When I saw you for the first time, you were an old woman, and I was only six. My shoulder had briefly collided with your hip, and for that short stretch of contact, the world went soft in my vision–not soft like fur, but foamy and sticky, like a bubble bath, like someone clapped a handful of suds over my ears. You kept walking, but I saw you stumble. It was enough to know you were feeling it, too. You had felt the stretch of earth beneath us dip only a fraction lower, enough to catch the toe of your clogs.
I kept watching as you shuffled away. You were like every other old granny I’d ever seen, down to the way you dressed: a frumpy blouse that came all the way up to your collarbone and a pair of cut-off pants that flared out at your shins. With each step, the drooping beads that connected to your glasses swished back and forth until they disappeared into the crowd along with you.
My limbs were suddenly slick and heavy, like I’d been covered in oil. I wanted to laugh and vomit and scream at the same time. But the feeling had vanished with the sight of you, and I was left cross-eyed and panting.
It was my fault we’d bumped into each other. I was sidling behind the stalls of the weekly Farmer’s Market, far from where Dad had told me to stay, which was right next to him. He was selling some new pyramid scheme, and I could feel my insides souring amidst all the talk of weight loss and health benefits. I just had to leave.
There was a splash pad just beyond the homemade soap stall, the only relief from the unrelenting Florida sun. I wasn’t allowed in it, for a reason Dad changed every time. This week he’d said, “I just cleaned the car, Eve. I don’t want water stains on the seats.” Last week it was, “They just mowed the grass out there; you’ll get a rash.” Still, I was determined to get my feet wet, to wiggle my fingers through a geyser, before I rushed away with enough adrenaline to run a lap around the stalls.
When it all was said and done, I reluctantly perched on the lower rung of a wooden fence, facing the Farmer’s Market. Behind me, the splash pad was close enough to hear the fat feet smacking against the wet pavement. I squinted through the sun at the shuffling patrons and hoped a few more tiny drops from the sprinklers would land on my pink shoulders.
A flicker of light caught my eye, reflected off the flat metal that dangled from an earring. And there you were again, speaking gently to a vendor about sourdough. I observed you more carefully this time, somehow safer now that I was out of your sight.
Your skin collected around your eyes and mouth, the same way my dirty clothes piled on the floor of my bedroom, the clothes Dad yelled at me for. You were squinting against the sun, holding your knobby hand to the sky, and seeking respite in the shade of your fingers. Even from my distance, I could see the papery thin wrinkles of your skin, nearly translucent. Your hair, what was left of it, glowed white under the sun. Those shimmery blue earrings stretched your lobes like taffy.
The feeling was back, a gurgle of horror and wonder, but I had longer to feel it this time, longer to understand what it was screaming at me.
The same way birds know to fly, I knew you. Like somewhere beyond the reaches of my mind, you had always been standing there, quiet and dormant.
I wanted to be you, more than I wanted the splash pad, more than I wanted to stop coming to the Farmer’s Market every week. But beyond that desire, was something stronger, like a rope tethering us together. It wasn’t just that I wanted to be you. It was the realization that I already was you. And you—even though your stature curled in on itself, even though you struggled to hear the baker in front of you—were me.
My jaw went slack. The sun let up on its tirade. Even the beads of sweat that dripped down my neck stopped itching. I wanted to scream your name—our name—so you would look over and see me, so the hairs on your neck would stand at attention like mine had. But when I drew in a breath, the single syllable caught in my throat and I was suddenly terrified of confronting you.
I never got to. Dad’s strong hands yanked hard against the collar of my shirt, dragging me across splintering wood. I was not quick enough to catch myself on my feet, and even as the undersides of my legs burned, I was still searching for your face. Even when Dad raged on about wandering off, his words hit me like styrofoam, crumbling to nothing at my feet.
The next time I saw you, I was ten and wandering the aisles of the grocery store. Dad was waiting outside because a young couple caught him shoving ramen noodles into his blue jeans a few weeks before that. Earlier, we’d bummed for change in the parking lot, where the pavement was hot enough to warp the air around it. I spent the entire time hoping he’d make at least ten dollars so we could get the real hot dog buns instead of the white bread that caked to the roof of my mouth.
We only made six dollars, so I went in and collected as much ramen and hot dogs as I could afford. I was soaking up the last few moments of crisp, recycled air, and there you were, the figure in front of me, pushing a grocery cart down the baking aisle. Four years different, with haphazardly chopped hair that framed your face in wisps that glowed like a dying light bulb. Like there was almost nothing left.
You were dressed like a teacher: a white, puffy blouse tucked into a gray pin-striped skirt. I tried to imagine the version of myself that would stretch the hips of a skirt, the version of myself with shoes that went clunk, clunk when I walked between rows of school desks, with a wallet that had money in it before the parking lot.
A stranger with my face. I pressed my fingers into my cheek, searching for the sharp bones that framed your eyes, but there was only soft, squishy pudge.
You paused at the end of the aisle. Had you felt the air change? I could see your muscles tensing, like you were about to glance over your shoulder, and the terror returned like instinct. I headed straight for the parking lot, dropping crinkly plastic wrappers like breadcrumbs behind me. When Dad scowled at my empty arms, I told him I’d gotten caught stealing Tic Tacs.
Where terror bubbled inside of me when I saw you, something else festered when you were gone. In fifth grade, when I gingerly applied ice to my second busted lip that month, I remembered how few scars I’d seen on your skin, and it was enough to dry my tears. In middle school, when my classmates picked on me for wearing the same two shirts all week, I thought of the clean, wrinkle-free uniform I’d seen you in. In high school, when my father started to drink so heavily that we had to wait in line at the soup kitchen each night, I reminded myself that it would not always be like that; I’d seen proof of it.
After the grocery store, you disappeared from my life for a while. I didn’t see you again until you walked through the automatic doors of the movie theater I’d just started working at. It was a nice job, paid just fifty cents above minimum wage. It was also where I met Cash, whose stare triggered only half the enchantment of seeing the back of your head.
I was wiping down soda machines when you walked in. I’d gotten in the habit of watching entrances. It had been eight years since I’d seen you, and I spent every minute convincing myself that, whenever I saw you again, I’d swallow the terror like a horse pill. I’d march up to you. I’d say, Do you know who I am? and watch your face light up and say, Of course, I know who you are. I’ve spent my whole life being you. How could I not know you? You’re like the ridges of my spine and the birthmark on my thigh. We’re made of the same stuff. You and me, kid. Of course, of course.
But when you wandered in, your hand resting on the elbow of some well-dressed man, it was like I was made of carbonation. You were not the face I had cemented in my memories. I could see so much more of your skin, now, no longer hidden under granny clothes. It was healthier, not wrinkled and papery. Your hair was long and brown now, brushed until it was stick-straight. The man at your side was talking happily to you, gesturing wildly with his free hand. When you chuckled, your skin bunched up into crow’s feet around your eyes.
Nausea slammed into my stomach and my vision softened at the corners. The terror came just as quickly and pooled in every crevice of my body. But I couldn’t just leave like the last time. You were so close to me and something inside assured me that I’d split right down the middle if you saw me. So, I kept scrubbing, paying the closest attention I ever had.
Without even trying, every detail of your younger face was stuck in my brain, even the way your mascara only made it halfway down your eyelashes. I’d always been scared to get the brush in my eye. I held my breath, imagined your chest growing tighter alongside my own, and let it out.
Your voice quieted as you walked away from me, so I bought another glance at you and your date. Nothing like brunette, curly-haired Cash, but I latched onto the soft waves of your date’s hair like a prophecy.
You didn’t buy popcorn, and I couldn’t blame you. I was already growing tired of eating it for dinner most nights. It was free and it meant I could save more money for rent, which Dad had decided was my responsibility now. Instead, you held an empty cup that I knew would soon be filled with the neon Fanta Orange I’d always wanted from Dad’s fridge, but never had the bravery to steal. I knew the tiny pleasure of purchasing one would always stick with me—with us.
In one swift movement, you were facing me again, your pupils staring just beyond me, but the air rippled around me regardless. I froze. The once diligent scrubbing slowed to nothing, just a cloth pressed into the corner of the machine. And then you were directly behind me, mumbling a quiet, “Excuse me,” in a voice I could have imitated. Your finger brushed my shoulder, and I was pressed against farmer’s market stalls again, the air collapsing in on itself, my stomach frothing under the pressure.
Curiosity broke through in one quick burst, and my eyes flickered up from their stare at the floor. You were staring back at me, don’t you remember? How else would I remember the blood draining from your cheeks and the faltering of your smile?
I ran to the bathroom and vomited until my chest hurt. When there was only bile left, I sat on the linoleum floor until the motion sensor lights flickered off. Only a sliver of light from the hallway crept in, just enough to see a murky reflection of my face, skimming the surface of the thrice-flushed toilet water. No crows feet, no half-painted eyelashes.
Just the face I’d always known. All of me and none of you.
When Dad died, I found him face down on the floor of our trailer. The TV was quietly humming with the evening news. A stern-voiced reporter droned on about a man locked inside a bank after it closed. The window was still cracked open. The lazy boy recliner was empty. I stared at him for longer than I should have. I didn’t see him at all. I saw you, your sickening smile, your infuriatingly perfect date, and your obnoxiously shimmery top.
I hated you, hated the fact that you were doing anything but staring at Dad’s cold form. You could have been sitting in the theater, sipping on my favorite soda, while I called the police. You could have been wandering my city so disgustingly happy with your mysterious date while I spoke to the third detective that night. You could have been heading home, having wretchedly enjoyable sex while I stared at the empty spot on the carpet, the last place Dad had been.
You were living my life, the wrong way, the opposite way, but somehow the better way. You had everything I wanted.
So, maybe you can understand why I lied to you.
I’d stopped looking for you by then. But I knew there would be a day when our lives would meet in the middle, and, like a back-alley drug deal, you’d pass the clean, shiny baton that was your life into my hands, and I’d palm the stinking handful of garbage that was my life into your hands. And that would be that.
By the time I was forty, my childhood was far behind me. Cash was but a fond memory of my first broken heart. I knew by then that you had never been a teacher. I had been working at the bank for ten years by then, long enough to know that the benefits were too cozy to quit.
At the first hint of spring, I dressed myself in a long, silky skirt. Like clockwork, you slipped into my mind. This time, it was the thought that even in the warped mirror on my wall, I’d begun to take your form. I ran my fingers through my sprouting gray hairs and over the wrinkles forming in my cheeks like tally marks.
Were you, in that same moment, admiring the elasticity returning to your skin, the fat filling and stretching those deep lines into silky skin once more?
I walked to the tea room on the corner of my neighborhood. I never cared for tea, but the tiny shop had just opened, and it was my day off. There was nothing else to do on days like that, no one else to fill my time, no husband, not enough coworkers-turned-friends, not even a dog to walk. Just solitude, and now, tea.
A small bell jingled as the door swung open. It startled me, my shoulders tensing to my ears for a moment before my eyes met the shopkeeper and I forced them to relax. Even as the old woman behind the counter greeted me, my hands still shook. I clasped them in front of me.
The nerves, I told myself, were just the product of trying something new. That and the fact that the inside of the tearoom was darker and more cluttered than I had expected. I didn’t even think of you until I heard the bell jingle again.
Knee-jerk, my head turned to the entrance, but the whooshing in my ears had already confirmed what I would see.
You were looking at me, not past me, not through me. Your eyes were framed in thin, shallow lines, and you had enough sparse gray hairs to shimmer under the lights, but you still looked younger than I’d ever seen you.
I was staring at you, not running to the bathroom, not vomiting, not avoiding your eyes. The shop was suffocating, three circular tables crammed beside the front counter crowded with giant tins of tea. What little was left was open floor space. I couldn’t have run if I wanted to, but if you had turned around and left, I think I would have let you.
“We should sit,” you said, and I marveled at how even your tone was. Was this the result of aging in reverse? Were you still, deep down, the old woman? And was I that six-year-old?
I swallowed the growing lump in my throat and nodded. You led the way, and I followed like a lost child. Still we ended up at the same one I would have chosen. The thick square of dark wooden tabletop was the only thing separating me from you.
I laced my fingers together and settled them against the table, but quickly let them fall to my lap when I noticed you had done the same. There was a warm, comfortable smile that rested against your cheeks, and despite the rolling of my stomach, I had managed to mirror you.
How did you know where to find me? I wanted to ask. I didn’t understand you; I still don’t. My throat was tight and dry. I let you do the talking.
“You don’t seem surprised,” you observed, and you must have been lying. I was sweating, my knee was bouncing frantically under the table, my hands were wound into white, clenched fists.
“Are you?” I asked.
You mulled over the idea for a second, then shook your head. “So, you remember the movie theater, then?”
I nodded. “There were more before that.” I don’t know why I felt the need to say it, to prove that I’d known you longer than you’d known me, but the words came out persistently, like we were arguing. “The first time was when I was six.”
Your face lit up. You leaned in closer. “Six?” you repeated, and I could tell by the way you chewed in the word that it was the number that was more exciting for you.
Six meant future.
“You were,” I began, contemplating my next word.
Your expression changed, softening. “Back when I was old.”
The shopkeeper approached our table with an iron kettle dangling from her frail fingers. She set it between us and turned to me. “Twins,” she croaked out, her entire face wrinkling with a smile. I searched your face for a reaction, but you only chuckled and nodded. My stomach did several more flips.
You ordered an oolong Earl Grey. I had no clue what oolong was, but I ordered the same. The lady shuffled away and returned with two intricately decorated teacups and one of the large aluminum tins. She scooped two spoonfuls of tea into the kettle, shut the lid, and left silently.
Upon closer inspection, the teacups were identical. Several gilded images of a tiger filled the ceramic, one roaring, one running, one resting, and one sitting atop a mountain. I carefully spun it against the saucer, tickled at the way the tiger’s story seemed to play out with each turn to the right. I looked up to see you were turning it to the left.
“What’s it like?” I found the courage to say. “Getting younger?”
You answered quickly, like you’d been expecting me to ask. “There’s not a lot of closure.” You reached for the kettle at the same time I had but lowered your hand. “I know people most intimately in the beginning, but eventually, we’re strangers.”
It spun my mind to think about, and I wanted to close my eyes, turn everything off, so I could visualize it, but I was watching your face morph into something indecipherable as you stared beyond me.
“Like your husband?” Was it our husband? Was I allowed to ask?
You must have been feeling the same reservations because your face scrunched up and you asked, “Don’t you think it’s wrong?”
My defenses rose, like I’d just been asked if I peeked at my Christmas presents. I lifted my teacup to my lips and sipped the tea you’d ordered. The Earl Grey was all citrus and bergamot at first, but the oolong followed behind it, floral and earthy. I was not surprised I liked it.
You were still looking at me, expecting an answer. “Would you tell me?” I asked finally.
Now, it was your turn to contemplate, my turn to stare. You sipped your tea, just like I had, your eyes wandering the small shop around us.
I squinted at you. For years of my childhood, I had dreamt of the opportunity to study your face, to get more than a fleeting glimpse at you. And now, as I stared at you, I wondered if I could see you getting younger with each second, your skin growing firmer, your hair growing lighter like it was when I was young, your crow’s feet disappearing with each smile.
You set the teacup down after a cautious sip and sighed. “I would tell you,” you decided, “If you really wanted to know.” It’s exactly what I would have said. Shift the blame away. Maybe it was wrong to want to know, but somehow, it was less wrong to tell.
“Tell me about him.” I ripped off the bandage, even though my stomach curled with nausea at the idea.
You were pleased at my decision—mischievous almost; we were both peeking at Christmas presents now.
You spoke of a bank customer—a man who always ended up at my window—and getting married, and stupid fights that we’d laugh about the next day. There were dates, all the way to the beginning, you’d said—the end, for me.
I was pouring my second cup by the time you finished. “He seems great,” I said, the words disconnected from the cold spreading inside of me.
“He was.” There was no sadness in your voice, only warm, tender nostalgia.
The conversation naturally tipped in my direction, and I could sense that you were about to ask for me to spoil our childhood for you, it was only fair. I could see a glimmer of curiosity in your eye. You wanted to hear me gush about high school the same way you had gushed about our husband. But I couldn’t do that, and the thought of telling you everything filled me with frozen, rock-hard guilt. I pushed you to talk further. “What happens with the bank?” I asked, like I cared to small talk with you about the job I never cared for.
Your face softened for a moment. Had you sensed my nerves in the frantic way I’d asked? If you had, you ignored them and kept talking.
I stopped wanting to know more after the first few minutes, but it was the only way I could keep the focus off me, to keep the trepidation at bay. But the more you talked about your fantastic life, the more I remembered the hell I’d been through before all this.
How was I supposed to break to you that your life had reached its cap on good times, that the next forty years, sure, you’d look younger, sure you’d be less tired all the time, but then you’d have to deal with everything. The nights I spent holding my stomach to fall asleep because it somehow eased the hunger pangs, the days spent wandering parking lots for spare change so we could afford the electricity bill, the times my father took his anger out on me, the time he chose substances over his own life.
I was bitter. Perhaps more bitter than I could have foreseen. But there was only so much one could say about life at the bank, and you finally managed to slip in a question. “Did you enjoy our childhood?”
Most of the memories that clogged my brain were miserable, clouded and hazy with images of you. I was jealous—no, embarrassed that I was expected to tell you about abuse and poverty and grief following the story of your honeymoon in Fiji or the weekly happy hour margaritas with coworkers.
The terror seized me. I said, “I did,” and stood from my seat.
You looked up at me with so much pain in your eyes—a pain I understood, a pain I felt so deeply inside of me, that pushing my way out of there was like ripping my spine from my skin. I didn’t look back at you, because I knew it would be me sitting there, slumped and betrayed and deserted.
Opening the front door of my house should have been invigorating, like breaking through a pool of ice water headfirst. I was finally in the second part of my life. Where the bad became the good.
But as I sat in my living room, there was nothing but quiet. Nowhere for my thoughts to go except for that damn look on your face. When I woke the next morning, I could feel bile churning inside of me, but it just stayed there, stagnant.
The good came eventually, I met Presten, and he was just as great as you promised. Somewhere along the way, my coworkers morphed into friends. But every time we met for margaritas, I swore I could feel their eyes on me, cold and judgmental, like they could see me, lying and running from the tea shop, playing across my forehead.
I spent every free moment in that tea shop, cloaked in the shopkeeper’s wary and solemn stare (I can only imagine the explanations she made to excuse your absence), hoping you’d show up. I swallowed warm mouthfuls of oolong Earl Grey, and it was only in those moments I felt filled from the inside. It wasn’t until the final sip mixed with the sediment and tea leaves that the feeling turned to cold regret.
Your existence was just as suffocating as it always had been, except there was no desperation left, only the thick sludge of guilt. I saw you in all the places I’d seen you before, our roles reversed, our lives reflected once over. And each time, I just watched. I couldn’t reach out; I couldn’t make things right.
All that bad from before, it never went away. It festered inside of me like some untreated infection, tainting all the good along the way.
When I found you at sixteen, scrubbing those soda machines like your life depended on it, I tapped my fingers on your shoulder, but all I could muster was a hushed “excuse me.” And even though I’d been there, even though I’d suffered through every sharp rush of adrenaline and fear running through your body, I still decided that you had run off because you were angry at me.
I thought about following you into that bathroom, holding your hair as you vomited, and when you asked me if I regretted lying, I’d say, You and me, kid. Of course, of course. But I didn’t. I just carried on to my movie, and I hated myself for enjoying it.
And the night I left the bank and decided to go grocery shopping, still in my uniform, I heard your footsteps behind me, but I pretended not to notice. When I circled the next aisle, I saw you passing through the automatic doors, your legs thin, your arms thinner, and I didn’t do a damn thing.
I spent my entire life longing for you, obsessing over you, wanting more than anything to be like you, but you were just as miserable as I was. There was no greener grass, there was no light at the end of the tunnel. And you, you never warned me, either.
At seventy-four, I buttoned my frumpy blouse and stepped into my cut-off pants, amused at the hollow old woman I had become. Yet, when I headed to the farmer’s market, I felt like a terrified child again, my hands shaking as I stood behind the stalls and waited for your shoulder to meet my hip. Only, when I saw you for the final time, barreling toward me with the reckless abandon of a six-year-old rebelling against her father, I stepped out of the way.
Your shoulder moved right past me, a small breeze rippling between us. I stared at the back of your head and trembled. But you’d noticed the change, and your tiny feet faltered in front of you. Over your shoulder, you turned your head to meet my eyes. And I pushed everything into my stare, everything I hadn’t said during our brief meeting. Everything I wish I could’ve told you. I should have warned you. I’m sorry. In front of me, your mouth fell open.
And though I hardly resembled the child I once was, the child you now were, our faces were exact mirrors.
Mary Shaver is a recent graduate from Vanderbilt University and is now pursuing her MFA in creative writing at the University of South Florida. Her work has been published in The Vanderbilt Review and Writing Queensland.