Life is a shipwreck but we must not forget to sing in the lifeboats. ~Voltaire
One Saturday a month, the world spends a day with Charlene. She takes off the jeans that are two sizes too big and slips on a skirt with a modest hemline. The baggie hoodie is exchanged for a cashmere twin set in some pastel shade that compliments her fair skin and the beat up sneakers are left under the bed as she steps into a pair of sandals with kitten heels. Instead of a fresh-washed face, the young woman applies lipstick and eyeliner-she thinks she looks ridiculous and she’s right. A bare wisp of a girl, she looks more like a child contestant in a beauty pageant, it borders on the obscene.
These outings always take her someplace frivolous: to the salon for manicures she’ll destroy in short order, luncheons where the menu contains selections that make her want to gag (calves brains in milk? Garlic soaked snails?), shopping trips to purchase clothing that will only be worn on these absurd occasions. Charlene doesn’t enjoy herself but she does it because she has an obligation to Jackie.
Jackie, who insists on being called by her first name because it will inspire bonding and girl-talk; friendship and womanly sharing-she likely read that in a recent copy of a woman’s magazine. Jackie wants to be hip and modern and cool. Charlene suspects it has more to do with Jackie’s vanity and not wanting the world to know that she’s steadily creeping towards middle age.
Charlene talks to Jackie about boys. Liam and Marcus, making their friendships sound much more like love affairs by stretching the truth or omitting the telling details. Liam, the older boy, a college man thinking about pledging a fraternity, the petite blonde likes to talk up how blue his eyes are and how broad his shoulders look under his button down shirts. Jackie enjoys hearing these things and has no idea that Charlene’s knowledge comes from emails exchanged with a seldom seen friend in Montana. Marcus, whose father is a musician and attends the same private academy as Charlene, he’s the tall one with striking looks. Jackie would be appalled if she knew those looks were a shock of red hair and eyes that look like something out of a sci-fi horror movie so Charlene never mentions these things.
They never discuss the fact that Charlene loves chemistry or that she’s applied to MIT for college. There is no talk of the girl’s home life or Jackie’s for that matter. Superficial is the name of the game they play. Celebrity gossip, make-up, fashion, boys, calorie counting and the importance of having a personal trainer: these are the subjects that matter to Jackie and are meaningless to Charlene beyond the ability to net some form of attention from Jackie.
At the conclusion of lunch or after she’s been loaded down with more shopping bags than she can readily carry, Charlene exchanges a series of air kisses and cheek brushes with Jackie and hails a cab. The door is barely closed and the address given for home when Charlene begins to remove jewelry, take her hair down, wipe the lipstick off her face. One Saturday a month, Chuck spends the day with her mother.
These outings always take her someplace frivolous: to the salon for manicures she’ll destroy in short order, luncheons where the menu contains selections that make her want to gag (calves brains in milk? Garlic soaked snails?), shopping trips to purchase clothing that will only be worn on these absurd occasions. Charlene doesn’t enjoy herself but she does it because she has an obligation to Jackie.
Jackie, who insists on being called by her first name because it will inspire bonding and girl-talk; friendship and womanly sharing-she likely read that in a recent copy of a woman’s magazine. Jackie wants to be hip and modern and cool. Charlene suspects it has more to do with Jackie’s vanity and not wanting the world to know that she’s steadily creeping towards middle age.
Charlene talks to Jackie about boys. Liam and Marcus, making their friendships sound much more like love affairs by stretching the truth or omitting the telling details. Liam, the older boy, a college man thinking about pledging a fraternity, the petite blonde likes to talk up how blue his eyes are and how broad his shoulders look under his button down shirts. Jackie enjoys hearing these things and has no idea that Charlene’s knowledge comes from emails exchanged with a seldom seen friend in Montana. Marcus, whose father is a musician and attends the same private academy as Charlene, he’s the tall one with striking looks. Jackie would be appalled if she knew those looks were a shock of red hair and eyes that look like something out of a sci-fi horror movie so Charlene never mentions these things.
They never discuss the fact that Charlene loves chemistry or that she’s applied to MIT for college. There is no talk of the girl’s home life or Jackie’s for that matter. Superficial is the name of the game they play. Celebrity gossip, make-up, fashion, boys, calorie counting and the importance of having a personal trainer: these are the subjects that matter to Jackie and are meaningless to Charlene beyond the ability to net some form of attention from Jackie.
At the conclusion of lunch or after she’s been loaded down with more shopping bags than she can readily carry, Charlene exchanges a series of air kisses and cheek brushes with Jackie and hails a cab. The door is barely closed and the address given for home when Charlene begins to remove jewelry, take her hair down, wipe the lipstick off her face. One Saturday a month, Chuck spends the day with her mother.