Her hair was all frizzy, but the random waviness of it complemented the randomly strewn wrinkles on her face. It was a terrain not so dissimilar to a harsh land that had all the brutishness of the desert but none of its romanticism. Some of her lines were like deep canyons through a landscape reminiscent of a younger, more youthful days. The complexion of the skin almost made her face look carved out of the trunk of a dead tree, so that her dark hair was like the remaining bark that hadn't dropped off through time. Her lips were barely noticeable, with its paleness nearly identical to the skin.
Then there were the eyes. They were hollow, dark, deep. If there was any hint of evil in her, the eyes would have surely exaggerated it and turned her into a witch from some horror movie. But the eyes, deep and dark as they might be, shown little light, and the little light it had escaped from them was that of sorrow and deep self-pity. And her whole posture reflected that of a pitiable woman in her fifties, and whatever her small preoccupations now were her whole body language exaggerated them.
She stood in the middle of the store, looking rather lost. She was becoming more impatient as there were many customers and few representatives to attend to them. The lines on her face suddenly seemed more multitudinous, the canyons deeper, as if the wind of aging was doubling its work. Finally, she stopped and got the attention of a customer representative and said to her, "I just got out of surgery. I need some...." But the woman she had stopped was even more impatient than her. She was her antithesis in the middle of that room. She was young, very beautiful, the center of attention of many of the male customers waiting around in the store. She was tall, her posture full of confidence, and her eyes shone a light that could only be the summation of her charm. She was wearing just a white blouse and her pants were very professional without looking boxy. Her silver watch revealed a woman with good taste, including the expensive kinds. And to add further to the contrast, she was not a purely white person like the one who had stopped her. Her face proudly bore the features of someone from the Caribbeans, or just Latin America.
She responded in a slow but stern manner, "I have to customers waiting for me. I am sorry." And taking one last look at her antithesis she continued walking to get something for one of the two customers. That left the latter in disappointment again. She wanted to make use of her own pitiable demeanor, her pitiable state, but to no avail. People were simply not sensitive to her condition, especially not the post-surgery condition. And what did it really mean to people? She didn't quite understand her own motive. Why should people take greater pity on you if you had just had surgery? But she took pity on herself, and that was what moved her. She could still feel the pain even though the surgery was from a few days ago. She could feel the confusion, the murkiness of life as it passed her by. And in her lost state she wanted to someone else to feel it.
She was with this man. Who was this man? He was a Hispanic man, shorter than her, stocky but also a bit muscular, wearing a T-shirt, and a big gold chain, speaking not with a typical Hispanic accent but just the local accent, one of a blue-collar worker, one would say. And he wasn't with her that moment when she tried to supplicate the pity of the gorgeous representative who had just gotten put off by this sorry attempt. He was patiently waiting for his turn behind another customer. He was bored, but he didn't want to be part of any tactic that she was involved with. When he saw what she tried to do, his brows folded, and the frown gave way to a head shake, and thereafter he just looked away from her. He was younger than her, that was sure. His goatees had barely any white stubbles, and his body was in great shape. What was he doing there? He had driven her around for many different kinds of errands, including the hospital pickup. But she was a lonely woman with some financial resources, not much, but enough for a house and cable and phones, the last being the reason they were here. He never had to pay for any of that; and whatever he got from his work was for him to keep. This, however, was probably his second job, being her company, feeding her bottomless need for pity and company.
She knew this. Sometimes, at least. Sometimes she understood why he was in her life. And that did not necessarily make her understand the wrong of it. She walked over to the huge window and sat on the window sill, while waiting for their turn. Her dark eyes during that moment were shone by the sun, as if the sun was looking for something with this spotlight. It saw that her eyes were blue, pale blue, but blue, not anything dark. And underneath all those creases was a woman who had walked many long and unpleasant roads, some of which she had chosen and could be labeled as mistakes. She noticed, when the representative who had shun her had returned to her station to attend to one of the waiting customers, that she had tattoos on her lower arms. She turned her attention back to the outside where the sun continued its inspection of her face. There were tattoos on her face, not made by an artist, but by time, by the people who had crossed her roads, some of which could be called mistakes. Those were permanent ones. Worse than scars they were inflicted by herself. She remembered being young like that woman over there, who didn't expend any pity to purchase an iota of the surgery story. She remembered shunning people who needed her attention. She could count them all if she wanted to; she could remember most of the faces.
Now she was next to the window, being inspected by the sun. And some of the light from the inspector reflected back from the window, so she could see details of her eyes, of the wrinkles that have invaded all of her face, close to the eyes. But in those deepened eyes she remembered the face of a younger woman who never needed pity. She remembered looking at the mirror many times many years ago, putting on make up, sometimes with a lover behind her.
Did she know what surgery she was referring to? She wondered. She wanted to smile, but she couldn't. She saw herself and couldn't bring herself to smile at that thought.
"Elise, this guy's ready for us," said that familiar voice. She turned and sighed, as if going to an execution, though it was nothing serious, just straightening out some phone bills and saving some money. She stood up as if an invisible had had to prop her up. And she walked each step, like she had been for many years, in the style of an invisible hand dragging her, one moment at a time, in this life that had little more to talk about in her eyes.
