Rachel laughs out loud when people call her pretty. It’s always older or middle-aged women who say it. The women say it in the type of way that conveys that they have nothing else to offer—no specifics. It comes out ragged and awful, always, not because Rachel doesn’t believe she is capable of some kind of beauty, but because she knows she doesn’t have the beauty that these middle-aged women want, and that they are lying through their teeth.
