The fragility of beauty

“My name is Ronia, and I’ve spent one day as Baba Yaga.”

“Hi, Ronia!” I heard the unenthusiastic drone of women voices in my head, followed by the support group coach voice spouting. “Please tell us whatever you feel comfortable sharing.”

“Okay, here goes,” I pause, evidently a bit too long.

“It’s okay if it’s your first time,” a motherly voice interrupted my train of thought. “We’ve all been there.”

Like a clucking of hens, all the voices offered supportive, “Oh yes,” and “Absolutely” and other such affirmations.

“No pressure,” I heard Steve’s voice, which made me cringe for a second.

“What are you doing here, Steve?” I lashed out with metaphorical claws. “I thought this was a Baba Yaga support group.”

There was an uncomfortable silence in my head.

I grew up and have lived my life, for as long as I can remember, surrounded by noise. I have the television on when I go to sleep. I have a constant supply of charged-up air buds for my ears, always ready to play the latest Spotify playlist or podcast. I never go through a single moment alone with my own thoughts. Steve Jobs is a god because he invented my salvation, my precious iPhone.

Until now, it seems, because there’s no wi-fi available in my head. None that I’ve found anyway, and I’ve spent all of five minutes looking. Brittany is going to freak when she reads my latest text.

If that ever happens. It’s been a whole day!

“Everyone is invited to share their thoughts, Ronia,” the support group coach offered in a soothing tone. “Steve was only trying to make you more comfortable.”

“Well, he didn’t, okay?” I shot back. “What’s he doing here, anyway? He’s not Baba Yaga, never was, and he never will be.”

“The rules of this support group dictate that anyone who has experienced Baba Yaga, as herself or as a victim, is invited to participate,” the support group coach paused. “He qualifies.”

“Well I don’t want him here,” I shouted. “Get him out!”

“He has as much right to be here as you,” her calming voice slathered on an emotional balm. I resisted as much as I could but I was forced to relent.

“Fine,” I sneered. “Just make sure he keeps quiet.”

The silence returned, and I hated it.

“I just meant him, not everyone else!” I screamed.

More silence.

“Tell us how you became Baba Yaga,” the soothing coach voice wrapped around me like a cozy fleece blanket.

“That was totally Steve’s fault,” I spouted.

“You had no part in it?”

“I had just dumped him. I mean, he’s just so clingy and he refused to leave me alone. I couldn’t text at all with him hoarding all my attention. I mean, on our first date, he threatened that he would chuck my iPhone off the Eiffel Tower if I didn’t stop texting Brittany.”

“Your first date was in…Paris?” an older woman’s voice asked.

“Yeah, which was amazing, but it would have been so much better without the constant Steve glue. He insisted on holding hands wherever we went. I finally figured out the only places he would leave me alone were dressing rooms. I made him buy me so many dresses and shoes, more than I could carry. We had to hire a guy off the street to carry all my purchases. And Steve forgot to tip him so the guy started cussing us out in French and he sounded so snooty. Brittany loved that detail.”

“Oh my,” an older woman’s voice consoled. “Steve sounds like a drip.”

“Hey now,” Steve cut in.

“Yeah, drippy Steve,” I totally cut him off. “Oh! I can’t wait to text that to Brittany.”

“You were telling us how you became Baba Yaga?” soothing coach voice, again.

“Fine,” I started to say, waiting for the silence to take over.

I remember the first time I was exposed to silence on that level. It was up in the Boundary Waters and we were in a canoe. My parents took me up there once when I was 16 or something, I never paid attention in school. Anyway, we were out in the middle of this lake, and I was having this conversation with my parents, and it sucked so bad, because they were telling me all this stuff I should be doing and wasn’t doing and then they were waiting for me to respond.

That’s when the silence came in. And it was so claustrophobic. It came at me from all sides and there was nothing I could do to escape it. I couldn’t draw anything from it and it scared me. So I started talking about what I was going to text Brittany when I got out of there. My parents both just looked at each other and then they started talking and yelling. We were all yelling, not necessarily at each other but mostly.

Finally the park rangers all kicked us out and we were banned from all national parks. They put pictures of us on posters. Brittany loved that story.

That same silence was back again. So I filled it.

“We had been back from Paris for a week and then he got even more clingy. His girlfriend kicked him out of their apartment so he started shacking up in mine. At first I thought it was just going to be one night. But then it stretched out to a week. Then two weeks.

“Finally, it came time to put my foot down. I made reservations for us at Lucy’s, home of the world’s greatest chocolate cake. And I was going to sit him down and dump him, then maybe get him to buy me some cake.

“But then his girlfriend was working there, and I was like, what are the chances? I pointed her out to him right away and then it was like he was totally ignoring me. Can you imagine?”

“Yes,” Steve offered.

“Shut up Steve!” I had to cut him off again. “So rude!”

“So I cozied up to him as much as I could, I even sat down on the same side of the booth and doted on him, especially when she was looking. And even more so when he was looking at her.

“Then his car got hit by a barn or something. And his girlfriend, the waitress, started guffawing. I mean, she even started snorting. It was the grossest laughter I’ve ever heard. I saw my moment, and I told him I was dumping him, right then. Despondent Steve ran out of the restaurant, crying, there was a flash of light and, no more Steve.”

“I got turned into a vole,” Steve said, and before I could cut him off, he added. “I liked being a vole.”

“Whatever, Steve,” I chided him. “You can go back to being a vole after I’m done using you to carry me back to the Motherland.”

I waited for laughter, but again, there was only silence. Brittany would have sent me a crying with laughter emoji, maybe even two.

“I noticed then that there were marigolds on all the tables, live ones, not fake. The restaurant was done up with red everywhere so the marigolds’ color provided an amazing contrast.

“Then she walked in, and I saw the waitress’s jaw drop, and mine. Of course, I was checking my make-up on my phone.

“But it was like she sucked all the beauty in the room for herself. All the marigolds, on all the tables, wilted. When I was checking my make-up before she walked in, I looked good. After she walked in, I looked fake. I looked completely plastic. And it was all because of her.

“I wanted, more than anything else, in that moment to be her,” I confessed.

“That’s how it always works,” a high-pitched voice said.

“That’s what I remember,” another voice affirmed.

The smattering of voices all talking gradually diminished.

“Lucy’s has always had a problem with rust water,” I continued. “Baba Yaga didn’t know that, and I guess she has issues with too much iron.”

“Classic hemochromatosis,” a random woman’s voice said. “Iron poisoning. I used to be a doctor back when people drank blood.”

There was a collective, “What?”

“I guess it was a cult thing,” the doctor lady’s voice conceded.

“I always thought it was because she was part fairy,” another voice said. “Fairies can’t stand the touch of cold iron.”

“But fairies aren’t real,” the doctor lady’s voice said.

“Is this real?” an elderly voice asked. “I’d love to wake up if it isn’t.”

“Fair point,” the doctor lady replied.

“After Baba Yaga dissolved, the marigolds, all of them, came back to life,” I offered. “It was kind of like that scene in ‘Legally Blonde’, where they do the bend and snap. All the flowers snapped right back up into place and had their beauty again. I checked my reflection in a mirror, and I looked good again.

“At that point, my iPhone died. So I had to get home and charge it. I left the diner to look for Steve and found him arguing with his girlfriend and some other guy. Then I saw the box.

“Steve had just opened it and the inside was glowing this beautiful red glow. I pushed him aside to peek in and saw a mortar and pestle,” I stated.

“Those are symbols for Baba Yaga,” soothing coach voice said. “They’re symbolic of…”

“Whatever!” I interrupted over soothing coach voice. “For me, I needed them because I bought this totally expensive rejuvenating facial mud mix in Paris and I needed to grind everything together. I thought the mortar and pestle would be perfect for grinding and mixing them. Plus they made a wicked cool looking accessory for my bathroom. I reached in and touched them and…

“And…I became Baba Yaga. I snapped my fingers and the barn came back together, but not Steve’s Volvo.”

“I loved that car,” Steve whined.

“Will you quit interrupting me?” I begged, practically screaming.

I was expecting someone, anyone, to console me. But there wasn’t anything. Only more of that awful silence.

“Then I changed Steve into a giant chicken and we’ve been running back to Siberia ever since. I think we just made it to Alaska. Does anyone know if barns float? With all the global warming, I don’t think we can run across the Arctic Ocean anymore.”

“I’m sure you’ll be able to figure something out,” soothing coach voice said. “It sounds like Baba Yaga chose well.”

The supportive voices all clucked “Oh yes,” and “Absolutely” and other such affirmations.

For the first time in forever, I felt like I was home, except for the all-encompassing silence, and Steve. It was like soothing coach voice said, I’m sure I’ll figure something out.

I can’t wait to text Brittany.