Questions and Answers

   Yvette Pond paused to look at herself in the dressing room mirror. She was never thrilled with being an annie. While her body was that of a woman, and her figure was a nice one, she had never really gotten used to the fact that her face was that of a cartoon duck. Oh, she was cute, and past experience had taught her that men indeed found her attractive (one publicity man felt the word "exciting" was fitting), but the only feature she could really focus on was her bill. She had no visible nose or ears. Yvette thought she looked unfinished, at least when compared to an attractive "regular" girl like Debbie Reynolds or Allison Hayes. On the other hand, she really didn't look like an animal duck either. She really didn't look like anything you'd see in a text book. Whatever she was, whatever annies really are, she didn't feel fully human.

   She was, though. She knew she was. She carried the Divine spark that separates man from animal. Why, then, did annies have features like woodland creatures? Why did their skin look like ink and paint? Why did they look so different from everybody else? Annies didn't seem to exist until around the turn of the century, so where did they come from? They were people, everyone knew that from the start, but why did they look so strange? Fortunately, the first wave of annies being born into the world hadn't happened back in the middle ages. Had that been the case, they probably would have been outcasts at best and wiped out at worst. The arrival of the annies seemed to be another case of Divine timing, but why? How? 

   Yvette touched her arm. It felt like flesh. Her skin didn't feel any different from anyone else's. She reached up and felt her bill. Although it looked like a duck's bill, it wasn't hard like one. If anything, her bill felt like a pair of exceptionally large lips. Despite all the questions there were about annies, Yvette knew that most people simply didn't care what the answers were. Annies were regular, productive members of society, so there was no reason to figure out where they came from aside from scientific curiosity. And that kind of research was frowned upon after the Nazis had made an industry of racial science. Yvette would probably never know why she looked the way she did. It didn't bother anyone else, and really it didn't bother her. 

   Every once in a while, though, when she took a good look at herself, the old questions began running through her mind. It was a memory of her younger days, when she understood that her parents didn't love her. They saw her only as a freak. She had been born to regular parents, as all annies had been in the beginning, but her birth happened after the first wave. Her arrival was unexpected, and more sadly it was unwanted. When she grew into an attractive girl, her parents saw her as an asset to be traded on. That prompted a lot of questioning of what exactly she was, where her place in the world was. She thought things might have been different if she'd looked different.

   "It doesn't matter what I look like," Yvette told herself, "I'm no different than anyone else. 'With God, there is no zero.'" Yvette took a lot of comfort from that ending line from THE INCREDIBLE SHRINKING MAN, and the truth it conveyed. While these moments of curiosity had cropped up from time to time, they didn't represent some burning desire that Yvette had to know herself. God knew who she was, her friends knew who she was, and she knew she had a good life. It had some rocky moments early on, but the past was the past. Yvette preferred to look forward. She quickly shrugged off her petty concerns about her looks. She might not think she looked beautiful, but her public obviously disagreed with her.

   Yvette pulled her hair back into her trademark ponytail, a huge shock of wavy hair which added to the size of her head. So did the bangs which cascaded over her forehead. This gave her a more child-like appearance, or so the theory was. The more child-like a woman looks, the more she appeals to men, she had been told. The idea is that it strokes the natural male position of protector, an instinct men respond to by favoring short girls with big eyes and pouty lips. Female annies had a bit of a jump on this instinct, as most of them were short and had fairly large heads compared to other women. This gave them a child-like appearance that endeared them to man and woman alike, if for different instinctual reasons. Maybe, though, this was one reason it took so long for annie girls to be seen as glamour figures rather than just comedy stars.

   Yvette stepped out of the dressing room, looking quite smashing in her Creek Bend bikini. She made her way to the studio's luxurious swimming pool. There, Steve Morrow had his camera set up and was going over some pose ideas with the other two girls who were going to be a part of the photoshoot, Doris Flowers and Wendy Marco. Doris was certainly adorable, sporting big eyes and round cheeks. Her fuzzy tail only added a sense of cuteness to her otherwise mature figure, which was the most diminutive of the three girls Steve was shooting today.

   Wendy's features were fairly generic as annies go. Yvette looked like a duck and Doris some kind of chipmunk, but Wendy had only a pink nose, round cheeks, and little round ears that made her look different from any other girl. She had something, though. There was a quality about her which drew one's eye, even when standing in a crowd of far more distinctive faces. And she was a knockout in her little blue bikini. Doris had a pink bikini, and Yvette's was yellow. 

   As light as their covering was, everybody knew that these girls were the model of modesty and moral integrity. The naturally hot climate of Creek Bend, with it's high humidity, had made popular a model of swimwear that a few years earlier would have been scandalous. It didn't seem to be the amount of flesh exposed, but how it was presented that made it innocent or obscene. Things had come together perfectly, as Steve was one of the best photographers in the industry when it came to presenting pulchritudinous subjects in a non-salacious manner. Steve's skills, the hot climate, the Creek Bend Bikini Company, and C.B.I.P.'s glamor approach had intersected at just the right spot in history and location for female annies. 

   "The light's perfect," Steve commented, "let's get started." Although everyone involved knew this was work, it was the best kind of work one could find. Steve clicked off photo after photo as the girls splashed in the pool, lounged in the sun, and generally milled around. Steve even made sure to get the girls into conversations in order to snap off a series of candid shots. These made for some interesting visuals, as it made the girls strike a number of facial expressions. Most of the expressions captured, though, were smiles and grins and laughs. It wasn't a bad way to earn a day's pay.

   As the photoshoot ended, Steve began to gather up his camera equipment. Wendy helped him. There wasn't a lot of stuff to carry, so Yvette and Doris stood by. Doris was in the pool, leaning against the edge and pushing her legs out to break the surface. Yvette was sitting close by, dangling her feet into the water.

   "I don't have to be back on set today," Doris told Steve, "I'm just gonna relax here for a while." Steve nodded and waved to the girls as he and Wendy left for his office. Yvette extended one of her legs, letting the water dribble back into the pool as it slid off her foot. The sun felt so good, and there wasn't a cloud in the sky. It was just a beautiful, almost Technicolor day, as most days in Creek Bend seemed to be. Yvette reached over to her little purse and pulled out a pack of cigarettes. She offered one to Doris, who fortunately had kept her hands above water long enough for her fingers to be dry. As Doris puffed her cig, she turned around and rested her crossed arms on the edge of the pool. Yvette stepped down into the pool and took a similar position next to Doris.

   "Funny, isn't it?" Doris asked as she eyed the mountains visible in the distance, "Getting paid to play in the pool." Yvette smiled. It was indeed a good life.

   "There are worse jobs." Yvette spoke from experience. Thankfully, those who knew what Yvette was referencing were few in number. Something about the way she said it, though, must've betrayed her meaning. Doris turned up an eyebrow as she looked to Yvette.

   "You have something specific in mind?"

   "Nothing worth mentioning." Yvette took a puff, then paused in contemplation. Doris was a friend, a good friend. She would understand. But why open that old wound? After all the effort the Boss and Steve had gone to to help Yvette put the past behind her, letting someone else in on it would serve no purpose at all. Yvette took a breath and looked at Doris. "You've made mistakes, right?"

   "Who hasn't? Only our Lord is perfect."

   "And God sees us perfect because of Him." Yvette closed her eyes and smiled. Whether or not Doris meant to, she put things back in perspective for Yvette. "Thank God."

   "Amen." Doris turned her eyes back to the mountains. Whatever it was Yvette was thinking about wasn't any of Doris's affair. Still, Yvette was thinking that she might owe some explanation after introducing the matter, however indirectly. Yvette placed a hand on Doris's shoulder, turning her attention back to her friend. Yvette was calm, the same tender and sweet person Doris had always known.

   "I can't tell you everything," Yvette began, "but you deserve to know. You're one of my best friends. Before I joined C.B.I.P. I had done a lot of things I'm not proud of..." Doris held up her hand to stop Yvette.

   "Yvette. It doesn't matter what you did in the past. I don't need to know anything about it. Obviously, if it were something I needed to know I would've been told long before now. You said it yourself a second ago. Because of the Lord's finished work, you're not whoever you used to be. You're prefect in God's eyes. That's good enough for me."

   "You're a really good friend, Doris."

   "So are you." Both girls rested on their crossed arms and enjoyed the scenery. Yvette hadn't thought about her past in a long time, and it was comforting to be reminded that she didn't have to at all. She was grateful to Doris in a way Doris would never know. Yvette knew she was loved. The lack of love in her childhood didn't matter, and neither did the things she did as result of it. The future spread out before her. There was nothing but promise as far as she could see.