She had completely white hair, swept back, and was wearing a loose-fitting flannel shirt. She looked like the kind of plain-Jane woman who still managed to elicit gritty loyalty in the men she was with. Not exactly pretty, but elegant in the way she did things. She probably had a quiet, studious way that a man would eventually fall in love with without really knowing why. She looked like she had had a lot of unself-conscious sex, like her life was racked by sex and she never even talked about it because it was such a given. I could see her being bent over things, bending, bending, bending, over a wooden horse, a sofa, laughing, her life replete, sun-soaked. She probably knew how to change a tire, and had a laugh like ribbons crumpling to the ground. I could just see her life. I could just see it. Everyone was looking at me. “My name is Julia,” I said. “And I’m here because I wanted to try something new. I did some watercoloring once, when I was a kid, but I’ve forgotten how to do it since then.”
