The Girl in the Mirror by Jewel Enrile
Tags: Short Story, Philippines, Girl Up, Girls

Photo credit: Collaboration of Kensuke Koike aka 小池健輔 (Japanese, b. 1980, Nagoya, Japan) & Thomas Sauvin aka Beijing Silvermine aka 北京银矿 (French, b. 1983, Paris, France, based Beijing, China) — No More No Less Photo Collages

The priest’s sermon came out of his mouth in a monotonous drone, casting a spell of obligatory stillness all across the church. For this particular Sunday routine, Adela is straight-backed, perfumed, and stuffed into a lilac dress with roses embroidered at the hem. She and her mother had left just before the sun had set, crossing the plaza in wobbly heels. They had taken their seats in front. She is awash with familiarity, her body going through the motions, knowing when to stand up for communion, when to move or open her mouth, where to hail a tricycle right after mass.

The routine is not complete without the eyes on her neck. Her body tilts to turn as an all too-familiar response. She knows where to look, turning her head slightly: three pews behind, and a couple of seats to her left. She catches a glimpse of a balding man with drooping, sleepy eyes a row behind her, his head nodding to the sermon blanketing the church. Behind him, a mother and her dark red lips is crooning to a baby clinging to her shoulder, with her arm clad with gold bangles holding him in place. Finally, behind her, there is a familiar face belonging to a boy, hair slicked back, catching her eyes, in a dark blue polo. Paolo. He was a couple of years above her in school, and even there, he paused to greet her in the hallways. He smiles now, abashed, and looks away.

She purses her lips; looks down. It was hard not to feel flattered. Hard not to enjoy the staring and the attention; the teasing she overheard. But what does he see, anyway? A stranger. A schoolmate. A tan girl, with long hair, pretty eyes — she’ds heard him say that to a mutual friend once, after the sermon in the gardens by the fountain. A silver bracelet on her wrist. A floral dress every Sunday.

There is a sharp pinch on her thigh, and she jumps, hastily looking back up at the priest. Still, she catches a whiff of jasmine perfume and a view of cherry red lips turned down in a scowl on a woman’s face bearing likeness to hers. She bites the inside of her cheek, heart pounding in shame.

Her mother must see a younger her. That’s what everybody in the family says, even though she herself couldn’t see her face on her mother’s features, with all of her high cheekbones and arched brows. Her face was softer and rounder, but maybe that would be taken away by age.

Soft. Her mother could see her that way. A sensitive, dazed, impractical young girl, who stayed in the corner in any sort of gathering (instead of milling around and shaking everybody’s hands like her mother), and who liked to stay out on the balcony, the mosquitoes feasting on her legs, to stare out at a fogged-up view of the city.

“You better listen,” her mother mutters, lips barely moving.

She tries. She can’t. The priest seems to look at everyone in the pews, but she knows it can’t be so. If his eyes would rest upon her, what would he see? Nothing more than a teenage girl as part of the 6 PM session. Just another person in the crowd. Someone in a dress.

Time passes. An hour later, she follows the crowd out and excuses herself to the bathroom.

She follows the stone path leading to a white door. She opens the door to the smell of bleach. Her heels echo. She faces the mirror.

What does she see?

A girl. Long hair to her waist. A floral dress. A silver bracelet on her wrist. A daughter.

A girl in the church bathroom. Long hair she’s been itching to cut for months, except it seems such a waste. A floral dress she spilled scalding coffee on in her bedroom a week before, with the silver bracelet hiding the tiniest portion of the mark of the burn. A daughter, an only child, in fact, but not a prized one.

A girl. Someone with big dreams. Someone who desires too many things. Someone kind — yes, she could see that. She could admit to that. But what else? What else?

“I see you,” she says to the mirror. “Can you see me?”

The girl in the mirror nods.