A Girl's Guide to Fairy Tales

Chapter Nine (part 1)

Chapter Nine - Clare

I had no idea where to start.

Skin. Hair. Body. Makeup.

If it were up to me I would change the lot, but until my job started earning me millions then I would just have to make the best of what I’d got.

Issie was always harping on about this fashion website, saying she treated herself to at least one new product every week. Then again she had the face for any style while some of us had simpler aesthetic aspirations.

Yet, somehow here I was scrolling through endless products that claimed this and promised that. I wanted to be something other than predictable and plain. I didn’t want to live my life without ever letting anything happen to me.

A life without anything, would be nothing.

The philosophic feeling had ignited last night over dinner as I looked to each of my friends in turn and evaluated their lives and experiences. There was Maddie who had chosen to be single after a long term relationship had not worked out.

There was Issie, who was always on the look-out for a gorgeous man and had a plethora of life experience and humorous stories to tell on any occasion.

There was Sophie, the heartbroken soul who right now was asleep in my spare room that had once been hers, still uncertain if the happily ever after she was once so certain of was a distant memory.

Then there was me, Clare Smith, the plain Jane with the plain name and no stories.

I sometimes wished I had taken my step-father’s name of McKellen. At least it sounded something. But as my late father’s only child, I had never been able to denounce ‘Smith’.  I was almost the only proof of his short existence and I had vowed never to change my name, even if I got married.

I shuddered, rubbed my arms to calm the goosebumps and got back to the task in hand.

‘Right let’s see then, face, lips, eyes or nails?’

I certainly needed some colour so perhaps I should start with nails. It would be a subtle change, not too obvious except to those who knew me of course.

‘Nail varnishes, varnish removers, nail art, pedicure, top coat, base coat, corrector pens? How much could one person want?’ I asked the screen.

‘Bing,’ the computer replied.

I jumped, thinking I had pressed a wrong button before realising the chat box had appeared in the bottom corner of the screen. 

  

Fuller 81 says: