Her eyes opened slowly to the sunlight that pierced the pale, pink curtains that covered her windows. She moved slightly, as if to start to stretch, but curled back into the fetal position as if she contemplated sleeping again. She felt so warm under her covers and the bed felt firm and inviting under her body. She put her hands together, as if she was praying, and placed them under her head to drift off into sleep once again—
“ELLA, WAKE UP,” her mother banged on the door. Ella closed her eyes tightly in annoyance. “ELLA, WAKE UP ELLA YOU HAVE AUDITIONS IN TWO HOURS!” It seemed as if she had resorted to kicking the door. “ELLLLAAAAA! ELLA! YOU BARELY HAVE ANYTIME TO GET READY!”
“Worse than an alarm,” she thought, as she lifted the covers off of her and placed her feet onto her soft, cream-colored carpet. She sat for a moment longer on her bed, thinking of nothing, before she got up and proceeded to the door. “Ok mama, I’m up, I’m up, I’m getting ready mama.”
“Ok dear, good,” she whispered into the door and walked off down the hallway to finish her breakfast. Before she was too far off she lifted her hand up in the air as if in goodbye to someone behind her and said in a voice that was more highly pitched than normal, “Look perfect!” and finished her trot to the kitchen like one could know that she was content by her walk.

Ella began to move around her room, doing nothing in particular, focusing only on getting ready. She moved to the curtains and felt their soft silk exterior and the lacy layer that was behind. Her fingers traced the curves that it formed and she stared out of the window, the sunlight causing her newly awakened eyes to squint in pain. She moved across her room and sat down in front of a large vanity mirror on a stool fit for a princess, with legs that curled upon themselves in what looked like the shape of teardrops and that supported a light-pink cushion that was pleasant to sit on. Ella placed her placed her back onto the elaborately shaped iron that was meant to support it. The back of Ella’s chair was a thing of beauty, work that any artist should be proud of; a perfect circle with stems adorned with leaves that arched in to the center and curved and danced with the stems that formed from a different part of a circle until their tips formed a flower. Beauty that was bought to sit on, beauty that was just a chair. She moved her almost pale delicate fingers to her makeup box to start getting ready. She took a shower last night, knowing she probably wouldn’t have time in the morning. She opened the beautifully carved box, that almost matched the chair, and took out an eye liner and stared into the mirror, bringing the liner up to her eye.

She brought her eyes up and looked forward, still holding the liner in space, and stared at her reflection. Her nose was petite and formed a very small circle at the end, her eyes glistened a deep, dark black and stood out even behind lashes that seemed to stretch into the air forever, mixing in with her very dark and long black hair. Her lips were large, but not abnormally so, and took a hue of pink that no lipstick should be allowed to cover. And her ear, small and close to her head, became apparent as she took the free hand that was stretching her eye for the liner and pushed her hair back behind it. Though Ella stared at the girl in front of her for mere seconds, it seemed as if time did not exist. She stared deeply into the mirror, though not because she admired her beauty. Ella cocked her head slightly to the right and stared into the reflection in front of her, at a girl who matched her gaze, a girl who was unsure.

Her eyes fluttered down to look for makeup to start with until she realized she already had had eyeliner in her hand. She stretched her left eye and applied her eyeliner and proceeded to do the same with the right. She highlighted, straightened, covered, and accentuated till she was barely recognizable, and then changed into a dress her mother had bought her months ago in preparation to complete the transformation. Ella, now, was anybody but Ella. She slipped into her heels and walked to the door, opened it, and began walking to the kitchen. Her mother looked up from her bowl of rice pudding to see her daughter and beamed, as she always did, at the beautiful sight that stood in front of her.

“Good luck Ella,” her mother whispered, bringing her hands together and slightly below her face.

“Thanks, mom,” she muttered, with an undertone that her mother never noticed, or maybe never understood. “See you soon.”

Ella put the keys that were placed on a small nearby table into her small gold clutch and left the house through the front door. She took a left and smelled the New York air and took in several different sights. She continued to walk as she saw a mother with a very new baby in her arms, quickly walking down the street, with worry on her face. She saw two boys playing outside of a shop that their father probably owned, laughing and smiling. She saw a couple, kissing before they separated and walked opposite ways and another couple arguing as they walked together. She made a quick right. Down an alley. The place she was in didn’t seem to permit her presence. Her sky-high lashes were meant for a fashion show and her pink heels could get dirtied. She walked quickly, further into the alley, and didn’t stop until she kneeled down behind a dumpster. From a small opening under the dumpster that resulted from uneven pavement she pulled out a badge that read, “New York’s First Soup Kitchen,” and under that, “Volunteer.” She reached a little further, “Why did I push it in so far last time,” and finally grabbed onto the plastic material her fingers searched for. She pulled it out with force, as the opening was very small, and dumped its contents onto the dirty pavement. Green khaki’s, a darker green shirt and matching sweater, a grey hat, white sneakers, and a bottle of makeup remover and acetone that was accompanied by a few paper towels and some cotton balls. She got ready once again. Ella stripped her makeup and her clothes behind the dumpster, always fearing being scene, and transformed once again. She tucked her hair into her hat and made sure that her jacket didn’t hug her curves. She put on her sneakers, double-knotted them, and stuck the rest of her belongings into the opening under the dumpster. She got up, straightened herself, cleared her throat, and began to walk to a back-door with a sign above that read, “MALE VOLUNTEERS ONLY; WOMEN ARE TOO OFTEN HARASSED,” without glancing at it and opened the door to the familiar faces that greeted her, now Jon, with cheers and yells. Oh how she loved her mother, but here, here, Ella was Ella.