Thursday, November 27th, 2014
Prior to the start of the coming party ORP.


Word Count: 821

She wore a gold Hervé Léger bandage dress. Not quite a flapper dress, but passable with the right accessories. It was tight, short, cut into a low 'v' in the front, and it made her feel sexy, mature. With it she wore a pair of gold and silver Oscar de la Renta evening sandals. A set of black satin gloves waited for her on her vanity. Altogether, the ensemble cost just over $3,000.

And that wasn't including the jewelry.

But first came makeup.

Paris sat at her vanity table, freshly washed and clothed, with her hair styled in an updo decorated with a large braid that swept along the side of her head from front to back, and a black feathered hair clip fastened just behind the opposite ear. She'd not yet slid her shoes on, so for now her bare feet bounced beneath the vanity to the beat of the music from her iPod dock.

She started with a moisturizer and followed it with foundation, spreading it out until it concealed the redness that often blossomed along her skin. Next were her eyes, which she lined with dark gray and filled in with a shimmering silver, dabbing white along the bottom edge to freshen up the look and make her eyes appear bigger. Then she swept mascara onto her lashes until they looked long, dark, and full. She colored her cheeks with a bit of rouge.

Last were lips. She painted them a frosty rose, not bold like the red she used to wear so often, but subtle and sophisticated, a more natural color to counter the heavy makeup around her eyes.

Paris began to hum as she put her makeup away and began to put on her jewelry. In her ears she fastened a pair of thin, dangling earrings of gold and diamond. Momma had purchased them for her at Barney's the last time she went shopping in New York. Her necklace came from an antique shop, a circle of pale gold that suspended a single pearl beneath her collar bone. There were two cocktail rings and a bangle she intended to slide over her gloves. If she didn't include her engagement ring, her jewelry totaled around $50,000.

It was an exorbitant amount. Unnecessary. But if Paris had such things in her possession she thought, for that price, she should make sure she actually wore them.

“You look beautiful,” Chris said. He came up behind her and put his hands on her shoulders, leaned down to kiss the side of her neck.

It would have been suave if Chris didn't feel awkward attempting suaveness.

Regardless, it was a welcomed gesture, and one that earned a smile and a quiet laugh before Paris was turning in her chair to rise to her feet and claim a proper kiss—slow, lazily passionate, like two people who had all the time in the world.

They didn't. Paris knew that. Her memories from the future would not let her forget that, even during moments in which the war felt so far away.

“You look handsome,” she said when they broke apart, smoothing out the lapels of his three piece suit and straightening the bow tie he'd whined about earlier, not normally the type for them.

Chris showed her an exasperated look but didn't otherwise complain.

“Are you happy?” he asked instead.

There was no bitterness in his voice, no evidence of the sour tone he would have used to ask if she was pleased to have gotten her way. Rather, he asked with genuine love and kindness, staring into her eyes and brushing a loose curl of hair behind her ear.

Paris thought the question over.

A year ago she wouldn't have been sure. A year before that she would have said “no.” But this wasn't last year or the year before, and despite what she feared was to come, she also had plenty to look forward to.

She had her friends and her family, she had Chris, she had the dog, and her cat, and dancing. All the money in the world couldn't have bought what she had. She was no longer a child, no longer confused, or immature, or uncomfortable with life. She wasn't bitter or hateful, and the rebellion was gone. She was a young woman in love, spreading her wings in a world that for a long time seemed as if it had every intention of holding her back.

It no longer did.

“Yeah, I'm happy,” she said.

Her smile was bright and joyous, putting a cheerful sparkle in her eyes and soft color into her cheeks that looked more beautiful on her than anything of material value. She felt confident, empowered. Most of all, she felt like herself.

And she could face the future bravely... whatever it might be.