You
You rise late, at eight in the morning. Your alarm clock screams that you're running late, but that doesn't matter. You shower, cover yourself in powder, dress (Channel No.5, honey, what else?).
You stalk through the lobby on heels, hearing catcall and cheer; then a child asks for an autograph. You smile, a beauty queen selling frozen entrees to the denizens of hell. The product is you.
You leave them behind to start the car, which purrs like a kitten. Motoring away from the hotel, you find a Starbucks and order one large, black. It hits your empty stomach like acid.
Your blood thumps; heading to the gym, red lights are missed altogether. You're flying like buzzed butterfly, landing when you can, for as long as you can. You see that the gym is packed, but run to the lockers anyway. Change into designer work-out-gear. Pace between machines and end up joining a power pilates class. When you emerge your muscles ache but a glow has suffused you.
You shower once more, find your locker, dress and primp yourself to a state of loveliness. You wonder why you bother with the endlessness of this beauty routine, but perfection is a constant demand upon your being.
You travel with ease through the downtown traffic to your autograph session, smiling warmly to each security guard as they send you up through the back room of the trading card shop. They seat you behind a table, give you a Sharpie, and open up the line. Words fly by, faces meld; perfunctory are your words, made special in the memory of others.
"You're lovely...Hello...saw you in...you are my hero...did you...have you...will you...do you...that's a nice...you look so...you are so..."
You won't be able to remember any of them, hours later, but you get high marks for being such a good listener.
You spend a few minutes blotting sharpie ink from underneath your nails, and your road agent informs you that he's not only returned your rental but also arranged for you to be driven to the arena. You would be relieved, if you didn't enjoy driving so much.
You arrive at the arena to the sound of a thousand voices calling you name. No time to acknowledge them; you end up back in the arena and standing in front of one camera or another, posing robotically, trying to convey eroticism in the cold, damp interior of a hockey arena. Tank tops, tee shirts, short-shorts, bikinis; hair up, hair down. You smile at the next Diva waiting her turn; she only knows your pain.
You go to the women's locker for one last costume change (God, if they only knew how close to the truth they'd arrived when they called you a 'Barbie Doll'!) before meeting up with your booker and your man.
Your booker has an idea for a pudding match, which you smile and are forced to accept. You go into makeup for vignettes, then end up shooting each four times because you don't have the right attitude.
You're happy, because, at last, it's time for your promo, and only in front of a million people are you at home. Your opponent counter-attacks, you end up rolling around in a kiddy pool of pudding and, being the heel, you have the gracious job of doing one. As you towel whipped cream out of your hair backstage, a bouquet of roses arrive from home.
Your boyfriend says he's engaged to someone else.
You knew that this was going to happen, one day, but the shock of it being real is enough to kill you. It's not a good time, and you end up bolting the taping. They don't need you any more.
You travel the highway, crying your eyes out. Scream along with The Beatles. Find a hot dog stand and breathe until an icy calm covers your nerves.
You go back to the hotel, taking a back entrance and luckily avoiding everyone. You recognize an old managerial charge, a true-life ex-boyfriend, drinking himself to death in the hallway outside of his room, but he doesn't even look at you.
You shower, for the third time today; a long, hot one. You wonder if the people next door think you're some kind of germaphobe, but everything seems vacant.
You end up standing in front of the bathroom mirror, staring at your face, your body. You should have been regal, serene. It's how everyone sees you. If only you had time to lose yourself to the pressure. But you will fall apart another day.
You crawl into bed, you pull the quilt over your head, and you talk yourself to sleep, remembering that you are just a woman, just a hard-working girl, and one day you will be free...
You are every woman, staring back at yourself; partially a façade, part bone. Looking for a freckle. Happy and not. You are good and bad, and you live with yourself. You can accept this. You lie dormant and await the next morning's rising, all the time saying to yourself:
It's not so bad.