"He's as smooth as sandpaper," she says, elbowing me in the ribs, pointing with raised eyebrows at a man standing by the counter. I look at him sideways. "Don't look!" she says, whispering loudly, so that the man looks in our direction. I smile awkwardly and raise my glass. "What are you doing?" she hisses.
"I don't know," I admit. "I'm panicking."
"He's coming over, now!"
I blush as the man approaches. He is about our age, I guess. Although, as I get older, I find it more difficult to judge ages. Some people, such as Clara, seem older than they are. Others, and I include myself in this, still seem unnaturally young.
Or at least, that is how I feel.
Sometimes when I catch my reflection in the mirror, I'm shocked to see my mother staring back at me.
And not the mother I knew as a child.
Rather, the older woman whom I cared for in the last few years of her life.
"Hello," the man says. He is tall, I guess. Difficult to judge from this angle, but he blocks the light from above.
"Hello," I say.
...
