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She waits with hands neatly enfolded.

Such a nice dress; delicately constructed, with lace sleeves. To make it look all the more real.

And shock the crowd when it's ripped away, to reveal a spiderweb thin bra.

The mirror tells her that she's a star; at the very core of her being, she more than knows it. She IS the it.

Her great-great-grandmother looked at herself this way, once. The day before she left Italy for America, a promised wife.

She spoke, her grandmother explained, with a bitter longing, for the rest of her life about her beloved Milan.

One of her grandmothers worked for long hours, going deaf to keep her children well-fed. The other kept a female lover while hosting high-society teas.

She takes after them both; keeping a lover and going deaf to keep herself fed.

She stares absently at the palms of her hands; not sad, not guilty. Not apathetic.

Wistful.

Why was hers the easier life? What made her so special, beyond the progress of time?

"Dawn? You're on in five."

She straightens her shoulders, smiling to herself. She did not suffer, does not suffer, and therefore must endure.

Above her head, the crowd roars. Showtime.

Gently lying Trish's picture face-down upon her borrowed dresser, she turns, bouncing energetically toward the door.


The End