It finally came about a month ago. The delivery I’d been waiting for.
I didn’t know what was in the box at first. It actually worried me that night when I first got home and saw it sitting outside the door because there was no shipping label---no note. Just a plain cardboard box.
Who would just leave some unmarked box outside my door? I wondered, a bit worried at first.
I decided to bring it inside and open it.
I couldn’t help but laugh giddily and squeal to myself when I pulled back the flap and saw the face inside, resting on a nest of tissue paper.
I ordered it so long ago, I’d forgotten to keep an eye out for it. It wasn’t exactly the face I’d ordered, but really, really close. Close in the way I might have drawn myself with colored pencils as a teen.
Not perfect, but perfectly me.
I’d invented this face a dozen times in my head but I’d never seen it out loud. I’d read the warnings on the website that everyone’s idea of the perfect face might not match the mask they get, and that was true---I didn’t get exactly what I thought I was getting---what I got wasn’t perfect---the freckles were in the wrong spots. I expected it to have lips that weren’t quite this big and the cheekbones weren’t as prominent as I’d requested them to be…
I was just so happy with it anyway, because if I’m honest, I wasn’t sure what I was getting when I ordered---not really---and what they delivered to me was perfectly imperfect.
The surface of this mask wasn’t rubbery the way I’d worried it might be. It was smooth, the rich brown of the skin matched my skin tone perfectly and it wasn’t glossy like a Halloween mask might be. It didn’t have any strings or clasps. You just slip it over your head and you can wear it wherever you go.
I wasn’t expecting it to be as soft as it was---the feel of the skin so tender and realistic---and I definitely wasn’t expecting it to be warm when I pulled it over my head and started wearing it.
It fit my face like a familiar friend I’d forgotten and accidentally stumbled into at Walmart or something---you know the kind of interaction I mean, don’t you?---you run in the store just to grab something right quick and you bump into someone you haven’t seen in a real long time out of nowhere and you get to talking, catching up…as you do…and before you know it, you’ve spent almost an hour talking to some girl you haven’t even seen since you were fifteen years old…and the best part is it’s as though you never missed a beat with her at all. It fit me kinda like that. It was seamless and the nose holes were aligned perfectly. When I looked at it in the mirror and blinked, the mask blinked with me. When I smiled, it smiled.
I was so happy with it that I slept in it.
Nobody acted like anything was different about me, which was what I hoped for, but hadn’t expected. Not entirely. I knew the mask would be good, but I never expected wearing it would feel so natural. I definitely didn’t expect it to go almost completely unnoticed. But, I was living in a new city, after all.
“And what’s the name for the order, miss?” my barista that first morning asked.
I don’t know why I expected him to flinch when I told him my name---but that isn’t what happened---he just wrote it down and called out “Tiana” when my order was ready and nobody looked at me sideways when I went up from the community table in the waiting area to collect it.
Could this be real life? I wondered. Can nobody tell that I’m wearing this? But, it was true, they couldn’t tell.
But, there’s more because that wasn’t the only thing that changed for me that first morning---tons of people were wearing masks---I could see them everywhere and they seemed so obvious to me now.
Mine wasn’t cheap…
…but people all around me were wearing cheap ones. Something about my own mask made seeing the outlines of a phony face easier---more apparent…people just slapped these knockoffs over their true faces but those knockoffs didn’t fit them as perfectly as mine fit me. Most of their masks cast very noticeable shadows on their faces beneath that I could see---shockingly clearly, actually---now that I wore a mask of my very own.
A man on the subway wore one. It was sharp jawed and too angular for his skull. The eyeholes were wrong and I could tell right away by the shadows around his eyes.
A little boy near me could see it too---”Mommy,” he asked, “Why is that man’s face melting?”
And his mother shushed him to stop talking.
I’d never realized it before that first morning---lots of people---most people I passed actually, were all wearing them, covering their true faces beneath with masks they thought the rest of the world would find more pleasing than the real faces they were hiding.
When I say I started to see them everywhere, I really do mean everywhere.
The first few days felt like freedom.
This was the face I wanted. I could walk down the street without second-guessing myself. I could breathe. Nobody stared at me and the type of weirdos who ask people things that they shouldn’t be asking didn’t ask me nothing---mostly.
I had a few experiences that were actually quite frightening, if I’m being honest.
The one that sticks out in my mind was that old bitty who didn’t mind her own self the way she should’ve been minding her own self and just leave me be the way she should have left me be.
It was early evening and she came out the doors of St. Marinos Cathedral as I passed it. I walked by that church every day---it was a spooky old gothic thing that sat in the center of my modern city like a wart, and this old lady was one of the wart-hairs.
What needs to happen is for people like her to get plucked---child, that’s what I think---I really, really do. Nobody wants to buy nothing you’re selling, ma’am.
I didn’t realize she’d been following me---not at first---I just thought we were headed the same way. It wasn’t until the 4th block that I realized she was trying to keep up with me. I could hear her little kitten pumps tap-tap-tapping trying not just to match my stride, but to beat it so she could catch up to me.
I turned back, glancing over my shoulder and gave her one of those up-and-down’s that you do when you’re trying to figure someone else out.
She didn’t look like she was wearing a mask---not at first---not until she opened her mouth.
“Hello, sweetheart,” she said, sweet, but not real sugar. She said it Splenda sweet… “Such a pretty face. New?”
I didn’t know at first what to say, so when I collected my jaw from the sidewalk, the first thing out of my mouth was “Excuse me?”
“Oh, I know a mask when I see one. I’m not judging you, dear, I’m really not,” she said. “I’m just worried.”
That’s when I noticed the light glowing around the seams of her mask. It was pouring out of her mouth. She smiled those too-white dentures at me nice and big. That was when she pulled her own mask off and I could see that both of those plates---the top and the bottom one---had way too many teeth.
The blinding white of that light was pouring out of every crack she had as she kept going on.
“You’re lying to yourself. Everyone else is lying to you too. You see that don’t you?”
That glow was coming out of her mouth like a spotlight directly into my eyes. I couldn’t even see her awful teeth anymore. It was just that blinding light. It came out from everywhere…
She breathed it out her nose.
It shot out of her eyes.
It even came out of her ears.
“You know who doesn’t lie?” She asked, waiting for me to respond. I didn’t.
She didn’t blink. “God. He can see who you really are.”
I turned around and started to double my steps. I just wanted to get away from her.
“Miss? Hey miss---he sees you. You know that don’t you? You think that mask hides you from Him?” She shouted after me.
I turned around.
“Lady, didn’t you just come out of a church?” I asked her, “following people at dusk like this---shouting at them---it isn’t very Christian of you. Go on home. Leave me alone and worry about yourself.”
Her face-glow flared brighter. I don’t know how any of this stuff works---not really. She hadn’t been wearing her mask for a few minutes, but taking it off did something to her. It made her real hot---I don’t mean mad, but she was that too---what I actually meant was I could see her heating up from the inside now.
Hers must’ve been keeping her cooler on the inside, because once she took it off and gripped it in her angry fist, she started to look hot---actually hot. Smoke rose from all the same spots that had glared that light at me. It must’ve been happening the whole time. I just stood there, stunned, and watched her face begin to melt.
It dripped right off her skull---pink smears of coral lipstick landing on her purse strap, purple eyeshadow sliding down her blouse. Her cheeks puddled on the sidewalk like candle wax, and then that little cotton-ball of hair on her head burst into flames.
I ran all the way home.
For the first time since I got my mask, I felt unsure. I checked it in the mirror and blinked. It blinked too---but just a beat or two late. When I smiled, it smiled back… but for a second, it looked like I had too many teeth. Ten or fifteen too many. Then I blinked again and the teeth were gone---but the smile still looked off. Like it wasn’t smiling right.
I didn’t think it was going to adjust back to working right the next morning when I woke up to go to work, and I cried real hard that night before I fell asleep. Harder than I’ve cried in a long time.
And I thought about taking it off and putting it in the trash.
But I decided not to.
When I woke up the next morning I realized I’d let myself get worked up about something I shouldn’t have and everything about my mask was back to normal.
The more I wore it, the more normal it felt to have, even with my moments of doubt. I’d wake up, breathe and stretch. I’d check it in the mirror for creases. There were never any creases.
There better not be. This mask cost me a fortune.
In mirrors, the face was completely mine now. I didn’t worry about it not synching up with my movements because it moved like skin. It flushed when I got nervous. It got darker in the cheeks when I ran on the treadmill so fast I ran out of breath…
That second or third week, after my encounter with the church lady, I started noticing other people whose masks had that light coming out of them. They stared just a little bit too long, until those stares turned into glares and it was like they were trying to pick me apart.
Yesterday---now, yesterday was the best day I had since that unmarked cardboard box got delivered to my door.
I was sitting at the cafe on my lunch break, reading, and I noticed a man there looking at me and when I noticed him and we locked eyes well, I saw the seams of his mask glowing, but it wasn’t glowing in the same way that the people who glared at me seemed to glow. I could see the whole outline of his mask…
Where it met with his chin…
And around the eyeholes…
And the noseholes…
It was amazing. Gleaming light that seemed to sparkle like a prism or a diamond…and while he smiled at me, he lifted his coffee up in a silent toast and that’s what made me want to get up and say hello to him.
I approached him and asked, “What is it about you that seems so familiar?”
And he said gently: “I like your mask.”
I just stood there dumbfounded and didn’t respond right away because it was the first time that I’d ever seen someone who wore a mask that did that.
“It took me forever to get my face right, too.” He said, “It’s shining right? Looks like diamond light.”
I paused, “Yea. About that. I haven’t seen a mask do that before?”
The glowing flickered and I could see the face he had beneath his mask. He was about my age, and his eyes were as tired as I felt but still very kind. He had a lip piercing. Was it his mask or his real face? I couldn’t tell. It looked like a real face.
“I’m not wearing my mask. Not anymore,” He said. His skin seemed to be alive, glittering around the edges like tiny soft creatures draped in white danced around the outline of his face, gracing him with their radiant kiss. “I stopped having to wear it a long time ago. Just keep wearing yours and your face will shine exactly like mine is. The best part about it is I can see my own face sparkle in the mirror the same way you’re seeing it now. It took a while for the face I had on underneath to adapt and change---get molded just right---but one day I woke up and I finally felt it was safe to take mine off…so I took it off. I’ve been shining ever since.”
“How long did you have to wear it before you started to---uh---well, you know?”
“A while, but it’s different for everyone.”
I told him I had to get back to work, and he said he had better do that too and I smiled as pretty as I could make myself do for no reason at all. I was acting just like a silly little teen again. I felt giggly inside as I did it, but I just couldn’t stop smiling.
He gave me his number before he headed on his way.
We’re getting dinner tonight and I haven’t been this excited in a long, long time.
If you’re thinking about getting one of these masks and you’re wondering how good they are---listen, you don’t have to spend the kind of money I spent on mine to shine like that, if you want to do it, I mean, sure go ahead...but...I don’t think you have to spend any money at all.
Before we parted ways he told me something.
Something I didn’t even know was possible for someone to do.
Now listen, I’m happy with the money I spent on mine, but honey if you ain’t got the cash, I’m telling you, you don’t need it.
Not really.
Because what he told me was this:
All it took was a little patience.
A few temporary masks that were a little strange.
Some that didn’t sit just right.
Eyeholes a little crooked on the first few go-arounds…
But he kept trying and trying and started getting better at it.
And one day, he said he’d got enough practice to do what he meant to do, and he just did it.
He said he made the one he used to wear himself.
