheap perfume layered so thick that over time it had become part of the walls.

The vanity she sat at while she brushed her dyed blonde hair was the only glow in the room.

Brightly lit, it glimmered. An illusion of perfect light and shading.

She was surrounded by little jars of shimmery powders. Lipsticks arranged in careful rows like soldiers. False lashes in plastic cases, brushes with handles dipped in rhinestones. Bottles shaped like diamonds, compacts that snapped shut with soft, decisive clicks. A small glass dish that held her nails. Long acrylic pointed ovals, pale pink, waiting for her to glue them on.

Her vanity was like a shrine that she would sit in front of for hours. Staring at herself.

Assembling. Creating. Painting a picture she thought men would love.

She would always start this ritual with her hands.

She picked up the first nail carefully, her real fingers plain and bare, different then the version they were about to become. She brushed adhesive across the underside of the acrylic, steady from repetition. Then she pressed each nail into place.

Held. Counted. Waited. Released.

One by one.

Click.

Click.

Click.

She tapped them lightly against the glass top of the vanity. The sound was comforting to her. Crisp and hollow, but certain. Proof she was still in control of something.

Only when her nails were finished did she begin with her skin.

Foundation smoothed over imperfections, erasing unevenness, redness, and the faint yellow tint near her eyes that no amount of sleep ever fixed anymore. She worked slowly, meticulously, like she was restoring something fragile.

Something damaged.

Her face became a surface instead of a story. A mask for the world to see.

She layered shadow in colors and shimmers. Silver. Frost. Violet. Glitter dusted her lids like fallen stars. So much glitter.

Then the lashes.

Long. Thick. Heavy. Artificial.

To her, perfect.

They transformed her instantly. Made her feel like she looked alive again, they opened her hungover eyes. She thought they made her look younger.

Her lips came last. Lined and heavily colored. Begging for attention. Begging for love.

She stared at herself for a long time when she was finished. She didn’t smile. Smiling might break it, might shatter the illusion that everything was perfect.

Because this version of her? This finished version, it would only exist for a few hours.

She turned off the vanity light and left.

~

Tori worked behind the bar three nights a week.

It wasn’t her real job. Her real job was in an office across town, where everything was bright and organized and stable.

The bar was different.

The bar was where people came when nothing felt stable. Dim lights and plenty of alcohol, this was the type of dive people came to to forget their problems.

Even so the tips here were good, if you didn’t drink your money away. And Tori was working the bar to help save for a house. A small home. Nothing extravagant. Just something of her own. Something permanent. She worked hard and tracked every dollar she made in a small notebook she kept in her purse.

Three more years, she hoped, if nothing went wrong….

~

It was a Friday night that Tori first saw her. One of her first nights working, she noticed her because of all the glitter.

The woman walked in alone.
She always walked in alone.

Her nails clicked impatiently against the bar. Her hands had the shake of a person who drank too much. Tori recognized the tremor of an alcoholic.

“Vodka,” the woman said. “Surprise me. Make it strong.”

Tori poured it.

She watched her drink it too fast. Then another. Another.

Tori watched the ritual as it unfolded. That first night and thereafter. Always the same.

Drink.

Drink.

Drink.

Then the dance floor.

The woman moved like she was somewhere else entirely. Somewhere softer. Somewhere kinder. She danced as if she was in another time and place, a happy place. A doll painted up to please, dancing the night away.

Men noticed. The wrong ones. The predators.

They always noticed.

Tori could tell which men would approach her before they actually did. The ones who saw her disguise and dancing not as something to protect—but something to use.

They always took her home.

Always a different man. Often one with a wedding band. Every single week it was the same type, but a different guy, with the same ending. She’d take them home and never ask them to stay, because they were the type that left before the sun was up. It was routine.

And then she would return. Every Friday Tori would see her. The brokenness covered with another layer of glitter and makeup. A sparkle that did not make her shine.

Tori spoke to her only once. Once was enough.

It was late. The crowd was thin. The woman sat at the bar longer than usual, her hands trembling slightly as she lifted her drink.

Up close, Tori could see it clearly.

The yellowing of her skin, the yellowing of her eyes.

The exhaustion. Too thin.
The slow, quiet collapse of a body being poisoned, happening beneath the glitter, beneath the show.

Tori didn’t know why she said it. Except that she meant it.

“You know Jesus really loves you.” The words popped out without her even thinking about them. “I’ll pray for you,” she whispered.

The woman looked at her. Then she laughed, and not kindly. Her laugh was empty, brittle.

“Don’t bother,” she spat out. “I don’t believe in fairy tales.”

She slid off the stool, and disappeared into the crowd.

Tori prayed anyway. Maybe just to ease her own heart. Somehow, deep down, she knew the choice the woman had made a long time ago. She was broken with no desire to be fixed, a woman holding on to sexuality as long as she could, a woman who didn’t want a savior.

All Tori could do was pour drinks and watch her.

~

By thirty-nine, the woman’s illusion was failing.

Her hands shook constantly.

Her skin yellowed more beneath the foundation. Her body thinned in ways that weren’t beautiful.

Men still took her home. It took longer, but there was always a predator. Older now. Crueler now.

The woman needed more and more alcohol to become her glittering version.
More drugs to quiet the version she was without the glitter. She twitched and stumbled around looking for attention in the wrong place.

She kept assembling herself. Faithfulness to nothing but the illusion.

She kept glittering. Kept dancing.

Still the dance. Slow and deliberate. The only thing beautiful she had left, and even now it was faltering.

Every Friday… The vodka, the dance, the men.

Until one Friday, she didn’t come back.

~

Tori heard about her death from a regular.

“They found her in her apartment,” he said casually. “I guess she didn’t wake up.”

He shrugged.
Tori couldn’t shrug. She left work early that night, thinking. Wondering.

She was sad over a woman she never really knew. A woman nobody seemed to know. A woman with nothing to believe in. A painted face in the dark.

She read the obituary, went to the visitation.

It was small. A couple people came and left quickly.

Tori stood in the back.
She didn’t really belong there. But she had been one of the last people to see her alive, and she needed to see her. To try to ease the thoughts in her mind.

The casket sat at the front, in a church for a God this woman never believed in. Tori felt a tear slip down her cheek. What was it like to be so hopeless? To actually choose a life of hopelessness?

The casket was cheap and artificially beautiful.
Like the woman had been, and Tori approached it slowly.
The funeral director watched her curiously as she looked down into the casket.

Tori gasped as she looked. The woman lay there like a painted doll, but now a lifeless doll. She looked more horrible then she remembered her.

Not peaceful. Not whole.
Used, aged beyond her years, and broken.

The makeup sat thick on her face, unable to hide the grayish yellow skin beneath. It settled into the deep lines around her mouth and eyes. Her cheeks had collapsed inward. Her lips were overpainted, wrinkled, the gloss clinging to the cracks.

The lashes were still there.
Absurdly long. And heavy.

But it was too late. She made her choice in life and then death had come to claim her. The woman’s last cruel lover.

Her hands were crossed on her stomach. The nails were still perfect. Pale pink. Extremely long.

Fake.

They looked glued to something fragile and abandoned. Tiny. She looked smaller than Tori remembered. Smaller than anyone should be.

This was the first honest version of her Tori had ever seen. No glitter. No vodka. No dim bar light.
No movement. No dance.
No illusion.

Tori leaned closer and whispered,

“I’m sorry you were broken.”

The words disappeared into the silence.

Too late to matter. Nobody was there. Nobody seemed to care.

The casket was closed.

The sound was soft. Tori said goodbye.

Final and forever. No hope of a happier place, no hope for a place in heaven after death, a heaven she had denied the existence of in life.

~

Tori returned to work the next Friday.

She wiped glasses, poured drinks, collected her tips, watched the door.

She looked up as a younger girl walked in. This one, a brunette.

Glittering.

Fragile.

Fake.

Building herself piece by piece.

Tori said nothing.

She just watched. She had talked to her pastor about the death of the other woman. The finality.

“You can only plant the seed,” he had said trying to comfort her. She knew it wasn’t her fault. But still. She wanted to help.

She understood now.
She understood how easy it was for some women to disappear even while men were looking at them.

How easy it was for some people to replace whatever was hurting them with a mask and a drink.

How easy it was for some to become someone with a heart that was untouchable but a body every creep could touch.

Someone unreal. Someone used. Someone that shimmered just long enough to be wanted. Someone that didn’t want to believe there was something better. Someone that lived for their own pleasure even when it was killing them.

Should Tori talk to this girl? Memories of the woman in the casket flooded her mind. Should she hope this one would be different? Would she maybe listen? She was going to try. She would always try. There was always hope.

Tori watched her. And prayed.

Another Broken Doll.

Written by Renee River

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