Zombie Pink

by Noel Merczel

  Roger had found his wife’s insecurity endearing...at first. But now he was growing weary of it, which didn't bode well for the long term success of their marriage.

  This should have been a lovely evening. The humidity of the day had lifted, leaving a nice refreshing breeze in its wake. The white Christmas lights were plugged in, granting the small deck a festive appearance.

  The food Roger prepared was fantastic (if he did say so himself, and damn it, he did)! Money was beginning to pour in. He hadn't even gone for his usual evening jog so he could spend more time with his perpetually unhappy wife.

  Roger watched Mimi angrily stab at a bean with her fork. Her eyes looked dark and ominous, as usual. Roger attempted conversation.

  "What did you do today?" he asked, leaning back in his patio chair.

  In his mind, Roger thought of the nice outdoor furniture at Lowe's he wanted to buy to replace this old recycled crap. There were so many things he wanted to do. Paint the living room... install granite counter tops in the kitchen...build a gazebo and a fire-pit... plant some more trees... install a nice bar and pool table in the basement.....if only Mimi would get on board with their life.

  "Why do you want to know?" Mimi asked defensively.

  In truth, Roger wanted to know because it seemed like Mimi did absolutely nothing all day. Here he was working his ass off... then he had to come home and fix dinner on top of that.

  And where was his wife every day when he came home? Locked in the damn bathroom!

  Not that they needed the extra money, really. It was just the principal of the thing. Maybe if his wife did a little more around the house while he was at work all day, he wouldn't care so much about her getting a job.

  She never cooked... never seemed to wash any dishes... the garbage was always over-flowing and the hardwood floors were perpetually dirty, harboring huge dust balls that rolled around the house like suburban tumbleweeds.

  But Roger had to tread carefully. He wasn't in the mood for another damn fight. He was so tired of fighting.

  "It's like you're interrogating me," Mimi mumbled, her fork clattering down onto the plate. "You're always asking, what did you do? What did you do? Like you think I don't do anything! Like you think I just sit on the couch eating bon-bons all day! I'm sorry we can't all have great jobs like you!"

  "I just asked..." Roger sighed.

  Here we go again, he thought.

  Roger couldn't even talk to Mimi any more without this happening.

  "If you must know, I cleaned the bathroom," Mimi told her husband.

  "Oh, is that what you were doing when I got home?" Roger asked.

  "Yea," Mimi replied.

  Somehow, he didn't believe her.

  "How's Janine?" Mimi asked.

  She said the name "Janine" as though she was really saying "poison."

  Janine was the sales rep in Roger's office. She was part of the reason behind Mighty Millwork’s recent success, Roger was sure.

  While Mimi was convinced her husband was having an affair with her.

  Mimi met Janine last year at the company picnic. Janine was twenty-two, with long thick blonde hair and naughty librarian glasses. The worst thing about the woman, though,in Mimi's opinion, was her mega-watt super white smile that seemed to take up half her face.

  Mimi felt blinded by that smile... like she needed to don her sunglasses just to escape its overbearing glare of self-confidence.

  Mimi knew girls like Janine. Girls who wielded their smiles like swords. Their smiles granted them every wish.

  Every guy lusted after them.

  Every woman thought they were so sweet and friendly.

  Every boss thought they were so valuable to the company.

  Every teacher thought they were super smart and could do no wrong.

  But really, these girls used their toothpaste commercial grins to manipulate people... to get people...especially men... on their side.

  At the picnic, Roger and Mimi had gone off together, both of them laughing about something with Mimi's giant grin dialed up to full minty blast. Mimi had seen how comfortable they acted in each other's company, as if they had known each other all their lives.

  Observing her husband with this overly smiley woman created an empty gnawing sensation in the pit of Mimi's stomach. She suddenly felt impossibly drab and gawky in her maroon Walmart pants and prissy striped blouse.

  When Mimi confronted Roger about his "relationship" with Janine after the picnic, Roger had immediately grown defensive.

  "It's a company event, damn it!" he had roared, a vein throbbing in his forehead. "What do you want me to do, ignore people I work with? What the hell, Mimi!"

  Mimi shrunk back as though she'd been struck. She hadn't expected such an overly passionate response. She had expected Roger to shrug and say he had no choice but to be friendly to Janine, but really he found the woman to be an insufferable phony bitch.

  "You don't have to get so defensive!" Mimi pointed out. "It's just that you two looked pretty cozy together."

  Roger did not respond to this. He just sat there, silently steaming. Mimi could practically see clouds of angry steam billowing out of her husband's ears.

  "Those teeth! God!" Mimi went on.

  She should have been smart. She should have read Roger's body language and clammed up. But she just couldn't help herself.

  "It's so obvious she just had them done!" Mimi continued.

  By this point, her normally placid husband's face registered red hot fury. However, like a snowball rolling down hill, she just kept on going.

  "They're so white they probably glow in the dark... and I mean without a black light! And that smile. Jesus! It looks like she's a jack-o-lantern on crack!"

  Mimi spit out that last sentence with gusto; pleased with her clever descriptive phrase.

  Then Roger said something so hurtful... so unlike him, that the empty gnawing sensation in Mimi's gut had emptied out into a bottomless pit of despair.

  "You're a bitch!" Roger informed his wife of less than a year.

  The way Roger said that word "bitch" in such a calm, cool and calculated voice... that hurt Mimi more than if he had shouted the word at her in anger.

  "I'M THE BITCH?" Mimi had screamed back, more out of hurt than anger.

  But Roger had just stormed off, leaving her there alone; her nerves jangled and raw. Yet she felt justified in her observations. Janine was unleashing her manipulative powers over her husband, and (typical man!) they were working.

  "Any luck setting up some interviews?" Roger asked, after taking a swig of Pepsi.

  "I KNEW THAT'S WHY YOU WERE ASKING!" Mimi exploded, jumping up from the table. "THAT'S ALL YOU CARE ABOUT! LIKE JOBS GROW ON TREES!"

  Mimi grabbed her plate and her can of Pepsi and marched off the deck, slamming the door behind her. She dumped her dishes into the sink which made a loud clatter since the sink was already filled with dirty bowls and plates and mugs that had piled up throughout the day.

  Mimi just couldn't bring herself to wash all the dishes since the dishwasher broke down. Well, the truth was, she really didn't have time to wash dishes. She was too busy trying to do something about her ugly face.

  Sometime, she just didn't understand why Roger married her. Truth be told, she couldn’t even blame him for cheating on her with someone like Janine. Why shouldn’t he?

  Mimi made a B-line for the bathroom. She flipped on the light and regarded her reflection in the mirror.

  YUCK!

  ”Stupid face!" she spat. "Stupid long face!"

  Mimi put one hand on top of her head and the other underneath her chin. Then she pushed on her face from both ends as though trying to squeeze the two ends of her face together.

  "Stupid face!" she mumbled.

  Mimi hated her face. She never was a big fan of it. But at least when her hair was longer, like when she met Roger, she could hide behind its protective curtain.

 
Now, since she had made the dumb-ass decision to cut her hair... having been convinced that a shorter style would optically make her face look shorter, she absolutely couldn't stand the site of herself.

  Oh, she'd tried hair extensions, But they didn't help. They looked too fake and hurt her scalp. Besides, the clips always showed through her own hair, causing embarrassment.

  She'd tried other tricks as well, such as wearing thick bangs, curling her hair around her face, and wearing big fake glasses purchased at a costume shop... along with a silly blue beach hat with white Polk-a-dots and giant hoop earrings. Nothing worked.

  In fact, Mimi was convinced these "tricks" made the situation even worse. When she walked around with big fake glasses, giant round earrings, and a huge polk-a-dot hat, people just stared at her. That's because she looked like a damn fool; like a premature little old granny.

  A damn ugly little old granny.

  She could tell everyone was inwardly laughing at her.

  Or else they felt sorry for her. It was obvious she was trying to hide her face. She might as well just go around wearing a paper bag over her head.

  Mimi was convinced her face was growing longer by the day.

  She applied some dark lipstick.

  "Ugh!" Mimi groaned, looking in the mirror. "I look like a zombie!"

  Mimi angrily ripped off a piece of toilet tissue and dabbed at her mouth. Then she applied some purple eye shadow and blush.

  "NOW I LOOK LIKE A TRANSVESTITE!" she cried.

  "ARE YOU TALKING TO ME?" Roger yelled from the other room.

  "NO!" Mimi yelled back.

  Mimi stared at her ugly face that was now framed by short strands of rusty colored hair.

  "This is hopeless!" she declared...quietly, so Roger wouldn't hear. "I hate my face! I look like a pile of hot garbage! I hate myself!"

  Mimi recalled the parade of perfect girls and women she had seen on TV that day. They all had one thing in common:

  SHORT TINY CUTE FACES.

  It's not fair! She thought. I hate them!

  Does the stupid media even know what they fucking do to people? Do they even care? No, of course not. All they care about is making money.

  Mimi thought if they did some kind of scientific study, they would find out that girls and women who are attractive in the traditional sense had much happier and much more successful lives. Being unattractive really messes with your self-confidence.

  It's not fair! Mimi thought, yet again.

  Those words had become a never-ending mantra.

  You have no control over what shape your face is or how your features go together or how thick your hair is, Mimi thought. No control at all! And the world judges your worth by how you measure up physically.

  "It's not fucking fair!" Mimi grumbled.

  Mimi's long face made her look older than her age, which wasn't fair either.

  She thought of Janine, giggling and whispering with her husband at the picnic, her long thick hair swaying sexily over her bare shoulder. Janine probably smiled at herself in the bathroom mirror. She probably smiled and blew kisses at her reflection

  Mimi tried to smile at herself in the mirror. Her smile looked monstrous...more like a grimace than a smile.

  Suddenly, there was a loud knock on the bathroom door. The noise jolted Mimi out of her haze of self-despair and startled her.

  "OH!" she cried.

  "Are you still cleaning in there?" Roger asked in a sarcastic tone, which meant that he knew Mimi was definitely not cleaning in there.

  Mimi burst out the bathroom door, knocking Roger back against the wall.

  "Hey, watch it!" he growled. "What the fuck is your problem? What the hell have I done?"

  "Go fuck your girlfriend!" Mimi snarled.

  Roger was good looking. He had a rugged face, and his features were perfectly spaced. He had thick dark curly hair and a bushy mustache that fit him to a "T." Plus, he was built.

  Mimi was sure her husband had no clue what it was like to live with your mouth a mile from your too-big nose, or what it was like to have wispy hair the color of dull rust that just hangs on your head like yesterday's spaghetti.

  No clue at all!

  ”I'M GOING FOR A WALK!" Mimi roared.

  Then she raced out the front door, not even waiting for a reply.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Mimi stormed out the front door, slamming it Roger's face.

  That was the last straw. Whatever empathy Roger felt for his unhappy new wife had now been replaced with red hot fury.

  No one slams a door in his face, by God! Not even his fucked-up insecure wife!

  Those things Mimi said about Janine? Sure the woman was hot. Anybody could see that, including Roger, who wasn't blind. And sure he joined in with all the "guy talk" at the office... like what a nice "tight package" Janine was. Hell, he had to join in or he'd be in danger of losing his job...or worse, the guys would label him a pussy!

  Mimi didn't understand that. She thought his life was so damn easy. She lived in her own neurotic little bubble of insecurity, apart from the rest of the world.

  But he also knew that a hot woman like Janine was great for business. She scored the big sales, damn it! Janine nailed the A.T.&T. job that was, to date, their biggest job yet. Yea, the world shouldn't work that way. But it did, and that wasn't Roger's freaking fault.

  He wasn't cheating on Mimi with Janine. That's not the kind of guy he was, and his wife should know that. She should trust him, not hurl fake accusations at him simply because she was so damn insecure about her own looks.

  Roger stormed out the door and slammed it behind him just as his wife had done. Mimi was already out on the street, marching purposely down Candlepin Avenue, arms crossed. Her shapeless blue cotton Walmart dress fluttered wildly in the breeze, which had really picked up since dinner.

  It appeared as though a storm was brewing. There definitely was a storm brewing in Roger. She was going to explain herself, damn it! Or at least admit she needed some help...

  Maybe if she did more with her hair, Roger thought angrily. Maybe if she wasn't so damn lazy. Maybe if she bought some decent clothes that fit her right...

  Mimi knew Roger would follow her. To be honest, she wasn't really sure why she was acting this way. She knew, in the deepest recesses of her heart, that Roger probably wasn't having an affair with Janine.

  But she was so afraid he would!

  Why did women like Janine even have to exist? The world would be such a better place if they didn't.

  Mimi was so sick and tired of feeling ugly. It really does something to a person. Really messes with their ego.

  Maybe if she had some special talent it wouldn't matter so much. Like if she was really good at oil painting or playing the flute or singing or Lacrosse.

  But she wasn't. She wasn't good at anything. Most of the time she felt like a complete waste of space.

  Even her family wanted nothing to do with her, it seemed. If they did talk to her, it was only to offer "suggestions" which were really subtle ways of putting her down.

  Like Mimi's sister's dumb suggestion to cut her hair.

  "Some people don't look good with long hair!" her older sister Francesca, who just happened to have a short round face, proclaimed. "It pulls your face down even more."

  "Yea..." Mimi had said, feeling thoroughly offended.

  Later on though, as she sighed at her ugly face in the mirror... a face that always looked sad (Mimi was sure that horrible joke when someone asks the horse, "Why the long face?" really applied to her, and it wasn't funny at all) she concluded that maybe Francesca was right.

  So she made the hair appointment. Perhaps a cuter, shorter, more uplifting hair style would indeed lift her face up.

  However, the smug Asian hairdresser didn't seem very enthusiastic about working on Mimi, as though the hairdresser knew she was a hopeless case. And now Mimi was convinced she looked more hideous than ever.
>
  Cute girls just don't understand what it's like to look in the mirror and hate what you see, Mimi thought, angrily.

  "MIMI! SLOW DOWN! WHERE THE HELL ARE YOU GOING?" Roger yelled from behind her.

  Nowhere, Mimi thought. Absolutely nowhere.

  Suddenly, on the DeFazio's front lawn, Mimi saw this strange woman. She wasn’t one of the DeFazios. Perhaps she was a relative visiting? She didn't look like a relative, though. She looked more like a homeless woman.