Elena got up from the edge of the motel room bed and walked to the window to look down on the street. There was her daughter joining her girlfriends and several boys, laughing and giggling as they walked away.
This was supposed to be a fun vacation for the two of them, at a surf Festival where her daughter was a competitor. But Elena felt bored, ignored and now humiliated and hurt.
Elena was very mad. Her daughter had just said some very mean things to her. It had all started when her daughter had shortened her denim miniskirt far too short for a girl of 18. And the blouse was too tight and showed to much cleavage.
Elena had told her "Change your clothes and put on something decent."
Her daughter had screamed back at her "Just because your an old hag and no one wants to look at you doesn't mean that I shouldn't look sexy."
Elena knew that her daughter was only striking out but that didn't take the sting out her words. Especially since Elena actually thought her daughter was probably right. She didn't feel sexy. After all her husband hadn't had sex with her in over a year.
It wasn't her fault. She actually had a better body now than when she got married 20 years ago. Over the last 6 months she had worked out in the gym four days a week and ran 20 miles a week.
But as she turned from the window she caught her reflection in the mirror on the motel wall. Her daughter was right, nobody would look at her. The baggy sweats and lack of makeup certainly wouldn't draw any attention.
She moved slowly toward the mirror and looked at her face. She could see that she was still pretty but it was like it was in hiding. She undid her perpetual ponytail and ran her fingers through her hair as it dropped to her shoulders; it was thick, wavy and light brown. She turned her face from side to side, her hair swayed seductively.
She pulled up the sweatshirt over her head. Then did the same with the baggy T-shirt and the over sized tank top underneath.
She pushed her sweatpants to the floor and stepped out of them. She twisted her body from side to side. Her body was trim, firm but wearing the grandma style panties and the support bra she didn't look like a woman of 38, she looked more like her sexless mother.
Little tears formed in her eyes. And as she started to cry her eyes focused on the open suitcase in front of her. Her daughter had brought more clothes than she could possibly wear for the weekend, and had already changed outfit's three or four times. Each outfit had been more revealing than the other.