“A hall pass?” questions Ali with a vexed brow. “What’s that?”
“You don’t have a hall pass?” says Rachel in mock shock.
Ali looks at Will, confused and shaking her head. “No, I don’t think so.”
“I’m not sure there’d be enough passes to go around,” snipes Paige, but nobody seems to acknowledge it apart from Rachel, who throws her an admonishing glare.
“So, a hall pass is a one-night-only ticket that’s given to you by your partner to spend with a celebrity.”
Ali looks at her open-mouthed. “For real?” she gawps.
“No, of course not,” says Rachel, unable to believe this girl’s ditziness at times. “It’s just a fantasy game.”
“Ooh,” Ali exclaims theatrically. “I didn’t have you down for the role-playing type.”
Rachel is taken aback, offended by the slight and wondering what it is about her that makes her look like she doesn’t enjoy a satisfying love life.
There’s only thirteen years between her and Ali, but it may as well be thirty for the way she makes her feel. While Ali’s so full of zest and energy, seemingly ready to take on whatever life happens to throw at her head-on, Rachel feels dull and worn-out in comparison.
She self-consciously runs her hands through her hair, questioning whether she looks even older than she feels. She’d always kept her hair long, believing it made her look young and attractive, but perhaps that was only from behind nowadays. The thought of someone seeing her turn around and saying, “God, I thought she was going to be younger than that,” makes her squirm with embarrassment. Of course, she chooses not to acknowledge that she still has the figure for someone to make such a mistake.
When Ali looks at her, laughing at something she can’t hear because the roar of self-doubt circumnavigating her brain is so much louder, Rachel wonders what she sees. Has all trace of the ambitious career woman, who loved to live spontaneously, all but vanished? Has it been replaced by a wholesome motherly figure who looks like she spends her days knitting and listening to classical music?
But I’m still in here, her twenty-one-year-old self silently shouts, as she fingers the buttons on her white shirt, wondering whether, in her efforts not to look like mutton dressed as lamb, she’s now dressing like an old lady instead. Her eyes settle on her legs, encased in dark skinny denim, though she doesn’t see how slim they are or how long they go on for. Why would she, when she’s solely focused on pulling herself apart?
On good days, she can appreciate herself for what she is; a forty-two-year-old mother of one who goes to the gym whenever she can force herself to and eats healthily and whose only vice is a chocolate digestive with her cup of tea every morning. But on bad days, like the one she’s only just realized she’s having today, she wonders whether it’s all worth it, when everyone else will only ever see her as a woman who’s past her best.
She’d lamented her fears when she’d met up with Paige a couple of weeks ago, after her own attempt at holding back the years.
“I just think I should try it on my forehead,” Rachel had said, as she looked in awe at Paige’s wrinkle-free brow. “Just to see what difference it makes.”
“You don’t need Botox,” Paige had said, through a mouthful of garlic bread.
Rachel would probably agree, but she was feeling under increasing pressure to join the thousands of women who were erasing ten years of life and laughter from their faces.
“Nor do you, but you still have it done every three months,” she said.
“This is my mask,” Paige had said. “My poker face for when I’m at work.”
“So, it’s got nothing to do with wanting to recapture your youth?” Rachel had teased.
“If you’re doing it for that reason, then I think that’s where it starts to go wrong, because you just keep wanting more and more. Anyway, I don’t know why you’d want to turn the clock back—Jack loves you just the way you are.”
She was right about that. Jack loved her, warts and all. In fact, he was dead against her doing anything to “enhance” herself, but it still didn’t make her feel any more secure when she was around women like Ali.
As she looks at her now, with her boosted bosom and inflated pillow lips, Rachel wonders whether even women like her are happy in their own skin. While an onlooker might see a beautiful, overly confident woman, might Ali still see the person who’s hiding inside, when she looks in the mirror? If she does, Rachel feels a rare moment of empathy with her. It’s exhausting trying to be the person you think you want to be, when all you really want is to be happy being the person you are.