17.
I was lying in bed after sex with my first serious high school boyfriend when he began to tell me about the other girls he’d slept with. He described their bodies, their hair, what he liked about them, and I listened, feeling a sudden sense of panic. My stomach twisted. I began to sweat. What is wrong with me? I wondered. Why was my body responding this way to my boyfriend talking about other girls he’d found attractive?
As he went on, all the muscles in my lower abdomen and glutes clenched, and I knew that it was a matter of minutes before I’d have to run to the bathroom. He kept speaking, unaware of the way I’d curled into myself underneath the thin comforter. I started to shiver. He continued. “She … Her…” I nodded and asked questions, feigning indifference, knowing that I would later spend hours looking these girls up, watching them at school, collecting data on how we were the same and how we were different. I finally got up and rushed to the bathroom, scared that I would not be able to hold it in any longer. Although I knew that these girls from my boyfriend’s past, or his mention of them, was not an actual threat to my safety, my body reacted as if it was. I hated that he might ever have found anyone more attractive than me.
18.
Some of my mother’s memories are so visceral to me that I sometimes can’t remember if they are her experiences or my own—like the one where she went to the women’s restroom at a party in the early days of my parents’ courtship （as she would say）。 When my mother came out of the stall, my father’s ex-girlfriend was at the sink, washing her hands in front of a wide mirror. My mother stood next to her. “And I thought, well, there we are. So different. You know?” There they were: the two women of my father’s choosing. I imagine them, perfectly still, their arms loose at their sides and their faces blank. Maybe one of the faucets is still running. My mother is nearly a foot shorter than the blond woman my father once lived with. The pale skin of her broad shoulders and long torso shimmers. Her hair smells like salt water. My mother’s dark, curly hair frames her heart-shaped face, and the curves of her hips are silhouetted against the white tile of the bathroom. Both their faces are in shadow as they assess themselves and each other.
19.
My mother liked to tell me that she’d always wished for hair like mine.
“Like a sheet of satin,” she said, eyeing me while slipping her hand over the top of my head as I squirmed away.
“Don’t, Mom!” I snapped, instantly hating the sound of my voice as it pierced the air.
“I know, I know,” she sing-songed, “Now you’re a teenager who doesn’t want to be touched, but you’ll always be my baby.”
“I wanted hair like yours my whole life,” she said again, quietly, suddenly more serious. “I would iron my hair on an ironing board to make it straight like Jane Asher’s.” She stared off into nothing, contemplating an alternate life, a world in which the only difference was the texture of the hair on her head. （But what a difference that would be! I could imagine her saying.）
Now I realize I wasn’t being a typical teenager. I just didn’t want to be looked at by my mother, because I knew that when she watched me she was often calculating: examining and comparing.
20.
As a young woman, I hated receiving compliments on my appearance, whether they came from my girlfriends or the men and boys I was interested in. A guy I dated briefly in my early twenties used to make fun of me for how awkward and uncomfortable I’d become when he’d tell me he thought I was beautiful. “Oh my God! You can’t handle it!” he’d say, watching me as I instantly grew self-conscious.
“Shut up.” I’d roll my eyes, trying to indicate that he was wrong.
“But you’re a model, you’re like, known for your beauty,” he’d say, confused, waiting for an explanation. I never knew how to answer. I wanted to tell him that I didn’t need boys I liked to say that. I was happy to hear that kind of thing on set, when I was making money, but in my private life, I didn’t want it. Some part of me was attempting to resist the way I’d learned to conflate beauty with specialness and with love. No thanks, I’d think. I don’t want whatever it is they’re trying to offer. I don’t want their mirror. I don’t want that “You’re the most beautiful” kind of love.
21.
My mother stopped coloring her hair in her early sixties, letting it go gray, then silver, and then, finally, white. She continued to wear it short, its natural volume giving her head shape. She looked pretty, an adjective rarely used for women over sixty, but accurate for my mother and her elegant features, made softer with age.