The Ballad of Fluff and Gloria
Because I am a woman in her mid-forties so close to being invisible that I am transparent, I obsess about Restylane and Juvederm and Botox and Liposculpture.
I plot.
To hold back the tide of aging, I could open a secret account and squirrel money away week by week in tiny increments that my beloved wouldn't notice (actually I could put large increments away and he still wouldn't notice because my grip on this family's purse-strings is so firm my fingers are turning purple).
I'd go to Bangkok to have all the work done, then spend a couple weeks on the beach drinking Mai Tais and recovering before coming home as fresh as Marina, the twenty-something girl he was dating before we met. I know she is fresh because about six months after we started seeing each other, I spied on her at the homeware shop where she worked. (No, that does not count as stalking. I went in, had a perve, and walked out. Wouldn’t you?) Anyway, this was many years ago and surely she’s still not as flawless as she is in my mind’s eye; maybe she’s holding back a tide of her own by now.
But back to my fantasy: because it is mine alone and extremely well-developed, I can totally see myself lying on that beach and working on my tan because sun exposure has no relationship whatsoever to wrinkles. Also the Mai Tais are calorie-free and the cocktail waitress is pony-tailed and wears a lime green bikini. There are dolphins cavorting in the waves and calling out for me to swim with them but I'm too lazy.
Then the reasonable part of me, the part that tries very hard to hang her personal and professional life upon a feminist framework, clears her throat and steps into the fantasy.
“Hey,” the frivolous, superficial me – we’ll call her Fluff -- mutters, flinging a slim, bronzed arm over her eyes. “You’re blocking my sun!”
“Put this hat on and come with me.” Gloria throws Fluff a wide-billed cap with an LPGA logo embroidered on the front. “We need to talk.”
Gloria turns and starts walking down the beach, her strides long and sure. In her left hand is a bottle of Dom Perignon and in her right, two glasses. Fluff leaves what’s left of her Mai Tai to melt in the tropical heat, tugs her bikini top into place and trots after Gloria.
The two women walk silently along the shore, the waves licking their perfectly pedicured toes. From a distance, they could be twins. They have a similar shape, the same gait, the same swing of the arms and tilt of the head. After a minute, Gloria stops and hands Fluff the flutes, pops the champagne and pours. The women toast wordlessly, and Fluff waits for the question she’s been asked a thousand times or more.
“Why do you hate me so much?” Gloria’s voice is pugnacious, but a quaver betrays the old wound beneath the demand. “Why do you think I’m ugly?”
Fluff averts her eyes for a moment before bracing her feet in the sand and facing her frenemy.
“It’s not that I think you’re ugly, exactly.” She looks closely at the three perfectly parallel lines across Gloria’s forehead, the twin railroad tracks shooting downward between her eyebrows, the ambiguous upper lip and the soft, subtle sag at the jaw line on either side of her chin. “It’s just... well, you could look better. You look tired.”
“You mean I look old.”
Fluff nods reluctantly.
“It’s like you’ve let something go.” Her voice is gentle, conciliatory, but she stays true to form. If she can’t be honest with herself, then what hope does she have? “It’s like you’ve given up on yourself.”
“Given up what, exactly?” Gloria takes a shuddering breath to calm herself. She is the one who barged into this fantasy, after all. There’s no point in shouting. “Given up the pleasure of being mumbled at by men as I walk past in the street? Given up being judged first on my appearance and last, if at all, by my brains?”
Fluff shakes her head.
“But why wouldn’t you choose to look pretty, if you could? And obviously you can. Look at me!”
“Pretty according to whom? Penthouse Magazine?” It’s Gloria’s turn now to examine Fluff’s face – the forehead, smooth and unmarked save for a 40-year-old chicken pox scar. The defined eyelids and proud, stretched brows. The caramel skin stretched tight across the jaw bone. The lips, glossed and plumped full of promise and god-knows-what-else.
“You don’t think there’s something a little startled around the eyes? A little desperate around the mouth?” Gloria brushes a finger across Fluff’s mouth. Their hands are identical. “You can polish the surface all you want but your body’s degenerating as we speak, you know.”
Fluff shudders and brushes Gloria’s hand away with a little impatient movement. “Maybe it is, but what is the harm in polishing the surface?If I can afford it and I’m willing, what’s the problem?”
Gloria laughs, surprised that Fluff would make such an amateur error after all these years of fighting the this battle. “Don’t forget I know all your little secrets, dearie. I know you don’t really think it’s okay to have a secret credit card our beloved doesn’t know about. And surely, if you’re going to squirrel away money, aren’t there more worthy things to spend it on? How many starving children could it feed?”
“Whatever.” Fluff takes a sip of champagne, annoyed at her blunder. “You know that’s not the point. The point is that it’s my body and there’s nothing unethical about doing whatever I want to it to make it look better to me. It makes me more confident. Happier.”
“Yes, but you know you’re buying into the same old plastic Hollywood bullshit that makes people believe that there’s something wrong with women like me, who are happy with how they look as they age. I’m proud of my laugh lines. And these railroad tracks are a gift from the old man.”
Fluff smiles and brushes Gloria’s hair out of her face.
“I see you’ve done your hair. Not a grey to be seen.”
It’s Gloria’s turn to scowl and shrug. This is a weak point in her argument and she knows it. She draws the line at lasers, needles and scalpels; makeup and overpriced moisturiser have their own permanent spot in her bathroom cupboard and her hairdresser’s number is on speed dial. Fluff has always found great joy in the seeming arbitrariness of that distinction.
The wind picks up and the frenemies feel themselves settling into a familiar stalemate. They toast once more, and drain the last of the Dom.
“Off you go,” says Fluff, as they hug goodbye. “Fuck off to your own fantasy.”
She walks back to her beach chair, then turns to see Gloria waving an enthusiastic goodbye.
“Your wings are flapping!” Fluff lifts her voice over the surf so Gloria can hear. “You really should get those fixed.”
I plot.
To hold back the tide of aging, I could open a secret account and squirrel money away week by week in tiny increments that my beloved wouldn't notice (actually I could put large increments away and he still wouldn't notice because my grip on this family's purse-strings is so firm my fingers are turning purple).
I'd go to Bangkok to have all the work done, then spend a couple weeks on the beach drinking Mai Tais and recovering before coming home as fresh as Marina, the twenty-something girl he was dating before we met. I know she is fresh because about six months after we started seeing each other, I spied on her at the homeware shop where she worked. (No, that does not count as stalking. I went in, had a perve, and walked out. Wouldn’t you?) Anyway, this was many years ago and surely she’s still not as flawless as she is in my mind’s eye; maybe she’s holding back a tide of her own by now.
But back to my fantasy: because it is mine alone and extremely well-developed, I can totally see myself lying on that beach and working on my tan because sun exposure has no relationship whatsoever to wrinkles. Also the Mai Tais are calorie-free and the cocktail waitress is pony-tailed and wears a lime green bikini. There are dolphins cavorting in the waves and calling out for me to swim with them but I'm too lazy.
Then the reasonable part of me, the part that tries very hard to hang her personal and professional life upon a feminist framework, clears her throat and steps into the fantasy.
“Hey,” the frivolous, superficial me – we’ll call her Fluff -- mutters, flinging a slim, bronzed arm over her eyes. “You’re blocking my sun!”
“Put this hat on and come with me.” Gloria throws Fluff a wide-billed cap with an LPGA logo embroidered on the front. “We need to talk.”
Gloria turns and starts walking down the beach, her strides long and sure. In her left hand is a bottle of Dom Perignon and in her right, two glasses. Fluff leaves what’s left of her Mai Tai to melt in the tropical heat, tugs her bikini top into place and trots after Gloria.
The two women walk silently along the shore, the waves licking their perfectly pedicured toes. From a distance, they could be twins. They have a similar shape, the same gait, the same swing of the arms and tilt of the head. After a minute, Gloria stops and hands Fluff the flutes, pops the champagne and pours. The women toast wordlessly, and Fluff waits for the question she’s been asked a thousand times or more.
“Why do you hate me so much?” Gloria’s voice is pugnacious, but a quaver betrays the old wound beneath the demand. “Why do you think I’m ugly?”
Fluff averts her eyes for a moment before bracing her feet in the sand and facing her frenemy.
“It’s not that I think you’re ugly, exactly.” She looks closely at the three perfectly parallel lines across Gloria’s forehead, the twin railroad tracks shooting downward between her eyebrows, the ambiguous upper lip and the soft, subtle sag at the jaw line on either side of her chin. “It’s just... well, you could look better. You look tired.”
“You mean I look old.”
Fluff nods reluctantly.
“It’s like you’ve let something go.” Her voice is gentle, conciliatory, but she stays true to form. If she can’t be honest with herself, then what hope does she have? “It’s like you’ve given up on yourself.”
“Given up what, exactly?” Gloria takes a shuddering breath to calm herself. She is the one who barged into this fantasy, after all. There’s no point in shouting. “Given up the pleasure of being mumbled at by men as I walk past in the street? Given up being judged first on my appearance and last, if at all, by my brains?”
Fluff shakes her head.
“But why wouldn’t you choose to look pretty, if you could? And obviously you can. Look at me!”
“Pretty according to whom? Penthouse Magazine?” It’s Gloria’s turn now to examine Fluff’s face – the forehead, smooth and unmarked save for a 40-year-old chicken pox scar. The defined eyelids and proud, stretched brows. The caramel skin stretched tight across the jaw bone. The lips, glossed and plumped full of promise and god-knows-what-else.
“You don’t think there’s something a little startled around the eyes? A little desperate around the mouth?” Gloria brushes a finger across Fluff’s mouth. Their hands are identical. “You can polish the surface all you want but your body’s degenerating as we speak, you know.”
Fluff shudders and brushes Gloria’s hand away with a little impatient movement. “Maybe it is, but what is the harm in polishing the surface?If I can afford it and I’m willing, what’s the problem?”
Gloria laughs, surprised that Fluff would make such an amateur error after all these years of fighting the this battle. “Don’t forget I know all your little secrets, dearie. I know you don’t really think it’s okay to have a secret credit card our beloved doesn’t know about. And surely, if you’re going to squirrel away money, aren’t there more worthy things to spend it on? How many starving children could it feed?”
“Whatever.” Fluff takes a sip of champagne, annoyed at her blunder. “You know that’s not the point. The point is that it’s my body and there’s nothing unethical about doing whatever I want to it to make it look better to me. It makes me more confident. Happier.”
“Yes, but you know you’re buying into the same old plastic Hollywood bullshit that makes people believe that there’s something wrong with women like me, who are happy with how they look as they age. I’m proud of my laugh lines. And these railroad tracks are a gift from the old man.”
Fluff smiles and brushes Gloria’s hair out of her face.
“I see you’ve done your hair. Not a grey to be seen.”
It’s Gloria’s turn to scowl and shrug. This is a weak point in her argument and she knows it. She draws the line at lasers, needles and scalpels; makeup and overpriced moisturiser have their own permanent spot in her bathroom cupboard and her hairdresser’s number is on speed dial. Fluff has always found great joy in the seeming arbitrariness of that distinction.
The wind picks up and the frenemies feel themselves settling into a familiar stalemate. They toast once more, and drain the last of the Dom.
“Off you go,” says Fluff, as they hug goodbye. “Fuck off to your own fantasy.”
She walks back to her beach chair, then turns to see Gloria waving an enthusiastic goodbye.
“Your wings are flapping!” Fluff lifts her voice over the surf so Gloria can hear. “You really should get those fixed.”
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