Society

This week, a science fiction story about a fountain of youth, originally published by Narrative Magazine.

I was just starting to tell people how your thirties are so much better than your twenties when I hit my midthirties, and my life felt like it might explode. I was unhappily single and childless, and the window was waning to get things right. I could hear the tick-tock when I walked into a room, which better be the right room, the right bar, the right party. Otherwise, I had blown another day. Another chance to have the life I wanted.

But everything changed one afternoon. I was killing time at a neighborhood bar, pretending to read a book but hoping I might get noticed.

“Cora?”

I turned and saw a woman from the past. “Ali? Is that you?” It was Ali Peterson. My college roommate.

“I go by Alicia now.” She moved to join my table.

We hugged and she kissed me on both cheeks, even though we both know she failed college French. Back then she was a happy, round-faced girl who wore thick librarian glasses. Cute and easily overlooked. But now, Ali P—Alicia—was lean in athleisure. She had a sleek ponytail and tretinoin-smooth skin without the weird shine.

“You look fantastic!”

“You too,” she said, even though we both knew that wasn’t true. My habits hadn’t changed, but over the years I’d gone soft in the middle and hollow under my eyes. I undid my ponytail, desperate to hide my cheeks, which were puffy and saggy.

“What are you drinking?” Alicia reached for the menu.

We ordered a bottle and caught up on the last decade plus: the big rock on her finger, a house in the Hamptons, her two awesome boys.

My life was fact-checking articles and coming home to a studio the size of our old dorm. It was hard to imagine we’d ever been in the same place.

But a few drinks transformed Alicia back into Ali. Our eighteen-year-old-selves are never far away, no matter how much we grow up, and eighteen-year-old Ali P was the kind of girl who got drunk fast and spilled her guts with the slightest prompting.

“You have to tell me,” I took my chance, “what’s your secret?” It wasn’t Botox, and her face didn’t look wind-whipped by surgery.

“You can’t tell—” Ali put a finger to her lips, “but I went to Society.”

“Society?”

It was a women’s treatment center.

“One week there,” Ali slurred, “and you’ll look ten years younger.”

There were no drugs. No needles. Society Skin Technologies had a revolutionary water treatment that would disrupt the anti-aging industry. Ali’s husband was an early investor.

“He says they’re about to blow up.” Since the business was young, securing a spot had been a breeze. “Maybe you should give it a try.”

Her eyes lingered on my puffy cheeks and baggy eyes, and my whole face turned red. In college I told Ali what to wear, when to text back, how to be less of a dork. But now I was the dumpy one that needed help.

“I’ll think about that.” I finished my wine in one gulp.

When the waiter slipped the bill on our table, Ali had sobered up enough to turn back into Alicia and pay for us. She had to get going, back to her husband and the boys.

“I’ve gotta run too.” But I just walked home to eat Doritos and google Society.

The website looked like any bougie spa. Zen gardens and thermal baths, infrared saunas and cucumber-eyed women.

“Society,” the website spelled out in big cursive letters. “You belong here.”

I scrolled through. You could visit Society for as long as you wanted, but the cheapest package was $5,000 for a week of water therapy. “A week to change your life!”

“And make you go broke,” I said aloud to any parts of myself that were tempted.

It wasn’t like I didn’t spend money on anti-aging treatments. At first it was just facials and masks. Then there were serums and acids. Fillers, a little Botox. Some laser hair removal. Powders to brighten my skin. A peel to strip it away. I was already shelling out thousands on indulgences that had started to feel more like necessities. If I wanted to look young, to find a partner and build a family, I had to stay in the game. But $5,000 was more than I earned in a month. I couldn’t be that desperate.

So I closed my laptop and didn’t think about Society again.

Until the next week when, leaving a dressing room where nothing fit, I got mistaken for the mom of some twenty-somethings. A week later I went on a date with a guy who, when I said I wanted kids, asked if I worried about geriatric pregnancies.

That same night, after my date didn’t suggest we meet again, I went back to my place—to the bathroom floor—and through tears, booked a week at Society on credit.

“You’re ready for Society,” my receipt read. No refunds would be issued.

Getting to Society wasn’t easy. I had to rent a car and drive upstate through crumbling industrial towns, past houses with sagging roofs and broken windows, yards full of toys and dogs tied to chain-link fences. The kind of rusting towns that made me feel like an outsider, like I didn’t really know my country at all.

When I had nearly reached Society, I lost service in a small town with no name, so I stopped at a diner to ask for directions.

There were only a few people in the booths. Locals, I guessed, by the way they looked up at me and then whispered among themselves.

“Have a seat,” the waitress said over her shoulder. She was stocky and middle-aged with bleached hair and a shade of lipstick that might be called clown red.

I sat down but didn’t look at the foldout menu.

“What can I get ya?” Her voice was matter-of-fact and her name tag said Linda.

“Do you have Wi-Fi?”

Linda just stared at me.

I jabbed a thumb at my car. “I don’t have service on the road.”

She adjusted her glasses. “Where you headed, hon?” The hon softened things.

I pulled out my phone to find the exact address.

“6 Hills Road.” I avoided saying Society the same way I sometimes asked my Uber driver to drop me off one block before the fancy cocktail bar. I didn’t want to look like some snob blowing my paycheck on drinks, even if that was true.

“Right,” Linda said. “You’re headed to Society.”

My puffy cheeks flushed. “You know it?”

“Like the back of my hand.” Hers was veiny and sun-spotted. “I’ve got people there. It’s where I grew up.” Linda put a hand on her hip. “Before they knocked down my house to build Jacuzzis.” She let out a smoker’s laugh that ended in a coughing fit. “Excuse me,” she said when she recovered. “I just miss it. We all do.”

I didn’t know what to say. I wasn’t sure who we was. I just wanted the Wi-Fi.

“I’ll make you a deal, hon.” This time her hon was a little sharper. “You order off my menu, and I’ll show you how to get to Society.”

So that’s how it worked around here.

I ordered a grilled cheese and fries, which I hadn’t eaten in years. All the old diners in the city were closing or getting replaced by modern chains with rock-around-the-clock decor, but Linda’s place was the real thing. After I cleaned my plate, I went to the counter and Linda rang me up.

“What else can you tell me about Society?”

“Well,” she said, “it’s not for me.” She started laugh-coughing again, and I didn’t know if she’d be able to stop.

But she did and took a pen from behind her ear and drew a napkin map. Society was over the creek, through the woods, and up the winding hill.

“You can’t miss it.”

I said goodbye and followed the directions, pressing the car up a wooded road. At the crest of the hill, Society’s towering iron gates came into view, and I immediately forgot about Linda and the sad little town below. Society was imposing, like something out of an English drama, with immaculately trimmed hedges.

A smiling valet flagged me down.

“Check-in is just inside,” he said. “They’re expecting you.”

A doorman lugged my suitcase through the heavy doors to the lobby, where a smiling clerk sat behind a polished counter.

Her eyes were clear-blue pools and her skin silky as a bowl of pudding. If I could look half as good by the time I left, it would be worth it. I was suddenly excited.

“Welcome to Society,” the clerk said, giving me a warm smile, and I told her my name.

“I see you booked the one-week package.” She clicked around on her laptop. “Do you want to upgrade?” Some people stayed for weeks.

“$5,000 for a new face is my limit.” I laughed, but the clerk frowned and typed something.

“You do know food and drink is not included?”

“I know,” I said, even though that was not mentioned in the welcome email.

“Robes are extra too.”

This trip was going to cost me. I hoped my credit card didn’t max out before I left. What if I got trapped? I would have to ask someone to pick me up. My friends dyed their gray hair and got filler and rubbed snail guts on their faces, but nobody really talked about that. Because who wants to admit, even to friends, to being so afraid?

After I got to my room, I wanted to shower, but my robe wasn’t there, so I went to bed. I tossed from the heat until, around midnight, I heard a relentless banging and high shrieking. The wailing cut through the night but I found myself drawn to it. I stood and walked to the window, even as a tight knot of concern formed in my throat. I wanted to get closer, to soothe the shrieking, which sounded like children playing or screaming.

I’m not sure when it stopped, but when I woke up, half the day was gone.

“Good morning,” I said to the pudding-faced clerk when I came downstairs.

“Can I help you?”

I widened my tired eyes and told her about the noise.

“It went on all night,” I said. “Sounded like children.”

“That’s not possible.” Her smile was gone. “There are no kids here.”

She didn’t offer to investigate further or seem troubled by the noise.

“Haven’t other people mentioned this?”

The clerk’s face was blank. “No one else complained.”

“Really?” I was high-pitched, feigning politeness. But the clerk had turned back to her screen, as if I was the interruption.

“Another thing,” I drummed the counter. “I don’t seem to have a robe.”

The clerk looked up and mumbled something about the maids bringing one later.

“That would be great.” Now I was thanking her. “And if there’s any way to switch rooms—” but she was already shaking her head.

“That’s not possible,” she repeated, sharper this time and final.

All that was left in the breakfast room were empty smoothie glasses and crusts of $17 avocado toast. Everyone had gone outside to sit by the pool. It was hard to tell how old anyone was, but they were all sculpted and glowing in kimonos and bikinis. Even the ones who looked like me, with unremarkable brown hair and slumping postures, seemed brighter. I couldn’t believe that in a few days, I would start looking that way too.

The clerk had instructed me to spend as much time in the water as possible. My skin would absorb the benefits. I dipped a toe in and got chills but forced myself to go deeper. It was just like any other pool except my skin didn’t dry out from chlorine and my fingers weren’t pruny, even after hours. No one wanted to chat, so I kept to myself, soaking in the hot tub and going numb in the cold plunge. There was something distinct about this water; it felt almost alive, clinging to me in plump droplets with a faint earthy smell.

All that soaking tired me out, so I went back to my room to rest, and this time no voices disturbed me. When I finally woke up, the sun had set and I had that lonely, empty post-nap feeling. A few friends had texted to ask about plans for the weekend, but I didn’t have the guts to tell them where I was.

I took a shower, only realizing afterward that I still didn’t have a robe, so I dried myself with hand towels, got dressed, and went downstairs to the restaurant.

“How ya doing?” the bartender asked when I slid onto a stool.

His name was Barry, and he was the only man I had seen here, young in a real way with round cheeks and acne scars. When he smiled, he smiled with his whole face.

“Quite a day.” I looked at the menu of seaweed and steamed vegetables.

“Does anyone eat real food here?”

“First day?” Barry asked.

“Is it that easy to tell?” The clerk said the treatment took a few days to kick in. So in the beginning, I would look older than the clients who had been there longer.

“I didn’t mean that.” Barry passed me a bowl of olives. “But most ladies here don’t bother with square meals.”

“Why’s that?”

Barry shrugged. “People get invested in the treatment.”

I looked around at the serious women drinking skinny margaritas. Most were alone but a few chatted in groups. On the velvet couches were the sleekest, most polished ladies I had seen. Every society needs a mean girls table.

“I’m not that invested.” I ordered lasagna and breadsticks.

Barry smiled. “So why are you here?”

I’m not the kind to talk to bartenders, but I was energized from swimming and lonely enough to tell him everything. About wanting a family. How my peers were partnered up. How in a room full of women who were pretty clocks, I felt like a bomb.

Barry nodded. I sensed he had heard this story, but he listened.

“You’re a man,” I said between bites, “so you have time.” It was Mother Nature’s cruel trick that gave men a decade more to figure out their lives.

“Maybe,” Barry said. “But I don’t even know how to be a good man. Seems like most men these days are messing up.”

I nodded but hadn’t thought about what it was like to be a boy in this world. If I ever had a child, it might be hard to teach him how to be better. To be soft and strong. To have confidence and be humble. To make space and take the lead.

Barry wasn’t ready for all that growing up. Once he graduated from State, he was going to travel the world, motorcycling across North Africa.

“Aren’t you scared?”

“It’s an adventure,” Barry said, and I envied that. I couldn’t remember not being afraid of the world.

After eating, I went back to my room but couldn’t sleep. I was hot and cold and just beginning to drift off when I heard it again. Children squealing or screaming. My chest ached, but this time, I didn’t waste time. I got out my phone to record the sound.

Just after sunrise, I marched down to the lobby with proof there really was something strange. But when I got to the desk, the clerk wasn’t there. I rang the bell and waited several minutes, but when no one showed, I gave up.

In the breakfast room, guests were eating unsquare meals. A yogurt cup, half a grapefruit. The perfection that impressed me so much yesterday now seemed ordinary. They were just a bunch of Ali’s with stern, smooth faces. Nobody was friendly, but I wasn’t here to make friends.

I got coffee to go. There was a trail around Society, and as I walked, I sensed something behind me but when I turned, no one was there.

Minutes later, I heard rustling.

I didn’t like Society. It was beautiful, but there was something odd. Before I left the city, I texted Ali to say I’d signed up.

“Happy for you!” she wrote back. “Make sure you see it through.” Some people, she explained, couldn’t handle the treatment, even in such a peaceful place. I hadn’t understood why, but now I felt uneasy. I walked back quickly, past the empty front desk to the bar, where Barry was cleaning glasses.

“I guess it’s too early to start drinking.” I took a seat.

“Iced tea?”

While Barry fixed my drink, I told him about my sleepless nights and the walk. “Pretty weird, don’t you think?”

I waited for him to quell my fears, but as he cut a lemon, his face twisted.

“Am I crazy?” I tried to catch his eye.

He looked up at me and all around him. “I don’t think you’re crazy,” he whispered. “But I can’t talk to you about this.”

That weirded me out even more.

“I don’t want to get involved in the politics.” he said. “I just make drinks.” His face turned a little white. “I mean it.” He moved to the other end of the bar.

I took my iced tea to the patio. Past the rose garden and polished ladies, there was a fence. I hadn’t noticed, but it was over ten feet tall with barbed wire at the top. Why would that be necessary?

The fence was just a few yards beyond the last thermal pool. I walked along it until I saw a door. I reached for the handle, and the moment I touched it, I heard a voice.

“Stop!” It was a woman by the edge of the last thermal pool. One of the polished ladies, with long black hair and a red bathing suit. “She’s trying to leave!” the woman shouted. “You think you can leave?” People were staring. “You can’t leave.”

My heart pounded as I pulled the handle, but the door wouldn’t budge.

“Hey!” the woman called out. “It was a joke, okay? I was kidding!”

I looked back. Her friends were laughing too.

“Just pull the handle up,” she motioned, and when I did, the door opened easily. It was a faulty installation, or maybe some kind of child lock.

“I can’t believe she fell for that,” I heard the woman say to her friends.

I was shaken up, so I just stood there. There was a field across the threshold of the open door, but I didn’t walk through.

“Sorry!” the woman shouted in my direction. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”

I turned around, and out of relief maybe, I started laughing.

Her name was Miranda. She and her friends had been at Society for three weeks. They were the ones who had looked so sleek and polished on the velvet couches.

“I’m Cora.” I joined them. “I just got here yesterday.”

“We know.” Miranda dangled her feet in the water. “We’ve been watching you.”

Her friends in the pool, Caroline and Elly, giggled. We ordered martinis.

Elly was in her midthirties like me. She had gone through a divorce and was starting over with dating. “You know how it is,” she said. “We’re competing against twenty-five-year-olds. And who wants to date a single mom?”

Caroline worked at an ad company that paid for employees over thirty to go to Society. “New clients don’t like old faces.” She bobbed in the water.

Miranda was married with kids. She had her own business. She’d been turning thirty-five for the past three years. “And everyone says I look even younger.”

“But what happens once the treatment wears off?”

Miranda waved off my question. “We’ll have time to re-up.” I hadn’t considered re-upping. How would I pay for that? “You worry too much,” Miranda said, “and that’ll give you more wrinkles.”

“What brings you here, anyway?” Elly swam up to the side of the pool.

I told them what I told Barry, how I hoped staying young would help me meet someone so I could have a family. “I’ve always dreamed of kids.”

Caroline snorted. “Well, if you want the truth,” she said, “kids are a lot of noise.”

“For sure,” Miranda adjusted her sunglasses. “Sometimes I wonder why I bothered.”

I felt a twinge of anger. It was unfair that some women complained about kids while others could only hope for them, but I didn’t say anything because I didn’t want to sound judgmental.

We sat by the pool until Miranda said it was time to get ready for dinner.

“Join us.” She put a hand on my shoulder.

I went up to my room, where my robe was finally hanging on the door. I took a shower and when I wiped the steam from the mirror, I was shocked. I looked younger than I had in years. My skin was hydrated and smooth, and I felt giddy as I put on a touch of makeup and went downstairs to meet my new friends.

On the way, I decided to check on Barry and tell him I was done calling this place haunted, but when I got to the bar, there was another guy. Slick, oiled, bald.

“Where’s Barry?”

“The kid?” The guy looked dead in his eyes. “Got axed. Couldn’t do the job.”

My stomach twisted. “But he was just here.”

“And now he’s gone.”

“Cora!” Miranda called out before I could say more. “We’re over here.”

We ordered steaks, but I couldn’t eat, thinking about Barry. I told the ladies what happened. Why had he been fired? Was it my fault?

“He kept saying he couldn’t talk to me,” I said. “ I don’t even know why.”

I expected consolation, but the ladies went silent. They looked at each other and back at me.

“You know how it works here?” Caroline asked.

“Don’t start,” Elly said. “Not while I’m eating.”

“Don’t you think she should know?”

Miranda shrugged, and Caroline pressed on.

Society, she explained, was owned by a parent company called Society Skin Technologies, which had developed a revolutionary treatment that was going to disrupt the anti-aging industry.

“I know that,” I said, annoyed and still thinking about Barry.

Caroline smiled patiently. “But do you know about the formula?”

I didn’t, so Caroline explained. The company added a formula to the thermal pools. It contained all the anti-aging standbys: oils, serums, acids.

“But they also add harvested cells.” Caroline took a bite of steak.

My stomach was a rock. “What cells?”

Caroline chewed with satisfaction. “Young cells,” she said through a full mouth.

“Caroline, please.” Elly covered her ears.

“She should know.” Caroline wiped her lips with a napkin. “Didn’t we all wonder about those sounds when we first got here?”

“I switched rooms.” Miranda pulled a little piece of marrow from her mouth. “I don’t mind if it’s happening, but I don’t want to hear it.”

“What are you guys talking about?” One of my legs was shaking.

“There are kids who live here,” Caroline continued, “off the premises, of course.” She was calm and breezy as she explained. “They do extractions and surgeries to get the right cells for the formula. It happens at night. That’s why you hear them.”

“They’re killing kids?”

“Of course not,” Caroline said. “They’re experimenting.”

“But the clerk told me there were no children here.”

“Of course she did.” Miranda cut another piece of steak. “It wouldn’t be good for business if people knew how it really worked.”

“Does everyone know?”

Miranda shrugged. It was hard to tell. Some people didn’t seem to know, but after three weeks, Miranda figured it out. That little door in the gate led to a warehouse where they kept the children. Miranda had seen them outside. And then her husband filled her in on the rest. He was friends with the CEO and also an early investor, like Ali’s husband.

“Do they hurt the kids? I mean, who are the parents?”

There was the sound of clinking silverware, scraping plates.

“I don’t think about it,” Elly finally said.

“You know Society is very charitable,” Caroline piped in. “They donate to schools in countries like Africa.”

“Africa’s not a country, Caroline.” My throat was dry.

“Out of sight, out of mind, ladies.” Miranda pushed her plate away and started talking about her upcoming trip to Sardinia, but I couldn’t hear a thing. They were using children. They were monsters. Women who seemed normal, even glamorous, exploiting kids to keep their looks. They didn’t even bother to think about the parents.

And then I remembered: Linda from the diner. I’ve got people there, she’d said.

Before I knew it, I was standing. Walking away from the table, through the lobby, to the parking lot, where I shoved my keys in the ignition and drove down the hill.

The diner was nearly empty. Linda had her glasses perched on the end of her nose as she punched numbers into the register.

“Hardly recognized you, hon,” she said. “Have a seat.”

But I went to the counter. “You told me you had people in Society. What did you mean?”

“I take orders, hon,” Linda looked over her glasses. “Sit down, then we’ll talk.”

I ordered coffee but Linda said that wasn’t a real order. So I added pancakes even though I wasn’t hungry.

“You don’t like my pancakes?” Linda clicked her tongue. She seemed alarmingly unconcerned for someone who knew children were being kept in Society.

“I know all about it.” I told her about the noises and what the ladies said about experiments. As I talked, Linda sank into the booth across from me. Then she removed her glasses and cleared her throat.

“My daughter is there,” she said “My Penelope.” She opened her phone and showed me a girl in a Minnie Mouse dress. “They kept her when they built the place.”

“They took her?” I couldn’t believe it. “How is that legal?”

“It’s not,” Linda said. “But that’s how it goes. They kept all the kids from around here. That’s why you don’t see any schools or playgrounds.”

“Didn’t someone call the police?”

Linda tipped her head back as if she was going to laugh, but she didn’t. “Terrible things happen here all the time. No one does a thing.”

“But Linda,” I said, and my voice got louder. Other customers stared. “We have to do something!”

Linda bit her lip and looked out the darkened window, toward the hill.

“I wouldn’t know where to begin,” she said. “I’m not allowed up there.”

That was true, but I could get into Society. “I know where they keep the kids.”

Her eyes flicked back on me. “You do?” She suddenly reached for my hand like she didn’t want me to leave. “Well, isn’t that something.” I waited for her to say more, to tell me how grateful she was, but she just held tight until I told her I would find her daughter that night.

I was pretty sure I could find her. If I went through the door in the fence, I could reach the warehouse Miranda mentioned. I thought it through as my car climbed back toward Society. I could save Penelope, which would make coming to Society worthwhile.

I parked and went back inside the manor, where other guests were taking late-night dips. I had to believe they were oblivious and didn’t have the same information as Miranda and her friends, who weren’t in the dining room anymore. Slowly, the barflies and late-night swimmers trickled out until I was the only one. I walked past the rose garden and down to the high fence.

In the darkness, I found the door and used Miranda’s trick to lift the handle. The door opened without a creak and I crossed over. A part of me wondered why no one bothered to lock the gate, or if they were just too sure that no one cared enough.

The field was dark and the grass so long it swish-swished up to my knees. I could see the warehouse, a dark blob in the distance under silver moonlight. I took careful steps across the gravel, holding my breath as I got closer.

At the door of the warehouse, I wrapped my fingers around the handle. But before I tried to open it, four security guards emerged from the brush.

In seconds, they were on me. They pinned me to the ground.

“You rat,” one said. I would be evicted from Society immediately.

Three of them dragged me out. The fourth spoke into his walkie-talkie.

“We got her,” he said. “You copy, Linda?”

“Roger that,” a voice croaked. Linda’ s voice.

So she was in on it. She had set me up.

The security guards handled me roughly. They didn’t let me get my suitcase but took me to the parking lot and trailed my car, until I got to the bottom of the hill. I wanted to get onto the highway and drive as far away from Society as I could, but at the town’s edge, I turned back. My hands were shaking and I was already exploding when I pulled into the diner’s parking lot.

I banged through the door and headed straight for Linda.

She was pouring coffee. “Just a minute, folks.”

She turned with a slick smile on her face. “Well, if it isn’t our fallen savior.” And that’s when I unleashed. Told her she was a liar. A psycho. A monster.

“You probably don’t even have a daughter.”

“Of course I do.” And that’s when it was her turn. She got in my face, removed the pen from behind her ear, and jabbed the blunt end between my breasts. “You don’t know what it’s like to live here.” She pushed and walked me backward. “You don’t know what it takes.” She knew my kind. “We don’t get to have your problems,” Linda said. “We don’t get to buy new faces.”

“She’s your daughter.” I was pressed against the door. “You want her locked in a lab?” The diner had gone quiet, but no one was going to help me.

“I know what’s best.” In Society there was no heroin. No poverty. At eighteen, the kids would get fat checks from Society Skin Technologies.

“You think Society will keep its promise?”

“I don’t know.” Linda narrowed her eyes. “But I don’t want someone like you ruining my chance.”

We stood there for a moment, me against the door and Linda’s pen digging into my bra. There was no changing her mind. No convincing her that she was still a pawn, taking orders. Society wasn’t concerned about her or Penelope.

“Get out,” she said. “You don’t belong here.” And I knew that was true.

I stumbled through the door, sped out of the parking lot, headed for home, sobbing.

In the weeks after, I tried to report Society to the police. I told some reporters about my experience. But nothing came of it. I looked for Barry and never found him. Michigan was a big state, and I didn’t know his last name. When I texted Ali to get coffee, she was chirpy and eager to hear about my treatment. But after I told her what I knew, she stopped texting me back. I called her and left messages but she never replied.

My friends in the city said Society sounded awful, but they didn’t believe it could be that bad. I wondered if I was exaggerating. Had I really heard children crying, or was that just a voice in my mind screaming at me to take care of the baby dilemma before I turned thirty-six? I would like to say that I quit worrying about aging, but I was still insecure. And now I was also paranoid about every cream or dye. What was really in those bottles? How far would a company go to sell anti-aging?

The word felt different. Every day I woke up realizing that there was no such thing as anti-aging. But nobody wanted to hear about that at parties. It made people raise their eyebrows as far as Botox would allow. It was more logical to keep denying their mortality because the friend, the model, the woman on television was doing it too.

There were also the men. The ones I’d waited for to start my life. The ones I wished would turn me into a bride, make me into a mother, as if they had superpowers to change me. Had anyone ever transformed me? I had changed only on my own. Still, I was waiting for some man to come along. No one could give me the life I wanted, and I would never be like the woman on the billboard or Miranda or Ali.

Years later, I ran into her on the street.

It was summer at the ice cream stand. My hair, shocked with silver, was tied into two sensible braids. I’d adopted a senior dog and a little boy, and when I was with them I hardly noticed anyone else. So for the second time, she approached me.

“Cora?”

Ali was as fit and preserved as the last time we ran into each other, which made me wonder how many times she’d gone back to Society. I’d fantasized about this run-in and imagined the rage I’d unleash. But when I saw her, I didn’t feel any of that. She looked young, but there was something weary about her.

“I’m working again.” Her boys were teenagers. She wasn’t wearing a ring.

But what I really noticed was her fear, bottled up and swimming behind her forced smiles. I could see it dying to be released. And as we stood there, I wanted to tell her how to get rid of it, how to get to the other side. But I couldn’t tell her how to live. She had to figure that out on her own. I let her be and said goodbye.