Twelve Year Old Window Repair Guys

I would like to believe that the window repair guy is not twelve. Evidence suggests that while he may not be twelve, he still hasn't quite gotten real facial hair. He's too skinny, wears the kind of clothes all the kids wear, he calls me Ma'am with more respect than he should, the kind of respect you show your elders. When did I become an elder? Y.T. talked about it today, she in Boston having lunch outside but away from pesky pigeons, me here in the living room waiting for my twelve year old window repair guy. He called this morning. I told her he sounded like he was twelve. She said maybe it was a woman. I said no, I'm pretty sure it was a guy. We didn't need to go over my expertise on the subject, my love of women was well versed in the hours we spent playing scrabble and eating Indian food, the time we spent doing anything but the writing we needed to be doing. I told her I would fill her in after he fixes the window. I said, when did we get so old? How is it possible that twenty somethings seem impossibly young now? She agreed. Remember when we thought teenagers were impossibly young. Yay, like when we were twenty and so full of ourselves and our big lives. I did so many stupid things when I was twenty, I said. I should be dead. She said, Me too! Now I'm afraid to leave the house without a jacket so that I don't catch a cold. I laughed. She said, It's not funny! I spent the entire time my friends visited offering them sweaters and jackets until they asked if I was geriatric. That's it, I said. Wait until we're forty and thirty seems impossibly young, and instead of lives and loves and twelve year old window guys, we start talking about bunions, arthritis, and 401Ks. The twelve year old is efficient, works well with his hands. I wonder if his hands are scared from working with cut glass, but I'm sitting in the living room and can't really see. It's all quiet and so I think he must be nearly finished. I guess I better go write a check and pay the man.