Please make sure you read “Plain Jane No More - Part 1 - The Journey Begins”, before reading this.
Jane woke up the following morning straight out of a dream. She could remember every vivid detail. In the dream, she was totally dependant on her glasses. She could see nothing near or far without them, and she was terrified she would lose them. Her heart was pounding - this was what she so wanted in her life. She couldn’t explain it, and didn’t want to - she just wanted it to come true. She’d never had such strong feelings before, and could only think that getting her new glasses and wearing them all the previous evening had triggered this longing which had lain dormant inside her. She always knew she wanted to wear glasses, but this extreme feeling was alarming to her, and strangely exciting. She decided she would do her utmost to make her dream come true.
She sat up in bed, and the first thing she did was look at her phone for messages. She couldn’t read it! Was she still dreaming? She forced her eyes to focus as she moved it further away from her, and gradually the text became clearer, but as soon as she relaxed her eyes, it slipped back into a blurry mess. Her heart still racing, she got her new glasses out of the bedside drawer and put them on. Then she looked at the phone again, and this time it was totally clear without any effort on her part. She could even see the individual pixels that made up the screen. ‘This is awesome,’ she thought. ‘I really really need these glasses!’ She got up, got dressed, and came downstairs for breakfast. Her parents were already sitting at the breakfast table, and she poured herself some orange juice, cereal, and sat down beside them. “Good morning, love,” her mother said. Her dad looked up from his Sunday paper and muttered “Morning.” “You look tired Jane, did you not sleep well? You’ve got dark circles under your eyes.” “I’m OK Mum, I did too much reading last night and watched TV too late. My mind was too active to get off to sleep.” “I worry about you sometimes, Jane Julia, you have to take better care of yourself, especially your eyes. Maybe we should make an appointment with Mr. Forest for an eye examination, you might be needing glasses for close work. It runs in the family, you know.” Jane’s heart did a double back flip! Did her mum just say that? Now what was she going to do? She sat in silence for a while, eating her breakfast. Her cereal looked blurry. ‘Oh God, what have I got myself into?’ she thought.
The text she had received earlier was from her best friend Linda whom she had known from being a toddler. They did everything together, and had no secrets from each other. Linda also wore glasses full-time, and had done so since 3 years old. She was short sighted, and also had a slight squint in her left eye which had required her to wear a patch from time to time on her right eye. Linda was 15, and she should have had surgery for it by now, but she point blank refused to let anyone near her eyes and would throw a tantrum if they tried. Now she had been prescribed a stronger prism in her latest glasses and was told that she would have to wear them for the rest of her life. Jane envied her so much, and Linda had also been a driving force in Jane’s longing to have glasses. Linda suited her glasses so well, and she totally accepted her problem and turned it around to her advantage. She had recently just got the latest stylish frames, had her hair done professionally, applied some subtle make-up, dressed in a pair of tight jeans and a checked shirt, and was ready to hit the mall with her friend for some window shopping and a Coke. Jane finished her breakfast, told her mother she was going to meet Linda, and got ready to go out. She had on a pair of budget jeans, a plain beige sweater, and a plain brown jacket that her Aunt Mary had bought her as a present. It was exactly the style and colour that dear old Aunt Mary would wear herself! There was a new, exciting addition to it though. In one of the side pockets, there was now a glasses case with Jane’s new glasses in it.
Jane stepped out of the front door, walked down the street until she turned the corner, then she got out the glasses case and put her glasses on. The effect was immediate. Her surroundings were larger, moving faster, and slightly blurry. She felt disappointed and thought this would never work. She decided to walk the two miles to the mall, and as she walked she noticed things were beginning to get clearer and sharper. It took her just over half an hour to reach the mall, and by the time she got there she could read the sign above the entrance crystal clear. She looked around the car park and could also read all of the car number plates clearly. This was good. Her heart started to pound with the excitement, and she couldn’t wait to see her friend. She was going to tell her everything - she HAD to - they had no secrets from each other.
Walking past all of the shop fronts was amazing. She honestly thought she had never seen them as clearly as this before. She knew now that she was firmly established as a full-time glasses wearer, and she loved the feeling. Linda was waiting at the arranged meeting point, and when she saw Jane her jaw dropped. “Look at you!” she squealed, “You’ve got glasses!” All Jane could say, nervously, was, “Yes. Do you like them?” “Like them? They’re gorgeous, and suit you so well. When did you get them?” Jane told her the whole story and how she’d always envied hers. Linda completely understood, and explained how her glasses had always been a part of her. She knew she would have to wear glasses for the rest of her life even if she had surgery for her squint. It would either be glasses or contacts, and contacts were out because of her fear of touching her eyes. While they were drinking their Cokes in the food court, Linda suddenly said, “Right, my girl, after we’ve had this and done some window shopping, we are going home to my house and you are going to get a serious makeover! We’ll start with the hair, and then you can borrow some of my clothes for school tomorrow.”
Back at Linda’s house, they started on the job in hand. “You’ll have to take your glasses off though, so I can do your hair,” Linda ordered. Jane obeyed, and immediately noticed the world was all wrong and a bit fuzzy. She longed to put them back on again, but just mostly kept her eyes closed. Linda washed her hair with a blonde rinse which had to stay on for fifteen minutes. During this time, they chatted about boys at school and what tomorrow was going to be like, while Jane kept her eyes closed. After the fifteen minutes was up, Linda said, “I think we’ll give it another go. Got to get rid of that mousey brown!” She repeated the operation, and finally dried Jane’s hair with her hair-dryer. Jane still kept her eyes shut while Linda combed and dried the now beautiful blonde hair. She turned the dryer off, and Jane said “Can I see it now?” “Ummm….. yes….. I guess so,” Linda stuttered apprehensively. Maybe she had overdone the blonde tint! Jane looked in the mirror, speechless. Then she put her glasses on and looked again. “I LOVE it!” she squealed in delight, “Love, love, love it! This is gonna be the new me. Fantastic - you’re a star Linda!” They hugged, and Linda said, “Not finished yet. I’m gonna give you a high pony tail, just for today, ‘cos we want a big change, don’t we?”
When she was finished, Jane looked at herself in the mirror and simply couldn’t believe the transformation. For a start, she looked 17 instead of 14 and three- quarters! Then Linda said, “Now for the make-up. Just a little.” She applied some subtle blusher, then some of her “Pretty in Pink” lipstick. A hint of some eye-shadow completed the job, and she told her friend she looked like something out of a glossy magazine. With her hair in a ponytail, her full ears were visible probably for the first time in her life, and the glasses were even more prominent showing them in full from her face to right behind her ears. The new Jane was unbelievable, and Linda told her she looked like a Swedish film star! Jane felt like a Swedish film star. She just wished she could change her name as well, and told Linda this. “Why don’t you start using your middle name instead,” she suggested. “I do. My first name is Edith, and I HATE it. I never use it.” “I think I will,” Jane replied. “Starting from tomorrow. And I need to get those ears pierced too.”
Jane was staying at Linda’s for tea, and then they were going to the local church youth club together for the evening. When they got there, everyone was complimentary about her new look, and she was in seventh heaven as boys who had never spoken to her before were coming up to her and asking if she really was Jane. The evening consisted of dancing, coffee or soft drinks, and general talk about music, school, boys, music, boys, and….. oh….. boys! She also had her new bra on which gave quite a nice lift to her appearance, something in itself which would have been the excitement of the day if it hadn’t been upstaged by the glasses! She was in demand on the dance floor all night, and when it was time to go, she was on a high. She was so full of her new confidence that she decided to walk into her house when she got home exactly as she was - glasses and all.
Linda’s dad picked them up, and dropped Jane off before taking Linda home. She said goodbye, thanked her for everything, and said she’d see her tomorrow at school. Then she went into the house to face the music!
Her mother was in the hall when she went through the front door. “Jane Julia Holden, what is the meaning of this? What have you done to your hair, girl? And God almighty, what is all that muck on your face? Get in here so your father can see this. And where did you get those glasses? Are they fake? Have you lost your mind girl?” Jane walked into the lounge where her father had just wakened up from a lovely sleep on the sofa. He blinked his eyes and looked at her. Then he smiled tentatively, looked at his wife and said, “I think she looks lovely. Beautiful, in fact! Maybe a bit young for all the make-up though.” “Hell’s bells Mark, she’s MUCH too young for the make-up, and look at the length of that skirt. You can almost see the top of her tights! Say something to her.” The glasses seemed to be getting ignored. ‘Good,’ she thought. Well, she does have lovely legs Marge," her dad ventured. Jane was always her daddy’s little girl, and she could work him to perfection! She dared to speak, “Daddy, Daddy, I’m a week away from being fifteen years old. In another year I could get legally married if I wanted to. If we lived in Italy I would be at the age of consent now, or if we were in Spain it would have been two years ago. I’m a woman now Daddy.” She couldn’t believe she was saying all of this. This wasn’t Jane talking, this was Julia talking. Finally, her mother threw her hands up in the air in despair, and said, “And where did you get the glasses?” “Mummy, when I was at the mall with Linda, she persuaded me to go into the optician’s in the pharmacy for a free eye test, so I did. They said I was fine, apart from being a little long sighted. I said I could never afford the glasses they had on show, so the lady was very good. She suggested in my case that a pair of the off-the-shelf reading ones that they sell in the lowest strength would probably help me a lot, so I bought these. I love them.” “But you don’t need to wear them all the time,” her mother interrupted. “The lady said to wear them whenever I felt I needed them and would feel more comfortable. I feel better with them on all the time.” There, she’d said it - job done! She had NEVER lied to her parents before, and she felt terrible, but it was necessary. Then her father said, “How much did they cost?” “£15,” she said. “Well, we should be paying for anything like that,” he said, and took out his wallet. He handed her £25 and said, “Here, get yourself some make-up too, but nothing outlandish, do you hear?” I want my girl to look beautiful," and he winked at her without her mother seeing. “Love the glasses, by the way,” he whispered, smiling.
Jane couldn’t believe what had just happened that night as she got ready for her bed. She kept her glasses on all the time and felt at peace with the world. She didn’t have to hide them in the drawer and just folded them and put them on top of the bedside cabinet where she could admire them lying there. She was now a fully accepted glasses wearer. But tomorrow was another day….. school!
To be continued.
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