Free The Pile of Stuff at the Bottom of the Stairs by Christina Hopkinson Page B

feel really quite pleased with the result. I don’t know if I’m the old me, the pre-children one, or a very new me, some post-breeding upgrade, but I feel good.
    My makeup bag is ringed with stains, like the trunk of a tree telling of past eras. To look through its wares is to look through my history: the set of brushes I bought after a terrifying makeover in a Manhattan department store, which I went to on a trip with a previous boyfriend; the ancient lip gloss I wore on my first date with Joel in an attempt to make my thin smackers look sensual and gooey, but which instead seemed to trap locks of myhair and then later in the evening, mission accomplished, some of his; the full eyeshadow palette that I got for my wedding day makeup, only one color of which I’ve ever used. Each item tells of a previous life of vanity. I miss my vanity, which abandoned me the day that Rufus was born. I feel like narcissism was one of those school friends you’d had since your teens, who you both loved and loathed in equal measure and long wished to be rid of, but then when she was gone you missed dreadfully. Looking in the mirror so much reminded me that I was there. Now I don’t even know that I have a reflection—I might be like a vampire and when I look, there’ll be nothing. The only time I see myself in a mirror, it feels like, is to hold up a baby to show them their reflection, providing a mocking contrast between their pudgy, non-sundamaged skin and mine.
    I emerge, as glamorous as it gets, to the bathroom, where I am greeted by a husband and two wailing children, the older of whom has recently become self-conscious about nudity. They both stand up, shivering, in the bath, with Rufus cupping himself like a footballer about to defend a free kick.
    37 ) Never pulls the plug on the boys’ bath water, leaving me to do it later, which involves me being elbow-deep in tepid water and ensures that the stain of grime around the edge has calcified.
    38 ) Bathroom floor is always soaked whenever he’s been in there. Doesn’t matter if he’s had a bath or not. It’s like he’s got some sort of unique ecosystem running in there, with permanently rising sea levels.
    39 ) Ignores the towels hanging on the boys’ pegs and instead takes out some fresh, fluffy, special occasion towels out of what I like to refer to as the “airing cupboard,” aka one shelf squeezed above the immersion tank.
    40 ) Leaves used bath towels to marinate in said pools of water.
    41 ) Or throws them on the bed.
    Joel does a proper builder’s whistle. It was one of the talents that really impressed me when we first got together. “Nice dress. Nice body, too.”
    Rufus will soon reach the age where he’ll gag at this sort of remark, but instead adds, “You look really pretty, Mommy,” and I feel a flush of love along with a fearful acknowledgment that it won’t be long now before he decides that he doesn’t want to marry me after all.
    “Is it chiffon?” asks Joel. “It’s gorgeously floaty.”
    “Thanks.” In the litany of Joel’s faults, I cannot add a failure to notice a new haircut or outfit. He’s frighteningly in touch with that bit of his feminine side, the bit that appraises a wardrobe rather than ever tidies it. “You look smart too.” He’s put on a suit in the manner of a man who doesn’t have to wear one for work so it’s quite fun to dress up at weekends.
    We make our journey to Cara’s flat, which is in an old factory in an area of town once colonized by young artists, but now populated by estate agents advertising “live-work spaces.” I know it well since it’s also infested with small television production companies, including mine.
    A couple clutching a gift buzz on Cara’s entryphone system before us and we slip in with them and have one of those embarrassing “I guess you’re going where we’re going” conversations, where you hope you get to the flat quickly enough to avoid the “So how do you know Cara?” next