Read Online Face by Bridget Brighton - Free Book Online Page A

window like cotton wool. Someone might have said that before, that’s not my fault. It’s what they are.
                  “He had a woman with him.”
    How dare she slip that in, all casual. (“Looks like rain.”)
                  “She was a real Marilyn,” Mum adds. “Pouty lips and swaying hips, needy eyes. Tottered off, red nails curled around the trolley...”
    Mum mimes a swaying bimb o, claws out, her pout elongates into a smirk. I practise my Smile Blocker, Mum’s smirk drops.
                  “Was it his trolley?” I say
                  “She’s not his type.”
    I’m beginning to see that our family is some sort of game to her, with the pieces ever reducing. Why not throw in a random Marilyn-Monroe-look-alike, for a bit of light relief?
                  “And you were?”
    Mum’s face doe s something I regret- I’ve gone too far. Now she won’t accept my gaze.
                  “Actually yes I was, and I still am his type. Minus the bump. Up to you if you want to contact him.”
    She hoists herself off the bed and pauses to fill the doorway, her face is all emptied out. Her complaint, when it comes, is sadder than I expected:
    “T hat cruel Maverick face does not belong on my daughter. What could you possibly imagine was going to happen that’s good, to a girl with a face like that?”
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     

 
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
    Chapter Nine
     
    I can’t take this much longer: the sight of Mum feeding. We’re sat at the table, me opposite Dad’s ex-chair. I chopped salad, Mum served me the half of pizza where the cheese topping is slightly less burnt, but I shouldn’t have come down. She knows about My Face History, knows my nice face isn’t coming back. She has taken to wincing at my every expression.
    Mum raises a narrow slice of pizza to her lips and lines it up point first, a flash of teeth and she drags off a sheet of cheese, swiftly folded in by fingers. She chews self-consciously- the lips seem to be getting in the way of this. Her vast lips are glossed with cheese grease and I swear I can hear the food squishing around in the silence. I was losing my appetite anyway; this pizza is texture alone.
                  “I can’t taste anything.” I say
    “Colds do that,” Mum says, “if you leave them to take hold .”
    Her eyes fill with tears .
                  “Bit my lip.”
    Fingertips to clumsy wide mouth, but there’s no blood, only tomato. She massages the skin hard, pressing circles that alternately pucker and stretch her lips. I find this oddly mesmerizing.
    “Day two is always the worst, with the tightness,” she complains.
    I turn away and sneeze, a blast into the air.
                  When Merlot decides to join us, I don’t get rid of her straight away. She’s a pop-up advert out of my phone, for Ultiface. Merlot is facing Mum. Her gaze is self-contained, demanding nothing of Mum, nothing of our kitchen beyond. She is the cool breeze passing through Mum’s house of cards. I wait for the surge of bitterness- she’s Dollar’s girlfriend after all- but it doesn’t come. In fact, I find I like her even more today. Her nose is Seven’s inspiration, distilled elegance, but it’s definitely not that. Her top lip peaks in the apex of two triangles, descending noticeably towards their outer edges. I feel- she makes me feel -an almost imperceptible twinge of sorrow at her new vulnerability. That’s it then: today she’s selling a down-turned mouth for Ultiface.
                  “Somebody needs a hug.” Mum says flatly.
                  I slide the phone across the table towards me and close Merlot. I’m immediately offered a link to check out her CelebSite, Merlot clutching Dollar at parties, being clutched. I prefer the History of a Style Icon: an animation that fills the air with Merlot, her