"Why do you wear foundation?" I asked. "At your age?"
"Because I've got skin like an old woman" she said "everybody teases me about it at school. I've got those things...that old men get when they drink ..."
"Thread veins?"
"Yeah, that. I've got tons of blemishes and I have to cover them up"
I looked at my face in the mirror. I had crinkly bags under my eyes. I pushed at my skin, it doesn't spring back into place as it would have a few years ago. Even a year ago.
I seemed to have aged enormously since starting The Underground Restaurant. In fact I haven't properly looked at myself for a while, being so busy. I've neglected any 'beauty routine'.
Next to me was my teen...her perfect heart shaped face...
I sit on the toilet and sigh: "So apart from your weight, your height, the little bump on your eyelid and your old ladies' skin...what else do people at school criticize about you? It seems, according to them, you are absolutely hideous"
"Look that's how it is. Everybody cusses everybody else." my daughter says patiently as if speaking to a retard.
"Do you?"
"Yeah. 'Course. Probably."
"You slag off other people's looks?"
"Well my friends and especially S."
"Why S?"S. is particularly beautiful, tall and slim with almond-shaped eyes and great hair. She's been spotted by model agencies.
"Everybody has a go at S" snorts my teen "because she's so perfect".
"Does she get upset?"
"Yes, sometimes she cries"
"So you are all making each other feel bad? I mean you come home and cry too" I state.
My teen shrugs.
Cussing, that is, the art of putting each other down, does seem to be worse than it was in my youth. I wonder if it comes from 'freestyle rap battles'. It must be hard, though, for teenagers to build up any self-esteem when every imperfection is ruthlessly targeted. Or does it toughen them up?
