The Alphabet of Regret: Eating. It's how it started.

She totters carefully toward the table, oblivious to the stares from restaurant patrons. Everyone is staring -- everyone, even those who are usually too polite. Even the ones who know better can't help themselves.

She stands out. In some ways, she looks every bit the part of an aging Hollywood starlet-- with oversized sunglasses perched atop her nose, she's expensively dressed with an Hermes bag here, a peanut-sized diamond there. Even her hair appears gilded, her highlights glinting in the dim light. She moves slowly, leaning on a man--her husband, they wonder?--for help as she waits to be seated.

She's beautiful--or was, at any rate, that much is clear. In her early sixties, her fading beauty is still evident. Her fine cheekbones cut a flattering shape above her angular chin. She turns into the fading sunlight, giving the room a better look at her eyes, expertly made-up to showcase their unusual hue. A bright green-blue, the exact color of the Caribbean, flecked with--what else?--a rich gold.

They're distractions--good ones--but they're not enough.

They can't hide the bruises on her legs, the ones caused not by trauma, but from a devastating lack of vitamin C. Nail polish can't conceal the brittle nails from years of systematic malnutrition. Her pants, though beautifully cut and prohibitively expensive, would be around her ankles if not for the distended belly--the kind usually seen on advertisements for African children who need salvation. Bejeweled sandals cannot distract from the sagging skin, worn thin not from age, but from a slow, deliberate starvation.

Then there are the things they can't see; the things that remain hidden. The changes, wrought slowly over the years, in her relationships as her obsession with perfection consumed her. The seven-bedroom house begging to be filled with grandchildren that she couldn't bring herself to risk sharing for fear of the inevitable mess children bring. The strained conversation with her son as he asked her to please, please, to hold his son--her grandson, the first in the family. She can't, she begged off. He's too heavy. And he was--at nearly ten pounds, he'd have snapped her pretzel-thin arms like dry winter branches. Besides, the truth was, she didn't much care. He'll just make a mess, she thought to herself. I've worked too hard for this.

She leans back, taking in the scene in the restaurant.

Everyone is looking, she thinks. Perfect. I am perfect.