A Certain Age Read Online Free PDF

honest with him because she wasn't interested.
    "Why shouldn't I be in a bad mood? You're no friend to me. Maybe it's true what I'm doing isn't helping anything, but at least I'm trying! You're just like all the other women in New York, wanting to grab whatever material possessions you can! I'm supposed to feel good that you claim to be more honest? It's hopeless—who wants to go on existing in a world composed of people who don't exist?"
    "You're saying I don't exist?"
    "You're trying not to exist. You might have had a chance of becoming a real human being, but you've devoted yourself to being shallow, superficial and unreal."
    Furious, she walked quickly away, looking back only once over her shoulder. She could see him, skinny and slim-hipped, trudging along the top of the beach, already a quarter mile behind. From this distance he looked so boyish he might have been fourteen years old, pale skin, flat stomach—somehow cockily adolescent. Why didn't he do something about it, work out, grow up? He reminded her of one of those overbred, neurasthenic dogs, a greyhound or a saluki, nibbling at its paws and staring nervously into the distance, when what she wanted was a golden retriever or even a German shepherd.
    "Wait up, Florence! I just want to know one thing?" By some quirk of nature—the fog or the wind—his voice carried so clearly it might have been whispered in her ear.
    "What?"
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    "Why do you want to be a nonperson? You ever see Invasion of the Body Snatchers? The Stepford Wives? Why do you want to join the living dead?"
    She pretended she hadn't heard him. Spare me, she thought to herself. Shaking her head, she walked faster down the shore; then, throwing off her windbreaker, she turned and walked straight into the sea. It was freezing cold, and in an explosion of salt and sand, the waves slapped her so ferociously that she was able to swim only a few strokes before getting knocked down.
    She was about to go to the outdoor shower to rinse off when she realized she didn't have any towels and headed inside. John, Natalie and their daughter, Claudia, a rather plain child of about eight with a complexion of flour-and-water dough, were seated at the kitchen table in front of the remains of breakfast. "Hello dere!" John shouted. His voice rang falsely in her ears. She tried not to look him in the eyes. "Did you have your breakfast already?"
    She sat down. "Not really," she said, looking at the two cold pieces of toast, one of which was burnt.
    "Help yourself," Natalie said, pushing the toast in her direction. "Claudia, go get her a knife and a plate."
    The child did not move. "That's okay," Florence said. "Just pass me any old knife, I can just butter it on a napkin. I didn't even know you were here, Claudia! Where have you been? I thought you were away at camp."
    "She was at tennis camp," Natalie said. "She just got back a couple of days ago. You didn't do very well, though, did you? Guess where she was seeded?" Florence shook her head. "They seed the kids, you know. At the end of two weeks she was ranked last! Ten thousand dollars, and at the end of two weeks she was worse than when she started!"
    "Next summer can I go to horseback riding camp instead?"
    "I told you, Claudia, I'm not talking about it until January! You're going to have to do something about your grades! The rest of the summer you're going to stay here and study with a tutor."
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    She turned to Florence. "She's not very smart, and if she were going to be drop-dead gorgeous, she could get away with it, but that's obviously not something we can count on either."
    Florence, shocked, looked at John, thinking he would put a stop to Natalie's criticism, but he was reading the sports section of the Times. It occurred to her that Natalie's random maliciousness was her attempt at toughening up those around her. She was like a drill sergeant at boot camp: by knocking down the plebes, she would make them fierce and ready for battle. Unfortunately, it wasn't a