For the rest of the day and into the next, I thought about Ruby’s eyes. I had handled the moment badly, I told myself, made her feel ashamed for a small vanity in a life that could afford few vanities. I realized that a part of me expected her and the other leaders to possess some sort of immunity from the onslaught of images that feed every American’s insecurities—the slender models in the fashion magazines, the square-jawed men in fast cars—images to which I myself was vulnerable and from which I had sought protection.
