Perfectly Imperfect

~12~

                               ~Kunmi~

It was Aminah's birthday and I was in front of the vanity mirror in my room with mom's makeup artist doing my makeup. This morning when I reminded mom that I was attending a friend's birthday, the first thing she did was to call her makeup artist. When I insisted that I did not need a makeup artist, she said.

"Kunmi, come on, it's a party. You have to dress to kill. Don't allow other girls there to kill your shine.".

"But mom....."

She put her second finger out to shush me.

"No arguments Kunmi, Tara is already coming over. You're going to go out there all beautiful. You should be like your sister. She'd never go to a party without dressing up."

I bit the inside of my tongue to stop myself from replying. The worst words from my mom's mouth were Unlike your sister, you should be like your sister when I'm not my sister.

And so I did not say anything else and now, Tara was putting the finishing touch to my makeup. She moved back when she was done with a huge smile on her face.

"Now, look at yourself. You look like a princess."

I raised my eyebrows. What princess? I like the girl in the mirror. I'd told her that I did not want nude makeup and that was exactly what she did on my face.

"It's fine."

I muttered when I noticed that she was waiting for comment and her face broke into a smile when I said that.

"Of course, it'd be fine. It's my handiwork na. And you have the perfect face for makeup. It was so easy to blend everything."

I smiled and started to stand when she gestured for me to sit back.

"Pictures first dear."

I sat back and put on a smile as she took my pictures. I wasn't a fan of snapping pictures. My body would become stiff whenever I was in front of the camera.

"Smile Smile."

I smiled as she continued to take the pictures. She smiled when she was done. She sha likes to smile ehn.

"Ehn ehn. Good. See fine girl. You should become a face model for my brand na."

I smiled. Face model ko.

"Oya, where is your gown? You should wear it so we'd snap full pictures downstairs."

What? This Aunty no dey get tired of snapping pictures. I picked a gown from my closet. It was a gown Mayowa had designed for me before she left for the states. A black flair short gown that stopped a little after my knees. Tara smiled when I finished putting the gown on.

"Oh God! Look at you. You look like a character out of a fairy tale."

An unconscious smile spread on my lips as I stared at the girl in the mirror. She looked pretty with her long hair falling across the full length of her shoulder and the flair gown hiding all of her fat. Her nude makeup highlighted all her facial features. She looked really pretty.

Too bad I did not feel like her.

"Let's go downstairs. It's getting late and I'm pretty sure you don't want to be late for the party.

Absolutely. The last thing I needed was to show up at the party when people were already there.

Dotun, my brother was playing video games with his friend whose name I couldn't remember. He's the younger brother of Mayowa's friend. The leach who was was always obscenely touching Mayowa but she seems not to have a problem with it. They moved to the house beside ours like 3 months ago and it's surprising how easily they all became friends.