An hour later Mirna spun me around to look in the mirror, and I gasped at the reflection before me.
The green and white sundress Mirna had picked out for me had thick halter straps that snapped around my neck, and a squared neckline that pushed up my breasts and gave them a fuller, more rounded, look. The middle was corset-tight and accentuated my waist, while the bottom flared out slightly in an a-line, ending right above my knees.
And, of course, I was wearing THE platform, black pumps with bows. “Who says love at first sight doesn’t exist?” I whispered as I turned my foot from side to side, to better admire my new lovers.
Mirna set my long hair in a style I wasn’t sure I could ever duplicate myself. One side was tucked behind my ear, and the other side fell in cascading waves over my shoulder. Decadent Red was now on my lips as well, while black liner on my eyelids topped off the look. For an every day look, I’d prefer a more muted version of the pinup in the mirror. But, right then, I couldn’t even believe that girl was me.
For the exception of the scars on my arms, the junkie was nowhere to be seen.
“I look… I look like…” I stammered. A human being.
Mirna stood behind me. Her eyes glazed over. Pride filled her expression as she joined me at appraising my reflection. She rested her chin on my shoulder and smiled. “A woman,” she said. “You look like a beautiful young woman. Which is exactly what you are.”
I angled my head so I was resting against my grandmother. “I was going to say that I looked like you.” I turned around and held up my arms. But it had only been two weeks since Preppy brought me to Mirna’s, so even though most of the scabs were gone, the scars, both new and old remained. “Except for these.”
She cupped my cheek. “We all have scars, my dear.” She grabbed my wrists and lifted them to her lips, pressing a kiss to each of my forearms, patting them when she was done, as if the matter was now settled and Grandma’s kisses solved all. And in a way it did. “Some of us on our arms.” She pressed her palm over my chest. “Some of us in our hearts.”
Some of us on our face. I absently ran my hand down the jagged raised scar on the side of my face.
Mirna walked over to her dresser and grabbed a silver frame from one of the many crowding the surface. She looked from the picture to me. “Well, what do you know about that.” She handed me the frame.
The picture was of Mirna wearing a very similar style dress, except she topped hers off with gloves and a white floppy hat. She was arm and arm with my grandfather as they smiled for the camera. My mother was young, standing at her feet holding a lunch box. Her blond hair and light features favoring my grandpa, while I was a spitting image of Mirna. I held up the picture frame and looked again at the similarity between a younger version of my grandmother and myself. It was like nothing I’d ever seen before. “You do look like me.”
“It’s like we were twins separated by…decades,” I said as Mirna nodded and chuckled, taking the frame back from my hands and setting it back, exactly in the position it was before on the dresser, tweaking it left, then back right a few times before she was satisfied. “Mirna, exactly how old are you?” I asked, trying to do the math in my head.
Mirna sighed. “Four hundred and seventy seven,” she deadpanned. We both broke out into a fit of laughter so hard I thought I’d rip the seam of my dress. When we reined it in she looked me over again, a look of satisfaction on her face, her lips twisted up into a beautiful smile. “You look breathtaking, my dear. Your grandfather would have loved to see you in that dress. You know, it was the very first one he sent me,” she said, waving off the emotion that had her temporarily at a loss for words. Her eyes watered and reddened, but she stood strong. Sniffling and straightening her back like she was daring the tears to come back.
“Mirna…” I started, reaching out to comfort her, but she stepped back and waved me off.
“Oh, don’t be silly. I’m just an old woman, which makes me just about as emotional as a pregnant woman,” she said with a sniffle, lightening the mood. “Samuel is going to love the way you look,” Mirna lamented.
“What does he have to do with anything?”
Mirna quirked up a white eyebrow. “Didn’t I tell you, dear? He’s the reason I remembered to give you the clothes I’d kept for you. They’re for your new job.”
“My new job?”
“Yes, your new job working for Samuel.” Mirna took one last look at my reflection and sighed with satisfaction. “It will be good for you. Give you a chance to clean your soul, start fresh.”
“Is that even possible?” I asked, but I wasn’t sure if I was directing the question at her or me. “What if the stains are too great?”
“No, you’ll see. It’s the stains that make us human,” she said, and with that I fell a little more in love with my grandmother. “I tell you what, you go water the plants while I go and find that meditation book for you. When you’re done, you can meet me in the backyard. We are going to have our first meditation session, and you are going to focus on the future and what you want out of life. We’re gonna clean that soul you think is so dirty.”
Mirna could try her damnedest, but I was pretty sure that a soul as dirty as mine would need a lot more than some new clothes and meditation to be cleaned. I pointed to the stranger in the mirror, a girl who looked like she ALMOST had it together, I muttered, “At this point, bleach might be a lot more useful than a book on meditation.”
Maybe I’d ask Preppy about how to clean a dirty soul, because although Mirna had enlightened me as to what he’d done for her, she hadn’t seen his eyes up on the tower.
None of it made sense. A guy who helps old ladies in their time of need couldn’t possibly be the monster I thought he was. Maybe he didn’t have a dirty soul, after all.
Maybe it was just me.
*
Later that day, Mirna gave me my first lesson in meditation. I was sans shoes in the grass, but every so often I’d open one eye and check to make sure they were still on the deck where I’d placed them, lovingly, in the shade.
We sat Indian style across from one another in front of her flower box, our hands on our knees, palms up. Oscar grunted around the backyard. Both Mirna and even Preppy seemed to care for the animal, so much that I’d yet to ask why the heck my grandma had an enormous pig as a pet, but when he nudged my shoulder with his dirty wet nose I shooed him away, pretending to be annoyed at his interruption. I placed my index finger across my lips and Oscar got the message, trotting back up to the fence and sniffing under the gate, like a dog smelling for other animals. Were all pigs that smart?