Shopping for clothes, the woman in the locker room went on. That used to be fun. That used to bring joy. But now it was more like a punishment. Whenever she needed new pants or a new dress, she had to try on a hundred things before she found something that fit, and the whole time she had to look in the mirror. She would stand there looking at herself in the mirror and gritting her teeth, she said, gritting her teeth now as she told me the story, thinking how it used to be—not just how much fun but the high she always got from admiring her own body.

From the back is the worst, she said. I really can’t stand how I look from the back. I never wear anything anymore that doesn’t cover my butt.

Going to the beach, going swimming, getting a tan—all these things used to be fun too, the woman in the locker room said. But now there was no way she’d ever appear in public in a swimsuit, she wouldn’t even go out wearing shorts. No matter how hot it was, she said, she always covered herself up. Even if she lost weight, even if she was thin again, she wouldn’t show her body in public, she said. Even though she knew she didn’t look worse than most women her age—she knew that in fact she looked better than most of them—she didn’t understand how some women could show themselves basically naked the way so many did, without self-consciousness, without shame. When she saw a woman walking on the beach with cottage-cheese thighs and a belly slung like a hammock, she had to turn away, the woman in the locker room said, she couldn’t even look. And she would rather die than give anyone a reason to feel that way about her.

There was genuine horror in the woman’s voice. There was horror and bitterness and pain. What a nasty trick life had played on her.

Have you heard the one about X, Y, or Z, who had so many facelifts that the dimple in her chin is really her navel? As I recall, the first time I heard this joke it was about Elizabeth Taylor.