Squirting a glob into her hand, Marianne slapped a palmful of lotion onto her calf. The label promoted it was infused with Vitamin C for acid, collagen, tightening something or other. The point was, “firming lotion” was in the title. 

Marianne finished rubbing the lotion into her legs and looked into her bathroom mirror, debating if she should put any firming lotion on her face. At this point, given her 68 year relationship with gravity, the only thing left to firm would be the wrinkles already set in place. She pulled back the jowls beginning to set in below her chin, tightening her face back to how she looked in her 30s. How she looked the last time she had gone on a date. 

The last time a man took Marianne to dinner, she had none of the nerves she had now. Only depression as her new reality set in that this would be her last date for quite a long time. It was the night she and Teddy had gotten back from one of the never-ending doctor appointments, when they learned the cancer had spread to his bones and lymph nodes, the point of no return. Teddy took his wife out knowing it would be the last time he could do something to take care of her. They had asked his doctor not to tell them how long he had to live. Cancer had revealed many truths over the years, but it could keep this one a secret. 

In the years that followed, Marianne became a mother to her husband, taking him to appointments, bathing him, chauffeuring him around. By the time her duties were over, she was so exhausted and empty there was hardly any Marianne left. With nobody left to rediscover, she had to rebuild herself from the bones up. Nearly 30 years passed before Marianne felt she was ready to date again. 

Her first date, Jim, is younger at 65, but age hardly matters once you’ve both retired. Marianne’s sister asked her what made this one different from all the others she had rejected over the years. “He caught me when the sun was out,” was all she could think. Now her “Yes,” had turned into a “See you in an hour,” and Marianne was asking a picture of Teddy which perfume captured the essence of “her” the best. (It was the Winter Solstice with vanilla and peppermint notes.) Marianne hesitated in her closet, wondering if she needed to wear stockings under her skirt to hide her varicose veins. Or if men at this age are no longer tricked into lust by cosmetics and shapewear. If men at this age could still experience lust. What a smack on the rump would sound like now that the elasticity had left her skin… 

Marianne had never had kids, no pregnancy to widen her hips and stretch her gut. Years of emotional eating did that for her; long nights at the hospital after numerous surgeries to hold Teddy’s body together, long nights alone in the years after. With only a 25% chance of being effective and a 100% chance of feeling like a seasick castaway, Teddy had been determined in his resolution to not go through with chemo. He needed to die with dignity, like any member of the police force should. But when the cancer spread to his bones, Marianne had to stand by and watch him shatter from the inside out. The husk of a man who once was so strong and protective was all that was left, until finally a gust of wind as powerful as his last breath blew Teddy out of her life forever. She whispered his name for decades, curled up on his side of the bed, shattered inside her own body from a love lost too early and not quick enough. 

The Marianne who went on dates was still stuck in time, 30 years ago. A vain young thing who wore in-season styles and forty dollar lipsticks. Perhaps, if she could date like she hadn’t yet aged over the hill, she could pretend like the last three decades of her life weren’t lost in a coma of 3 a.m. TV binges and ratty sweatpants. She could date where she left off in her youth. 

Snapping the tags off of a pair of Spanx, Marianne began the process of fitting all of herself into the spandex getup. One of her many secrets she wasn’t sure if she would end up revealing tonight.