Chapter 10
Willa returned to find Pete lying face-down on the living room carpet.
His arms were out in a T for a game of “Tickle Monster,” where the boys try to dash past his grasp without getting tackled to the floor.
“I am Moana!” James sang out, inexplicably, before starting his run. Pete grabbed an ankle and took him down. Chicken was concerned, barking at the mayhem, then sneezed productively in Pete’s face.
Charlie leapt over his dad’s arm like a seasoned hurdler, celebrating with a high-speed rendition of The Floss before noticing Willa. He screwed up his face. “Is it raining?”
“No, honey, this is sweat. I had training today and practiced some of the workout,” Willa said, putting her things down on the counter and heading for the bathroom.
“Ewwwwww,” she heard James say before he dissolved into giggles on the floor again.
For Willa, few things felt as good as a warm shower after a hard workout. Orgasms were nice, of course, but the eccentric couple who sold them this house had installed a cat door to the bedroom that neither Willa nor Pete was handy enough, or motivated enough, to close up or remove. That meant a child could pop through the flap with a “Heeeeeeeere’s Johnny!” at any time. So sex was squeezed into the early-morning or late-night sections of the schedule.
You know what else felt really good? Going through her eight-step skincare routine after she stepped out of the shower — a meditative regimen of toner, antioxidant, sun-spot reducer, retinol, hyaluronic acid, under-eye cream, moisturizer, and facial oil.
When she was supposed to be working, Willa often read the recurring “How She Gets Her Skin So Good” feature in New York Magazine and took notes on what made people look the dewiest. Here, in the mirror, she examined the deep, hereditary lines on her forehead and the vertical wrinkles emerging between her brows. The delicate crow’s feet around her eyes and her laugh lines bothered her less; she liked that there were signs of happiness there.
Her Aunt Kit hated wrinkles. A stereotype in a musty mink, the old woman had routinely scolded teenage Willa for furrowing her brow when she tried to make sense of the stuck-in-the-1960s menu — Waldorf salad with walnuts? Lobster Newburg? And what fresh hell is Ambrosia? — during endless dinners at their New Jersey country club. “Relax your forehead. And put down the bread or you won’t keep the weight off,” Aunt Kit would say, waggling a ring-laden finger. Then, to the server she’d cluck: “Oh, aren’t you a handsome young man? Am I finished? Oh, yes. I couldn’t eat another bite. I have the appetite of a bird.”
Internalized sexism and self-loathing were handed down like hope chests in Willa’s family. Her own mother tried to stop the cycle, with some success. Deb was a solid and well-meaning parent, both before and after the divorce, who passed to Willa a set of feminist values but sometimes left the decision-making to the alpha males she dated.
Deb had done the hard work of raising strong-willed Willa, who dropped her first F bomb when she was four (a boy on a 10-speed bike told her it was a really good cookie) and learned to inhale Marlboro Lights at age 12 (“Breathe the smoke in and hold it,” Rebecca Sampson said. “Then say ‘and there was a black cat,’ before you blow it out.”)
In third grade, after the divorce, Willa started picking her cuticles and couldn’t stop, so her mother sent her to a well-meaning therapist who thought playing basketball during session would help Willa open up. It didn’t, so the psychologist gave shaming a try, tsking as she took photos of Willa’s fingertips each week to show regression or, rarely, progress. “Will a boy want to hold your hand?” the therapist would say.
As an adult, Willa would often split a bottle of wine with Allison and threaten to smash the patriarchy. They were particularly disgusted by the “male gaze.” Did interviewers ask Justin Timberlake about his dick? Then why did they ask Britney Spears about her breasts? Pulling up accounts on Instagram that compared real life to PhotoShopped images, Willa and Allison would zoom in, disgusted that society’s standards made women feel like they had to remake their real bodies into unnatural, unattainable shapes.
What they didn’t discuss was the insecurity all of this bred in them both, sending them spiraling to the gym after seeing a bad selfie or when a pair of pants didn’t fit quite the way it used to. They both used FaceTune to subtly touch up their photographs on social media — but didn’t everyone do that?
Whenever Willa and Pete watched Netflix, she would look up the ages of the female stars. She’d examine the fine lines around an actress’ lips and scrutinize their foreheads, to see if they moved.
“Do I look like I’m the same age as that female detective?” Willa would ask, trying to sound casual.
Pete, wisely, would think for a moment before answering, then say: “You look so much better than her, hon.”
Willa would never admit to liking that, or to liking it when she got cat-called during a run. She never told anyone that she experienced a tiny thrill when she knew a man was looking at her in the grocery store. Maybe the need for this kind of approval was genetic. Regardless, Willa had a sneaking suspicion that she would become more invisible to men with every passing year and that, by the time she turned 50, she would disappear entirely from their consciousness. So she quietly celebrated when men noticed her now.
She leaned closer to the mirror. Was it time to try Botox?
“Mommy! I have to poop!” Charlie yelled, banging on the door and turning the knob.
“We have another bathroom, you know,” Willa said.
“But it doesn’t have a bidet!” Charlie returned.
“Good point, buddy.” She opened the door and headed to the bedroom to get dressed.