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focus, and yet I can’t help noticing him turning his head to look at several attractive women who have entered the room.
    “Bringing fairy tales to a bar must be a great way to meet women, though I don’t think classic fairy tales are the best things to read to children,” I say.
    “ Excuse me? ” he says, in a tone that conveys annoyance, not only at what I’m saying, but at the fact that I’m still talking.
    I’m fully aware that I’m very annoying during my bar ritual. That’s the point.
    “Haven’t you noticed how the heroines are always beautiful?” I say. “There are no ugly heroines, no ugly girls that are worthy to be loved. There are poor heroines, dirty heroines, like Cinderella, but never ugly heroines. That sends out a terrible message to kids.”
    “I can see how that could make certain ugly women angry,” he says, not looking up from The Sleeping Beauty.
    I glance at my friends and hold my nose to indicate that this is a real stinker. Georgia mimes stabbing gestures toward the man, which startles me. That seems a bit excessive, even for her.
    As for Penelope, she has been trying to gently break her empty water glass in such a way that it can be reassembled and held together with nothing but the glue of gravity. She told us it’s practice, for when she will make good on her promise to her dad to branch out into glassware.
    I say to the kindergarten teacher, “Actually, you’d be surprised at how little it has to do with being ugly. I have plenty of female friends who look just like those beautiful heroines. They have hair that looks like this,” I say, taking off my wig. “They have the same kind of body, typically considered to be beautiful in our culture. Very similar to this,” I say, taking off my fake-fat jacket. “Some of them look remarkably like Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, and that whole classic bunch, and yet they still feel angry about the kind of message the fairy tales communicate to children.”
    Out of the corner of my eye, I can see Georgia’s whole body gesticulating. She invariably gets wired when I begin taking off my wig in front of a guy.
    As for Lily, I always worry it might pain her to watch a man’s transformation from jerk to gentleman as I go through my own transformation from unattractive to attractive. The difference between how men treat an ugly woman, like herself, and one who is beautiful is not something she needs her face rubbed in, but my compulsion to go through the ritual overpowers my need to spare her the sad spectacle. If she is hurt, she never shows it.
    The kindergarten teacher looks at me as I take out my fake teeth. To my amazement, he appears angry. I’m pleasantly surprised. It’s refreshing to meet a man who doesn’t become sweet and gooey when I unveil my looks. I’m about to compliment him on his consistency, when he says, “I feel robbed and violated.”
    “What do you mean?” I ask.
    “You deceived me. You stole . . .” he trails off.
    “What did I steal?”
    “My opportunity to make a good first impression.”
    “I didn’t prevent you.”
    “Yes you did, by misleading me into thinking you were—” He cuts himself off, but I know what he was about to say. I misled him into thinking I was ugly and fat, and thus not worth his time and attention.
    “Ah, I think I get it,” I answer. “When you say I stole from you the opportunity to make a good first impression, you mean that in the same way as how you stole from every ugly woman you’ve ever laid eyes on the opportunity to impress you with something other than her looks.”
    “You’re crazy, you know that?” He sweeps his fairy tales into his big bag and leaves the bar.
    I go to the restroom, change back into my disguise, and rejoin my friends.
    I scoot into their booth. The glass Penelope broke is now sitting in front of her, reassembled and looking intact except for the break lines running across it like scars. She is holding the postcard Strad sent to Lily,