The Youngest Woodrow Sister

A young woman fidgeted nervously in the scratchy gray cushion of a waiting room chair. Her eyes darted from her chipped and jagged nails to the metal plate on the veneer wooden door across the way; it read Hugh M. Jennings, M.D., F.A.C.S. 

“Janice Woodrow?” A nurse sporting blue scrubs held a clipboard and looked from it to the group outside the looming doorway. The young woman practically jumped to her feet at the sound of her name and followed the nurse inside.

Janice Woodrow was the youngest of five girls. And amongst the influx of hormones, fighting, and bullying came the seven words that had propelled her to this very moment; Janice, the ugliest of the Woodrow sisters. It was the theme song of her youth, and she refused for it to be her epitaph.

After the initial consultation, followed surgery. After the swelling had subsided, she stood in her dimly lit bathroom, searching for the “New You” she had been promised by the advertisement in the metro station.  But in her reflection all she could see was the same freckled faceーthe catalyst to her miserable life. So again, she lay on the operating table. Again, under the bright surgical light. Again, at the mercy of the scalpel and knife. Again, until finally she couldn’t see “the ugliest Woodrow sister.”

Janice pulled on her fitted dress and knee high boots, giving a spin in front of the full-length mirror she recently purchased, then was out into the streets. She walked through the bustling city with a smile on her face and a pep in her step. She could hear the mummers of people around her and shivered inside at the thought of finally being that woman. The woman getting cat calls on the street, and free drinks in the bar, and envious stares from women around her. She stopped at the street corner, the pedestrian crossing blinking red. She noticed a little boy waiting alongside his mother and gave him her prettiest smile. He blinked, his eyes swelling with tears before screaming bloody murder.