No Face

by Adetiloro Ibitoye

“What’s wrong with your Face,” she asked. Before us is a mirror, a vanity set for little girls with lipstick and a play brush, we shared the bench. 

“What Face?” I asked distractedly. I held out a Barbie with a GI Joe figurine I pressed their faces together mindlessly as I mimed “I do” : Kiss. Kiss. Kiss. We learned a new word today: Wedding.  

“Everyone has a face dummy.” 

Weddings were special with happy endings for pretty princesses, and for prettier heroines. I would be married one day I supposed, such is the fate of being a girl my mother told me. But was I pretty like a princess or a heroine? I turned towards the mirror and looked at my face to find out. 

On top of green overalls top of my face was a fabric of oblivion surrounding my face like a veil, moving with my deeper frown. I folded heightening despair folded inside and turned to for confirmation or denial. But she had already forgotten about me, leaning in to look at her own reflection. Her lips were dry and split in the middle with a small chocolate stain on the center of her cheek like the leftovers of a kiss, and bright blue eyes. Where were my eyes, my lips, and teeth? I began to choke and sputtered. Unbothered she turned me and blinked. 

“My mama says I’m pretty.” and then smiled revealing a broad mouth and gap teeth as she waited for me to agree. 

“You see yours?” I asked slowly. 

With a strange eloquence, she turned to me and raised her chin preciously with a cruel and long smile. 

“And you don't?” 

That day, I ran to my mother in a hysteria of flailing arms. 

“Stop crying! What is wrong with you?” As she hustled me inside with an embarrassing quickness. 

I gazed at her face for what felt like the first time. Her face was round with dark and shiny dark eyes with soft and brown skin, the color of the deer costume I wore in Rudolph the Red Nose Deer when I played the Vixen. I reached up to touch it. 

A phrase of my condition appeared within the darkness. Something more without than within, a knowledge but from whom? 

“I am No Face.” I confessed. 

She looked around and then at me. She pointed at the vase. 

“What color is that vase ?” 

“White,” I said robotically. 

“And the couch ? “She asked excitedly. 

“Blue.” 

“Oh, oh.” she said and then began to pace around the living room and then suddenly changing her mind picked me up into a cloying embrace.  

“Oh, heavenly father…God has heard me!” She sighed loudly. 

“I asked God” and she paused for great effect “give me a daughter who cannot know vanity. And look at what He gave you, this gift.” 

I looked at her and She frowned deeply and repeated herself. But I said nothing. 

“Thank him. And stop making that Face!” she then commanded, sick of my silence. 

I gazed at the dull ceiling as though some entity was indeed waiting for me. Waiting for my answer. 

“Thank you,” I said, my fate sealed. 

I stood in front of the table mirror at the Sephora as I squeezed a small drop of foundation on my wrist and rubbed. 

For most of my life, I assumed I looked like my mother. That I had her Face. So I sixteen with a forty year old’s face. But when I was sixteen my mother revealed I looked like my father during an argument. And when I asked if it was true, she refused to answer. It was hard to consider ta bit of my face resembled a stranger that I could only recall in half sighs, in needles, and fear. This was before my mother became born again. Later, I found him on Facebook. He had three daughters: Rose, Grace, and Hannah. They all lived in Colorado where he worked as a manager at a local Fresno’s. He too was born again but I supposed when men are born again, they get new families too. 

And he was ugly too. There was no way around it either, balding and wrinkled even in his youth he was haggard and scraggly, destined for ill aging.. And it was a time when beauty was mattering as well. During proposals for proms and weddings and dances at house parties with grinding and open mouths. I hated my mother for introducing that awful uncertainty. And when no one asked to dance or to marry me, I became very afraid that something hideous lay underneath this veil with neither confirmation or denial that I could trust. 

“Excuse me, “I called to an employee with cropped blonde hair and a bronze nose piercing, and freckles that fell from under her eyes to under her lip. She turned and smiled. 

“How may I help you?” 

“How…Does this look?” I asked. 

She stopped and put her hand on her cheek, her eyes roving over what I can only assume to be my lips then my eyes and nose. 

“I think you might need a bit of a lighter shade.” She left and returned with a C8 shade and dabbed some on my face.  

“Yeah, what do you think?” She turned a handheld mirror to that circular oblivion above my neck. 

“Thank you,” 

“No problem. That lipstick is totally your shade by the way. My name is Teo by the way. There is no H.” 

At the register, I told them Teo helped me. I am a C8 shade on the face and more of an N8 on the wrist, D for Danger Matte lipstick is totally my color. I have been told I look angry when I sleep. And my Face is very frightening. 

I had a date. No, a get-together with a woman I met on the Bumble friends app. We agreed to drink. My therapist suggested seeking friendships with women. It had not occurred to me other women had friendships. I had roommates and then coworkers who spoke about boys then men and then marriage to men and then children for men. The unspoken rule that this woman-to-woman commiseration was a distraction from the missing male element. Naturally, after marriage and then children, our bond would dissolve into impersonal annual brunches where we would soon scatter to our new living arrangements and die very quietly at home. 

But none of that mattered if I could have the Wedding. A ceremony of love and bondage that was surely strong enough to move the veil under the veil. How I have sought out that magic like a witch or a monster. But I am still alone, even in bed with some Guy, I am still alone; I am still masked, gazing into some vanity and hoping for a different Face. 

My first successful love was Jack from college. We were at the dining hall for our anniversary. He asked to wear mini dress with no underwear. His face was soft and mushy like steadily stirred potatoes. But his eyes were hazel and bright and he had great hair.  

“Dave,” I asked, looking over at him. “What do I look like to you?” 

He looked up briefly and back down “Sexy, babe.” 

“Describe me.” 

“You have a great body.” He playfully squeezed my thigh. 

“My face.”  

“What about it?” He asked irritably. 

“How does it look? And don't just say beautiful, tell me in detail.” 

“Okay. I don't know. Your eyes are brown, and you’ve got lips for sure.” And he smiled and licked his lips before leaning in. 

We broke up three days later without much fuss. 

When I graduated college I met Nicholas, the sculptor. I became interested in him with his gentle brown eyes and soft demeanor. 

 We went on two dates. On the second during dinner, awkwardly I blundered into the subject. 

“Can you describe me?” I asked directly. 

I expected honest and clinical: A deviated septum, a heavy bottom lip, a mole 12 degrees right to the cheek. 

“You're okay.” A slight smirk on his lips. 

That was our conversation, our intimacy: Cruel ambiguity. 

How is my hair? 

 Alright 

 Is there lipstick on my teeth?  

Who knows?  

Do you even love me?  

If you say so, then I do.  

The more I wanted to be seen the more blind he became, his hands over his eyes with a smirk. I think more than any man he saw my Face and like most men used it inflict maximum pain for the greatest amount of single sided pleasure. And even when he held me in the dark, he faced the wall. I was unsurprised when he blocked me eventually, bored of my need. 

My coat was a gorgeous lavender, expensive. I even curled my hair and then put it in a ponytail. A sane and normal woman coming from a shift at her productive job, a woman that could be liked by other women, cherished even. 

The lounge had circular booths the color of movie theater seats that smelled warm plush and velvet. I was led to the back to a lone woman on her phone with sable eyes framed by a fringe of brown curly hair. She wore a white dress shirt and wide pants with Hermes flats.  

I walked up to her slowly. 

“Mary?” 

She looked up quickly. 

“Nadia, right?’ 

I smiled and sat down.  

“How are you?” I asked. 

“Just got back from work.” 

“Same… And sorry, what do you do again?” I asked.  

“Digital marketing. What about you?” 

“Just corporate. HR.” 

“How’s that?” 

“Good. Lots of emails. The marketing sounds interesting.” 

“I do mostly corporate promotional materials. Think of those stock photos of offices.” 

“That sounds interesting.” I lied. 

A server came around. Her face chiseled and pale as alabaster with dark eyes. 

“A Blood Mary, please” she begged. I ordered the same. 

It was spicy and acidic. It took two for the red richness to migrate from my stomach to my jaw and then my eyes. An exchange of words that became something impossible to remember. 

“We’re drunk,” I announced very quietly. 

She laughed, “Do you want to see my wedding ring?” 

She slowly unearthed a gold chain hidden under her shirt and held it up in the golden light. Attached to it was a ring, small and slim, and in the center, a sapphire that shimmered. 

“Beautiful. Let me touch it.” I reached for it and held it in my hands, pressing my index finger on the stone wanting it to break very badly. “Congratulations. When’s the wedding?” I asked. 

She laughed” No wedding. I bought my own wedding ring and then he broke up with me!” 

“Oh, my god. What?”  

“Yeah.” She hiccupped. “Whoops!” 

“I'm sorry.” 

“It's okay.” 

“What an asshole,” my drink dripped on the floor as I raised my hands in the air. “Was he an artist?” 

She downed her fourth drink “Yeah, a painter.” 

“I knew it. I knew it!” Never. Date. An. Artist. They’re crazy. All of them!” 

She sighed and gazed at the ceiling "He couldn't stand it when I made that Face. He would look at me with this disgust…” She swirled her drink and leaned a little to the side, her hair gorgeous in the gold light “I just wanted to be married. Anything to just have something of my own. “Mary continued. 

“What Face? You’re gorgeous!” 

She smiled sheepishly. “You’re gorgeous too. Really.” 

“Thanks. And have you ever looked in a mirror? You need more confidence!” I announced. 

Her face dropped “I can't.” 

“Oh.” 

The night was chilly and breezy with a city skyline bold and loose as a dream. We struggled not to sway when we walked but felt a strength in being two enough to be fearless. 

“The station is right around here. Sorry for the walk but sometimes it's faster than an Uber. The trains around this time suck too. Shit, it might've stopped running.” She stared at her phone, the battery red. 

“I’ll wait for you.” I said to console her. 

We stood side by side. The night suddenly became incredibly quiet. 

“This night was good,” she mused. 

“Say, don’t you think we look alike?” I asked as if intuition alone could transcend my own blindness, in the dark that I surely could see my face in her face. And it would be perfect. 

But when I turned to smile, I was met with a terrible oblong void framed by curly hair. We both screamed.  

“Your face. “She wrapped her coat tightly around herself.  

“You are a No Face. “I shuddered. 

“You’re like me.”  

“No. You're not supposed to say it.” I said angrily. It was like someone had reached for my breast or groped the inside of my mouth with their tongue.  A closeness without permission, the kind that was meant for my wedding day. Where I was supposed to be unveiled by a one and only like in my dreams. 

“You ruined everything.” I screamed. 

“Before it disappeared your Face was…“She reaches for me with both hands. 

The night proceeded like a dream. I was certain I was alone when I began to cry yet a disconnected hand reached towards me with a handkerchief. I took it with my left hand and covered my face tightly. I had been unveiled, I held that magic at that train station and then left it. 

I imagine she is still waiting at the train station. I will apologize without tears and then again with tears. We could go to bars or meet at cafes. Whatever grown women do when they are together and fond of each other. Or we could go to Sephora. I will ask if there is anything in my teeth, if D for danger is really my color, and then she could say yes or no. And I will know she is being honest. 

I woke up in my bathroom with a great amount of glass around me. I thought of calling her. But somewhere in the night, I deleted her number and all traces of her features were extinguished from memory. There was only the veil. That hole. 

And what of mine? I touched the base of my cheek, moving upward to seek the wound that had migrated like a wild animal, everywhere is swollen and wet. But is it at least beautiful or awful? Is it the appropriate level of scarred for a bride? No one has ever called me gorgeous. Only her. What was that Face in that muted darkness when we were too close. 

And right now, am I too, making that Face? 

Yet I have no answers, I am ignorant as I was the day I was born: The day I learned about the wedding.  

So, I remain veiled, always.