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MIRROR, MIRROR
AFTER AN EPOCH, the week finally ends. I’m giddy and trying not to be. This is more
difficult than you’d imagine. Trying not to smile only makes you smile more.
Carla watches me struggle to choose what to wear. It’s not something I’ve ever given
much thought to. Really, I’ve never given any thought to it. My closet consists entirely of
white T-shirts and blue jeans. The jeans are arranged by type—straight, skinny, boot cut,
wide leg, the ridiculously named “boyfriend.” My shoes—all Keds, all white—are piled in a
heap in the back corner. I almost never wear shoes around the house and now I’m not
sure that I can find a pair that will fit. Rummaging through the pile, I find a left and right
one of the same size. They fit, but just barely. I stand in front of the mirror. Is your shirt
supposed to match your shoes or is that your purse? Is white the best color for my
chestnut complexion? I make a mental note to do some shopping later. I’ll buy a T-shirt
in every color until I find the one that suits me best.
For the fifth time I ask Carla if my mom has already left.
“You know your mother,” she says. “Has she ever been late a day in her life?”
My mother believes in punctuality the way other people believe in God. Time is
precious, she says, and it’s rude to waste someone else’s. I’m not even allowed to be late
for Friday Night Dinners.
I look at myself in the mirror, change the V-necked white T-shirt for a scoop-neck white
T-shirt for no reason at all. Or not for no reason. But to have something to do while
waiting for Olly.
I wish again that I could talk to my mom about this. I want to ask her why I get
breathless when I think of him. I want to share my giddiness with her. I want to tell her
all the funny things Olly says. I want to tell her how I can’t make myself stop thinking
about him even though I try. I want to ask her if this is the way she felt about Dad at the
beginning.
I tell myself it’s OK. I didn’t get sick after the last time I saw him, and he knows the
rules—no touching, full decontamination treatment, no visit if he even suspects he could
get sick in the next few days.
I tell myself there’s no harm in lying to my mom. I tell myself I won’t get sick. I tell
myself there’s no harm in friendship.
That Carla is right, and love can’t kill me.