Part 16 (1/2)

”What razor?”

”You know, the razor you shave with in the shower.”

She blinked behind her bifocals. ”I don't shave.”

I didn't understand. ”How can you not shave, like your armpits or your legs?”

”I don't have hair anymore.”

I tried to hold the car steady. Luckily we were almost at the airport. ”What happened your hair?”

”It went away.”

”What? It disappeared?”

”Yeah. It's gone.”

I felt appalled. I had no idea. Was I going to lose all my leg hair, too? n.o.body told me, which is why I'm telling you. I needed more information, for both of us. ”When did it go?”

She shrugged.

”Was it recently?”

”I don't know and I don't care.”

We both fell quiet a minute, and the only sound was the thumpa thumpa thumpa thumpa of the winds.h.i.+eld wipers. I worried that I'd made her self-conscious. of the winds.h.i.+eld wipers. I worried that I'd made her self-conscious.

”Well, was it before the colander broke or after?” I asked, and we both laughed.

We reached the airport, where I parked and walked her to the gate, having successfully convinced the ticket agent that she gets confused in airports and needed to be escorted. We stopped by the gift shop, where she got two puzzle books and a bottle of water. They sold only the large bottles, which she struggled to hold in her gnarled fingers. We made our way to the gate and took our seats, her with her bottle and books on her lap, waiting for the plane and watching the babies go by. We thought every one was cute, but none cuter than Francesca when she was little. This is a conversation I never tire of, and the only person I can have it with is my mother, who was the first one at the child's ba.s.sinet twenty-odd years ago.

I gave her a nudge. ”Ma, you know, Francesca throws her razor away every four uses.”

Mother frowned. ”Why?”

”The magazine says you're supposed to, now. After three times.”

”Throw away a perfectly good razor?”

”Yes. It gets dull.”

”What magazine says that?”

”I don't know.”

”I do. A crazy magazine.”

I thought about that a minute. About being old enough that all your hair has fallen out and you can barely hold the water bottle and you need help just to find the plane because all the announcements are incomprehensible in both English and Spanish, and the airlines love to play musical gates. About the fact that she had lived through a Depression, a world war, and the death of each and every one of her eighteen brothers and sisters, which is not a misprint. She was the youngest of nineteen children, three of whom died of the flu during their childhood, right here in America. Leaving only her, the youngest.

And she is still here.

The sole survivor.

Strong and on her feet, with all of her marbles. She lives in a world that changed from colanders that never break to razors that get tossed after only a week. She expects things not to break because she has not, after all.

She alone remains.

Unbreakable.

Mirror, Mirror

There's things I won't spend money on and things I will. For example, I spend money on pretentious clothes for book tour, and that's fine with me. I earn the money and I never judge people's spending habits, especially my own.

I learned this lesson when I met a man who had spent several thousand dollars on toy trains. You couldn't pay me to spend money on toy trains, but that's me. I could see it made him happy, which makes absolute sense, because he's not me. Turns out that money can buy happiness, if it runs on a miniature track past tiny fake shrubbery, and who am I to judge? Now, when I buy shoes, I think, at least I'm not blowing money on little model boxcars, for G.o.d's sake.

That would be really stupid.

To return to topic, here's what I don't spend money on: My skin.

I wash my face with a three-dollar jug of Cetaphil that I buy at Walgreen's. If I'm feeling fancy, which I never am, I buy whatever drugstore moisturizer they're marketing for old broads. You know the one. They call it age-defying or age-defining or some other euphemism, but we weren't born yesterday, and we all know what it is-the menopausal moisturizer.

I'm thinking that the world divides into two groups: women who buy their skin-care products at CVS and those who buy them at the mall, which is where today's adventure starts in earnest.

I'm with daughter Francesca, standing at one of the nicest makeup counters at the mall, which also has a skin care line. Oddly, for the past few years, I've been getting free samples of this skin care line sent to me in the mail. I have no idea who sends them to me, whether it's the department store, the Skin Care G.o.ds, or someone who has seen me on the street and been secretly revolted by my skin. But they've been sending me these products for a long time, and I've been giving them to Francesca. She'd told me that she liked them, and if I cared enough I would have found out why, but it's probably the one conversation we didn't have, until I found myself on the paying side of the glistening counter, listening to a gorgeous salesgirl with the most perfect skin ever describe how they put diamond dust in the face wash.

”Did you say diamonds?” I asked. If I had a hearing aid, I would have checked the battery.

”Yes, the dust exfoliates the skin.”

”With diamonds diamonds?”

”Yes, and you have to make sure you wash it all off, or your face will be sparkly.”

”Like a stripper?” I asked, and Francesca added: ”The richest stripper in the world.”

Then we listened to the rest of the pitch, and in five minutes, I felt myself mesmerized by the salesgirl, or maybe by her skin. Her pores s.h.i.+mmered like precious gems, never mind that she was twenty years old, which means that she wasn't a salesgirl, but a saleschild.

Then she showed us a toner, which I had always thought was something you put in your computer printer but was actually applied to the face after diamond-exfoliating, and she also helped me understand that I needed both a day cream and a night cream, though I had never before thought about face cream having a time limit, which shows what a complete rube I've been. was something you put in your computer printer but was actually applied to the face after diamond-exfoliating, and she also helped me understand that I needed both a day cream and a night cream, though I had never before thought about face cream having a time limit, which shows what a complete rube I've been.

She asked, ”Do you ladies have an eye cream?”