Experimenting (5th year girls' dormitory). on Teppenpaw Commons

Julian Umland

October 16, 2014 4:25 PM

Experimenting (5th year girls' dormitory). by Julian Umland

Strange, slightly intimidating objects marched in two neat rows across about a foot of the dresser Julian shared with her roommates. Bottles of different sizes and shapes, little round containers, slim brushes and sponges of all shapes and sizes: all the items which were supposed to be necessary to looking good and impressing people.

“Okay,” said Julian to herself, bracing her hands on either side of the display. She looked first over the cosmetics and associated paraphernalia spread out in front of her like dutiful soldiers in an army of beautification, then up to meet the blue eyes of the Julian in the mirror. Their expression cast doubt on the validity of the determined look the rest of her face was trying for. “Let’s do this.”

She had the vague idea that most girls learned to do this kind of thing with their mothers, but though she had two candidates, Julian didn’t think that would have worked out too well for her if she’d tried. Her mom didn’t wear make-up. She didn’t, she had mentioned a few times, mind if other people did, had done so more often when she was younger, but she just didn’t care to do it now. It wasn’t a moral thing, but she would likely be as lost as Julian herself was when it came to…all this, which she had gotten from Sallie. Sallie could, she was sure, have shown her the precise best uses of every piece as effectively as Charlie could have (Sallie had, when Julian saw her briefly over the holidays, been the first to spot that Julian had lost weight thanks to Dance Club and that she had made an attempt to figure out what the styles were so she could approximate them in secondhand when she went shopping for the new year), but that came with complications Julian was far less eager to deal with than the fallout from using a seasonally inappropriate shade of nail polish. So here she was, now, back at school so Mom wouldn’t know the make-up existed, trying to go it alone.

It had taken her a long time to figure out what it all was even for. Everything was labelled, thank goodness, but the eyeliner and lip-liner, the lotions and facial creams and scrubs – those worried her, she could easily imagine picking the wrong ones up, and while it didn’t matter so much with the lotions, she wasn’t sure she wanted to get the liners confused. She also suspected there were rules about which colors of eye shadow and nail polish belonged to week days versus week nights versus weekend days and nights, but wasn’t even going to attempt to figure that out on her own – she would have to ask Charlie for a lesson, if she decided to try to actually use these things…more than once a year, she didn’t know exactly. There was no way she was going to go to the trouble every day like she thought Sallie must, Mom was definitely right about it just being too much trouble, but if more than once a year was going to be manageable, she had to get comfortable with these items.

Charlie has done my face before. I know enough to start, and I have to figure this out sometime. She lifted one hand from the dresser and, with only a moment’s hesitation, lifted the bottle of almost flesh-colored liquid. This, she knew – was pretty sure – went on the bottom, directly onto her face. Powder went on top of it, then anything extra on top of that, but first, she had to take one of the sponges and put the liquid stuff on….

She put only a drop onto the sponge at first, but that didn’t go far, so she poured on more, running the sponge along her jawline, then up to her left cheek. She put more on the sponge and started on her nose, then ran the sponge back toward the place where the last measure had stopped showing up on her cheek. Then there was her forehead, sweeping down toward her ears, a little of the foundation getting onto her dark hair along the way; grimacing, she pinched the affected strands between her fingers and ran her fingers down the length of the hairs to try to get the make-up off them. Then she went for the other cheek, back down to her chin –

A minute later, she stood before the mirror, looking without enthusiasm at her face. It hadn’t felt much different, except for the length of time, from what Charlie did, but it looked all different. Orange and streaky. Very bad. Like she was a doll whose face had been scribbled on with a coloring marker. Scribbled over pretty thoroughly, admittedly, but with all these visible line breaks and line overlaps and...

"Ugh," she said, then the door opened and she realized she was caught. "I swear this will go away when I go boil my face, it's not contagious," she said, deadpan, to the intruder, hoping to laugh it all off instead of admitting that she was embarrassed.

16 Julian Umland Experimenting (5th year girls' dormitory). 254 Julian Umland 1 5

Gemma Bennett

October 21, 2014 1:31 PM

Oh, dear by Gemma Bennett

The holidays always seemed short to Gemma, but none shorter than the midterm break. Between the whirl of parties, catching up with three of her siblings, visiting more remote family, shopping, and writing endless thank-you and season's-greetings and Happy New Year cards, the holidays seemed more active to Gemma than most of the school year did. It was a more enjoyable set of activities than studying, but Sonora usually felt almost restful by comparison, at least for the first few days; in her fourth year, Gemma had been late for her first class of the new term because she'd been catching up on her beauty sleep.

This year, though, that wasn't an option. Gemma was more interested in the approaching Ball, but her parents had made it plain that she was to put some effort into her CATS. They had talked to her together, with none of her brothers or her sister present, about it, so she knew they had been being very serious. Since her roommates were also very serious girls - it was such a pity that Charlie, the only fun-seeming person in their year, wasn't from the right kind of family, because if he had been, Gemma would have stolen him from Julian in a second, if she could have gotten her older sister to tell her how - who she thought would have no trouble doing well on the CATS, Gemma had decided to use them to help her obey her parents. She had started making sure to study in front of them at night, and feeling nervous any time she went into the dorm when she thought one of them might be inside it.

The plan would have worked beautifully if it hadn't occurred to her to just not go in her room more than she absolutely had to during times when she thought Julian or Willow might be there. She hadn't expected them in when she dropped into the room to switch cloaks one day and blinked in surprise at the sight of Julian at the dresser. She blinked again when she took in the sight of her roommate's face, was momentarily alarmed by the idea that Julian had a horrible skin condition even if the other girl did say it wasn't contagious, and had to bite her tongue to keep from laughing when she realized what was really going on after looking at the dresser.

"I hope so," she said. "Oh, goodness...what happened?" Julian usually didn't wear makeup - Gemma had always assumed it was because she had all those brothers and seemed closer than she should have been to them, and because she had a boyish name herself; how was a girl supposed to notice she was a girl if her parents didn't even notice it? - so Gemma wondered what had prompted this. An idea occurred to her. "Did you get a date to the ball already? Did Charlie ask you?" Gemma had heard some people had gotten dates at the Feast and was jealous. She knew she was unlikely to have a partner at all. It seemed that being very serious was better for a girl's chances than she thought made any sense at all.

0 Gemma Bennett Oh, dear 251 Gemma Bennett 0 5

Julian Umland

October 21, 2014 9:11 PM

I'm done now. by Julian Umland

Julian flushed when Gemma asked what had happened, wondering if it was really that bad, then shook her head when Gemma kept talking, more at Gemma than in response to Gemma’s question. How her roommate had leapt from her make-up disaster to the Ball, she had no idea, but she was too distracted to really care at the moment and was glad for any excuse not to talk more about the disaster.

“No,” she said. “Though that reminds me, I need to ask him if he’s going to be available for the first dance…you know, if neither of us gets a real date,” she added.

It seemed very unlikely that either of them would. She had noticed a few times, when contemplating how to smooth things over if her brother’s tendency to completely miss all social cues which indicated he should shut up led to its likely conclusion, that Keme was kind of cute, but she had the vague idea that he and Willow were kind of close, which usually made something like the Ball a great excuse to start dating at their age. The reason a close male friend wouldn’t lead to that for her was the same reason Charlie was unlikely to obtain a romantic partner by June. They would most likely help each other out, but it wouldn’t be polite to just assume that, and she’d need to make a back-up plan if he wasn’t available.

“What about you?” she asked, not really paying that much attention, trying to figure out how to charm the make-up off without calling attention to it and cursing the staff for not teaching non-verbal spells until Advanced classes and herself for likely not being good enough at magic to have had a chance if they had been taught in her classes. "Are you all ready for the Ball?"

16 Julian Umland I'm done now. 254 Julian Umland 0 5

Gemma

October 23, 2014 7:14 PM

Thank goodness, that was scary by Gemma

Gemma was surprised by the implications of Julian’s statement about herself and Charlie. “Oh,” she said. “I thought you two were dating and you were trying to figure out how to look pretty for him.”

She did not notice the implications of her own statement about Julian’s general appearance. To the extent she thought about it at all, she thought Julian was a girl who could be pretty, but who usually had old clothes and didn’t do her face or hair and therefore missed the mark, something Gemma found confusing. Why wouldn’t she put her best foot forward all the time? There were only so many boys in the world, and if she wasn’t dating Charlie, then she was going to have an even harder time finding one because Gemma was sure people thought Julian was dating Charlie. And, well, Julian wasn’t in society, so she couldn’t count on her parents to do it for her, or for many nice boys to notice her anyway. She really needed to try harder than the rest of them, though Gemma couldn’t think of a nice way to say it and so didn’t. She had figured out early on that they weren’t supposed to mention that Julian came from the wrong sort of family, that it was somehow impolite, even though she didn’t quite understand why - if society people were supposed to be the natural superiors of everyone else, as demonstrated by them having the money and power to be society people, then shouldn’t they acknowledge it, just like they acknowledged that their job was to give orders and a house-elf’s was to take them?

It wasn’t, though, her job to think much – everyone at home said so – so she tried not to. It just confused her and made her wonder if she was doing the wrong thing, which wasn’t very nice to do at all.

“Oh, goodness, no,” Gemma said when Julian asked about her Ball preparations. “Mother still hasn’t even picked out my dress yet, even though I told her to over and over again while I was at home…she’s all distracted with my sister." She said that Eliza behavior was not proper for a girl at all and that she was going to interfere with Paul and Leo…somehow. Mother had not exactly wanted to tell Gemma what she meant by the things she said, just to get across the point that Gemma was not to get ideas above her station at Sonora the way Eliza apparently had. The details, she had said, were not proper to talk about at all even between themselves. “I don’t even know what color I’m going to wear. I wanted pink, but Mother says there’s too much auburn in my hair.” She held up her hair. “What do you think?” she asked, just to be polite, since she doubted Julian knew much about it. She didn’t have to; Nature had given her roommate a pretty hair color no matter what else could be said about her looks.

0 Gemma Thank goodness, that was scary 0 Gemma 0 5

Julian Umland

October 24, 2014 10:50 AM

You have no idea. by Julian Umland

Julian stared at Gemma for a long moment when her roommate theorized about her reasons for choosing the particular method she had of going stark raving insane, wondering if Gemma was being serious. She had never seen Gemma as the sort to use sarcasm (indeed, she had the impression it was the kind of thing which would go straight over Gemma’s head) but…seriously? Her and Charlie? Did Gemma not see a major flaw in that idea, namely which dormitory Julian happened to be sitting in?

Admittedly, Julian was used to thinking of Charlie’s probable sexuality, along with sex in general, as a thing not to think about too much, but – well, whoever her friend ended up sleeping with after school, Charlie’s general appearance, mannerisms, and interests just did not suggest an interest in dating girls, so why someone who didn’t really, as far as she knew, know him that well would think he was doing that baffled her. She had never perceived Gemma as one of the great intellectual minds of their century, but – wouldn’t that make her more likely to rely on stereotypes and end up assuming Julian was a lesbian because she had somehow lived to sixteen without ever learning to do make-up properly? Which did bring up the other implication of her statement….That one actually annoyed her personally.

“Um…no,” she said, the best response to that she could come up with. “Just – not, Gemma. No.”

Dolling herself up for the sake of a date would be wrong. She knew this. She did let Charlie play with her hair just to please him, and went out of her way to do things for her brothers, but – that was different. That was just to make them happy, and she cared about them being happy because she cared about them, not because she needed them to notice and comment on her good deeds to feel okay about herself, which was why she had always heard that girls dolled themselves up for their dates. Though – she guessed if she really liked someone, and seeing her look pretty made him happy, then would that be a different thing? That was what people did for people they cared about – but there was some reciprocity – but if it was really love, then theologically, she knew – or at least her catechism training informed her – that no reciprocity was to be expected – but then, she thought it would be hard to have that level of admiration where a lack of some favors, rewards, something existed –

She looked at a part of the dresser not cluttered with make-up and hair things. So smooth, so pretty, the wood. It seemed like a very good thing to beat her head into until she no longer did things like somehow going from it being beneath her to make herself up just for reassurances from a suddenly straight Charlie to trying to figure out the nature of God and her relationship to same. This kind of thing was only supposed to happen to Mom and John and Joe. She was supposed to be exempt. She decided to redirect the subject.

Unfortunately, Gemma’s responses to the new direction of the conversation didn’t help, either. Julian desperately wanted candy. She wanted to eat a bag of chocolate truffles. And then scream at somebody. And then desecrate her biological father’s grave. And then have a crying fit and eat some more chocolate truffles.

“I really don’t know,” she confessed when Gemma asked about the auburn in her hair. She was used to thinking of hair as one color, not a color with some other color in it. There were shades within that – Mom had light brown hair, Julian and John had very dark brown hair, Paul had a dull sort of light blond hair while Joe’s was more golden, and so forth – but not really mixes. “I’m sure you’ll look fine in whatever. You’ll have to ask Charlie about what the spring colors are.” Julian had paid some attention to style and color in buying January and February clothes, but spring displays hadn’t been out at the superstore when she went, just winter, so she had no idea what was going to be 'in' later in the year.

16 Julian Umland You have no idea. 254 Julian Umland 0 5

Gemma

October 26, 2014 5:30 PM

That's probably for the best by Gemma

Gemma was surprised at the vehemence of Julian’s denial of her theory. That was…strange, she thought. Julian had said she would dance with Charlie if she had no other partner, so she couldn’t find him repulsive or anything like that. Just the way the two of them did get along so well meant, Gemma thought, that thinking they might be a couple wasn’t a completely unreasonable assumption even if it wasn’t true. She did not know why Julian would be upset by it and so did what she always did when in doubt: decided to look agreeable, assume she was the idiot in the conversation, and just agree with whatever the other person said.

“Oka,” she said brightly, smiling. “Sorry, I misunderstood.”

Which did leave the question wide open about who Julian did suddenly want to look pretty for…but if Julian had wanted to talk about it, she wouldn’t have been playing with her makeup all by herself, she would have asked Willow and Gemma to have a makeover party with her, or at least have corrected Gemma by saying the name of who it was there so Gemma would know not to gossip about her and Charlie if she got the chance, so asking seemed out for now. Either Julian was lying and she did like Charlie, or else she just wanted to keep secret. Gemma wanted to clap her hands at the idea of a good scandal, but restrained herself again. She would just have to watch Julian closely to figure out who her crush was, or just ask Charlie, if she could arrange to sit next to him sometime….

Gemma pouted a little when Julian couldn’t or wouldn’t offer her any advice about colors, but wasn’t really surprised. “I guess it doesn’t matter much,” she said, wanting to dramatically fall on her bed in a huff but restraining herself from that, too. “I’ll wear what Mother says…will your mother pick out your dress?” She tried hard not to sound too doubtful about Mrs. Umland’s ability to pick out a nice dress for her daughter. She had always assumed, from the way Julian usually was, that her roommate didn’t have a very good mother, but Gemma knew saying that would be impolite if she were talking to an elf. You just didn’t talk about people’s mothers unless they did first or unless you were very close, and even then, families were something to be very careful about.

0 Gemma That's probably for the best 0 Gemma 0 5

Julian Umland

October 27, 2014 8:33 AM

Yes, probably so. by Julian Umland

Julian thought about it for a moment and decided that no, she probably did not want to know why Gemma was smiling and perky as she apologized. The part of her which was most Paul’s sister and Dad’s daughter wondered if Gemma was just having her on somehow, and the rest didn’t care enough to try to give one of her classmates a lecture on why prettying herself up for Charlie or any other boy would (maybe; she was confusing herself now and did not have the time or energy for it) be a Bad Thing. She’d leave that sort of thing to John….

Well, maybe not John. Most of her family enjoyed discussing politics, ethics, religion, society, and so forth because they were blessed with clear visions, certainties, she thought, about what the truth was. John always seemed to be fighting with himself as much as with anyone else – like Procrustes, she thought, remembering something Paul had once said, trying to make everything fit into his iron bed. She had some of the same problem, always finding exceptions to her own arguments and not being able to ignore them, but she didn’t enjoy wrestling with it, was willing to be the one who let go first, whether she got what she wanted or not. Still, if it was just up to the two of them, better John; at the end of the day, she thought he would always finally say what Mom would want said.

“Don’t worry about it,” she said.

She hesitated when asked about her mother picking out her dress. Complicated question. “I’ll probably get one over Easter,” she said instead of answering. Sallie had offered to buy her a nice dress for the Ball. Mom had said they would see. To Julian, it was just an opportunity to get a nice dress for once, but she had a feeling that to Mom and Sallie, it all went a lot deeper than that. Unfortunately, the only way Julian could see to settle the conflict was to tell Mom that Sallie’s problem was guilt, not a desire to steal her, and that she, Julian, actually almost, in a way that made her feel a little sick, enjoyed accepting the products of that guilt, Sallie’s attempt to make up for fifteen years of missed holidays and assorted special occasions. Mom would not approve of that, she knew; she didn’t even like it herself. It was wrong, she was ashamed of feeling that way, but she couldn't seem to stop and so found it best just not to talk about it. "We'll all have to show off our dresses together when we get them," she said. "Like a - like a fashion show?" She thought that was what girls did together with fancy dresses, and guessed she'd find out if she was wrong. Luckily, if she was, she doubted it would ever come up again; easier for them all to ignore her faux pas.

16 Julian Umland Yes, probably so. 254 Julian Umland 0 5

Gemma

October 30, 2014 11:50 AM

Ignorance is bliss, after all by Gemma

Gemma flushed when Julian seemed to dismiss her. She had sort of wanted that, wanted the confusing subject to go away, but, well, she knew she was stupid, but it was a little different when someone else pretty much said that something was too far over her head and not to worry about it. She knew Julian was smarter than her – that was something Julian had in common with a lot of the planet – but – well – it was just different, knowing something and knowing that someone else knew it.

She didn’t say anything, though, because she knew it would just make things not nice, and things ought to be as nice as possible. Misunderstandings and arguments and hurt feelings were bad and should be forgotten about as quickly as possible.

When Julian proposed a fashion show, Gemma finally gave into the impulse to clap her hands over something. “Oooh, that will be fun!” she enthused. For a split second, she felt guilty after she said it – Julian was poor, which meant she wouldn’t really have a dress like Gemma’s or Willow’s; even Gemma knew that pretty dresses cost money, and that ballgowns and dress robes were even more expensive than just nice clothes in general – but, well, the other girl had proposed it. Maybe Julian wouldn’t know how to tell the difference between a nice dress and…another kind of dress because she had never learned to dress right. Though, that would only work if she didn’t think to ask Charlie or Gemma or Willow to teach her, and Charlie might already be teaching her since she had said she’d look to him as an authority on what the spring colors were….

“So much fun,” she repeated. “Do say as soon as you’re ready….” She remembered why she had come into the room in the first place. “I just came in to get my cloak today,” she said. “So I’ll do that now. Unless you…need help or anything?” She felt obliged to ask; it wasn’t as if she really had anything important to do, and if she could get Julian to do something fun, then maybe she wouldn’t have to then feel guilty about seeing one of her roommates and not studying during the time they were in the same room, the way she was supposed to now that she had decided Julian and Willow were her CATS preparation role models.

0 Gemma Ignorance is bliss, after all 0 Gemma 0 5

Julian Umland

November 01, 2014 2:47 PM

Sure, let's go with that. by Julian Umland

Even absorbed in her own woes, Julian couldn't help but smile at Gemma's response to her proposition. Two people less like each other than John and Gemma were hard to imagine usually, but the undignified, four-year-old-on-Christmas enthusiasm was something Julian had often seen expressed over books and rare birds. She made note of it as an example to use the next time she had to explain that other people found their interests just as absorbing as John found his, even if he could not remotely begin to fathom what anyone could find interesting about topics like make-up and fashionable clothing and parties. She had lost count of the number of times she'd explained that most people found avian anatomy, Plato, mythology, and whatever John's other books of the week were about unfathomably boring, too, but always got the same blank look and earnest lecture on why those topics were fascinating and meaningful, unlike the topic of how to be a pretty teenaged girl.

"I will," she said.

Maybe it would never happen - Julian just didn't know what to do with other girls; she tried, and always thought conversations were going well, but then it never seemed to 'stick', and never had in all her life; she told herself it was the money-and-blood-status thing, but was pretty sure she just didn't do it right - but it felt nice, having a plan like that. She was still relieved, though, when Gemma said she was leaving; she needed to get this make-up off and hide the kit and pray Gemma didn't tell Willow all about this the first chance she got (she thought for a second about asking, but decided to have an ounce of pride) and decide what she was going to do from here.

Accordingly, she said, "No, it's okay, I'm good," to Gemma's offer, then added, "thanks, though," despite the real gratitude mixing with something like, if milder than, shame over needing help, or at least over her need being noticed. Even if one didn't share John's opinion of the whole enterprise, make-up was still supposed to be a trivial thing, something that could be done in a few minutes in the morning, wasn't it? Unless one shared Charlie's view of make-up as art, but most people didn't seem to go that far. It was just part of their normal lives, like getting dressed. Getting dressed was not that difficult. Why was this so different? Did the universe just want all women to suffer...?

The drama of the thought stuck her and was funny enough to distract her from the line of thought. She'd manage. Somehow. With help, though, before she got her dress, just in case, from Charlie.

16 Julian Umland Sure, let's go with that. 254 Julian Umland 0 5