Her back was straight, a perfect 180 degrees, without the slightest bit of slouch that eventually comes after years of slumping back in chairs or hunching over cell phones. She sat cross-legged on the high, plush white chair, her small body fitting on the seat perfectly. Her eyes were focused upward toward the television – why else would she be sitting so still? – but her face lacked the dazed and empty expression usually found on zoned-out high school students and brain-hungry zombies. I smiled slightly at the thought of her surrounded by “celebrities” at Madame Tussaud’s; she could have been, if not for the almost undetectable rise and fall of her shoulders and the end of her ponytail drifting in the flow of air from the vent.
“I can’t believe how nicely she’s sitting,” Valentina, the owner of the studio, remarked to us. “Most of the kids that come in at this age are running all over the place, even with the television.”
T and I chuckled and shrugged. “The television is a big help,” T answered, “but yeah, she’ll sit. I’m probably more worked up about this than she is.”
“Terrific,” Valentina said with a smile. “Maybe it’ll work after all.”
We had already been sitting and waiting for fifteen minutes by that point but Valentina had us wait for another forty-five before saying that we should get started. She hadn’t put much of the numbing cream on – the two dots were smaller than a pea and likely would have gone unnoticed by even the most sensitive of princesses. She said that she didn’t need much to do the trick but that the cream needed the full hour to reach its strongest potency.
It didn’t seem to matter much; S still never moved.
S had just barely started to get restless before the owner returned to say that we could begin. It was as though she had suddenly remembered where she was, looked around quickly and, in doing so, spotted the cylindrical glass vase full of lollipops. Satisfied with her choice, she went along with the owner into one of the smaller rooms as T, E and I followed.
She climbed into the seat – there was only one in this room, as opposed to the pair in the waiting area – and glanced around the room. I noticed her eyes fix on the splashes of pink furniture and the numerous framed posters of Betty Boop on the walls. Valentina donned a pair of surgical gloves, wiped off the numbing cream and replaced each drop with a tiny black dot from a marker. Any hint of anxiety on S’s face was eased quickly by the frequent comments about what a big girl she was, how well she was sitting, how impressed everyone was, how exciting the process was.
T knelt in front of S with her phone up to continue snapping photos. Valentina and her assistant – who also happened to be her mother – stood on each side of S with what looked to my untrained eye to be large silver staple gun. I don’t know if S saw the guns before Valentina and her mother lifted them to S’s ears, but it’s probably better that she didn’t. I know there are plenty of children who like to see the tools before they get used but S is not one of them.
“Okay, S, here we go,” Valentina said. “I’m going to count to five. One… two…”
A loud clicking sound replaced the number three as Valentina and her mother squeezed their guns simultaneously. They moved the guns away to reveal pale pink iridescent flower earrings in S’s tiny lobes. S looked surprised and confused by the sound but her brief moment of fear shifted quickly into a wide smile as she saw excitement erupt from T and Valentina.
“All done! You did it, you got your ears pierced!” T exclaimed. “You’re such a big girl!”
“My did it!” S said, oozing with pride as she looked in the mirror at her newly decorated ears. “My big girl!”
We laughed and took some more photos of the new tiny flowers. T and Valentina each posed for pictures with S, who was still reveling in her accomplishment. Even E, who had done an excellent job of staying out of the way and not putting ideas in S’s head about being scared, gave her a hug and told her he was proud. Valentina’s mother handed S a clear plastic bag with cleaning gel, instructions and a certificate congratulating her on the occasion. S thanked the older woman, took the bag and began walking back toward the now-empty waiting area, still brimming with self-satisfaction.
I knew it was impossible for her to have grown any measurable amount over the past hour and a half but S seemed… taller, somehow. Or older or more mature or some other adjective that could describe how she was suddenly no longer T’s and my baby girl. She was looking and sounding more and more like a child every day, from her phrasing and enunciation to her gesticulating to emphasize certain words. I knew rationally that she still had more than six months before she would reach her third birthday but those sparkling flowers did more than just brighten S’s face.
They brightened the faces of everyone around her.
We brought S to Tori’s Place, a local ear piercing studio. We couldn’t recommend Valentina (and her mother!) highly enough. You can follow them on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. I was not compensated at all for this post and any opinions here are, as always, my own.
