We had our bad look days too. They didn't believe it could happen to us, but we'd be reading books groggily at 3pm and look over at one another. She'd groan, "Maybe we should put on more eyeliner and go out," in Portuguese, and I would nod. She didn't know I knew how bad we looked that afternoon, and the young men looking at our pictures later could think, "There is no such woman as perfect as that," with us, faintly winking at them on the other side of a lens in a far off town. But we weren't perfect-- us. We left paragraphs unattended to. Cookies unattended too. Our fake glasses could fall off our faces when we'd drift off into a nap, but our maid would make sure we didn't burn the cookies. I felt the power of saying no to anyone I wanted to. She felt the power to drink herself away and still get up for the work the next afternoon, no worse for wear.
But once the hours were more gone in the year, I knew. Looking at Sonya, I could know the wrinkles that would probably develop and that you can't go forever on carrots and diet coke.