SOMETHING MOM SAID

I keep thinking of something my mother told me over lunch one day: You've got to use your looks, while you still have them. Now, my mother isn't a superficial person. She's just got a hawkish eye. And based on her anthropological data, the breaking point is thirty five. At thirty five, women look loose around the edges. Their breasts bump into their stomachs when they sit down. Hips catch up with them. Their little black bikinis turn into one of those skirted numbers to cover up the varicose veins.

This immanent fate didn't bother me much, until my mother got to her point. People will treat you differently. I thought about that...

Yes. Yes, they will. There's an old coot with lace-up shoes, coughing her red throat raw on the subway. There's my second grade science teacher, who I to this very day hate because she spoke so softly. There's Mrs. Duncan, dumped for a receptionist six years back, who never got it together again. There's my mother, tiredly wiping her face with a napkin. She can't wear rings because her fingers have swelled.