What does Crystal Look Like?

Obviously, from the literary point of view, what Crystal looks like exactly is fairly immaterial; I describe her in fair detail when I write about their first meeting. She is sweet-faced, wide-eyed, a red-head, average height, simply and beautifully dressed. I imagined her very decided and organized about practical things such as clothes and hair, and all that, but all at sea emotionally. She would not be a wild-looking teen; she would have more of a clean-cut fifties look, borrowed from her parent's generation.

For various reasons, I wanted to put up a picture of her on the side, and I figured with so many pictures of women on the Web, it should be easy!

But I looked, and looked; the girls I found either all had hair too long, or too short, or too untidy, or were dressed too snazzily for a young girl of nineteen or twenty. Let's face it: girls like Crystal seldom put up their pictures on the internet! If a girl does, I guess, she's less likely to be a lost soul like Crystal, and more likely to know exactly what she wants. Or if she is a lost soul, and does have a Web presence, no matter how small, she's going to put up some other picture instead of her own, as some people we know very well have done. (Crystal is not going to look like Lady Clare, who seems just too "together" for how I imagine Crystal to be. No; I take that back; it's just that Clare is too tall and willowy, and looks a tiny bit aloof.)

Crystal would have hair just a little longer than shoulder-length, probably straight, and a dark red, almost auburn. She would have a slightly warmer color than a typical redhead complexion (though she would be convincing with the very pink tones of a typical redhead, too. I imagined her have almost an Italian appearance, mostly because I like that, but realistically she would be as "English" as an All-American girl could look. But quite the opposite of worldly-wise, even if there is a certain kind of wisdom in her eyes. Her eyes would be almost a middle blue, tending towards the purple-grey end of the spectrum.

Anyway, here's the scene at the single's bar, where Janet and Crystal met. Janet has persuaded an older woman, Maggie, to take her to a lesbian singles bar. Janet is in her middle forties, widowed for nearly 20 years, and getting tired of her solitary existence.

Within seconds of going in the door, Maggie saw her. She caught Janet by the arms and slowly rotated her. She heard Janet draw in her breath slowly.
She was drop-dead gorgeous, about eighteen, Janet figured, with lovely red hair that shone a million colors, pulled behind her pretty little ear in a pin, with little bangs just softening her hairline, enormous blue eyes that looked round the room with anxious expectation. She had a nice, determined chin, full breasts that showed pink at her neckline. Janet spotted a couple of girls near her, a blonde and a brunette, and gave a little sigh of relief. The couple had brought a friend out on a date.
Maggie gave Janet a little push. “Go, go!” she said. Maggie had given Janet instructions, but it was time to forget it all. This was the big prize!
Janet considered the girl. She was too perfect. Suddenly, she wondered whether this was such a great idea. What happened afterwards? The girl looked too innocent to be right for what Janet had in mind.
Just then, the girl’s searching eye caught Janet, and she seemed to freeze. Janet turned and looked behind her, but there was no one there. Maggie had disappeared. When she turned back, the girl gave her a rueful smile, and averted her gaze, only to glance back and smile again.
Janet took a deep breath and smiled, and the result blew her away. The girl gave her such a brilliant smile that Janet simply could not look away, or even think clearly. She had slightly uneven teeth that made her simply irresistible. Her friends seemed to be pinching her, nudging her, encouraging her to go across and talk to Janet. They had evidently seen Janet, and approved.
Somehow Janet found herself near the girl, smiling at her—no, grinning at her.
“Hello,” she said, “my name’s Janet!”
“Crystal,” she said, still smiling, and she had a lovely mezzo voice. She kept her eyes on Janet’s face, searching it, studying it, as though it fascinated her, but she was too polite to show it.
“Crystal! Are you with someone? Or may I buy you a drink?”
“Oh …” Crystal looked doubtfully at her friends, and when Janet looked that way, they rolled their eyes and looked away. Janet smiled at them, and looked back at Crystal, and saw them nod vigorously: say yes! “Okay, that will be fine, I guess!”
Janet gently ushered her to the bar, and halfway there, the girl quickly turned to Janet, almost bumping into her. “Just a soft drink, though,” she said, “I don’t want any hard liquor, or anything.” Janet had gotten hold of herself now, and felt her usual charm come to her rescue. She had always been good at handling people, and after being a principal for three years, it was easy. She only had to remember to treat the girl like a colleague, though she could hardly keep her hands off her. “Oh, sure, that’s fine; or coffee, or wine?”
“Like, maybe a wine spritzer?”
That was fine by Janet.
It was like champagne, to stand at the bar with this young goddess. The bartender, a handsome woman, got them their drinks quickly, and Janet paid with cash, and led the way to a somewhat dark booth.
To her surprise, Crystal sat close to her, angled so that she could see Janet, and they began to sip their drinks. From the moment they sat, her knee was touching Helen’s thigh, but Helen ignored that. She watched Janet so attentively that Janet felt awkward.
“How’s the drink?”
“Oh, it’s great!” she said, smiling. She laughed shyly. She had a lovely laugh. “I’m so sorry, I feel so lame! I don’t know what to say to you!”
“Just relax,” Janet said with a smile. She smelled the bouquet of the wine spritzer; it was a good wine, and she made a small sound of appreciation of it.
“It’s been a long time since I had one of these,” she said, putting the girl at ease.
“You must know all about wines, and stuff like that!” the girl said. “If you had wanted, you could have, you know, ordered something else; you didn’t have to get the same!”
“Oh, I rarely drink at all,” Janet told her. The girl seemed very impressed by that.
Her face grew serious, and Janet thought that she didn’t know whether Crystal looked prettier with her face in repose, or with a smile. She was one of the most spectacularly pretty girls she had ever seen. There was something good and wholesome about her, that battled with Janet’s idea of the kind of place it was.
“Yes, you didn’t look as if you were a regular bar person,” she told Janet. “You can guess I’m not, either!”
Janet nodded. “Yes, I have to admit, I only came …”
“Yeah, I know … me, too!”
Janet looked at her startled. Surely a girl like this could have a date anywhere she wanted, anytime she wanted?
“So what’s your story, Crystal?” she found herself asking, and she couldn’t believe her temerity.
“Oh … I … I don’t know; I was alone, you know? And I decided I had to just—do something about it, that’s all!” She sipped a little more, her face utterly serious, her eyes darting around the room nervously. “Oh, look at all the strange people out there!” Janet looked, and they all seemed perfectly ordinary. Crystal covered her cheeks in dismay, and then smiled at Janet, crinkling her eyes. “You turned up just in time!”
She didn’t know quite what to make of that.
Janet had met hundreds of young women in her time, and was a pretty good judge of character. Crystal was the genuine article, she was convinced of that. But what were her circumstances? Janet sipped at her drink, her brain awhirl, trying to figure things out.
“Look, Janet,” Crystal interrupted her thoughts, her voice trembling just a little, “if you’re ready, we could get out of here!” She placed her hand lightly on Janet’s wrist, and Janet felt her bones turn to water.
“But your friends, …”
Crystal blushed. “We came separately, and we decided that … well, if I, you know, met someone, I’d do whatever, and we’d meet tomorrow, like, to talk about it!”
Janet smiled briefly and grew serious.
“Who were you hoping to meet, Crystal?”
“Just someone … who was sweet … and kind, just, you know … I wasn’t expecting anyone as nice as you, Janet, to tell the truth!”
“But you hardly know me!”
Crystal’s eyes flickered over the scene, and seemed to see something unpleasant. Janet followed her eyes, and saw some rather grim-faced women entering the room, checking out the meat. Crystal slid close to Janet, until their bodies were touching. They had both worn sleeveless dresses, and her soft warmth caressed Janet from the knee all the way to her shoulder.
“Do you mind?” she asked in a tight voice. “I just want it to look like we’re together!”
“Oh. Okay.”
“Tell me about yourself, Janet!”
“Well … I’m a teacher, I have a daughter, and … I just felt like I needed something more.”
“Just bi-curious?” she asked, and Janet was shocked for a moment.
“No; I’ve been bisexual all my life.”
“Oh. I’m strictly into girls; I don’t like men at all.”
“Well, that’s lucky!”
Crystal giggled, and Janet said a little prayer of thanks. She was snuggling against Janet, somehow not in such a way that would have been disgusting, but just trustingly. It was as though she had made a decision that she wasn’t going to resist this, and was waiting for Janet to arrive at whatever decision herself.
“How old is your little girl?”
“Nineteen!”
Crystal gave a little gasp. “Is she in college?”
“Uh huh! And you?”
“Well, yes,” she said thoughtfully, her face losing its cheerfulness. “Actually, I’m thinking of quitting.” She smiled at Janet, her eyes laughing at her. In spite of her familiarity, there was just a little reserve in her manner that made Janet comfortable. She didn’t lean her breast against Janet, though Janet almost wished she would; nor did she lean against Janet’s breast. “You wouldn’t like that, would you! You’re a teacher, and everything!”
Janet smiled. What did she care what the girl decided to do?
“All right,” Janet said, the blood roaring in her ears, “I’m ready to move!”
The girl looked at Janet tentatively. They stood together.
She led the way, and Janet noticed the way she walked, the expensive clothes she wore, the little shawl she had in her hand. She was from a wealthy, cultured family, probably from the Midwest. They were soon outside in the dark. Janet wondered what to do. Maggie had seen it all, she presumed, and now she was on her own. It was too easy.
“Crystal; where could we go to sit and just talk a little?” Women were still coming into the bar, some glaring at them, others smiling encouragingly.
She seemed relieved at that. Now that she had snared Janet, she seemed content to let Janet take her time. She suggested a place, pointing with her chin. She had a car; did Janet like her to drive? Janet said yes.
It was a fabulous car, as Janet had expected, an enormous luxury Lincoln. Her parents had said that she needed something big and safe, and this was the old family car. “It’s hard to drive,” she said, carefully backing out, “but I’ve had a lot of practice!” she giggled, and Janet was utterly lost. But she continued to keep a facade of cool in-charge-ness, because of the pleasure of seeing the admiration in Crystal’s eyes.
It really was a nice place. They got a secluded table, ordered a light meal, and pecked away, and began to talk.
Janet had come prepared for an absolutely vapid evening, conversationally, but Crystal had a quiet vivaciousness that was very endearing. And Janet heard her story: her dad had sent her to a prestigious university, hoping she would do well; but all she wanted was to teach elementary school, and settle down. But settle down with a woman.
She was very particular about the kind of person she wanted to date. (She always spoke in terms of ‘dating’, and it was a little hard to figure her long-term agenda.) Then they began to talk about sex, and before she knew it, Janet was sharing intimate details of her personal sex life. Crystal was charming in the way she was able to express the most minute details of masturbation and petting with euphemisms and vague language. Her valley girl vocabulary was remarkably efficient for talking about sex. It had the delicious feeling of girls talking secrets together.
Janet learned that Crystal had only petted with a girl. It had been the sister of a friend, and when she was still in high school. In college she had never had sex at all. “I have these two nice friends, they’re my best friends, you know? And they’re, like, bi. I like them so, so much, but all the other bi girls on campus, you know, the dykes? They’re just ugly and disgusting.” She scowled for a second at her napkin, then looked at Janet. “I’m sorry to say that, I know it isn’t cool. But that’s—just the way it is!” Janet shrugged and kept silent. She hadn’t been any happier with the lesbians when she was in college. She had always felt herself a slightly different species from them.
“Would you like to come to my apartment?”

I started this post after having obsessed about the appearance of Crystal for several days. After I went through a million screens of faces of redheads as well as girls with other colored hair, I found four faces that came close to what I had imagined. The one that I like the best is the one in the middle. The one I like the least had a deep tan, and just never looked right, no matter how much I adjusted her skin tone! If I spoil the story for you, I apologize. I think a face that is a cross between Isla Fisher (about whom I do not know very much) and Kate Winslett would seem just right. Kate Winslett looks too improbably beautiful, I think, which is a point against her.

K