Varena was looking good.

I had been the prettier when we were girls. My eyes are bluer, my nose is straighter, my lips are fuller. But that doesn’t have much meaning for me anymore. I think it still matters very much to Varena. Her hair is long and naturally a redder brown than mine had been. She wears blue contacts, which intensify her eye color to an almost bizarre extent. Her nose turns up a little, and she is about two inches shorter, with bigger breasts and a bigger bottom.

“How is the wedding process?” I asked.

She widened her eyes and made her hands tremble. On edge.

Beyond her, I could see the tables that had been set up to accommodate the presents.

“Wow,” I said, shaking my head in acknowledgment of the sight. There were three long tables (I was sure my folks had borrowed them from the church) draped in gleaming white tablecloths, and every inch was covered with consumer goods. Wineglasses, cloth napkins and tablecloths, china, silver-more silver-vases, letter openers, picture albums, knives and cutting boards, toasters, blankets…

“People are being so sweet,” Varena said, and I could tell that was her stock response; not that she didn’t mean it, but I was sure she’d said that over and over and over to visitors.

“Well, no one’s ever had to spend anything on us, have they?” I observed, raising my eyebrows. Neither Varena or I had ever been married, unlike some in our high school circles who’d been divorced twice by now.

My mother came into the living room from the den. She was pale, but then she always is, like me. Varena likes to tan, and my father does inevitably; he’d rather be out working in the yard than almost anything.

“Oh, sugar!” my mother said and folded me to her. My mother is shorter than me, bone-thin, and her hair is such a faded blond it’s almost white. Her eyes are blue like every member of our family’s, but their color seems to have faded in the past five or six years. She’s never had to wear glasses, her hearing is excellent, and she beat breast cancer ten years ago. She doesn’t wear clothes that are at all trendy or fashionable, but she never looks frumpy, either.