There was a noisy ruckus down at the end of the subway car: a brassy-voiced high school boy was making an attention-getting fuss about something with two female companions. As I watched the lady across from me, a handsome, middle-aged, dark-skinned woman, upright and self-contained, her expression changed, listening to the performance.
A lifting of her eyebrows, a sidewards motion of the eyes, a slight smile with pursed lips--suddenly her composed public face expressed an amused familiarity and suddenly her face became beautifully alive. A window into life-experience normally closed was momentarily thrown open, and a human history hinted at.
It only lasted a moment, and soon we were at Back Bay where she disembarked. That spontaneous look of pleasure and complicity has stayed with me.
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