Read Online Younger by Suzanne Munshower - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Suzanne Munshower
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“She wasn’t shy about the contraption, though she wouldn’t discuss it other than to say, ‘Oh, yes, my chin strap.’ But she never tried to hide it.”
The old woman whose picture Anna held was clownish yet Felliniesque, the traces of her former beauty still there. The strap holding her neck where she wanted it to be was dark and stood out starkly. “No surgery?”
He shook his head. “She was almost a hundred when she died in the midnineties.” He shrugged. “Even movie stars didn’t rush out for plastic surgery in the old days. It was dangerous, for one thing. They relied on clips and ties hidden in their hair to pull their skin taut. They wore lots of scarves. And it was all for the same reason, of course: they couldn’t face looking old, neither for their fans nor themselves.”
Anna handed the photo back as a waiter arrived with their food. She ate her fish slowly, pondering. While Pierre’s mother had none of the feline deformities of Jocelyn Wildenstein, the Manhattan socialite who’d become famous in America for spending $4 million trying to look like a cat, Marie Héloise’s face was grotesque as the gargoyles on the buttresses of Notre Dame. She looked up at Barton. “And your mother? Who couldn’t she afford to look old for?”
“Herself. My father left her when she was forty and he was sixty-six . . . for a woman of twenty-eight. It did something to my mother’s mind, left her a little unhinged. She wanted my father to regret leaving her, even though he was in London and rarely thought about her, much less saw her. I was still living with her when she started. ‘You’ll see, Pierre,’ she’d say, ‘you’re going to have the most beautiful mother in France.’
“Instead, she became addicted to the knife. Every time she tried to fix something, it got worse. She says she’s content to live with her face and others will have to, as well.” He chuckled fondly. “She really is a true eccentric.” Then he looked up from his plate, his face serious. “Still, no woman should have to go through that, Anna.”
“But if girls and women were taught to have more self-respect—”
“Can the world change that quickly? Look at the actors, the tycoons, the politicians, the athletes. Are they choosing women for their sense of self-respect? Look at the real world, Anna—the world where older men remain dignified while older women are scorned. It’s not just my mother I’m thinking of. It’s every woman who’s tried to find work once she’s mature or who’s felt invisible or devalued after her fortieth birthday. If you ask me, that’s even more important.”
“Women like me?” she murmured.
“Yes, women like you, Anna. Women who are equal to their male counterparts and their younger competitors in every way. Women who are underpaid, ignored, told, ‘Sorry, nothing for you.’ We can’t quickly change how people think, but we can change how women look.”
She stared at the tablecloth, silent, as the waiter removed their plates and Pierre ordered coffee. She took a deep breath, trying to master her emotions. Damn it, it was true. She did feel invisible. Just last night, at a little bistro near the hotel, she’d spotted a man on his own she thought was gazing at her with interest, until she lifted her face into the light. And now the man sitting opposite her—the man whose company had left her high and dry and feeling old and useless in the first place—was the only person tossing her a lifeline.
“That’s what Madame X does,” she said finally. “Isn’t that the whole point of the line, to make older women look and feel more attractive?”
“Yes, of course. But Madame X isn’t really all that different from a lot of other lines on the market, is it? The woman underneath the makeup knows her looks are the result of temporary plumping ingredients that swell the skin and light-reflecting minerals that camouflage wrinkles. She knows it can’t do more than make her look
The old woman whose picture Anna held was clownish yet Felliniesque, the traces of her former beauty still there. The strap holding her neck where she wanted it to be was dark and stood out starkly. “No surgery?”
He shook his head. “She was almost a hundred when she died in the midnineties.” He shrugged. “Even movie stars didn’t rush out for plastic surgery in the old days. It was dangerous, for one thing. They relied on clips and ties hidden in their hair to pull their skin taut. They wore lots of scarves. And it was all for the same reason, of course: they couldn’t face looking old, neither for their fans nor themselves.”
Anna handed the photo back as a waiter arrived with their food. She ate her fish slowly, pondering. While Pierre’s mother had none of the feline deformities of Jocelyn Wildenstein, the Manhattan socialite who’d become famous in America for spending $4 million trying to look like a cat, Marie Héloise’s face was grotesque as the gargoyles on the buttresses of Notre Dame. She looked up at Barton. “And your mother? Who couldn’t she afford to look old for?”
“Herself. My father left her when she was forty and he was sixty-six . . . for a woman of twenty-eight. It did something to my mother’s mind, left her a little unhinged. She wanted my father to regret leaving her, even though he was in London and rarely thought about her, much less saw her. I was still living with her when she started. ‘You’ll see, Pierre,’ she’d say, ‘you’re going to have the most beautiful mother in France.’
“Instead, she became addicted to the knife. Every time she tried to fix something, it got worse. She says she’s content to live with her face and others will have to, as well.” He chuckled fondly. “She really is a true eccentric.” Then he looked up from his plate, his face serious. “Still, no woman should have to go through that, Anna.”
“But if girls and women were taught to have more self-respect—”
“Can the world change that quickly? Look at the actors, the tycoons, the politicians, the athletes. Are they choosing women for their sense of self-respect? Look at the real world, Anna—the world where older men remain dignified while older women are scorned. It’s not just my mother I’m thinking of. It’s every woman who’s tried to find work once she’s mature or who’s felt invisible or devalued after her fortieth birthday. If you ask me, that’s even more important.”
“Women like me?” she murmured.
“Yes, women like you, Anna. Women who are equal to their male counterparts and their younger competitors in every way. Women who are underpaid, ignored, told, ‘Sorry, nothing for you.’ We can’t quickly change how people think, but we can change how women look.”
She stared at the tablecloth, silent, as the waiter removed their plates and Pierre ordered coffee. She took a deep breath, trying to master her emotions. Damn it, it was true. She did feel invisible. Just last night, at a little bistro near the hotel, she’d spotted a man on his own she thought was gazing at her with interest, until she lifted her face into the light. And now the man sitting opposite her—the man whose company had left her high and dry and feeling old and useless in the first place—was the only person tossing her a lifeline.
“That’s what Madame X does,” she said finally. “Isn’t that the whole point of the line, to make older women look and feel more attractive?”
“Yes, of course. But Madame X isn’t really all that different from a lot of other lines on the market, is it? The woman underneath the makeup knows her looks are the result of temporary plumping ingredients that swell the skin and light-reflecting minerals that camouflage wrinkles. She knows it can’t do more than make her look
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