"Those girls, those girls, those lovely seaside girls."
They're all young, their skin fresh and unblemished. The blush in their cheeks is delicately natural, not applied with a cotton puff. Their form of morning ablution is to ever-so-gently press fresh clear water to their cheeks and brows. They gaze at their reflections in limpid pools with limpid eyes.
Not a wrinkle in sight.
Understand that I am not a vain person. I stopped dying my hair when I was in my thirties. My make-up kit contains dried mascara from twelve years ago, blush that has caked and powdered. Lipstick is my concession to the avoidance of total colorlessness.
For years I have mocked women — and now men, I suppose — who nip and tuck and press and apply painful masques of skin-tightening substances. I come by my wrinkles honestly, I have proclaimed in my proto-feminist voice, and I’ve asserted that I am proud of them.
Until last week. I had just screwed a brighter bulb into the fixture above my bathroom mirror, and as I washed my hands I glanced up. Who is that, was my first thought. Reflected in the glass was a face creased and cracked and lined with uninvited marks which, if laid end to end, would cover the distance between Ithaca and Albany. The area above my top lip looked like an accordion. The sides of my mouth had triple parentheses. I leaned closer and got a better look at a neck gone to seed. My eyes looked as if someone had packed prunes underneath the skin beneath my lower lids.
Shaken, I left the bathroom. Understand, please, that in the catalog of catastrophes that are afflicting my cohort, including me, wrinkles rank very low on the list. But that I had been so unaware of my changing face, I who pride myself on my keen powers of observation! How do I adjust to living behind this crepe-covered mask?
I did the unthinkable. I marched myself to the cosmetics counter of a nearby department store, climbed awkwardly onto a stool, and when the sleek blond saleswoman in her starched white coat asked if she could help me, I pointed to my face.
"Oh,” she said sympathetically, and turned to explore her larder of products assuring youth and beauty to all comers. When she turned back to me, she was holding something in each hand.
"These are collagen drops blended with blah blah blah.” I lost the last part of her sentence, never having studied advanced chemistry. “Four drops rubbed in twice a day, followed by this firming moisturizer.” She unscrewed a small glass jar which contained a substance that looked like whipped cream. “You’ll see, in a month you’ll notice a big difference.”
She applied a coat of each, and indeed, my skin felt fresher, younger. Maybe it was starting to work already! I had a brief fantasy of walking with my 51 year old daughter and hearing someone say “They must be sisters.”
To the bottom line. “How much? “ I asked. “Cuanto cuesta?”
"The drops are forty dollars, the moisturizer is fifty.”
She saw the look of a startled deer in my eyes. “But it’s a full month’s supply,” she said reassuringly.
I’m reasonably good at math. Ninety times twelve — that’s more than $1,000! What could I do with a thousand dollars? How many Moosewood lunches? Books from Buffalo Street? Movies at Cinemapolis? Gifts to grandchildren, charitable contributions, writing workshops?
With effort and profuse apologies, I climbed off the stool and went to a nearby hardware store, where, in the electrical supply department, I purchased a dozen dimmer lightbulbs.
Problem solved.
