“Look down,” Diann says, and carefully applies mascara. “I’ll tell you something, Myra. It makes you retarded, being pretty. You learn to rely on something that doesn’t last. That isn’t real. You hit the age where we are now, and you start to panic, because you’ve built your house on sand.” She does something with eye shadow, puts some coral-colored lipstick on me. “I don’t date much either, now. And I have the experience of walking in a room and having not one head turn. I know it never meant anything, when that happened. But it meant something. And being without it makes me … scared.”

“People still look at you,” I say. “You still look great.”

“No,” she says. “Believe me. I think one of the reasons I wanted to get back with Chip is that he still saw me that old way. Selfish, huh? Stupid.”

“I don’t know,” I say. “I don’t know what brings people together, really. I’m retarded myself.”

Diann laughs. “Met in the middle after all these years, huh?” She uses a huge brush to apply blush to my cheeks. “Okay. Done. Take a look.”

I start to get up, then sit back down. “Is it funny? It is, isn’t it?”

“Not at all.”

I stand up, look in the mirror. Swallow. Nod. And pick up a washrag.

“Don’t!” Diann says. “You look nice! You’re just not used to it!”

“I look like … I don’t look good. I’m sorry. But I look stupid.” I turn on the tap water.

Diann reaches over, turns it off. “You stop that, Myra! You leave that makeup on and you come and sit with me for a while. Then come back and look again. It looks great.”

“I don’t want to,” I say, but she takes me by the hand and leads me downstairs into the living room.

“I feel like a clown,” I say.

“You look just fine.”

“I feel ridiculous.”

“Feel ridiculous, then. Now sit,” she says, and points to the couch. Frank, standing beside me, sits.

Diann laughs. “Can I take your dog with me when I leave?”

“No,” I say. And then, “What do you mean ‘when you leave’? Are you leaving?”

She says nothing.

“Diann?”

“You know, I have loved him forever. I really have. But I’ve been here for over three weeks and I just don’t think I can do this anymore. Anyway, he doesn’t want me to.”

“What makes you think that?”

“He told me. He feels more comfortable with you, Myra.”

“Well, it’s because I can—”

“It’s because he likes you. Likes you. Funny, isn’t it, that even at the end, there’s still this fucking competition.”

Chapter 14

In the morning, I come downstairs and see Diann at the kitchen table, drinking coffee. She is dressed in the same outfit she arrived in, and her suitcase is beside her.