Boys are just boys after all, but sometimes girls really seem to be the turn of a pale wrist, or the sudden jut of a hip, or a clutch of very dark hair falling across a freckled forehead. I'm not saying that's what they really are. I'm just saying sometimes it seems that way, and that those details (a thigh mole, a full face flush, a scar the precise shape and size of a cashew nut) are so many hooks waiting to land you.

And I'm not going to get any thinner or any younger, my ass is going to hit the ground, if it hasn't already--and I want to be with somebody who can still see me in here. I'm still in here. And I don't want to be resented or despised for changing...I'd rather be alone.

This is what a woman is: unadorned, after children and work and age, and experience-these are the marks of living.

This was why Kiki had dreaded having girls: she knew she wouldn't be able to protect them from self-disgust.