Impersonator
She dresses carefully – ever so carefully – for the meeting with him. She wants –needs – for him to see her as the woman he thinks she is.
She feels, as she dresses, that she is impersonating the woman he wants her to be. The woman she wants to be.
She thinks that maybe they are both the same person: the same woman.
But she’s not sure. She’s not sure because it’s been so long since she was the person she’s impersonating now that she doubts herself. She doubts whether she was ever actually that woman.
Could she ever really have been that woman she sees in her mind when she closes her eyes, the one who used to walk into rooms and feel comfortable- confident even – with who she was; with how she looked?
Could she really have dressed in such a way before that men had turned their heads to look her way; that they held her in their thoughts even long after she had left?
She sprays a little mist across her chest now, between her breasts, her décolletage. She hopes she remembers which musky notes best react with her own individual scent. She hopes he likes the rose-scented fragrance of her soap.
She hopes…she just hopes. That’s all. For him to like her; for him to not be disappointed.
She sounded so self-assured, so experienced on her profile. Yet, still youthful enough to remember how to flirt with him. How to dress right. How to stay cool and casual.
When really, she feels nothing of the sort.
She dreads the moment of walking into the bar and seeing the disappointment register on his face. The deadening fake smile that says I was expecting someone younger, prettier, smarter.
Sticking the red carnation into the button-hole of her blouse, re-applying red lipstick, she hopes, desperately, that this time she will be the woman he is expecting to meet.
***
***Kate is a freelance writer based in the UK who writes articles, including regular contributions to online women’s magazine Skirt Collective, as well as publishing life writing and poetry both in print and online. She has a passion for flash fiction and short stories, and is usually found lurking around coffee shops, writing and listening to other people’s conversations. Jones has also become a regular contributor to Sick Lit Magazine, and is a 2016 nominee for the Pushcart Prize through Sick Lit Magazine.***
She blogs at www.writerinresidenceblog.wordpress.com.
Find Kate on Twitter at: https://twitter.com/katejonespp
*Photo courtesy of Cori Hackworth*
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