Nell Read Free Page A

sighed and unzipped the robe and took it off in order to strip off her leotard and tights—if she left them on, she’d have a hell of a time getting everything down and off when the diuretic made her rush to the bathroom. She dropped the tights and leotard on a pile of clothes that needed to be hung up or folded and stood for a moment, naked, in her bedroom. The mirror on the back of the closet door gave her a full-length reflection of herself, and Nell turned slowly in front of it, scrutinizing her body.
    Nell was accustomed to mirrors. She worked around them constantly in the boutique and had learned how to ignore her own image while concentrating on that of a customer. All her life she had practiced poses, acting parts in front of mirrors. They had become her familiars and seemed to speak to her in a sort of ghostly feminine whisper. “Pull those shoulders back! Hold in your stomach!” they would say. The voices of course were her mother’s, her dance instructor’s, her acting coache’s, all echoing in her head. It was her own voice, too—her own judgment, really—that was reflected back at her, but now that her parents were aging and far away, she often felt that a mirror gave as much mothering as she got these days.
    Then, too, mirrors reminded her that she was lucky, after all. Directors and friends often said it was her personality that made her so attractive—her intensity, her vivacity—but Nell knew that it was really just that she had been lucky enough to have a body that would always look good in tight jeans. She was tall—five foot eight—and worry had kept her slim, and the early years of dance and the later years of disciplined exercise had kept her limber and taut, so that now as she turned in front of her mirror, she saw that from the back she looked like a smooth young girl. It was on her breasts and belly that time, experience, childbirth, and nursing had made their marks—there the flesh had stretched and now sagged slightly. No amount of exercise would ever bring her small pink-tippedbreasts back up to their former plumpness. Never large, her breasts before she’d had the children had at least been firm, even pert. Now—now she had fantasies of having silicone implants, but she knew she could never afford them. And there was a little bowl-like bulge beneath her belly button, a kind of soft round insistency there that would never go away and that, unless Nell exercised diligently, threatened to expand and take over her entire torso. But she looked wonderful in clothes and not repulsive in a bikini, so it was all right, she supposed.
    Also, she liked the colors of her body; she had always liked how everything seemed to be of the same tone. Her skin was creamily pale, covered here and there with freckles, which were of the same reddish-brown color as her eyes. When she had been younger, she had lightened her hair slightly, so that she was a strawberry blonde, and then her large eyes had seemed darker. But now strands of gray were showing up here and there, and Nell had taken to darkening her hair slightly to a deep reddish-brown, dramatic against her pale skin, more sophisticated than the lighter color. Her hair was thick, slightly wavy, and she kept it long so that she had a variety of ways to wear it—it was a lot, after all, to have long lean thighs and thick rich hair.
    When she was younger Nell had worn her hair in odd, extravagant ways: pulled up to the side in a spout of ponytail, or braided when wet so that it frizzed out softly all around her face in the style of a pre-Raphaelite heroine’s. But now she had laugh lines around her mouth and eyes and, when she was tired or worried, little bluish pouches under her eyes; she could seldom get away with flamboyant hairstyles now. When working, she wore her hair pulled back in a chignon or she let it fall down and loose, held off her face demurely with a headband or clasp. The rest of the time she just let it go; she brushed it out full so