She takes a cold shower in the dim bathroom, the place feeling more like the moon than her house in the skylight’s strange cast. Naked and dripping, she watches herself dry off in the mirror. She’s still pretty, still trim. But she misses those days of stepping into the bathroom to take a piss in the morning and being startled by how beautiful that woman in the mirror was. Half asleep, one of Danny’s baggy T-shirts hanging nearly to her knees, it didn’t matter: she was gorgeous, and not even trying. She could eat whatever she wanted, drink all the drinks, let her hair go wild. The curve of her ass, the way her breasts sat on her ribs—she loved her body then. Even after the boys, and they breastfed like wolves, she looked good—maybe even better.

That beauty was something she had for so long that she forgot about it. Then poof. Divorced (the second time) at forty-one, moving across the desert, hanging on to some vague idea of herself—but what part, exactly? It isn’t her youth, she knows wanting that is foolhardy. She can’t look like she did at twenty-two, she won’t. Is there timeless beauty in her? No, that is something they say about ladies who have gone to seed. She’s still beautiful, and not in that magnanimous way. But even as she convinces herself of this, in the mirror she can see how her ass has begun to sag, how her breasts swing low.

She twists one towel around her blond hair, wraps another across her chest. She knows this much: there’s no more surprise-herself beauty.

In the dark she feels her way through mascara and powdering her nose, then gets dressed in a pink Juicy sweat suit. She should have grapefruit, but opening the fridge will hurry up the spoiling inside. It’s better to go out, wet hair and all.

Bacon, eggs, home fries, an English muffin—she orders the kind of greasy-spoon breakfast she used to be able to eat without thinking twice, and Lord, does it taste good. The woman on the other side of the counter, managing the crowd all on her own, reminds Tami of herself, how she used to feel running around, looking after those boys and worrying about Danny. Young, but old. Worn out. That was the other part of her twenties—it was an awful time. For a few years there she existed on the constant verge of tears. She remembers driving down the highway, feeling like she might as well just lie down in the parking lot of the next truck stop and wait for a big rig to roll right over her pretty little body, put her out of her misery. Now, the money’s just as tight, things with her boys are different but still not good, and she’s alone again. Getting older, pickling, puckering. Pruning, that’s what Joanne called it. Joanne, who gave her this Juicy sweat suit—there’s some irony for you. It’s another set of problems now, not better or worse, just different. But most of the time, Tami doesn’t want to lie down in a parking lot.