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Body Wash

I overheard two teenage girls on the subway.

Alyssa …so my mom asked me if it was mine, and I said no, and she hid it.

Heather Wait, I don’t understand. Was it soap?

Alyssa No, it was body wash.

Heather What kind?

Alyssa The kind in the white bottle. And I said to my brother, I was like, “Do you want to smell good, or do you want to smell PRETTY?”

Heather Is he gay?

Alyssa We’ve been asking him that since he was, like, fifteen.

Heather He says no?

Alyssa Yeah. Well, he’s had lots of girlfriends.

Heather That’s good, right?

Alyssa Maybe it’s just to stop us asking.

And you know, obviously teenagers who think boys who use body wash are gay have watched way too much Pat Robertson, and a mother who would hide the body wash because…um…I’m having trouble figuring that part out, actually – maybe the lack of body wash will turn him into a straight boy – I mean, when I was a kid I thought my mom had girlfriends the same way other people had the flu, as if it were some phase she’d grow out of. As an adult, I love being able to answer Paul’s questions about “What is ‘gay’, Mama?” with “Men who love men, and women who love women. Like your Granny.”

Anyway, despite their ridiculous ideas, I was encouraged by the girl’s tone of voice. She might have been talking about how he always left the toilet seat up, or how he always hogged the back seat when the family went anywyhere. She was calm, she was matter of fact. Aside from being embarrassed by having a pretty-smelling brother, she obviously felt nothing but idle curiousity over her brother’s gender preferences. I compare that to when I was in junior high, and a girl had to get special permission to come to the eighth grade dance wearing a tuxedo instead of a dress, and I feel like strides have been made.

We don’t own a television set. For the past three years my television viewing has been limited to a couple of hotel room stays – where, against all logic, the same damn reruns are on. So what the hell was I doing dreaming about Joan Rivers? When I was ten I saw a tv movie written by Joan Rivers in the early seventies called “The Girl Most Likely to…” It was about a girl who undergoes plastic surgery, then goes around getting revenge on all the people who mistreated her. A plot that Rivers then applied to her own life, turning her face into a beige kabuki mask.

I dreamed that I was watching Joan Rivers on television, where she was sitting in a chair pleasantly looking every one of her 73 years, saying, “No, I had it all taken out. It was all disgusting, fake and plastic. I like my wrinkles.”

Other than the satisfaction of Joan Rivers parroting my own thoughts, what the hell did that mean? Maybe my mind was all, “Hey! You’ve been having some terrible nightmares lately. Let’s just watch a little light tv tonight instead, okay?” In my mind, aging gracefully means letting your body do what it’s supposed to. What can be more attractive than a face full of laugh lines? That tells somebody so much about you before you even open your mouth.

My grandmother, who just celebrated her eightieth birthday with a jaunt alone around China, looks her age. She is beautiful.