Indelicacy

by Amina Cain

He looked at me, then looked again. Men looking at women like that are truly horrible. Especially when they are so much older, when they are nearly dead themselves.

I wanted to sit quietly in front of the window as the cat did. I wanted to show my excitement like the dog.

I felt the earrings would make the rich people at the party kind to me, and that if I kept them my whole life, they would guard me against becoming poor again, against becoming a future hag, that all my nice things would guard me, even if it wasn’t true.