Of A Certain Age

The Charities

I can't wait for my twentieth birthday. On my birthday, I'll be twenty for the rest of my life. At least in look and feel.  I won't age anymore. No wrinkles, no bad joints, no Alzheimer's- as long as I make it to my birthday with a clean bill of health. I've done well so far. Not good enough, my dad would say. But we can't all be the illustrious Donovan Marks, who people believe is better than God himself. There's so much to explain with him and so much that's unclear because of him. Not just with myself or my family, but with the course of the entire world.

Around forty years ago, at the beginning of the eighties, my dad patented Juventaserum. One injection and all the cells in the body... freeze. I don't know how to explain it. The body becomes biologically immortal. It works, apparently, considering my dad celebrated his fortieth twenty-eighth birthday this past year. Why would anyone want to be old, or die, if they could afford to not?

The Charities are my favorite event of the year. My mom always organizes a huge family breakfast. It'll be the first of many big meals to put up a good front and make it seem like we care about extending the lives of common people. Some of my siblings take interest in The Charities but most don't care. Part of my doesn't understand why my mom kept having kids, especially when it seems like all my older siblings are her favorites. But it's common for people with Juventaserum to have multiple children as a display of wealth.  A normal near-fifty year-old wouldn't have conceived me as easily as my mom did.

Having multiple children is risky, especially when it comes to affording Juventaserum for all of them. One of my dad's old drinking friends, Mr. Perkins, gambled away his money. By the time his kids were almost twenty he couldn't afford Juventaserum for them even if he waited until they were forty. He and his wife couldn't imagine living forever and watching their children die. They killed themselves last year.

I slip on my shoes, a pair of light pink heels that make me feel tall. They match my dress, a long-sleeved tweed one of the same color. My hair is twisted back in the front to show off pearl earrings I got for Christmas. They match my necklace, the same one I wore when my oldest sister hosted the president's birthday dinner last month.

The far-off voices of my family carry upstairs. I turn off my bedroom lights and leave my room. There are always people in the hallways, dusting, or adjusting the curtains, or whatever else my mom demands in order to make our house look like a magazine cover.  My feet make a loud, hollow noise on the stairs as a I come down. The loud voices of my siblings carry from down the hallways. When I come into the kitchen, no one looks up. I don't even think they hear me over their arguments and whatever on their phones is so interesting. My mom notices me first. She looks up from the refrigerator, holding a pitcher of orange juice. Her eyes are bright and she looks the same as she always has to me, a warm-cheeked twenty-seven year-old woman. In a line up, it would be difficult to point her out among my sisters and I.

"Good morning, Ilana. Aren't you beautiful?" She points to a seat at the end of the long breakfast table.

"Thanks, Mom."

I join my siblings and my dad. His face is in a newspaper. My siblings tried for years to get him to read the news on his phone, but they've given up. He stares at the newspaper with my oldest siblings, Jason and Gabrielle, who are both almost fifty, but look like they've barely begun college.  Gabrielle is the oldest. All six of my other siblings fall between her and myself. They're all dressed professionally in suits and dresses, all twenty, so they look more like serious teenagers than their true ages.

I look down at my boring breakfast. A lot of fruit, some wheat toast, and some egg whites. A cup of orange juice. The standard. My youngest brother, Allan, waves a strip of bacon in front of my face. Even though he's twenty-three he acts thirteen.