The women she passed on the sidewalks looked like mothers and daughters. Most of them dressed alike: white cropped pants, expensive sandals, pearl earrings. Their skin was always good, even if they weren’t attractive. They were dressed to invoke the wives they either already were or would one day become, future domestic totems. At the round tables in front of a coffee shop, men in baseball caps and polo shirts sat with younger versions of themselves, all of them looking at their phones, their legs splayed in their shorts. No one was speaking but even so, they were united by some primitive
...more
