Change My Mind

3 - Let's go to a party

The next morning I woke to the sound of Liv doing yoga on the floor next to the bed. I rubbed my face and sat up, looking down at her. 

"Good morning, Darth Facemask," I joked and giggled at the memory of what I had fallen asleep next to. 

"Har-dee-har," Liv said and chuckled at me. "It's important to keep things tight, clean, tanned and pretty out here." 

"Was the tooth guard because you were scared I'd knock your teeth out in my sleep then?" I asked with a cheeky smile. 

Liv shook her head and rolled her eyes dramatically. "It's an invisalign with a whitening formula to keep my teeth pearly white while straightening my teeth at the same time." 

One of Liv's most endearing features was the slightly crooked tooth she had next to her front tooth. It was one of those small things that added to her charm. I couldn't believe she was trying to straighten that away. In the end she would have exactly the same set of teeth that all the other anchors on TV had. Her uniqueness would disappear. 

"You can go ahead and look through my closet for something you could wear tonight," she smiled before she started doing push-ups and sit-ups like an athlete. "And bug, remember you can definitely look sexy." 

When Liv said things like that it always made me remember our teens, where I had always been smaller, slimmer and less developed physically. I couldn't wear what she wore, but I was never jealous. At least I didn't think I was. My mother was very adamant that I felt my feelings, and she used to do these affirmations with me, where I had to tell myself I was smart, brave, capable, interesting and so on. Sexy had never been part of my affirmations. Shannon, my mom, was a real feminist with a past as an environmental activist. She used to advocate for the protection, preservation, and responsible management of trees and forests. She was a tree activist and worked to raise awareness about deforestation, habitat loss, urban development, and other issues impacting trees and forests. Maine was 90% forested, so she used to do everything she could to save the trees there. It also happened to be her birthplace. She had been chained to a particularly fragile tree when she met an English arborist from Cornwall, a tree surgeon, who was doing some research in the area. Cupid had sent an arrow their way. The English gentleman was my dad, Merrick Trelawney, who ended up emigrating from Newquay, England and marrying my mom, settling down in Maine, where there were plenty of trees to spend his time with. 

My parents were a couple of endearing oddballs. They had Sylvan (meaning: "of the forest") and me, Elowen (meaning: Elm tree) and raised us to be smart and curious, but not so much to be sexy, sultry beings with an appeal to the opposite or same sex. 

So standing in front of Liv's closet I felt a little out of my element. Liv appeared next to me, looking through the many, many small dresses hanging on the rack. She nudged me and giggled, making me laugh too. I was so not used to going to these kinds of things and I had no idea what to do. 

"Do you trust me?" Liv asked and arched an eyebrow.

"Mm-hmm," I said and let her do what she was so good at. 

***

"Sit still!" Liv hissed at me, as she did my makeup. I hardly ever wore the amount of things she had been putting on my face for the past thirty minutes. I'd normally brush a bit of mascara on my lashes and that took roughly three minutes. 

"M'm trying," I said through clenched lips, feeling extra fidgety when she told me not to move.

I already had to sit still through a long session of getting my hair blow dried and defined in waves, inhaling copious amounts of hairspray, because I wasn't ready when Liv started spraying me like I was an unwelcome bug on her window frame.