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Usually, the first thing I notice as I walk into her office, is her hair. All brown gray wiryness pulled back away from her face with a clip at the top and secured again at the nape of her neck with a hair band. The end of her pony tail hangs puffily down her back at an unremarkable length, untrimmed and slightly wild. At 65, she is balding slightly. The pale white of her scalp is visible across the crown of her head and it makes me uncomfortable to have her decay so clearly visible. A reminder of the inevitability of aging.
Her eyes are wide and a little manic. Her grin big, welcoming. Large teeth. A face both youthful in its exuberance but weathered. Its often easy despite the wrinkles and the sagging skin to forget her age when she addresses you. I imagine its the abundance of money that causes this, not that she is the type of person who would ever cosmetically alter her appearance, but that its tough to really grow up when you’ve rarely paid a bill alone or cleaned a toilet or raised your children without constant help. She speaks loudly, so that even when she whispers it seems like a dramatic aside more than a lowering of tone. Everything said with either excitement or hurriedness, since there is never a time when she is not busy. She is constantly juggling two or three phone calls. Putting you on hold so she can tell this friend or that friend about a party she is holding.
When I call her, as planned she says, loudly, “I am at a dinner with 30 people. What do you want?” Because she always answers the phone. And because she can never say, “I’m busy now can you call a little later.” All of the details of her life have to be shared, and I can’t help but think that its a shame that she is too old and too disconnected from technology to be able to enjoy something like twitter. Her updates would read, “Private museum tour and then dinner with 30 of my closest friends!!!!!!! XX.” (Which is how she signs out of her emails, ten X’s. Exclamation points.)
Her hands move a lot. Usually fingers splayed. Waving. The way the skin puckers around each knuckle, the occasional show of exaggerated daintiness, reminds me of my grandmother’s. Each finger is punctuated with chipped tomato red nail polish. I don’t recall ever seeing them not painted, but rarely fully. The tips always worn down just a bit, like a teenager.
Whenever she writes anything, which is often, she always looks in full concentration. Mouth open, her thick pink tongue moves slowly back and forth across the top of her bottom lip. Or else she is saying the words, just under her breath. “Deeeeaaaaar…. Gail…. pleaaaaasssseeeee…. seeee….the…attaaaaaached… in-viiiii-taaaaaa-tion.”
It is strange to watch someone so closely. To sit and wait in anticipation for the next task, watching them when it feels like you should be looking elsewhere. Noticing the white of their scalp, the way they cross one foot on top of the other when they stand or with their legs wide open, feet turned outward when they sit. Its an odd sort of intimacy.