My mom has always been a mean girl. Six feet tall. A model. Beauty queen. Still turns heads, at 83. Still skinny. Today at the hot springs, floating there in her pink bikini, she said, out of nowhere, “Marla Maples is the prettiest of all of them. That Tiffany, though. She definitely didn't get her mother's looks. Ugly little thing. All that money and that's the best she can look?”

“Mom. That's very mean,” I said.

“I know,” she shrugged.

“And sexist.”

Shrug.

“And shallow.”

Shrug. “But true,” she said.

It has never been easy, being the fat daughter of this person.