You wake up and your back hurts and you look in the mirror but you see an old face and you put on the cream but it don't help much. Then you reach for the suit, the one with the gold buttons that looks like the ones in the magazines but it cost fifty dollars from the man in the alley back home and you put it on and you feel better but you still feel like a liar. Every morning, every single morning you do this. You zip up the skirt and it is a little tight because you are getting older and your body is changing but the label says it is expensive so you pretend you are beautifull. You drive the old Toyota but you park it three blocks away so the boss don't see and you walk the rest of the way in your red bottom shoes that ain't real and they pinch your toes but you smile because you have to smile. You walk into the glass building and the floor is so shiny you can see your own face and it smells like leather and expensive perfume and money. You sit at the desk and you look like you belong there but you don't. You are just the woman who says hello and gives them the sparkling water in the glass bottle but you want them to think you go home to a mansion too. The rich people come in and they wear the same things but their things are REAL and you can tell the difference if you look close but they don't look close at you. They just see the logo on your chest and they think you are one of them or at least someone who knows what is good and they talk to you nice. If you wore your Target clothes they would look right through you like you are a ghost and I hate being a ghost. I have been a ghost since I moved to this country and I am tired of it, so tired. My mother calls me from the village and she asks for more money for the medicine and I say yes because she thinks I am a big success in America and I tell her I work at the place with the million dollar cars. I don't tell her I just open the door and give them water and coffee. I send the money and then I have to buy another fake scarf so the ladies at the desk don't think I am poor because being poor is a sin in this city. Every day is a sin. You spend the money you don't have to look like the people you will never be and it makes your stomach feel sick and tight. Last Tuesday a woman came in with the same bag as mine, the big brown one with the flowers on it but her bag had a different smell, it smelled like a real animal and mine smells like chemicals and plastic. She put her bag on my desk and I wanted to hide mine under the chair but I couldn't move. She looked at my bag and she smiled and said oh I love that season and I just nodded and felt like my heart was going to explode in my chest. My heart was pounding, just pounding and I thought she would see the crooked stitching and call the police or something. You go home and you take off the shoes and your feet are bleeding and you look at the tag that says MADE IN ITALY but you know it was made in a basement. You wonder if anyone knows. You wonder if the manager knows and he just lets you stay because you look the part for the customers. It makes you feel small, so small. You are fifty years old and you are playing dress up like a little girl but the game never ends and there is no prize at the end. Sometimes you just want to scream and tell them all that you live in a tiny apartment with a leaky sink and your kids don't call you and your knees ache but you just keep the mask on. You keep the fake pearls on. You put on the lipstick and you go back because what else is there? If you stop being the lady in the suit then you are just an old woman with nothing. Nothing at all. You have to keep the LIE alive or you will just disappear. The kids are grown now and they don't understand why I spend my money on this trash but they don't see the way the men look at me when I look RICH. They don't see how the world treats you when you got a gold chain even if it turns your neck green after eight hours. You just want to feel like you won something in this life but you didn't win. You just learned how to cheat better than the others and it is lonely. It is so lonely. I am writing this because I am scared and I am tired of the lying but I am going to wake up tomorrow and put on the fake Chanel again. I am going to pin my hair back and walk into that dealership and say hello sir welcome back. I am going to do it until I die probably. You know that feeling when you are drowning but you keep your head up just so people see your hair looks good? That is my life. Every single day, every day. Maybe someone will read this and they will look at the lady at the front desk and they will see the fake stitch in her coat. I hope they don't. But I hope they do.