Looking Closer
I should wear a pillbox hat with this dress, I imagine, and white gloves.
I'd go to the country club--if, that is, I had the money to belong and the status
to be admitted, both of which seem doubtful. What would I do there, anyway, among
the ladies of my mother's generation? Play bridge? Canasta? Later, slip into my
one-piece swimsuit and stretch out in the sun, tan my legs so that I could get away with
not wearing nylons in the summer? Would I be seen as what I am--no lady, a woman
without a husband (and therefore dangerous), distinctly a woman of a certain age?
Would I meet, in the cocktail lounge, a kindred soul, a confidante? Probably not. Probably
I'd drift about, find a vacant easy chair, pull a book from my purse, a paperbound version of
Middlemarch or Wuthering Heights, and lose myself in due time.
