Suzanne went back to her bedroom and put a cassette in her stereo. She liked to listen to soundtracks in the morning. In the car she only liked rock ‘n’ roll, but soundtracks were house music. This morning she put on Somewhere in Time, which sounded like what she thought love was like. It sounded like longing. She listened to the music thoughtfully as she sipped her juice and walked back into the bathroom. Her thoughts seemed more like poetry to her, and less like idle chatter, with this music on. She turned off the water and sat in the tub.

The score started to gnaw at Suzanne a little as she bathed. It had been recommended to her by a musician she had gone out with once named Chester Pryce, whom she had liked but had never heard from again. She couldn’t remember whether she had liked him before she never heard from him again or only afterward. In any case, he had told her about this music—he said he listened to it a lot—but he hadn’t warned her that it sounded like feelings you had to be brave about. Suzanne imagined Chester listening to it in his car as he wistfully drove over a cliff.

She reached for her towel, stood up, and got out of the tub, surveying her reflection in the mirror. She had to get thin. In fact, she had to get too thin, so she could eat for a couple of days and not have to worry that much about it. “I won’t eat today unless I absolutely have to,” she thought.

Then she saw the looming largeness of a new blemish on her chin. It looked to her like a new feature. “I’m already worrying about wrinkles and I’m still getting pimples,” she thought. “Life is a cruel, horrible joke and I am the punch line.” She was especially dismayed because she had to go to her friend Wallis’s party that night, which would have been difficult enough for her to attend with relatively clear skin.

She got into her gym outfit, which was a black bathing suit with little teddy bears on it that she had purchased in Hawaii a few years ago after losing her luggage. She wasn’t what you would call enthusiastic about teddy bears, but it had been an emergency and the suit made her tits look good. She pulled on her turquoise-and-black-checked shorts. Her ensemble was less than stylish, but when Suzanne got used to an outfit, she stayed with it. She pulled on her black socks and turquoise sneakers, sprayed herself with perfume and deodorant, wiped some makeup under her eyes, got her purse, put on her sunglasses, and left for the gym.