Such a pretty face.

Or it would be, if only she’d remember to…

Or it used to be, before she took to…

The truth is, the face is aging. The skin is beginning to sag on the skull. She props her chin on her palm, elbow on table, and she mangles her mouth as she speaks. Squeezes her lower lip between two fingers, or mashes her upper lip against her teeth with her sideways thumb. “Ummm” she says to hold her conversational place while she gathers her words, “Ummm” while she kneads and mashes, and “Ummm: this is all I brought for cold weather – I wasn’t expecting any chilliness – oh, this is my least favorite kind of vacation day.” She appears to think out loud, reacting to the gray sky but ignoring the mildness of the temperature, engaged in one of her theoretical frets. Her attitude is petulant and her movements are spasmodic against the lush landscaping of the ranch.

She has blonde hair. Her colorist paints it that way every five weeks. It was blonde when she was a baby, and it continues blonde as flocking on her legs, as down on her arms, as gnarl over her crotch. It would be dull brown and matte gray on her head, but her colorist makes it streaky blonde, and her stylist makes it a chin-length bob. Her manicurist applies acrylic tips to her fingernails so they seem long and shapely, but she worries at them with her other fingers, works them along the edge of her teeth when she isn’t lip mashing, and that fidgeting detracts from the look of her hands at least as much as the acrylic tips enhance them.

Her name is Sharon, and she doesn’t see herself when she looks in the mirror. She fails to note the small vertical lines in front of each ear that make her painted face sometimes appear like a mask. She never catches herself unsmiling, insecure-chinned, tremulous. She tosses that blonde hair frequently, and she often complains about her daughter.

“Jessica’s impossible to please,” she declares. She shakes her hair forward, massages her chin, jingles her bracelet. “No matter what I bring her it won’t be acceptable. Won’t be ‘cool.’ But I have to bring her something,” she concludes like it’s a fact. She crosses one knee over the other and swings her sandaled foot. Her pedicured toes gleam cardinal red. Blue veins zigzag like twine up her shin.

Jessica is difficult. She is sixteen-going-on-thirty but she has been her mother’s challenge since birth. Sharon loves her of course, but distrusts her. Always has. As far back as she can remember, Jessica has been watching her, critically judging her. From the crib, from the Johnny-Jump-Up, from the corner of the livingroom couch. That’s how it’s always seemed.

When she was young Sharon was beautiful. Her hair then was thick and her legs then were smooth. She always had big breasts. Jessica by contrast is a medium brunette, flat-chested, acne-cheeked. But Jessica has something – poise or posture or confidence or perhaps it is simply youth – the girl has an attractive presence that makes her mother feel competitive.

Maybe the resentment started at birth, for Sharon did not feel the surge of passionate affection that swept her when she bore her sons. She loved the baby, certainly, but without that voracious intensity. She noted her husband’s besotment with a little jealousy; Neil was her second spouse and she was then still in love with him, but Jessica was his first-born, his darling: perfection-in-a-diaper. She forgot the envy as she forgot her affection for Neil, but her body remembered and her eyes always looked critically upon her daughter. That may be why she was so surprised two years ago, at the anniversary party, when fourteen-year-old Jess appeared in a strapless red sheath, hair pulled into an attempted twist and lips colored off-scarlet, and Sharon overheard an eighteen-year-old male refer to her as “gorgeous.” Surprised unto devastation, as the same young man looked right through Sharon, barely excusing himself (“ma’am”) as he edged past her while eying her daughter.

And that was two years ago. Now Jessica has even more presence. She sways her hips with authority when she walks. She disdains just about everything her mother likes.