Such a Fun Age

Alix couldn’t tell if she was happier or if she just cared less.

Emira found herself arranging her mouth as if she’d ingested something too hot. She caught a morphed reflection in a freezer door, and she saw herself in her entirety. Her face—full brown lips, a tiny nose, and a high forehead covered with black bangs—barely showed up in the reflection. Her black skirt, her slinky V-neck top, and her liquid eyeliner refused to take shape in the panels of thick glass. All she could see was something very dark and skinny, and the top of a small, blond stick of hair that belonged to Briar Chamberlain.

“Peter accidentally—we had an incident with a broken window and… I just need to get Briar out of the house.” Mrs. Chamberlain’s voice was calm and strangely articulate, as if she were delivering a baby and saying, Okay, mom, it’s time to push. “I’m so sorry to call you this late,” she said. “I just don’t want her to see the police.”

Alex. It sounded whiny and pedestrian, and it felt like she’d discovered a vegetable deep in a refrigerator drawer, forgotten so long that the mold it gained had also started to gain mold.

There’s literally one thing I’m good at, Emira thought, and that’s taking care of your daughter.

Emira loved the ease in which she could lose herself in the rhythm of childcare. She didn’t have to worry about having interesting hobbies. The fact that she still slept on a twin bed meant nothing to Briar or any of their plans. Every day with Briar was a tiny victory that Emira didn’t want to give up. Seven o’clock was always a win. Here’s your kid. She’s happy and
alive.

More than Emira hated the idea of going out, she hated the idea of Zara going without her. She knew this was a stretch, but if Emira wasn’t there, Zara could possibly realize that Emira wasn’t her closest friend, but rather the reason why the four women didn’t do more things, like take tropical trips on summer Fridays or utilize gel manicure discount days or try exercise classes like stiletto workouts. Emira wished she also wore school sweatshirts (or scrubs, or button-downs that she considered “work clothes”) that would give her periodic reasons to celebrate, or a valid excuse to say no and stay in.

Emira didn’t love doing anything, but she didn’t terribly mind doing anything either.

Is that what we’re supposed to be doing right now? ’Cause if it is, I ain’t there

at the edge of a tiny existential crisis