girls.”
Amanda yielded to the flattery but, even now, remained puzzled by Christine’s interest in her. Christine once remarked that it was “so refreshing” to be in the company of someone “who is interested in
things,”
but Amanda couldn’t help but feel that Christine viewed her essentially as a new project, another room to redo or piece of furniture to refinish. It was in this spirit that Amanda had been introduced to the group—“Y’all are going to love Amanda. She’s a bohemian”—but her novelty was clearly less appealing to the others. Kim and Ellen were polite and affable, but then, as Amanda had discovered, they were relentlessly polite and affable. Even the rounded tips of their manicured fingers and toes reminded Amanda of the shores of a coastline whose jagged edges and distinctive outcroppings had long been smoothed away. Amanda sometimes suspected that she could confess to murdering both her children and Kim and Ellen would nod sympathetically and say yes, they too had buried many infants in their basements, but if you placed open boxes of baking soda around the house it helped to absorb the smell. The first time Ellen and Kim had met Amanda, they greeted her with the feigned enthusiasm with which they accepted their children’s “finds” from the backyard. Patricia, on the other hand, had immediately fired off a series of laserlike questions that might reveal Amanda’s “point.” What sort of work had she done before she quit? Was she on any of the committees at the school? What did her husband do? They all registered surprise when Amanda answered that her husband worked in government. Amanda could see the question marks in their faces—Government? How do they afford it?—followed by the conclusion: she must come from money.
So that’s why Christine brought her.
Amanda sank lower, if that were possible, into the chair cushions. She stared through the tall windows at a terrace framed by boxwoods and the flat glint of a swimming pool just beyond. Patricia kept glancing in the direction of the playroom and at one point disappeared for a few minutes “just to check.” She reported that the nanny had plopped all the children in front of a video (
Thomas the Tank Engine
, she added, to the mothers’ approval). This smoothed the atmosphere somewhat, and Amanda relaxed a little, knowing it was unlikely that Ben would launch any new assault so long as there was a television switched on.
Then it was Christine who startled them.
“I may as well tell you all,” she said matter-of-factly. “You probably would have noticed anyway. I’ve chosen a very special present for my fortieth birthday. When Brian asked me what did I want—diamonds? a trip to Venice?—I told him, ‘Honey, I want my thirty-year-old face back.’ ”
“That’s fabulous, Christine!” Ellen exclaimed immediately. “You
deserve
it.”
“What are you going to get done?” Kim asked eagerly. Kim was their resident scholar on beauty treatments. Every week she seemed to be undergoing some new treatment that promised to shave a year off her appearance. At their last gathering she had arrived with a swollen, blistered face. Amanda thought she must have had some terrible experience with a sunlamp, but Kim explained that she had received a “chemical peel”—a procedure that scorched away the top layer of her skin. Kim said the red blisters would fall off and expose the soft, youthful layer of skin below. The blisters disappeared as predicted, but Amanda could not detect any real difference: Kim’s skin shone as any surface will, given regular and attentive polishing.
“Not a lot,” Christine replied. “Eyes, forehead, chin. It won’t be a full face-lift, not yet, just a general tweaking.”
“Thank goodness I don’t need anything,” said Patricia, patting her sagging cheeks.
“Christine’s not doing it because she
needs
to. She’s doing it because she
wants
to—right, Christine?”
“You’re nice to
Amanda yielded to the flattery but, even now, remained puzzled by Christine’s interest in her. Christine once remarked that it was “so refreshing” to be in the company of someone “who is interested in
things,”
but Amanda couldn’t help but feel that Christine viewed her essentially as a new project, another room to redo or piece of furniture to refinish. It was in this spirit that Amanda had been introduced to the group—“Y’all are going to love Amanda. She’s a bohemian”—but her novelty was clearly less appealing to the others. Kim and Ellen were polite and affable, but then, as Amanda had discovered, they were relentlessly polite and affable. Even the rounded tips of their manicured fingers and toes reminded Amanda of the shores of a coastline whose jagged edges and distinctive outcroppings had long been smoothed away. Amanda sometimes suspected that she could confess to murdering both her children and Kim and Ellen would nod sympathetically and say yes, they too had buried many infants in their basements, but if you placed open boxes of baking soda around the house it helped to absorb the smell. The first time Ellen and Kim had met Amanda, they greeted her with the feigned enthusiasm with which they accepted their children’s “finds” from the backyard. Patricia, on the other hand, had immediately fired off a series of laserlike questions that might reveal Amanda’s “point.” What sort of work had she done before she quit? Was she on any of the committees at the school? What did her husband do? They all registered surprise when Amanda answered that her husband worked in government. Amanda could see the question marks in their faces—Government? How do they afford it?—followed by the conclusion: she must come from money.
So that’s why Christine brought her.
Amanda sank lower, if that were possible, into the chair cushions. She stared through the tall windows at a terrace framed by boxwoods and the flat glint of a swimming pool just beyond. Patricia kept glancing in the direction of the playroom and at one point disappeared for a few minutes “just to check.” She reported that the nanny had plopped all the children in front of a video (
Thomas the Tank Engine
, she added, to the mothers’ approval). This smoothed the atmosphere somewhat, and Amanda relaxed a little, knowing it was unlikely that Ben would launch any new assault so long as there was a television switched on.
Then it was Christine who startled them.
“I may as well tell you all,” she said matter-of-factly. “You probably would have noticed anyway. I’ve chosen a very special present for my fortieth birthday. When Brian asked me what did I want—diamonds? a trip to Venice?—I told him, ‘Honey, I want my thirty-year-old face back.’ ”
“That’s fabulous, Christine!” Ellen exclaimed immediately. “You
deserve
it.”
“What are you going to get done?” Kim asked eagerly. Kim was their resident scholar on beauty treatments. Every week she seemed to be undergoing some new treatment that promised to shave a year off her appearance. At their last gathering she had arrived with a swollen, blistered face. Amanda thought she must have had some terrible experience with a sunlamp, but Kim explained that she had received a “chemical peel”—a procedure that scorched away the top layer of her skin. Kim said the red blisters would fall off and expose the soft, youthful layer of skin below. The blisters disappeared as predicted, but Amanda could not detect any real difference: Kim’s skin shone as any surface will, given regular and attentive polishing.
“Not a lot,” Christine replied. “Eyes, forehead, chin. It won’t be a full face-lift, not yet, just a general tweaking.”
“Thank goodness I don’t need anything,” said Patricia, patting her sagging cheeks.
“Christine’s not doing it because she
needs
to. She’s doing it because she
wants
to—right, Christine?”
“You’re nice to
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