My name, dear reader, if you must know, is Christine, though everyone calls me Chrissie.My name, dear reader, if you must know, is Christine, though everyone calls me Chrissie. I'm probably not someone you'd notice. I stand all of five feet two-and-a-half-inches tall, but I'm so skinny all my friends used to call me Olive Oyl, which if you think about it is kind of mean I mean, maybe they weren't really my friends, right? But I grew up in a really small town here in the Valley, and it wasn't like there were a lot of friends to choose from. I have tried to compensate for my height by collecting really tall heels--I look good in red, with my almost black hair and fair skin, and people who make good high heels really seem to like red-- but the rest of me I can't do much about. I despise falsies, so I'm almost as flat as an ironing board, and my nose is too long and my mouth is small, but I do have large, clear brown eyes, so that's something. I have always managed to live a _crisp_ life. Simple clothes, but good materials. Clean. Extraordinary housekeeper. If my girls had runny noses, nobody ever saw it. I have the effect of people around me that they should watch their language and mind their manners, without making them resent it. A "lady" in the old sense of the word, and in my small town that had its advantages. I was a virgin when I married, and yet managed to catch good money, a big house, and a kind man to snuggle up to on cold winter nights. But there was something missing, and I knew it inside, and took to reading books (when the house was _done_, mind you) that tried to explain to me what the problem was. Since I was all alone during the day, I got the hang of exploring my own body, which I should have done when I was a girl, but _that's_ water under the bridge. I found out, with my own furtive fingers, what was missing from my married life, but there was something about my husband--well, it was a subject I _knew_ I couldn't bring up with him! I work one day a week in an office with a pool of women who are, well, more experienced than me. Marie and Tess are always whispering about things that sound too embarrassing to think about, and there's something suspicious about the way our boss, Laurie, acts when she's talking to Tom--and they're both married to other people (and Laurie's husband, who works here too, watches her like a hawk and yet doesn't _see_ this!). |